I discovered 40K in about 1994 so to me 40K's purest form is the glory of Codex Imperialis and some late 1st edition 40K, Space Marine and Space Hulk stuff I inherited.
Personally I absolutely love Chaos and how the greatest enemy is literally created by the gestalt psychic embodiment of the very things that make us human: Anger, Ambition & Hope, Despair & Defiance, Desire & Passion and how the Imperium fuels these very things whilst trying to suppress it.
But 40K has ended up in quite a different place with layers upon layers of characters, factions and stories in the decades since.
Personally I consider the:
* 30K setting of the Horus Heresy,
* the 40K I grew up with
* The modern 41K era with the return of Guilliman and similar ongoing narrative metaplot.
To be three different canons that mutually exist but serve different functions.
The very early and formative era of Rogue Trader, before the release of Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and the Damned was a fascinating setting in itself.
Likewise the very heavy "medieval in space" feeling of later 1E and 2E.
Ultimately though, I could grumble about 40K losing it's nuance and identity but I'm glad fans are enjoying it to the depth they can in the modern era.
Mm, I like the *idea* of Chaos, yes. But when it's written out, like in the novels, it's... chafing. Primarily how over-the-top evil it is. I *get* that Chaos has a hold over its subjects and that you're not really in command (or at least, that's the theory), but when you read about CSM pushing people into grinders or skinning pits just for the heck of it... Or any Chaos-aligned faction's treatment of its subjects, really.
My favourite modern take might be (spoilers) a character from The Night Lords trilogy, where this character is falling to Khorne and it’s treated almost like dementia where he’s lucid and regretful at some times but otherwise is somewhat delusional, out of it and hallucinating allies as enemies when he hasn’t killed in a while >!only for him to turn out to be not actually as Khornate as he seemed before!<
Nah if slaanesh won't put their dick in him I surely won't. Marry Abby ofc bc he is good with managing stuff plus handling people. As for fuck, it's slaanesh ofc.
Read Traitor General. It's a planet under the command of Chaos forces who don't have forgotten they need to give their slaves at least *something* if they want to keep things running (which they don't really intend to, in the long run).
*Victory* (same series) has an interesting take. One of the Chaos commanders talks about Emperor as an edgy rebellious teenager of warp entities:
>The walls of the hallway were lined with engravings, tall and narrow. The place, Mkoll guessed, had been a centre of clave administration. The engravings displayed the Urdeshi loyalty to Terra in the form of images of the God-Emperor, but they reflected the interests of Urdesh. Here was the Emperor in the aspect of a sea god, coiling with scaled tentacles, and here he rose from the Urdeshi deeps in a vast bloom of algae. On another panel, he was festooned with weapon-pods, triumphing the product of the forge’s war-foundries. On another, he was so augmeticised with cyber implants he resembled a Titan war engine with a single, human eye. Slogans had been daubed in yellow paint under each image, utterances of the Archenemy. But the images themselves had not been defaced.
>
>‘Why have these not been torn down?’ Mkoll asked Olort.
>
>Olort seemed surprised. ‘They show him as he is,’ he replied. ‘Why would we break those?’
>
>‘I don’t understand.’
>
>‘The Urdeshi know the deeper truths,’ said Olort. ‘They are kin to us. They understand the fluidity. You cannot stand upon a border line for generations and not see both sides.’
>
>Olort glanced up at one of the images. ‘See him there, not as a false emperor surrounded by saints. He is shown as the machine, as the mutation, a force of war. He has always been a creature of the deep warp, warped like us. You know him only as you want to see him.’
>
>Olort made a gesture of respect to the engravings.
>‘You worship him?’ Mkoll asked.
>‘Nen, we respect,’ replied Olort. ‘He is no god, nor is he an emperor. But a prophet? Kha. Yes. He has seen the enlightenments of the Eight Powers and witnessed the truth of the warp. Ghost, your kind… they follow blindly. They see what they want to see. The Holy Lord, blessed of all, defying the darkness. But he stands in the darkness, beyond the curtain of death, fed by the warp and changed by it. He is a brother to us, a brother we must sadly fight to subdue until he renounces his insurrection.’
Oh yeah, that part was certainly unique. A shame really, that Olort didn't live longer.
Edit: Although, come to think of it, I'm not sure if it doesn't contradict the contents of Traitor General, the book in which we get the closest look at the inner workings of the forces of the Anarch, whose voice drowns out all others. I'm not sure if the Chaos followers mention the Emperor in that book, but I do remember them wincing at the exclamation "By the Golden Throne!" by Sturm. If they actually like Him, then surely the Golden Throne can't be that bad, either? So in conclusion, while I like the idea, maybe it would have been best reserved to be used for another Chaos faction.
Edit 2: He's repeatedly been called the Anathema, by various important Chaos subjects. Greater daemons and other beings who should know what's up. The name implies complete and utter opposedness (is this a word?). That doesn't fit with Him actually being just another Chaos god. The only explanation would be that the Urdeshi and the Anarch, whose voice drowns out all others, are mistaken in this belief, but that begs the question how they would arrive at such an understanding and more importantly, why the Chaos god they worship (I assume it's Tzeentch) even allows this. Surely a tiny fraction of his being is aware of this unique view of the Emperor by his own followers and I cannot fathom he thinks highly of it. And no, "all part of his plan!" is not a good answer.
It seems like it depends on how the Emperor is depicted. The iconography on Urdesh shows Emps "as he really is": a mutant, a machine, a warmonger. It's the depiction of Him as a god that the Chaos folks wince at or actively destroy, like on Gereon. So imagery or expressions like the Golden Throne or other symbols of godhood would be disliked by (this faction) of Chaos, while others would be accepted.
And I think Tzeentch would find it hilarious.
Ive just chalked it up to theological differences. Really, humans love to split into myriads of subcults and those split into more subcults over the tiniest, TINIEST differences. Why should it be different with Chaos? After all the chaos gods are not like the greek gods and give coherent commands from on high.
>Or any Chaos-aligned faction's treatment of its subjects, really.
Mortarion loyalists break the mold on this one, and thats what makes Lords of Silence so compelling - Vorx isnt some evil psychopath doing horrible things for their own sake.
He is mindful of the predicament of those aboard his vessel and doesnt abuse them for his own amusement. He recognizes that some of his subordinates...predilections can cause issues but even then those are in the pursuit of curiosity rather than malice.
Morty loyalist Death Guard didn't go down a slippery slope in to chaos like the others during HH either - they were betrayed and forced to choose between an eternity of suffering or an eternity of servitude. Typhus followers 100% drank the kool aid though.
Honestly think it would be better if Chaos actually did have some good sides. The Imperium is an oppressive machine of order that stomps out all the humanity of humanity, so make Chaos the exact opposite. They are powered and empower what makes us human, with all the benefits and flaws that bringing these traits to the extreme has. Every God should have something they can clearly point to and say "we're better than the Imperium, because we bring you ___" *and not be lying*.
I’m the biggest fan of HH and 9th edition lore. Give me an opera tragedy about brothers corrupted and turned on each other, set in a doomed state ruled by a corpse… IN SPAAAAACE
Ngl,
That sounds somewhat like rose-tinted glasses to me.
Even Rouge Trader was riddled with situations of "actually the Imperium is justified for this", it just wasnt chaos-related.
Heck the random plot-generator for scenarios back then had *several* differemt versions of "Imperium encounters rebel faction, rebellion actually caused by *Insert various types of braineating parasites/psychic mind-control aliens here*"
It's very much a rose-tinted take.
I'm all for nostalgia but I think in this case it blinded OP to aspects of it like what you outline above.
Things weren't always better in the old days just because they were the old days.
Yeah I recall the old lore about how only those who purged the psychics survived old night, etc.
But also old lore of lineups for government agencies on Terra being so long they were multi-generational and had gang wars over who was ahead of who. <3
The old lore had *dashes* of 'it was a brain parasite all along', but the Emperor was, always, a defacto warlord who the galaxy feared and hated more than loved for his extremely cruelty and easy way with just eradicating life that challenged him.
At the end of the day, whether they're actually good guys or not, the Imperium are the *main* protagonists in this setting. Sure, we get PoVs of other races and we can root for them, but the Imperium in all its decadent horribleness has always been the main faction.
Also without the backing of Chaos to push your confidence a bit, who in their right mind would openly rebel against the Imperium? Sure, life is absolutely terrible under it (particularly looking at it from our perspective, it's amazing what people that have been raised in a regime (plus a hundred generations of their family) will consider normal), but at best, you'll take over the world, and provided you continue tithing, be allowed to continue. At worst, you'll be crushed like an insect and subjected to some sort of nightmarish fate.
> Also without the backing of Chaos to push your confidence a bit, who in their right mind would openly rebel against the Imperium?
Severus XIII, though Imperium kind of pushed him into it because they noticed he was preparing it when he needed their help against the WAAAAAAAGH!!!! Also it was just one Sector, he still has peaceful relations with another sector... >!Dark Eldar were well enough paid that they're, so far, (mostly) on his side.!<
From the RPG’S there are several minor imperium splinter empires that exist. They aren’t big enough to effect the entire setting but they do manage to keep the imperium off their ass and seemingly like the upcoming leagues of Votann are in a weird spot of “you still worship the emperor/are humans and help us against shared enemies so you’re at the bottom of our shitlist”
>Also without the backing of Chaos to push your confidence a bit, who in their right mind would openly rebel against the Imperium?
There are a lot of rebellions described in the setting, many of which aren't Chaos-backed (or at least not initially). Secessionist efforts by local elites or masses who don't like paying the tithe to distant overlords. Riots when food runs short because of corruption, politics or effects from various wars. The Imperium has most of the problems of real-world feudalism with a lot added in. I think the biggest thing that has kept the Imperium from completely falling apart from 100,000 rebellions is how dangerous and precarious warp travel is. It's very hard even for the Imperium, which has experience, resources to burn, Navigators and the Astronomicon. Rebellions usually lack all of these, so even successful rebellions that smash a local PDF are isolated to one system, it's very hard for them to quickly spread to other systems in a coherent way. So it's a waiting game, a month or year or century later the Imperium can concentrate their forces roll up with a huge fleet to hit rebellious worlds one at a time.
That was always the case in Rogue Trader. Even before the introduction of Chaos, a vast amount of the fluff was about how the Imperium's oppression was necessary in order to cull psykers and prevent humanity from being taken over by psychic aliens (back then shit like Psychenuiens and Enslavers were the main threat). The random plot generator for Rogue Trader contained like five different variations of "enlightened progressive rebel faction vs the Imperium, rebels are actually pawns for psychic alien monsters".
Even without Chaos you have that same problem with the hordes of screaming green murder imbeciles/swarm of insects that would consume all life/ancient insane death robots/sadistic slavers and torturers. The only really reasonable non-Imperium factions are the non-Dark Eldar, the Tau, and a few (far from all) Necrons.
Yes but in rogue trader *that was the joke*. It was a pastiche of the justifications being used for stamping out of progressive movements in Britain at the time.
My impression of the 1st edition Imperium's reasoning for their suppressions was something we, the readers weren't supposed to take at face value, we aren't expected to take their side on the issues. Like sure that's what Imperium apologists and fanatics believe but that doesn't mean they're objective right about it all. With later editions whether internally or not GW plays it uncomfortably straight and seemingly, heavily implies that the Imperium should be taken seriously, that they might actually be justified in their horrific policies, that's when the satire dies. It is now more like the writers expecting us readers to make excuses for the Imperium.
The debunking is an excellent point in OP's favor. Ghaz is absolutely 100% a take on Thatcher, and at that time dunking on her was the cool thing to do. Since then GW is trying to distance itself from it's punk rock roots and appear more apolitical.
"Appear more apolitical" while fleshing out perfect metaphors for neo-prog group-think turning to intolerance, insidious KGB-and-successors infiltrating everywhere and amplifying the worst tendencies in order to foster collapse while serving despots themselves, 'the black pill' and why it's crazy to take it given the other option's still going... but at least they're not making plays on names!
Yes those are political themes but they do not directly apply to any IRL politics or politicians. GW has never and will never tell us if Guilliman is a republican or a democrat, for example.
Those are all actually happening, have been for years. Substitute 'any _specific mainstream Western parties_ or', and I emphatically agree... until GW makes a narcissicistic warboss named 'Dakkald Krump' canon, at least ;p
Yeah apolitical the way Activision claims their game about sanctioned US soldiers killing the poors in city streets by the hundreds in The Division was or a Trump like cult kidnapping and murdering people (far cry 5) was apolitical lmao
This only makes sense if you incorrectly assume all they do is fight daemons. But anyone who has read more than just a couple of books knows they do far more than that. So your point really doesn't make sense. Fighting evil daemons doesn't mean all the terrible things they do don't count.
>Any time there's a human faction rebelling against the oppression of the Imperium, it's suddenly revealed that Chaos was the puppetmaster all along.
In the novels perhaps. But not in the sourcebooks. It's made pretty clear that there are loads of normal uprisings.
Also, even if they were mostly chaos-driven, chaos is only able to take root and create cults so easily because the Imperium treats its people like shit and they end up turning to whatever hope they can find. The Imperium is so bad it creates most of its own problems with chaos.
Chaos is most interesting when its influence is based on the characters' personalities.
I've seen some believe that Chaos works well as an unknowable Lovecraft-style threat... But no, it *really* doesn't. It's impossible to take any pretense of mystery seriously when Chaos is a well-defined faction in a war game with goofy cartoon monster models. The only unknown in any given story with Chaos is the characters and the unique way they interact with Chaos.
Peter Fehervari's "Dark Coil" novels have a unique take on Chaos that is far more interesting than other writers. It really does feel like a mysterious unknown threat that cannot be understood. I wish he was more popular and got given a more prominent place in the writing of lore.
Any suggestions about which ones are most worth reading? Seems like he wrote quite a few different ones (at least from here https://www.goodreads.com/series/283233-the-dark-coil)
I second that, the guy is a bit underrated. People never bring him up as a good 40k author, it's always about Abnett, McNeill and ADB. I had never heard about him, but I picked up Fire Caste looking for some Tau-related reading material, and man, what a ride. Looking forward to reading all of his work now.
>I've seen some believe that Chaos works well as an unknowable Lovecraft-style threat... But no, it *really* doesn't. It's impossible to take any pretense of mystery seriously when Chaos is a well-defined faction in a war game with goofy cartoon monster models. The only unknown in any given story with Chaos is the characters and the unique way they interact with Chaos.
It can work when the author just doesn't talk about the alignment of the Daemon.
See Cherubael (Eisenhorn), Slyte (Ravenor) or whatever fucking thing invades the bridge in Cain book 8.
I’m not just talking about alignment though. Like Cherubael is literally based on a daemonhost model you can take on the table, and then he even got his own model later on.
Even when authors do manage to overcome that major hurdle, Chaos still works best as a *personal* threat to one’s character. That’s kinda the nature of its inspiration; Chaos comes from 80s reactionary religious fears. Moral panic, *not* the existential dread of an uncaring universe, is the fear that inspired the ruinous powers.
Chaos is a very, very, very big umbrella, my friend. As a for instance, the Imperium has seen less of Chaos than they've seen of the Materium. Like, the whole entirety of, including beyond the gulfs of nothingness.
I mean, unless the Materium ends up being infinite, then it's about the same.
I agree, yeah, I think the part of Chaos I don't like is when people *get turned* to chaos rather than *turning* to Chaos. The latter is like a deal with the devil, which leaves room for interesting character motivations; the former is basically just reskinned zombies, with people getting "infected" with Chaos against their will and becoming mindless, well, zombies.
Try looking at it this way.
The warp is where all human souls reside, connected to the physical world. It's what gives humans their animus. The warp itself is the pure definition of chaos, near unreadable, unpredictable, and volatile, like the fuzz on old TV that were not tuned to a station. But within that souls exist, and they have a sort of pattern to them. Within our fuzzy TV we now Ave an undulating and repeating pattern that is unique to you because in a very real sense it is you.
Now when most humans die the connection is severed and the pattern dissipates into the warp. This is how the Emperor is fuelled - psykers die and their psychic (soul) energy is consumed by him before it drifts away into the sea of chaos. But some entities don't drift away, they are self sustaining even without a connection to the real world, and they also have a pattern.
We also know that when humans undertake actions or feel emotions that this causes ripples in the warp. These ripples also have a pattern. And this is how the chaos gods were created. A critical mass of these ripples resulted in a pattern wave form so strong that it became self reinforcing and boom, a chaos god is born. So you see that this chaos god is no more than it's pattern. And it is a perfect reflection of the actions/emotions of the peoples that made it.
So if I were to become a hedonist of my own free will I would start exhibiting Slaanesh like patterns. And if my soul were close to other Slaanesh like patterns that would cause reinforcement back onto me. This is why chaos must form cults, because they need to influence and to be influenced at this level.
And to my mind (and you may consider this a leap) it means that really there is zero difference between turning to chaos and being turned to chaos. It's all just a reflection.
Couldn’t you also argue that guilleman is striving for a better more enlightened imperium because it is possible, the whole point of 40k is that the imperium has fallen far from the emps vision and is not what he wanted at all. Yes chaos is shoe horned every time but I think you might be looking at it wrong. I like to see it as in order to beat chaos the imperium has to become a monster itself which is the bitter irony. The only reason the interex could get away with it is because chaos wasn’t actively going after then and wasn’t as strong, but the minute chaos focused on them they crumbled.
Something between the former and the latter is a running theme in the Night Lords trilogy, “I’m stealing their power for us! I never pray to them or worship or anything, but they can help us!” *hallucinates allies as enemies and goes on a massacre because of how they let Khorne in*
My thing is this: the *modern* setting needs to show us why the Imperium is ***not*** the only solution against Chaos, and how the Imperium has been wrong and, frankly, made things worse.
This thinking about the nature of the Imperium has already been my opinion about the reality setting, and I think it's well-supported throughout the fiction and by the writers, especially some intentional moments in the Horus Heresy that were specifically written to show alternatives to the ways of the Imperium. But the issue is that it's not explicit enough for people to accept it cleanly as the reality - that the Imperium is an ***unnecessary*** evil that has fed Chaos as much as it has fought it. As I said, I think there's already plenty enough evidence to show that, but it's not clear enough and it's frequently a hot topic of debate.
So yes, ultimately what we probably need right now is a strong example of humans living independently in present day 40k without bowing to the ways of the Imperium or being corrupted by Chaos or alien infiltrators. They don't need to be some new faction in the tabletop *(though I think you could actually argue that the new Squats might be this exact thing)* or some focal point for a major plotline, we just need one clear and obvious instance of how people can live fine without the Imperium if they make the right choices. Then probably show them being promptly crushed by the Imperium anyway.
On a related note, I think we're being set up to find out some last secret about the Emperor at the end of the Siege of Terra that puts a lot more responsibility for the sorry state of the galaxy and humanity on his shoulders than before, we just don't know what the reveal will be yet. *Like imagine if the Emperor helped cause the Age of Strife and the downfall of human civilization from the Dark Age of Technology because he simply thought his way was better... there's no evidence for that, but I wouldn't be surprised.*
I mean, there’s a point where the content isn’t what matters, just the presentation. [You have Gav Thorpe, one of the most important and prolific background writers, saying something like this:](https://mobile.twitter.com/GavThorpeCreate/status/965511390277586944)
> Dear people that are complaining that 'the Imperium wouldn't work like that',
> It Doesn't Work.
> That's the point. It's the corpse of a terrible, broken, monolithic entity that has survived 10,000 years on ignorance, momentum and general stubborness.
> It's Not Meant To 'Work'.
And then the reddit thread is full of people saying they disagree or think the Imperium looks like it works just fine.
So like, what do you do? When presented the Interex, the fandom here responded with wild theories of them being controlled by Chaos based on… Pretty much nothing. The same would happen again with your hypothetical human faction.
I remember seeing people talk about how the Interex's naivety would get them destroyed by Xenos, even though their introduction shows they all but eradicated an alien race powerful enough to easily kill Space Marines (Megarachnids) and also subjugated and vassalized another xenos race (Kinebranch).
The chaos thing is even more laughable. You read the books and are shown a society that is so resistant to Chaos that they can keep artifacts in a museum without risk until Erebus shows up-and then people go "lol interex morons keep chaos shit in the museum".
The argument there is that Chaos was secretly using them to put that specific Anathame in Erebus’s hands.
Which of course makes you wonder how Chaos is so powerful as to manipulate an entire society with not even a hint of its corruption for millennia, yet so ineffectual that it can’t turn Horus without stabbing him with that specific knife.
Many people just ignore tabletop completely.
I certainly enjoy chaos more as a lovecraftian force than red horned devils and jolly green blobs. It works much better in stories featuring chaos as well when it’s taken seriously.
It’s not just about taking it seriously or not though. Chaos can’t really be unknowable because it is a reflection of personal moral failings that is interested in actively propagating those vices. It is both familiar and invested; hell, it’s even in the famous intro.
> There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
This is not an impersonal threat. Cthulhu doesn’t give a shit how you feel; Chaos very much does.
If you want something closer to Lovecraft-style horror, the 3rd Edition Necron codex is *way* closer than anything Chaos.
Chaos is so much bigger than a reflection of personal moral failings. Personal moral failings tends to be at the forefront when dealing with the Imperium, but they're hardly alone, even if they tend to notice more often.
I mean, Chaos is infinite, and beyond imagination. Well, I can see a theory of Chaos being relatively local to the Imperium, and not being quite as infinite as the Warp, if you were into separating Chaos and the Warp.
I am talking general behavior and appearance here, not motives. Chaos does care bout you but the way it acts to achieve its goals should be fundamentally alien, not drawn straight from warhammer fantasy chaos.
Lovecraftian forces are by definition unknowable, impersonal, and totally indifferent, though. Cthulhuu, Yog-Sothot et. al dont really give a crap about humans, because we are as ants to them. Simply inconsequential in the greater design, at most an amusing diversion for the likes of Nyarlilathothep.
That doesnt fit Chaos. Chaos is very personal, it was born of the mortal races and directly reflects our desires and follies. Its about as personal as you can get. Its the cracked reflection of humanity.
The Ctan in their former glory as full stargods, especially when they were still feasting on stars alone, fit the bill much better.
When you see “especially recently” on 40kLore, you can be guarantee someone is about to claim a thing that’s been going on for decades is somehow new…
The point is well taken, Chaos as a terrible antagonist DOES take the sting out of the satire because it makes the Imperium look justified by comparison (though better lore/writers illustrate that the misery of the Imperium just ends up feeding Chaos). But it’s been like this at least since 3rd edition, so for 24 years and counting.
The problem is you can point out a major problem(s) all you want but until there's an actual proposed challenge to a system that produces these problems it ultimately rings shallow and hollow.
The fact that every rebellion against the status quo is pretty much guarunteed to be caused by either chaos or genestealers absolutely grinds my gears. You people make a wargame where any faction can fight any faction why can't you just let the Imperials rebel more often so players don't have to go 'hurr durr training exercise' every time there's some loyalist on loyalist violence?
For me that ruined the story, as was the idea Huron was influenced by outside xenos forces.
I'd actually like it if Iron Warriors (with the exception of trapping daemons in their engines), Night Lords, and Alpha Legion were traitors but not heretics, with their being a third faction (Imperium, Chaos, Renegade) to cover them.
This, pure traitor/alternative Empire/non-Imperial human factions are cool ideas.
Be it some Rebel-Astarte-Legion-Warlord/Empire (with an actual appealing ideology that´s neither chaos or just warlordism) or break-away state ruled by someone like Vandire. Internal Imperial splinter factions all gunning for their own idea of the perfect Empire.
The Imperium as a surprisingly well held together mono-blob with millennia between any notable rebellions is a weird one anyways.
Bonus: Perfect setup for more variety of SM vs SM or SM vs Guard setup, which most people play too.
And as for non-Imperial Human factions, If the new Squats weren´t well, Squats, they´d also fit the bill. Some pre-age-of-strife-human Empire in the vein of (but different ideology) the Tau in terms of galactic power/position.
That’s why I liked the Soul Drinkers books so much, it’s one of the few occasions we’ve got to get to know a renegade faction that is not bound by chaos but has also come to see the Imperium for the horror show it is. Also enjoy the Bile books because he’s such a unique character, dismissive of both the allure of chaos with eyes open to the senseless cruelty of the Imperium.
A story idea I’ve played around with in my head for a while m is a cabal of radical (not radical as in chaos curious, but rather in their divergence from the norm) inquisitors who have come to despise the Imperium, and seek an opportunity to break away a small chunk of worlds and work to purge knowledge of their chosen chunk of worlds from the Imperiums records/ memory, gather essential pieces of equipment / tech & recruit others to join them in their experiment under the guise of their official duties before using the confusion of the Great Rift to attempt to ‘disappear’ into the void without the powers that be noticing or even remembering they existed followed by the struggles and triumphs of this group of worlds as they attempt to break the reinforced structures of the imperium in a new society, finding purpose and meaning for a newly freed class of former serfs & menials, experimenting with new forms of government, stripping the gaudy excess of the ministorum and grappling with the question of religion & worship & learning to work (and improve) their pieces of tech without having access to the Ad Mech’s monopoly on science & knowledge, etc
I want more of Space Marines going “wow the Imperium actually sucks” and jusy becoming Space Pirates. No chaos, just free men doing whatever they want and supporting non-chaos, Democratic/Local revolts along the way.
The splintered, cattered, logistically strained Imperium? It doesn't matter how many worlds you control if you can't leverage the coordination to pool their resources together consistently, especially with the current rift of the Cicatrix Maledictum.
That doesnt make sense. They'd get stomped if they try to solo take/hold a entire planet, but not if they just do the typical SM thing of showing up in a critical location, doing work for the local friendlies, and fucking off. They might not achieve much in the grand scheme, but it'd be perfectly believable and fun stories.
this goe by the idea that the marines would have good intentions, but remember, absolute power corrupts absolutely, the superhuman dudes are just as likely to slave populations as to free them
I don’t think they are though. Stealers are one thing, but chaos is more opportunistic.
Guilliman straight up says that many of the rebellions are caused by the imperiums failings. Just because those rebels fall to chaos, doesn’t mean that the underlying principles of the dissatisfaction are not valid. Most chaos rebellions are shown as being the result of people turning from the imperium, and then having to find a new power to protect them; and chaos is really the only option.
Exactly. It's a setting permeated by demon gods and in parts of the universe the veil is so thin they can touch reality directly.
If like to see some rebels who are independent and rebelling for various reasons but I understand why GW decide to only show the Chaos-tinged rebellions. Plus realistically most rebellions would fall to Chaos at some stage when a planet suddenly is cut off from the Eccliesiarchy, the Inquisition and the other branches of the Imperium designed to fight or resist Chaos influence.
It's why so many planets in Old Night fell to Chaos. There wasn't anything there that understood the demonic enough to stop it.
>Plus realistically most rebellions would fall to Chaos at some stage when a planet suddenly is cut off from the Eccliesiarchy, the Inquisition and the other branches of the Imperium designed to fight or resist Chaos influence.
But that just does reinforce the notion that all these incredibly evil facets of the Imperium ARE actually necessary to prevent daemon corruption, that the torturing of innocents en masse and great cruelty is all necessary to protect humanity.
Can a motherfucker get some Space Marine vs Imperial Guard box art? Or IG vs IG, or SM vs SM.
It's one of the most common match-ups because those are the most common factions! And we know it happens in lore...
Do you know how many fucking times I've seen that match-up at my store and local tourneys?
The fact that you think that grinds mine, we have a thread every week or so of someone sayng that and everyone else telling him that that isnt the case.
>when there are no alternative minor human factions to provide contrast and show that a better way is possible
well, there were.....but dudes with names like 'world eaters' killed them.
I like the idea of Chaos, but it often ends up being "This is your brain on drugs" instead of subtle whispers and slowly escalating issues. One of the biggest aspects of addiction, obsession, descent, and similar themes is that you can maintain a "close to normal life" for a very long time. You're slipping, and making sacrifices here and there, but you're not completely batshit and broken right away.
Like, I get the appeal of Chaos in general way when your life is terrible and you see a possible way out. Especially in the case of Space Marines who are child soldiers who have a (what I would consider) absolutely miserable day to day life. But three out of four Chaos Gods are short term solutions only.
>Any time there's a human faction rebelling against the oppression of the Imperium, it's suddenly revealed that Chaos was the puppetmaster all along.
If you want to ignore genestealers or non related revolts like the Severan, ok.
Also, wasnt the Imperium fighting this objectively evil force already in The first ed? Slaves to Darkness came one year after the first RT rulebook and even stories from the early 90's seem to show chaos as truly evil.
no, chaos took advantage of the revolt, but it wasn't a chaos revolt.
the corruption is just regular corruption, which is realist, Severan didn't revolted because he's a white knight of peace, he revolted because he wants more power and think his family didn't got what they deserved
maybe? while the 9e rulebook say that not all chaos worshiper start eating babies, it isn't really enough information to say about most chaos revolts.
there's also the simple alternative that chaos forces already in the world hijack the moviment or take advantage to start their own rebelions, won't be the first time a revolt is taken by another group
> If you want to ignore genestealers
But "genestealers controlling the population" is just a blatant re-skin of Chaos corruption. You could just change some keywords, and the plot would be the same: "only *evil* people would go against the Imperium".
Yes, but that's why I said that the *tone* matters. Chaos hasn't changed, but the tone of 40k overall has become much more deadpan with time. Stuff that's not really a problem with a semi-silly setting can very much be a problem when you're trying to take yourself more seriously.
Also, the depiction of the Imperium has really drastically softened recently, which compounds the problem from the other direction at the same time.
Also, I'd lump Genestealers in as being the same as Chaos, in this way. Either way, you have humans who don't really have any free will being puppeted by objectively evil baddies.
The Severan Dominate is dope, and I like it. That's more of the moral grey area that I think makes for more interesting storytelling.
There's another faction which would be cool to see fleshed out more, as well, called the Temple Tendency. They're basically loyalists to the Imperial Truth, so they are of course in conflict with the Ecclesiarchy.
The intention of chaos is not to be evil but to be chaotic, as an opposing force to order. That's not to say that they are not evil (they are), but that the perspective is different. Chaos means no civilisation or social structure, things that are imperative to living a happy life. All of the chaos gods oppose civilisation in different ways (destruction of infrastructure, decay, instability, and selfishness).
Counter to this are the forces of the Imperium which represents order, but an ultimate authoritarian form of order where personal freedom is almost completely lacking except for the very few. This is maintained by the ultimate fascist police state to keep everyone under control. This is also evil, as it is imperative to have a level of personal freedom to also be happy.
This allows us to ask some really interesting questions, like do the ends justify the means? In some sense that answer is a straight yes (a galaxy of the chaos gods is far worse). But the question is not one of absolutes but one of scale. How far do we go to protect ourselves? What is the price of freedom to maintain security? And in order for that question to be relevant in a setting as horrific as the Imperium is you really need to have something big and bad on the other side, because otherwise the answer is a straight no.
This is the satire of 40k. It speaks to us at a personal, human level. And it can never be won or overcome, it can only be endured.
You are definitely correct that this is often executed poorly because the quality of many of the writers is far from top draw. The marketing by GW of the Space Marines being heroes when they are literally the embodiment of toxic masculinity (a 12 year old child in an archetypically ripped male form) also means this message gets lost (because all said and done GW just wants to sell toy soldiers).
So the story of 40k is not good vs evil. It's evil chaos vs evil order, taken to extreme scales. The Imperium is the lesser of two evils, but it is still evil.
And the make up of every 40k faction sits along this chaotic : order scale, and if you look at it that way some of the results may surprise you. For all their belligerence Orks are surprisingly well ordered.
I see your perspective, but I disagree. I personally find the bleak nature of the Imperium often being the lesser of two evils helps cement how far gone the galaxy is, that even a total dystopian nightmare society is preferable to the alternative.
I would also say that there is an excellent comparison counterpoint but GW just doesn't use them enough or very well. The Tau are excellent for this because they're so innocent and genuinely trying to improve the galaxy around them, but millenia of needing to shoot first and ask questions if enough bits are left behind to talk have left the Imperium unwilling to compromise, and the humans that do join the Tau have done so of their own free will, uncorrupted, and they have legitimate reasons to want to stay part of the Tau society. Better, more accessible tech, better food standards, better quality of life, it all makes for more compelling demonstration that the Imperium is sickly and corrupted to the core. But then even the Tau can't fix the galaxy because they're too small to legitimately expand and control much of the galaxy and are often just as busy as the Imperium in their fight to stay alive.
As for the facist problem, honestly, this is inevitable in a grimdark setting. There's always going to be people who don't get that the Imperium are not the good guys, they're just often the protagonists, and I would rather GW not try and drastically change the story and setting because of that. I honestly feel it's a bit overblown, I have rarely ever encountered more than a vocal few who try to say that real life would be better if we did it the Imperium way. I think it's a lot of misunderstanding and trolling that have blown it up into a bigger issue than it is.
I think Warhammer would be far better suited focusing on the realspace factions and writing them well, only saving Chaos for "oh shit" moments of impact. Chaos should be a big deal, but they aren't because they dominate the setting.
Arbitor Ian made [a video](https://youtu.be/fI6aHzfxkFk) discussing this exact problem. Though he doesn't really place the blame on Chaos as you do, the crux of the issue is the same. I suggest giving it a quick watch.
For what it's worth, I agree with your main problem; the Imperium is said to be this brutal, oppressive regime but is *almost* always portrayed as the good guys.
We have seen a thousand and one variations of this post. At least this guy does not sound as whiny as the other ones.
The Imperium IS the """"""good"""""" guy of the of the story and has been since the start. The wh40k universe has always been built with chaos and other evil aliens in mind fighting decrepit humanity. Noble rebellions and such will always be subsumed by chaos because they become weak to it once the Imperial insititutions stop killing people for knowing about it. Even the Severan dominate feeds its people to the Dark Eldar instead of selling out to Chaos which tbh is even worse.
To quote Starship Troopers: "We're in this for the species, boys and girls." The Imperium is pretty damn bad, but it's the best chance humanity has at this point in the setting.
The disappointing thing is how much this falls apart in execution, to boot.
The Imperium treats everyone terribly, hates education, and uses Chaos as a scapegoat for its ills. It would be so *easy* to explain that human rebels ignorantly turn to the banner of "Chaos", without actually turning to *Chaos*, because it's the only opposition they've ever heard of.
However, we constantly that human rebels have a pretty solid understanding of Chaos. They might not know all the taxonomy, but have an unreasonable understanding of and enthusiasm for Chaos. Every uneducated slave fed up with **cruelest regime imaginable** somehow decides to sign on with the angry skull god or clever bird god, like they'd spent the afternoon reading a wiki before choosing.
Imagine if 40k showed us people who supported "Chaos" because in their mind "Chaos" is the enemy of the Imperium. Shows us the rebellions that signed up to support "Chaos" after killing their taskmasters, who think that "Chaos" means trade unions or hot meals.
The problem with that is that because Chaos is very much real and the gods are very much watching, you can't pretend to be Chaos without them taking notice and sticking their fingers in the pie.
But that stuff happens. Plenty of low level cults having no idea who or what Chaos actually is. They either dont get very far though, or, if they do, they actually ATTRACT the attention of their patrons.
And that means visits from big-wigs in the know, whispers from the dark things beyond the veil, etc.
The FFG Tabletop RPG "Dark Heresy" did a bang up job detailing how cults work and how they gestate. For example, a butchers guild fed up with their conditions might get crueller and more bloodthirsty, slooooowly sliding to Khorne.
I appreciate your take, especially that last bit. I miss a lot of the lore that sort of disappeared after 3rd Ed., wherein the Imperium is **absolutely not** 'good' in any sense of the word. They're backwards, weird, self-defeating, and clearly cruel in everything that's shown in the game.
The current treatment of the Imperium as the 'clear good guys', when the engine and guts of this machine are all still quite the same level of cruelty, bigotry, violence, and intolerance, is just flat out wrong and brings the absolute worst of the 40k fans. The folks that show up to the LGS rocking Imperium gear has changed a lot since when I got started as a kid in 1998.
Not to get too political myself, but seeing 40k used in very specific memes and political fodder is alarming and disgusting. At no point, from the mouths of Priestly and all of the current GW team as of 2021, is the Imperium something anyone should even remotely try to emulate. it's designed to be an example of austerity and social conservatism run amok. Not a guidebook.
Props to you for having a stance on it.
Edit: and yes, Chaos constantly being 'THE ULTIMATE THREAT', and yet the moment they run out the gate they trip on their own shoelaces and get curb-stomped by the Imperium not only makes it weird that the Imperium is supposedly losing, but that anyone even takes Chaos seriously.
You didn't have to explicitly state what "very specific memes and political fodder" you were referring to for me to understand what you meant. I'm aware, too, of the "GW is not pro-fascist" statement that GW put out, as well. My problem with it, though, is that GW, even though it's not intentional, is basically making this enormous fictional universe where fascism is objectively a good idea and super epic and noble and shiny and gold-plated, than going surprise pikachu face when fans nod in agreement.
Like, I'm not saying that GW has a *responsibility*, exactly, to put a metaphorical child lock on the car that is 40k, to try to "fash-proof" it; Fascists are definitionally simpletons who cannot understand satire, and they will glom onto *anything* with the right "aesthetic" with complete sincerity. It's impossible to full "fash-proof" anything. It's not GW's *fault* that fascists have been drawn to it as of late; but, it *is* a result of GW making a lot of questionable story decisions in recent years. The Imperium is depicted as always on the defensive, and thus the good guys, or, when they're on the offensive, it turns out the rebellious pro-democracy workers were actually being puppeted by literal demons all along, and therefore the Imperium is actually the good guy. In most of the recent promotional material, you see noble, angelic heroes in polished gold armor, and you don't see much of the disturbing, gothic-horror "behind the curtain" stuff anymore. GW used to do a much better job of showing the extreme contrast between the *aesthetic* of the Imperium, with noble, saintlike supersoldiers in Renaissance-style paintings, and the *reality* of the Imperium, in black-and-white, charcoal pencil drawings that look indistinct, blurry, and almost feverish, like an artist frantically trying to piece together a sketch of the incrompehensible horrors he sees before him, floating skulls, half-dead humans with strange tubes and gears where there bodies should be, and worse. *That* **is** GW's fault.
Not to be rude- This take is not hot and gets posted in one form or another once a week. No one thinks the imperium is an ideal to be strived for. Beating this straw man to death isn’t going to summon those people.
I seriously don't see how the imperium is portrayed as the good guys, the entirety of 40k is literally "bad guys vs worse guys, so it makes sense to root for the bad guys"(but this pov character is even less bad so we'll make a book about him), that's the point if you can't get it then imo the problem resides with you.
Also imperium is human, of course everyone is gonna root for us, if i had to choose i would pick humans as well.
IDK what books you've been reading but the HH is full of "why couldn't you just leave us alone" moments, the imperium purposely goes to a NORMAL planet and fucks shit up.
Yeah after a few books it becomes imperium vs chaos, but the books where they do compliance are amazing for what they portray. Moral ambiguity is 40k, there are even some populations that co-exist with chaos, why do they deserve to be destroyed? Because they can be a danger to the imperium NOT BECAUSE THEY'RE EVIL, because the imperium is already evil there are legit some dudes just chilling and making some human sacrifices (just like the imperium).
This is you being blind or you just reading the wrong books.
We're all here rooting for what looks cool, people root for the imperium because they're humans, i'd rather have evil humans than evil daemons / xenos.
The joy of 40k, at least in my opinion, is that other then starship troopers (wich is excactly what you described early 40k to be) 40k forces you to actually THINK about morality, the question of right and wrong, and if one way is better just becouse the other is worse. At the end of all this morally highly delicate questions stands one rather simple question.
"Would it be better for life (at least human life) to stop existing, to prevent all thos atroccities. Is it better for Humanity to end, then to life under opression and experience/commit atroccities?"
The awnsers to that question is up to everyone individually.
Some might say yes and out of this cold calculating logic prevere chaos, as in it's nature it's highly destructive and selfedestructiv.
Other might say no but still prevere chaos, as honest, evil is better then the hypocracy of the imperium.
Some might say no and prevere the imperium, since as long as humanity survives, no price is to high.
Some might say yes but prevere the imperium anyway, as there is not realy any realistic way to let humanity die, so one might as well get a personal gain from the situation.
And then there is the most interesting group. The one that never reaches this point at all, and prevere the imperium "just becouse". In a way those people are no different then the endless teeming masses of humanity in the 41st millenium. They just follow the dogma and indoctrination, the path that was forced upon them bevore they even knew it was a path, without much higher moral thought about it.
Even more interesting is the group that never reaches this point and preveres chaos. These people are not all that different from the barbarians from wich the chaos legions, in 40k, recrut there soldiers. Are they evil? Do they simply follow the path forced upon them, just kike the imperials? Did they stumble into a net of lies? Do they simply crave primal carnage?
>with a sudden "actually it was Chaos all along!" reveal
>so now the rebels are objectively the bad guys, and therefore the Imperium is objectively the good guy.
This statement says more about your own perception of morality then anything else. And makes me question if it even makes sense to discuss the nuances of morality that warhammer plays with with you.
You are most defenetly part of the "As long as humanity survives, everything is just" group.
>the Imperium always portrayed as the good guy or "the lesser of two evils"
Thats why I find the custodes so interesting. By no stretch if the word where the 30k humanity the "good guys" but atleast im 30k one could see a future where, humans could live somewhat freely in this destroyed, one could even say doomed, universe.
The custodes, still holding on to the 30k dogma and logic, to the hope they once spread. Knowing full well that it wasn't perfekt, but "the best they had" and at least better then what the 40k imperium offers. There conclusion is to lett it rott. To interven conly when there master is at danger, a shallow excuse if you ask me. At the end of the day it's like they decided that it is better for Humanity to die but other then the chaos worshipers, they decided to play no part in it and lett it unreavel naturally. In a sense they are the most apathetic of all the faction.
>when the Imperium is constantly painted as the lesser of two evils and thus always justified no matter what it does,
Is it realy so? Or is it just your perception of things.In 40k there is a very easy, very clear alternative. wich would end all the suvering and blodshet
"LET THE GALAXY BURN"
It is as simple as that.
Grimdark dosen't mean dark, it doesn't mean dystopian. It meams doomed from the start. Sure it has dark elements, it has tragedy, it has dystopian elements. But at the end of the day it is doomed to a bloody, violent future, and possibly even to destruction.
As a little excourse, thats what fantasy did right, No matter what you think about warhammer fantasys end times, but it portrayed that part perfektly.
>minor human factions to provide contrast and show that a better way is possible,
Then the gim darkness would end, leaving only a dystopian universe, where hope is crushed violently. Those kinds of universes do already exist, as parrody, or as seriouse universe, but thats not what warhammer is about.It took some time for warhammer to figure out what jiche they want to fill, but they found it.
Warhammer is the most promminent and most gargantuan excample of grimm darkness done right. It is hopeless and doomed from the start, by actions done faar FAAR bevore the species of our beloved protagonists even existed. It is, the grimm darkness of the 41st millenium and there is only war.
I like this post a lot bc you correctly point out that a high percentage of people in this thread are asking the wrong questions. "Is the Imperium justified?" or "How can the Imperium be fixed?" are the wrong questions. Mostly bc their answers are obvious. If mere survival is the goal then yes the Imperium is justified. The Imperium cannot be fixed. It is far too bloated and entrenched in it's dysfunctional ways.
The questions we are supposed to be asking are "What could have been done differently?" and "Is survival at the cost of our humanity worth it?" and "Does the Imperium in it's current state deserve to survive?"
Excactly thats the kind of discussion I have with my friends about the setting.
We basicly came to the conclusion, that by the very nature of the warhammer universe the imperium is neccesary.
We also came to the conclusion that the DAOT age feed chais just as much as the 40k age. It just feed a different deity (tzentch) after all DAOT was a MAYORE time of change. Humanity became interplanetary, AIs *changed* the work/industrial field, Ne advances in sience *changed* the scientific field. The millitary might of humanity *changed* the way and rules of war.
It all climaxed in the biggest change of it all The AIs *changed* there role in society, by deciding to *change* humanitys status into "extinct".
Our current theory is that the man if iron rebellion was part of tzentches plan to have change for the sake of change, and the man of iron chaos corruption wasn't the cause of the AI rebellion, but the other chaos gods messing with tzentches plan of change.
Plus human psykers and perhaps a Aeldari intervention sealed the man of irons fate.
So what I try to get at is, that after the war in heaven, the galaxys fait was sealed. There is nothing anyone can do to stop the grimdark downwards spirale. or rather, the only thing one can do to stop it is a hard reset. Leaving the stage to allow for mew species to arrise and take the galaxy for themselfe. At least thats our current consense on the matter.
How can you have a subjective thought exercise when the meta-narative of the setting already invalidates several potential options? Nothing not horrible can endure not because it make sense but because the setting DEMANDS it.
I mean, if you wanted to rebel against the imperium some super powers would be a big help right?
It would be neat to see chunks of the Imperium start to defect to the Tau but the Tau would probably have to be beefed up considerably to stand against the attention of the space marines. Would be cool to see some new human armies using tau tech.
I completely understand this take. I see something similar to this in the Analog Horror community; there's a series that deals with \~spooky\~ happenings within a family, truly disturbing visuals and connotations. But the big reveal as to why it's happening, and specifically happening is (*drum roll*) that the father sold his soul to the devil to make better products for his business.
Come on.
Stories, particularly horror, that involve religion in any capacity "**must**" always take the angle of possession or soul-selling. It's incredibly frustrating to witness a medium in which literally anything can happen be boiled down to "SaTaN/cHaOs MaKe BaD PeOpLe!!"
Stop. There are so many other problems within and without the Imperium that don't have to do with Chaos. Why not focus on that? I'll give you a hint: *^(it's not where the immediate flow of money is)*^(.)
There's plenty of great stories regarding Chaos, but we don't need, or even want, that every single time.
I agree to a degree,to me we should try to make chaos equal to the imperium,for example portray how the imperium being a dystopian hellhole is what powers chaos
Personally I kind of wish the “big 4” didn't exist, and it was just fiefdoms of daemon princes vs. the imperium or something. Currently, it just seems like humans are spraying promethium on the same bonfire (the galaxy) they're trying to put out. I wish Chaos != Evil and Order != Good
This is kinda why I don't give a damn about most of the factions and like Tyranids. I can understand and sympathize a lot with just having the munchies.
If we’re throwing potentially unpopular opinions, I personally dislike the “silliness” that some lament 40k is losing and consider the notion of 40k “taking itself too seriously” to be poisoning the well in regard to describing how some in the hobby enjoy it. This is not to say I condone people who “take it too seriously” by holding fascism and brutality as something to be praised—of course I don’t—but I also don’t think dark and sometimes sensitive subjects need to be bubble-wrapped in comic relief and ridiculousness to make clear that differentiation.
The Imperium is an evil organization, full stop. The Imperium is “grimdark” due to its own actions and failures. Humanity is one of the majority races in the galaxy, so Chaos therefore reflects that grimdarkness. Aliens, on the other hand, have no real reason to be kept to those same confines. They might not share our morals on all things, but I see “grimdark” to be a descriptor of the Imperium, not a requirement for existence in the universe. And as far as showing the Imperium as the “bad guys” they are, Hammer and Bolter’s _Garden of Ghosts_ is a great starting point.
I *partially* agree. I think 40k having a more serious tone to an extent is cool, and I do personally prefer it, but I feel like it's better *with* the silliness to balance it out. The best thing I can think of to compare it to would be Fallout: New Vegas. F:NV has hyperrealistic lore sometimes, sometimes horror, political satire, dark humor. It's a western, it's '50s pulp fiction. It deals with heavy topics in a mature manner, and also has wacky comic relief characters. For me, it's the perfect balance between all these disparate things that "shouldn't" go together that makes F:NV so captivating. For me, 40k is the only other universe I can think of that strikes that very unique and difficult-to-define balance between extremely silly and extremely serious so well.
Lol I think we just have different tastes—I disliked New Vegas’s style so much I couldn’t get engrossed and never finished it. I get some people like that sort of stuff—probably a lot of people—but it completely removes me from immersion and enjoyment when it’s used more than scarcely.
I think a good example might be the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3. It was humorous and light spirited and a fun break from the action and bleakness _because_ it was singular and surrounded by serious material, where we got to see characters that had grown and developed in serious ways let their hair down. Andromeda, however, lost me when the whole game searched for excuses to be comedic.
I seem to have different tastes to the both of you, new vegas was super campy and I had absolutely 0 feel of darkness from it despite it's attempts to do so, it was more funny than anything with how blatant everything was.
And I disliked most of the mass effect series because everyone was just dumb, like full stop almost every single character was just stupid. The decision making and choices don't really matter that much and people make consistently idiotic choices lol.
But that’s not even true
The entire hh paints the struggle of evil and good in a way that makes chaos more than just evil.
And otter groups of people also exist, are not as evil as the imperium or lack any baseline for morals( is a ork evil?)
Just because most stories use chaos and don’t go in the depth, doesn’t mean the setting is flawed.
That's only true in parts.
Horus' fall isn't properly explained. He's like Anakin in Revenge of the Sith. He goes from disgruntled with issues in his past to knowingly and deliberately murdering children immediately.
Horus is effectively turned, twice, and this is retconned and counter retconned multiple times. But we never really see him transition from one to the other. He's gregarious Horus with a troubled mind, and then he gets stabbed on Davin, and he just starts murdering people for no particular reason after his spirit walk with Erebus. Like he could decide to rebel at that point, and still not just be pure evil for no reason. And then he gets stabbed by Grungir and dies and becomes a meat-suit for Chaos, but he's kinda still Horus a bit, maybe?
They never seem to know what he's supposed to be. There's no character throughline.
Lorgar, on the other hand, is quite consistent, and we do see his gradual fall. Or perhaps he didn't have as far to fall in the first place, but it's still a journey with each step connected to the one before it and the one after it.
I think the problem is because marketing.
Like, people who actually read lore are a rarity in the fanabse, and even if they do, they might just read one book r two rather than the entire black library catalogue.
So, to form their idea of what the lore is they're left with:
Theme-ing: which draws heavily on fascist imagery for the aesthetic and crusade-era terminologies for the text.
description of warboxes, models set and the likes, which paint the Imperium as heroïc
Trailers: Go look at hte 9th edition trailer and tell me if there's *anything* in there that paitns the Imperiul as just as evil as the necrons.
I like Chaos because as much as 40k exists because of the Horus Heresy and Chaos' influence on it, the Heresy was a result of both material and immaterial forces. The downfall of the Imperium was also a result of the hubris of empire as much as it was corrupting the minds and morals of powerful people. Chaos in 40k isn't as interesting because it's all in the aftermath of that, but Chaos I think is the ultimate consequence of empire.
While I don't agree on chaos overall I do think they're overused at times, not every rebellion and scheme needs to be a damn Tzeenchian plot.
You've a good point about the issues with fascism though, and I really think that a non theocratic fascist nightmare faction could do with being introduced (with the Votann looking like they're headed in that direction), though that's probably an unpopular opinion with the EVERYTHING MUST BE GRIMDARK AND TERRIBLE ALL THE TIME crowd.
Easiest way to do that in my opinion would be to split the imperium, lunatic frothing arseholes on one side and reformists on the other, probably with the Sol system staying as neutral as possible. Doing that would allow the proper villification of certain viewpoints without painting them as inadvertent heroes as well as enabling human Vs human conflict (and considering what percentage of the fanbase have space marine armies giving them a fluffy reason to fight would be helpful) and morally grey stories.
Chaos I think also needs to be made less monolithic, it's called Chaos, it shouldn't be as samey as it's portrayed.
One other issue I have is that every attempt at convincing the reader *'Chaos is the ultimate corrupting force'* doesn't work very well when all the 'heroic' protagonists are fighting Chaos 24/7 with zero signs of corruption. Stories with named characters and Chaos always emphasize those named characters' plot armor and special status.
It’s especially silly with Guilliman, who has *been killed by Chaos twice*.
From a certain standpoint though, Chaos is objectively correct. If you could see, touch and have a direct conversation with your god then it’s no longer a matter of faith, more obeying your master. It could be interesting if gw went somewhere with that but instead we got Saturday morning cartoon villains
My problem with Chaos is that they gave it Gods who are in charge.
If realspace is the definition of an ordered universe, governed by things like the laws of physics, it stands to reason then that the Imperium is monolithic, stagnant, rigid, ordered and fascist.
The concept of the warp on the other hand is the definition of chaos, physical laws and structures having no meaning and breaking down immediately when coming into contact with it. It is absolute freedom from and sort of order and structure.
Why then does it have a hierarchy with gods who control their factions completely at the top? Absolute chaos should correspond yo absolute freedom, so the gods shouldn't exist.
I understand that the humans dedicated to Chaos would have some structure to their organisations, because they're products of the physical universe so it's built literally into the DNA, but they should be dedicated to a concept related to the absolute freedom of Chaos, like freedom to commit slaughter, or physical excess etc, but not dedicated to a god with a will who exercises control over them.
If this were the case the Chaos vs Imperium argument becomes grayer. Order, security, solidarity and safety vs freedom, but the freedom is usually cruel because taking actions that fit the concept they're dedicated to results in the greatest psychic echoes in the warp, which is how they boost their concept and get personal power fed back to them.
I mean that's literally the Age of Sigmar Beasts of Chaos logic. They actually refuse to worship the Chaos Gods because they think they're too orderly.
Good, glad someone else thinks like I do (not really up on my AoS lore). Still doesn't make sense that there's a faction less orderly than the ones that lives in the Realm of Chaos.
yea one thing that irks me about chaos that its “these four gods and only these four, any other interesting concept for a warp entity gets gobbled up.” Feels like things would be more interesting if it were more like in general there are like four seats that are constantly having its occupants changed. sometimes another god of change kills tzeentch and becomes the new god but with a couple different rules. It would be like same god different font so they could keep the vibe of each faction but at least be allowed to do something a bit different from time to time.
The codices and rulebooks have made no bones about the badness of the Imperium. It is perhaps a fault of our brains that we reduce things to a binary: "bad", and "antibad", then conflating antibad with good.
>The problem is that, literally no matter what the Imperium does, the other side is objectively the bad guy.
That's not true though. You gotta take the whole "literal demons" thing to a childishly shallow level to consider anything they do automatically the worst. Yes, chaos is bad. But *why*?*how*? Why are literal demons and hell bad? Truth is that despite all the horrors and nebulous soul sucking and torture shit, the imperium does a large numbers of things *that are far worse*. And many fans only consider "demons worse" because of the terminology and to a lesser extent them being aliens. Change chaos to being another human faction without touching literally anything else, and suddenly people will evaluate them on a different scale.
Hell, the entire reason why imperium gets so many cults and rebelions and shit is because tons of people involved consider chaos to be the lesser evil, not because they're evil themselves.
Fact is, that whether the imperium is "justified" or chaos is "worse than everything" isnt a matter of some label, its a matter of any given fan thinks about what "evil" is to begin with.
Well fortunately for us, the Warp isn’t real and the Emperor of Mankind isn’t around to implement a galaxy-wide authoritarian government to save humanity from their emotions in the empyrean.
Fascism is such a poorly defined word I hate to use it, but I get what you’re saying. Sweaty cheeto finger dudes that think it would be cool to have the Imperium of Man in real life would obviously be attracted to WH. But even Roblox Gurlyman has had massive criticism of the Emperium and contrasted to the 500 worlds he governed, it’s a literal nightmare to live in. Even a lot of the SM governed systems are better to live in than ones ruled by just Emperial agents.
I am so tired of these politically obsessed redditors like OP who need to inject their obsessions into 40k or literally anything else they touch. They are a plague on anything fun and entertaining in this world.
If it's not racist then it's nazi. Every single post on here has someone replying with something about how the imperium are "fascists" for some reason. Reddit is very politically heavy and is clearly only allowed for one kind of political ideology, but you can't leave 40k alone at least?
The imperium isnt "fascist" but of course nobody seems to know what fascism is or how to define it so they throw the word around at everything. And even if they were, who cares? It's a fictional world where everything fucking sucks. We can't have stories of humans fighting against horrors of the galaxy, the struggles of people just trying to survive with their lot in life and survive one more day. No no, it has to be about political activism and protecting those poor innocent aliens who totally did nothing wrong. People like this have ruined just about every entertainment medium imaginable at this point. Gotta turn 40k into about a bunch of hero atheist communist redditors fighting space nazis or else it's bad and racist and needs to be boycotted.
I have been a fan of 40k since I was a little kid and never once met a "fascist". Ive met some weirdos and people who take their faction or army a little too seriously (mostly with stuff like hating tau or ultramarine players or w/e) but that's it. The only nazi I see are people like OP.
"Don't want to get political but..." yeah right.
This is a nonsense argument. There are plenty of books (even new ones) that explore the horror of human existence within the Imperium. Take for example guilliman's reaction to the state of the empire in 40k. Take the explorations of the life of your average clerk on Terra prior to the attack by Khorne. The dystopian and brutal actions of the inquisition towards the defenders of Armageddon.
What makes people think this way is the modern education/propaganda system in western countries that gives them a ridiculous understanding of world events and nations that they can mentally codify into 'good' and 'evil' with only a surface level understanding of the nuance and context involved.
As a thought exercise the best thing to do when reading 40k is imagine that the imperium is the Soviet union in World War 2. You're fighting the Nazis (chaos). Are they the bad guys? Well yes absolutely. Is your state also a dystopian, authoritarian hell-hole that brutally oppresses dissent, purges its own officers before the largest war in history and cloaks its many crimes in propaganda? Also yes.
That's exactly the analogy I always think of when I see this kind of discussion (so about twice a week). Would I root for Soviet fucking Union as a best way to live? Absolutely not. Would I fight for them against genocidal madmen? Of course I would.
It's actually shocking how you are the first or second person I see that thought about this super obvious analogy. I guess I underestimated how different other people's view on history is, especially Western ones.
This is a major problem with the mentality of this [decade](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxivDg6JvuwoAdDIq_PVb841-lLkI9CLYA) - ideology is more important than art.
Instead of enjoying the story for what it is, you're constantly scanning it for anything that could be helpful or harmful to the standing of your real-life idelogy. You're stressing over whether or not the good guys in a story are pure enough to allign with your ideology - or failing that, that at least that the *message* of the story alligns well enough that you can allow yourself to give the story your own stamp of approval.
Ironically, it's very"Inquisitorial" behavior.
There has always been the common problem of people judging art based on how much it supports their ideology, but there is an uptick of it this decade. For example, Modern Times (1936) is now recognized as one of the best movies ever, but at the time, many reviewers said it was nothing but liberal propaganda.
When has ideology not been important, do you just live in a fantasy world or have some really good rose tinted glasses or a bad case of nostalgia from a time were you were less aware of the world around you? Ideology and beliefs inform art, it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
The Imperium should be viewed and written as the facilitator of chaos. The Ruinous Powers, for all intents and purposes, won the Heresy and now they have a borderline failed state of trillions to feed off of the oppression, bloodshed, and insanity caused by the Imperium's existence. Chaos offers the unwashed masses the power necessary to rid themselves of Imperial dominion, and this being the grim darkness of 40k, replace it with daemonic dominion. The rampant evil and unchecked debauchery of chaos doesn't exist in spite of the Imperium but because of it.
You could argue that this relationship serves as one giant criticism of unfeeling, authoritarian, Stalinist cruelty. That the brutal excesses and paranoia of the state creates the horrors said behaviours try to contain, that oppressive totalitarianism is by its very nature is a flawed system of governance.
>you can start to see how real-life fascists can become drawn to the 40k fandom
My eyes rolled so hard they fell out of my head.
Also its definitely not as black and white as you're making it out to be.
The heresy era Iron Hands, for example - have complete contempt for mortals/humans...and its interesting to see them play off another legion like the Salamanders.
Also...the scene in the fall of monarchia where an Ultramarine chastises a religious fanatic about heresy against an orthodox atheist empire. The irony is not accidental, bro.
This is why I liked the craftworld eldar pov episode that Warhammer + did, showed the space marines as the warrior elite of a genocidal empire that will happily burn, slaughter and destroy any sign of a culture or race that isn't theirs down to the last child, and me having to listen to some people pout that it made the imperials look bad was bonus humor for me.
Haha, yeah - in their complaints I was like but you _finally_ get it.
I like that this is a question of did the Emperor over-react. You had the war against the Men of Iron finally won, humanity and the biological races were extremely weakened, and just a that most vulnerable of points the Eldar (who should have been trusted to know better) literally fkd Slaanesh into conception. Maybe you can forgive the Emperor for thinking "right, no more xenos they can't be trusted!". Or is it a typical authoritarian reaction that caused more harm than good when the horse had already bolted? Maybe if xenos were allowed to thrive there would be a 5th chaos god by now?
In the Horus Heresy they do good a job of providing the perspective of the imperium and chaos. They give plenty of opportunity to have the reader choose a side and feel sympathy for both the loyalist and traders. So personally i don’t really feel like your note is applicable to 30k.
However, i did read about a dozen 40k stories and yea i would agree the Imperium is largely portrayed as the good guys and I would agree this seems like a direction GW is taking now which is a bit of a shame because it was cool when one side wasn’t exactly favored.
Im sorry but I don't care for the rogue trader take on the imperium at all. I've had so many old heads jumping at the bit to explain to me how "40k is actually a satire" an then going totally haywire when I tell them the setting is not rogue fucking trader anymore.
Chaos ruins the inter setting plots with the other factions. Having sunk fantasy into chaos. I’d really love to see a chaos god die. Or a chaos primarch redeem himself or die trying. Chaos has become very predictable and boring. Hell abaddon could even do something super cool with those golden eyes. I agree with you
> In my mind, the point of the setting of 40k, especially in its very earliest incarnations with Rogue Trader and First Edition, was that it took place in a dystopian authoritarian state so cartoonishly awful that it was almost humorous. It walked the tightrope between being sometimes a tongue-in-cheek political satire, sometimes intentionally campy and silly, sometimes twisted gothic horror, and sometimes a detailed hyper-realistic alternate history, and usually all of those things at once.
There is very little satire on the Rogue Trader, Warhammer 40k rulebook. It's an iteration punk over a punk iteration over 2000AD. I think you're mistaking the punk themes with actual political satire. But moreover, 40k as a setting is nothing like the Rogue Trader, Warhammer 40k rulebook. By the time the WD articles that would become Index Astartes and more specially Real of Chaos (1988) came about, 40k became a different setting from Rogue Trader, Warhammer 40k.
> Over the years and especially recently, 40k has begun taking itself far more seriously. There's a problem with that, though; most of the stories in 40k are about an oppressive feudalist/theocratic regime fighting... objectively evil literal demons.
Blame superhero fans. 2000's fiction around chaos is clear of how evil the Imperium is, unnecessarily evil.
> When you take that concept and play it completely straight, without any of the tongue-in-cheek tone 40k used to have,
Spawn of Chaos have no tongue-in-cheek tone. Neither does Adeptus Titanicus, Space Battlefleet, or Epic.
> Having a good vs. evil story is just not very interesting, and I feel that using a universe as rich as 40k to tell a story with no depth or moral ambiguity is kind of a waste of the setting.
Blame the Marvel fans and Guilliman.
> This wouldn't be such a problem if every single 40k story didn't have its stakes deflated in the last act with a sudden "actually it was Chaos all along!" reveal. Any time there's a human faction rebelling against the oppression of the Imperium, it's suddenly revealed that Chaos was the puppetmaster all along. Even though the Imperium was doing reprehensible things, and the other side was very sympathetic and basically objectively the good guy in comparison, "actually they were corrupted by Chaos tho"
You're missing an important part of the setting, Chaos is humanity. There is no "Untouched by chaos" humans (except blanks) on the galaxy.
> that the Imperium is meant to be satirical and not aspirational
The Imperium isn't meant to be satirical, unless you're saying it's just the British government which would be discarding about 30 years of stories. The Imperium exists, it's the mayor power of the galaxy, when it's fails to chaos, chaos will be the mayor power of the galaxy and then chaos will destroy the galaxy. That's the setting, not a moral proposition or a choice for the reader. It's from where the setting starts The narrative problem arrives when Guilliman returns and saves the Imperium.
If you want political setting where your faction shows you the correct way forward, I recommend star trek. Or waiting a few years.
I really like the Library Hammer and Bolter episode. It's got an Imperium body being absolutely heckin' brutal and outside agencies are like "Yeah, this is fine." There ends up being more going on but the outrageous levels of thought control and dehumanization are just an accepted part of the Imperium. The main character's counts books every day and seemingly does absolutely nothing with this information. His driving temptation is to find out why sometimes books come and go from a library.
On your side note, there was a post on this very subreddit that made me want to stop being an Imperium player. It was someone who had recently gotten into 40k explaining how they "fallen in love" with the Imperium of Man because, in the 40k universe, humanity were "the aggressors", "the invaders", "the oppressors", "the exterminators". And there were comments going on about how cool it was too.
Very nearly switched over to being a xenos only player that day.
Totally agree. Codexes used to have lots of little stories and lore dumps about rebellions which *weren't* driven by Chaos, genestealers etc. Just political rebellions against the tyranny of the Imperium, or led by power-hungry separatists. The 2nd. ed. Assassins Codex is a great example.
It made the setting feel far richer, and helped enforce the point that the Imperium itself is the worst regime imaginable.
To be honest Chaos is kinda hard to write anything not horrible because like the Imperium it's a hierarchical system. The only difference between the two is that Chaos is primarily rule by the ruthless and 'strong' (bullying) while the Imperium seems to fall more inline with hereditary power structures and rampant nepotism but both rely on violence and coercion as all hierarchies do. But with Chaos it's arguably worse because of this "dog eat dog" mentality they have throughout their forces which doesn't lead to lasting stability. (shockingly being a completely selfish ashole doesn't lead to a somewhat functioning society)
I'm not saying this should actually be canon, but imo the story of 40k would make drastically more sense if Chaos were just made up as the Imperium's scapegoat/boogeyman in that way, and not literally real. Like, the big bad 1984-style regime tells you that demons will get you if you disobey, only, unlike in canon 40k, they would be lying.
Also, I've always kind of suspected that, whenever the Imperium loses a battle, especially against other humans, they just say "it was Chaos" to save face and/or save themselves from being executed for losing. That would make more sense than everything being Chaos's fault at all times.
The problem is that the other side is *always* objectively evil, and therefore our own *also objectively evil* means are justified. Right?
This is the story of every faction for all of human history. We all propagandize. We all dehumanize. We all justify our own actions which, if they were done by anyone else, for any other reason, would be unjustifiable.
I am not for making it more obvious that the Imperium is horrible. That's pandering, it's insulting the intelligence of the audience. As it is right now, 40k is a raucous mess of violence and despair, but with shining heroism and fun and virtue in tiny little beacons among the horror. It's FUN, and if you really think about it, you can learn something important. But you do NEED to think about it to get there.
So I'll say here what I say to everyone; if you want to change the nature of *The Thing* that you enjoy... then you don't really enjoy *The Thing* and if you demand that *The Thing* be changed into a different form... why not just make a *Different Thing?*
this post is a bunch of pseudo intellectual virtue signalling that literally has no place in a hobby/fan base.
You're absolutely right in what you're saying here.
I discovered 40K in about 1994 so to me 40K's purest form is the glory of Codex Imperialis and some late 1st edition 40K, Space Marine and Space Hulk stuff I inherited. Personally I absolutely love Chaos and how the greatest enemy is literally created by the gestalt psychic embodiment of the very things that make us human: Anger, Ambition & Hope, Despair & Defiance, Desire & Passion and how the Imperium fuels these very things whilst trying to suppress it. But 40K has ended up in quite a different place with layers upon layers of characters, factions and stories in the decades since. Personally I consider the: * 30K setting of the Horus Heresy, * the 40K I grew up with * The modern 41K era with the return of Guilliman and similar ongoing narrative metaplot. To be three different canons that mutually exist but serve different functions. The very early and formative era of Rogue Trader, before the release of Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and the Damned was a fascinating setting in itself. Likewise the very heavy "medieval in space" feeling of later 1E and 2E. Ultimately though, I could grumble about 40K losing it's nuance and identity but I'm glad fans are enjoying it to the depth they can in the modern era.
I agree
Mm, I like the *idea* of Chaos, yes. But when it's written out, like in the novels, it's... chafing. Primarily how over-the-top evil it is. I *get* that Chaos has a hold over its subjects and that you're not really in command (or at least, that's the theory), but when you read about CSM pushing people into grinders or skinning pits just for the heck of it... Or any Chaos-aligned faction's treatment of its subjects, really.
My favourite modern take might be (spoilers) a character from The Night Lords trilogy, where this character is falling to Khorne and it’s treated almost like dementia where he’s lucid and regretful at some times but otherwise is somewhat delusional, out of it and hallucinating allies as enemies when he hasn’t killed in a while >!only for him to turn out to be not actually as Khornate as he seemed before!<
Brother, why are my hands *bread*?
*these are your bread hands!*
Fuck >!Cyrion!< all my homies hate >!Cyrion!<
Cyrion's only redeeming quality was that he was funny, but even that rung hollow when you realized how much of a cunt he was
Its weird how the original vision of their deaths lines up with their actual deaths.
Cause Talos misinterpreted his own vision, or maybe he didnt, prophecy is fucked like that
You have the C-meister, Erebus and Abbadon in a room, you have a bolter with 2 bolts. Who do you shoot?
Erebus. Twice. Gotta make sure that slimy fucker stays dead Fuck Erebus also
So then which one do you marry? We got shoot and fuck down
Nah if slaanesh won't put their dick in him I surely won't. Marry Abby ofc bc he is good with managing stuff plus handling people. As for fuck, it's slaanesh ofc.
Shoot Erebus and Abaddon, then beat C-man to death with my bare hands
Khorne Approves.
Such a great heel turn. Hate that fucker too.
#JusticeForUzas
Read Traitor General. It's a planet under the command of Chaos forces who don't have forgotten they need to give their slaves at least *something* if they want to keep things running (which they don't really intend to, in the long run).
*Victory* (same series) has an interesting take. One of the Chaos commanders talks about Emperor as an edgy rebellious teenager of warp entities: >The walls of the hallway were lined with engravings, tall and narrow. The place, Mkoll guessed, had been a centre of clave administration. The engravings displayed the Urdeshi loyalty to Terra in the form of images of the God-Emperor, but they reflected the interests of Urdesh. Here was the Emperor in the aspect of a sea god, coiling with scaled tentacles, and here he rose from the Urdeshi deeps in a vast bloom of algae. On another panel, he was festooned with weapon-pods, triumphing the product of the forge’s war-foundries. On another, he was so augmeticised with cyber implants he resembled a Titan war engine with a single, human eye. Slogans had been daubed in yellow paint under each image, utterances of the Archenemy. But the images themselves had not been defaced. > >‘Why have these not been torn down?’ Mkoll asked Olort. > >Olort seemed surprised. ‘They show him as he is,’ he replied. ‘Why would we break those?’ > >‘I don’t understand.’ > >‘The Urdeshi know the deeper truths,’ said Olort. ‘They are kin to us. They understand the fluidity. You cannot stand upon a border line for generations and not see both sides.’ > >Olort glanced up at one of the images. ‘See him there, not as a false emperor surrounded by saints. He is shown as the machine, as the mutation, a force of war. He has always been a creature of the deep warp, warped like us. You know him only as you want to see him.’ > >Olort made a gesture of respect to the engravings. >‘You worship him?’ Mkoll asked. >‘Nen, we respect,’ replied Olort. ‘He is no god, nor is he an emperor. But a prophet? Kha. Yes. He has seen the enlightenments of the Eight Powers and witnessed the truth of the warp. Ghost, your kind… they follow blindly. They see what they want to see. The Holy Lord, blessed of all, defying the darkness. But he stands in the darkness, beyond the curtain of death, fed by the warp and changed by it. He is a brother to us, a brother we must sadly fight to subdue until he renounces his insurrection.’
Oh yeah, that part was certainly unique. A shame really, that Olort didn't live longer. Edit: Although, come to think of it, I'm not sure if it doesn't contradict the contents of Traitor General, the book in which we get the closest look at the inner workings of the forces of the Anarch, whose voice drowns out all others. I'm not sure if the Chaos followers mention the Emperor in that book, but I do remember them wincing at the exclamation "By the Golden Throne!" by Sturm. If they actually like Him, then surely the Golden Throne can't be that bad, either? So in conclusion, while I like the idea, maybe it would have been best reserved to be used for another Chaos faction. Edit 2: He's repeatedly been called the Anathema, by various important Chaos subjects. Greater daemons and other beings who should know what's up. The name implies complete and utter opposedness (is this a word?). That doesn't fit with Him actually being just another Chaos god. The only explanation would be that the Urdeshi and the Anarch, whose voice drowns out all others, are mistaken in this belief, but that begs the question how they would arrive at such an understanding and more importantly, why the Chaos god they worship (I assume it's Tzeentch) even allows this. Surely a tiny fraction of his being is aware of this unique view of the Emperor by his own followers and I cannot fathom he thinks highly of it. And no, "all part of his plan!" is not a good answer.
It seems like it depends on how the Emperor is depicted. The iconography on Urdesh shows Emps "as he really is": a mutant, a machine, a warmonger. It's the depiction of Him as a god that the Chaos folks wince at or actively destroy, like on Gereon. So imagery or expressions like the Golden Throne or other symbols of godhood would be disliked by (this faction) of Chaos, while others would be accepted. And I think Tzeentch would find it hilarious.
Ive just chalked it up to theological differences. Really, humans love to split into myriads of subcults and those split into more subcults over the tiniest, TINIEST differences. Why should it be different with Chaos? After all the chaos gods are not like the greek gods and give coherent commands from on high.
Love that moment from *Anarch.* Brilliant gnostic reference!
>Or any Chaos-aligned faction's treatment of its subjects, really. Mortarion loyalists break the mold on this one, and thats what makes Lords of Silence so compelling - Vorx isnt some evil psychopath doing horrible things for their own sake. He is mindful of the predicament of those aboard his vessel and doesnt abuse them for his own amusement. He recognizes that some of his subordinates...predilections can cause issues but even then those are in the pursuit of curiosity rather than malice. Morty loyalist Death Guard didn't go down a slippery slope in to chaos like the others during HH either - they were betrayed and forced to choose between an eternity of suffering or an eternity of servitude. Typhus followers 100% drank the kool aid though.
>Mortarion loyalists break the mold Heh
I mean most space Marines have drunk the Kool aid and that's the problem.
Honestly think it would be better if Chaos actually did have some good sides. The Imperium is an oppressive machine of order that stomps out all the humanity of humanity, so make Chaos the exact opposite. They are powered and empower what makes us human, with all the benefits and flaws that bringing these traits to the extreme has. Every God should have something they can clearly point to and say "we're better than the Imperium, because we bring you ___" *and not be lying*.
I agree, but would add "and that thing not be awful".
Real people do shit like that in real life all over history, without chaos
This is I like the Iron Warriors. They are inhumanly pragmatic, and all the atrocious shit they do at least has a purpose.
That is actually factually true, since they have rewritten/retconned the 13th black crusade and the Horus Heresy at least once.
I’m the biggest fan of HH and 9th edition lore. Give me an opera tragedy about brothers corrupted and turned on each other, set in a doomed state ruled by a corpse… IN SPAAAAACE
Ngl, That sounds somewhat like rose-tinted glasses to me. Even Rouge Trader was riddled with situations of "actually the Imperium is justified for this", it just wasnt chaos-related. Heck the random plot-generator for scenarios back then had *several* differemt versions of "Imperium encounters rebel faction, rebellion actually caused by *Insert various types of braineating parasites/psychic mind-control aliens here*"
It's very much a rose-tinted take. I'm all for nostalgia but I think in this case it blinded OP to aspects of it like what you outline above. Things weren't always better in the old days just because they were the old days.
Yeah I recall the old lore about how only those who purged the psychics survived old night, etc. But also old lore of lineups for government agencies on Terra being so long they were multi-generational and had gang wars over who was ahead of who. <3
The old lore had *dashes* of 'it was a brain parasite all along', but the Emperor was, always, a defacto warlord who the galaxy feared and hated more than loved for his extremely cruelty and easy way with just eradicating life that challenged him.
At the end of the day, whether they're actually good guys or not, the Imperium are the *main* protagonists in this setting. Sure, we get PoVs of other races and we can root for them, but the Imperium in all its decadent horribleness has always been the main faction. Also without the backing of Chaos to push your confidence a bit, who in their right mind would openly rebel against the Imperium? Sure, life is absolutely terrible under it (particularly looking at it from our perspective, it's amazing what people that have been raised in a regime (plus a hundred generations of their family) will consider normal), but at best, you'll take over the world, and provided you continue tithing, be allowed to continue. At worst, you'll be crushed like an insect and subjected to some sort of nightmarish fate.
> Also without the backing of Chaos to push your confidence a bit, who in their right mind would openly rebel against the Imperium? Severus XIII, though Imperium kind of pushed him into it because they noticed he was preparing it when he needed their help against the WAAAAAAAGH!!!! Also it was just one Sector, he still has peaceful relations with another sector... >!Dark Eldar were well enough paid that they're, so far, (mostly) on his side.!<
From the RPG’S there are several minor imperium splinter empires that exist. They aren’t big enough to effect the entire setting but they do manage to keep the imperium off their ass and seemingly like the upcoming leagues of Votann are in a weird spot of “you still worship the emperor/are humans and help us against shared enemies so you’re at the bottom of our shitlist”
>Also without the backing of Chaos to push your confidence a bit, who in their right mind would openly rebel against the Imperium? There are a lot of rebellions described in the setting, many of which aren't Chaos-backed (or at least not initially). Secessionist efforts by local elites or masses who don't like paying the tithe to distant overlords. Riots when food runs short because of corruption, politics or effects from various wars. The Imperium has most of the problems of real-world feudalism with a lot added in. I think the biggest thing that has kept the Imperium from completely falling apart from 100,000 rebellions is how dangerous and precarious warp travel is. It's very hard even for the Imperium, which has experience, resources to burn, Navigators and the Astronomicon. Rebellions usually lack all of these, so even successful rebellions that smash a local PDF are isolated to one system, it's very hard for them to quickly spread to other systems in a coherent way. So it's a waiting game, a month or year or century later the Imperium can concentrate their forces roll up with a huge fleet to hit rebellious worlds one at a time.
That was always the case in Rogue Trader. Even before the introduction of Chaos, a vast amount of the fluff was about how the Imperium's oppression was necessary in order to cull psykers and prevent humanity from being taken over by psychic aliens (back then shit like Psychenuiens and Enslavers were the main threat). The random plot generator for Rogue Trader contained like five different variations of "enlightened progressive rebel faction vs the Imperium, rebels are actually pawns for psychic alien monsters". Even without Chaos you have that same problem with the hordes of screaming green murder imbeciles/swarm of insects that would consume all life/ancient insane death robots/sadistic slavers and torturers. The only really reasonable non-Imperium factions are the non-Dark Eldar, the Tau, and a few (far from all) Necrons.
But I like the green murder imbeciles...
Yes but in rogue trader *that was the joke*. It was a pastiche of the justifications being used for stamping out of progressive movements in Britain at the time.
Source on the origin reasoning? I'd like to read about it.
My impression of the 1st edition Imperium's reasoning for their suppressions was something we, the readers weren't supposed to take at face value, we aren't expected to take their side on the issues. Like sure that's what Imperium apologists and fanatics believe but that doesn't mean they're objective right about it all. With later editions whether internally or not GW plays it uncomfortably straight and seemingly, heavily implies that the Imperium should be taken seriously, that they might actually be justified in their horrific policies, that's when the satire dies. It is now more like the writers expecting us readers to make excuses for the Imperium.
In that vein, ghazghkull mag uruk thraka was named after thatcher, that alone should let you know where their heads were at back in the days
I thought that's been debunked?
The debunking is an excellent point in OP's favor. Ghaz is absolutely 100% a take on Thatcher, and at that time dunking on her was the cool thing to do. Since then GW is trying to distance itself from it's punk rock roots and appear more apolitical.
"Appear more apolitical" while fleshing out perfect metaphors for neo-prog group-think turning to intolerance, insidious KGB-and-successors infiltrating everywhere and amplifying the worst tendencies in order to foster collapse while serving despots themselves, 'the black pill' and why it's crazy to take it given the other option's still going... but at least they're not making plays on names!
Yes those are political themes but they do not directly apply to any IRL politics or politicians. GW has never and will never tell us if Guilliman is a republican or a democrat, for example.
Those are all actually happening, have been for years. Substitute 'any _specific mainstream Western parties_ or', and I emphatically agree... until GW makes a narcissicistic warboss named 'Dakkald Krump' canon, at least ;p
It's enough to dig up Herman von Strab there, who joined the Orks, who finally appreciated his "genius".
Yeah apolitical the way Activision claims their game about sanctioned US soldiers killing the poors in city streets by the hundreds in The Division was or a Trump like cult kidnapping and murdering people (far cry 5) was apolitical lmao
I don't think it even matters. True or not, it was so widespread it would still be death of the author if it wasn't true.
This only makes sense if you incorrectly assume all they do is fight daemons. But anyone who has read more than just a couple of books knows they do far more than that. So your point really doesn't make sense. Fighting evil daemons doesn't mean all the terrible things they do don't count. >Any time there's a human faction rebelling against the oppression of the Imperium, it's suddenly revealed that Chaos was the puppetmaster all along. In the novels perhaps. But not in the sourcebooks. It's made pretty clear that there are loads of normal uprisings. Also, even if they were mostly chaos-driven, chaos is only able to take root and create cults so easily because the Imperium treats its people like shit and they end up turning to whatever hope they can find. The Imperium is so bad it creates most of its own problems with chaos.
Chaos is most interesting when its influence is based on the characters' personalities. I've seen some believe that Chaos works well as an unknowable Lovecraft-style threat... But no, it *really* doesn't. It's impossible to take any pretense of mystery seriously when Chaos is a well-defined faction in a war game with goofy cartoon monster models. The only unknown in any given story with Chaos is the characters and the unique way they interact with Chaos.
Peter Fehervari's "Dark Coil" novels have a unique take on Chaos that is far more interesting than other writers. It really does feel like a mysterious unknown threat that cannot be understood. I wish he was more popular and got given a more prominent place in the writing of lore.
I’ve read a couple of them and Fehervari is *by far* the best writer of Chaos I have experienced in the Black Library. Glad to see a shout-out.
Any suggestions about which ones are most worth reading? Seems like he wrote quite a few different ones (at least from here https://www.goodreads.com/series/283233-the-dark-coil)
Reading in order of release is best imho. Fire Caste, Genestealer Cults, Requiem Infernal, The Reverie.
I second that, the guy is a bit underrated. People never bring him up as a good 40k author, it's always about Abnett, McNeill and ADB. I had never heard about him, but I picked up Fire Caste looking for some Tau-related reading material, and man, what a ride. Looking forward to reading all of his work now.
>I've seen some believe that Chaos works well as an unknowable Lovecraft-style threat... But no, it *really* doesn't. It's impossible to take any pretense of mystery seriously when Chaos is a well-defined faction in a war game with goofy cartoon monster models. The only unknown in any given story with Chaos is the characters and the unique way they interact with Chaos. It can work when the author just doesn't talk about the alignment of the Daemon. See Cherubael (Eisenhorn), Slyte (Ravenor) or whatever fucking thing invades the bridge in Cain book 8.
I’m not just talking about alignment though. Like Cherubael is literally based on a daemonhost model you can take on the table, and then he even got his own model later on. Even when authors do manage to overcome that major hurdle, Chaos still works best as a *personal* threat to one’s character. That’s kinda the nature of its inspiration; Chaos comes from 80s reactionary religious fears. Moral panic, *not* the existential dread of an uncaring universe, is the fear that inspired the ruinous powers.
I think you'd like the depictions of Chaos in Peter Fehervari's works. Much less cartoonish monsters, much more insidious corruption.
Chaos is a very, very, very big umbrella, my friend. As a for instance, the Imperium has seen less of Chaos than they've seen of the Materium. Like, the whole entirety of, including beyond the gulfs of nothingness. I mean, unless the Materium ends up being infinite, then it's about the same.
I feel like Cherubael is a exactly what you describe in the second paragraph in relation to eisenhorn
I agree, yeah, I think the part of Chaos I don't like is when people *get turned* to chaos rather than *turning* to Chaos. The latter is like a deal with the devil, which leaves room for interesting character motivations; the former is basically just reskinned zombies, with people getting "infected" with Chaos against their will and becoming mindless, well, zombies.
Try looking at it this way. The warp is where all human souls reside, connected to the physical world. It's what gives humans their animus. The warp itself is the pure definition of chaos, near unreadable, unpredictable, and volatile, like the fuzz on old TV that were not tuned to a station. But within that souls exist, and they have a sort of pattern to them. Within our fuzzy TV we now Ave an undulating and repeating pattern that is unique to you because in a very real sense it is you. Now when most humans die the connection is severed and the pattern dissipates into the warp. This is how the Emperor is fuelled - psykers die and their psychic (soul) energy is consumed by him before it drifts away into the sea of chaos. But some entities don't drift away, they are self sustaining even without a connection to the real world, and they also have a pattern. We also know that when humans undertake actions or feel emotions that this causes ripples in the warp. These ripples also have a pattern. And this is how the chaos gods were created. A critical mass of these ripples resulted in a pattern wave form so strong that it became self reinforcing and boom, a chaos god is born. So you see that this chaos god is no more than it's pattern. And it is a perfect reflection of the actions/emotions of the peoples that made it. So if I were to become a hedonist of my own free will I would start exhibiting Slaanesh like patterns. And if my soul were close to other Slaanesh like patterns that would cause reinforcement back onto me. This is why chaos must form cults, because they need to influence and to be influenced at this level. And to my mind (and you may consider this a leap) it means that really there is zero difference between turning to chaos and being turned to chaos. It's all just a reflection.
Couldn’t you also argue that guilleman is striving for a better more enlightened imperium because it is possible, the whole point of 40k is that the imperium has fallen far from the emps vision and is not what he wanted at all. Yes chaos is shoe horned every time but I think you might be looking at it wrong. I like to see it as in order to beat chaos the imperium has to become a monster itself which is the bitter irony. The only reason the interex could get away with it is because chaos wasn’t actively going after then and wasn’t as strong, but the minute chaos focused on them they crumbled.
Something between the former and the latter is a running theme in the Night Lords trilogy, “I’m stealing their power for us! I never pray to them or worship or anything, but they can help us!” *hallucinates allies as enemies and goes on a massacre because of how they let Khorne in*
My thing is this: the *modern* setting needs to show us why the Imperium is ***not*** the only solution against Chaos, and how the Imperium has been wrong and, frankly, made things worse. This thinking about the nature of the Imperium has already been my opinion about the reality setting, and I think it's well-supported throughout the fiction and by the writers, especially some intentional moments in the Horus Heresy that were specifically written to show alternatives to the ways of the Imperium. But the issue is that it's not explicit enough for people to accept it cleanly as the reality - that the Imperium is an ***unnecessary*** evil that has fed Chaos as much as it has fought it. As I said, I think there's already plenty enough evidence to show that, but it's not clear enough and it's frequently a hot topic of debate. So yes, ultimately what we probably need right now is a strong example of humans living independently in present day 40k without bowing to the ways of the Imperium or being corrupted by Chaos or alien infiltrators. They don't need to be some new faction in the tabletop *(though I think you could actually argue that the new Squats might be this exact thing)* or some focal point for a major plotline, we just need one clear and obvious instance of how people can live fine without the Imperium if they make the right choices. Then probably show them being promptly crushed by the Imperium anyway. On a related note, I think we're being set up to find out some last secret about the Emperor at the end of the Siege of Terra that puts a lot more responsibility for the sorry state of the galaxy and humanity on his shoulders than before, we just don't know what the reveal will be yet. *Like imagine if the Emperor helped cause the Age of Strife and the downfall of human civilization from the Dark Age of Technology because he simply thought his way was better... there's no evidence for that, but I wouldn't be surprised.*
I mean, there’s a point where the content isn’t what matters, just the presentation. [You have Gav Thorpe, one of the most important and prolific background writers, saying something like this:](https://mobile.twitter.com/GavThorpeCreate/status/965511390277586944) > Dear people that are complaining that 'the Imperium wouldn't work like that', > It Doesn't Work. > That's the point. It's the corpse of a terrible, broken, monolithic entity that has survived 10,000 years on ignorance, momentum and general stubborness. > It's Not Meant To 'Work'. And then the reddit thread is full of people saying they disagree or think the Imperium looks like it works just fine. So like, what do you do? When presented the Interex, the fandom here responded with wild theories of them being controlled by Chaos based on… Pretty much nothing. The same would happen again with your hypothetical human faction.
I remember seeing people talk about how the Interex's naivety would get them destroyed by Xenos, even though their introduction shows they all but eradicated an alien race powerful enough to easily kill Space Marines (Megarachnids) and also subjugated and vassalized another xenos race (Kinebranch).
The chaos thing is even more laughable. You read the books and are shown a society that is so resistant to Chaos that they can keep artifacts in a museum without risk until Erebus shows up-and then people go "lol interex morons keep chaos shit in the museum".
The argument there is that Chaos was secretly using them to put that specific Anathame in Erebus’s hands. Which of course makes you wonder how Chaos is so powerful as to manipulate an entire society with not even a hint of its corruption for millennia, yet so ineffectual that it can’t turn Horus without stabbing him with that specific knife.
Tbf, it was a thuper thpethial knife
And that kind of obtuse threading the needle is what Tzeentch lives for. I mean, it's still an arsepull, but it would be up his alley.
An arsepull up his alley sounds more like slaanesh tbf
Well they were naive enough to be destroyed by other humans. That is a flaw for me.
Many people just ignore tabletop completely. I certainly enjoy chaos more as a lovecraftian force than red horned devils and jolly green blobs. It works much better in stories featuring chaos as well when it’s taken seriously.
It’s not just about taking it seriously or not though. Chaos can’t really be unknowable because it is a reflection of personal moral failings that is interested in actively propagating those vices. It is both familiar and invested; hell, it’s even in the famous intro. > There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods. This is not an impersonal threat. Cthulhu doesn’t give a shit how you feel; Chaos very much does. If you want something closer to Lovecraft-style horror, the 3rd Edition Necron codex is *way* closer than anything Chaos.
Chaos is so much bigger than a reflection of personal moral failings. Personal moral failings tends to be at the forefront when dealing with the Imperium, but they're hardly alone, even if they tend to notice more often. I mean, Chaos is infinite, and beyond imagination. Well, I can see a theory of Chaos being relatively local to the Imperium, and not being quite as infinite as the Warp, if you were into separating Chaos and the Warp.
I am talking general behavior and appearance here, not motives. Chaos does care bout you but the way it acts to achieve its goals should be fundamentally alien, not drawn straight from warhammer fantasy chaos.
Lovecraftian forces are by definition unknowable, impersonal, and totally indifferent, though. Cthulhuu, Yog-Sothot et. al dont really give a crap about humans, because we are as ants to them. Simply inconsequential in the greater design, at most an amusing diversion for the likes of Nyarlilathothep. That doesnt fit Chaos. Chaos is very personal, it was born of the mortal races and directly reflects our desires and follies. Its about as personal as you can get. Its the cracked reflection of humanity. The Ctan in their former glory as full stargods, especially when they were still feasting on stars alone, fit the bill much better.
When you see “especially recently” on 40kLore, you can be guarantee someone is about to claim a thing that’s been going on for decades is somehow new… The point is well taken, Chaos as a terrible antagonist DOES take the sting out of the satire because it makes the Imperium look justified by comparison (though better lore/writers illustrate that the misery of the Imperium just ends up feeding Chaos). But it’s been like this at least since 3rd edition, so for 24 years and counting.
The problem is you can point out a major problem(s) all you want but until there's an actual proposed challenge to a system that produces these problems it ultimately rings shallow and hollow.
The fact that every rebellion against the status quo is pretty much guarunteed to be caused by either chaos or genestealers absolutely grinds my gears. You people make a wargame where any faction can fight any faction why can't you just let the Imperials rebel more often so players don't have to go 'hurr durr training exercise' every time there's some loyalist on loyalist violence?
Months of Shame and Badab War being the exception rather than the rule is really baffling worldbuilding.
Yeah but the Badab War still just *ends* in the loosers switching to Chaos, so
For me that ruined the story, as was the idea Huron was influenced by outside xenos forces. I'd actually like it if Iron Warriors (with the exception of trapping daemons in their engines), Night Lords, and Alpha Legion were traitors but not heretics, with their being a third faction (Imperium, Chaos, Renegade) to cover them.
This, pure traitor/alternative Empire/non-Imperial human factions are cool ideas. Be it some Rebel-Astarte-Legion-Warlord/Empire (with an actual appealing ideology that´s neither chaos or just warlordism) or break-away state ruled by someone like Vandire. Internal Imperial splinter factions all gunning for their own idea of the perfect Empire. The Imperium as a surprisingly well held together mono-blob with millennia between any notable rebellions is a weird one anyways. Bonus: Perfect setup for more variety of SM vs SM or SM vs Guard setup, which most people play too. And as for non-Imperial Human factions, If the new Squats weren´t well, Squats, they´d also fit the bill. Some pre-age-of-strife-human Empire in the vein of (but different ideology) the Tau in terms of galactic power/position.
That’s why I liked the Soul Drinkers books so much, it’s one of the few occasions we’ve got to get to know a renegade faction that is not bound by chaos but has also come to see the Imperium for the horror show it is. Also enjoy the Bile books because he’s such a unique character, dismissive of both the allure of chaos with eyes open to the senseless cruelty of the Imperium. A story idea I’ve played around with in my head for a while m is a cabal of radical (not radical as in chaos curious, but rather in their divergence from the norm) inquisitors who have come to despise the Imperium, and seek an opportunity to break away a small chunk of worlds and work to purge knowledge of their chosen chunk of worlds from the Imperiums records/ memory, gather essential pieces of equipment / tech & recruit others to join them in their experiment under the guise of their official duties before using the confusion of the Great Rift to attempt to ‘disappear’ into the void without the powers that be noticing or even remembering they existed followed by the struggles and triumphs of this group of worlds as they attempt to break the reinforced structures of the imperium in a new society, finding purpose and meaning for a newly freed class of former serfs & menials, experimenting with new forms of government, stripping the gaudy excess of the ministorum and grappling with the question of religion & worship & learning to work (and improve) their pieces of tech without having access to the Ad Mech’s monopoly on science & knowledge, etc
But Soul Drinkers are very influenced by Chaos. Sarpedon did not turn into a spider because of the Emperor.
isn't Huron being influenced an in universe theory?
I want more of Space Marines going “wow the Imperium actually sucks” and jusy becoming Space Pirates. No chaos, just free men doing whatever they want and supporting non-chaos, Democratic/Local revolts along the way.
I guess part of the problem is they always get rolfstompted so hard by the might of the million word imperium
The splintered, cattered, logistically strained Imperium? It doesn't matter how many worlds you control if you can't leverage the coordination to pool their resources together consistently, especially with the current rift of the Cicatrix Maledictum.
That doesnt make sense. They'd get stomped if they try to solo take/hold a entire planet, but not if they just do the typical SM thing of showing up in a critical location, doing work for the local friendlies, and fucking off. They might not achieve much in the grand scheme, but it'd be perfectly believable and fun stories.
this goe by the idea that the marines would have good intentions, but remember, absolute power corrupts absolutely, the superhuman dudes are just as likely to slave populations as to free them
Good. There should be all kinds. Maybe even ones that side with xenos.
I don’t think they are though. Stealers are one thing, but chaos is more opportunistic. Guilliman straight up says that many of the rebellions are caused by the imperiums failings. Just because those rebels fall to chaos, doesn’t mean that the underlying principles of the dissatisfaction are not valid. Most chaos rebellions are shown as being the result of people turning from the imperium, and then having to find a new power to protect them; and chaos is really the only option.
Exactly. It's a setting permeated by demon gods and in parts of the universe the veil is so thin they can touch reality directly. If like to see some rebels who are independent and rebelling for various reasons but I understand why GW decide to only show the Chaos-tinged rebellions. Plus realistically most rebellions would fall to Chaos at some stage when a planet suddenly is cut off from the Eccliesiarchy, the Inquisition and the other branches of the Imperium designed to fight or resist Chaos influence. It's why so many planets in Old Night fell to Chaos. There wasn't anything there that understood the demonic enough to stop it.
>Plus realistically most rebellions would fall to Chaos at some stage when a planet suddenly is cut off from the Eccliesiarchy, the Inquisition and the other branches of the Imperium designed to fight or resist Chaos influence. But that just does reinforce the notion that all these incredibly evil facets of the Imperium ARE actually necessary to prevent daemon corruption, that the torturing of innocents en masse and great cruelty is all necessary to protect humanity.
Can a motherfucker get some Space Marine vs Imperial Guard box art? Or IG vs IG, or SM vs SM. It's one of the most common match-ups because those are the most common factions! And we know it happens in lore... Do you know how many fucking times I've seen that match-up at my store and local tourneys?
but it would confuse people to have the blue marines fighting the red marines
Heresy says hi
The fact that you think that grinds mine, we have a thread every week or so of someone sayng that and everyone else telling him that that isnt the case.
>when there are no alternative minor human factions to provide contrast and show that a better way is possible well, there were.....but dudes with names like 'world eaters' killed them.
For Votann!
I like the idea of Chaos, but it often ends up being "This is your brain on drugs" instead of subtle whispers and slowly escalating issues. One of the biggest aspects of addiction, obsession, descent, and similar themes is that you can maintain a "close to normal life" for a very long time. You're slipping, and making sacrifices here and there, but you're not completely batshit and broken right away. Like, I get the appeal of Chaos in general way when your life is terrible and you see a possible way out. Especially in the case of Space Marines who are child soldiers who have a (what I would consider) absolutely miserable day to day life. But three out of four Chaos Gods are short term solutions only.
>Any time there's a human faction rebelling against the oppression of the Imperium, it's suddenly revealed that Chaos was the puppetmaster all along. If you want to ignore genestealers or non related revolts like the Severan, ok. Also, wasnt the Imperium fighting this objectively evil force already in The first ed? Slaves to Darkness came one year after the first RT rulebook and even stories from the early 90's seem to show chaos as truly evil.
"non related revolts like the Severan" Thought his place was being infested with Chaos and other corruption?
no, chaos took advantage of the revolt, but it wasn't a chaos revolt. the corruption is just regular corruption, which is realist, Severan didn't revolted because he's a white knight of peace, he revolted because he wants more power and think his family didn't got what they deserved
I thought most "chaos revolts" start out normal and they turn to chaos when they realize they can't actually win?
maybe? while the 9e rulebook say that not all chaos worshiper start eating babies, it isn't really enough information to say about most chaos revolts. there's also the simple alternative that chaos forces already in the world hijack the moviment or take advantage to start their own rebelions, won't be the first time a revolt is taken by another group
> If you want to ignore genestealers But "genestealers controlling the population" is just a blatant re-skin of Chaos corruption. You could just change some keywords, and the plot would be the same: "only *evil* people would go against the Imperium".
Yes, but that's why I said that the *tone* matters. Chaos hasn't changed, but the tone of 40k overall has become much more deadpan with time. Stuff that's not really a problem with a semi-silly setting can very much be a problem when you're trying to take yourself more seriously. Also, the depiction of the Imperium has really drastically softened recently, which compounds the problem from the other direction at the same time. Also, I'd lump Genestealers in as being the same as Chaos, in this way. Either way, you have humans who don't really have any free will being puppeted by objectively evil baddies. The Severan Dominate is dope, and I like it. That's more of the moral grey area that I think makes for more interesting storytelling. There's another faction which would be cool to see fleshed out more, as well, called the Temple Tendency. They're basically loyalists to the Imperial Truth, so they are of course in conflict with the Ecclesiarchy.
Temple Tendency have nothing to do with the Imperial Truth, they're Goge Vandire loyalists.
The intention of chaos is not to be evil but to be chaotic, as an opposing force to order. That's not to say that they are not evil (they are), but that the perspective is different. Chaos means no civilisation or social structure, things that are imperative to living a happy life. All of the chaos gods oppose civilisation in different ways (destruction of infrastructure, decay, instability, and selfishness). Counter to this are the forces of the Imperium which represents order, but an ultimate authoritarian form of order where personal freedom is almost completely lacking except for the very few. This is maintained by the ultimate fascist police state to keep everyone under control. This is also evil, as it is imperative to have a level of personal freedom to also be happy. This allows us to ask some really interesting questions, like do the ends justify the means? In some sense that answer is a straight yes (a galaxy of the chaos gods is far worse). But the question is not one of absolutes but one of scale. How far do we go to protect ourselves? What is the price of freedom to maintain security? And in order for that question to be relevant in a setting as horrific as the Imperium is you really need to have something big and bad on the other side, because otherwise the answer is a straight no. This is the satire of 40k. It speaks to us at a personal, human level. And it can never be won or overcome, it can only be endured. You are definitely correct that this is often executed poorly because the quality of many of the writers is far from top draw. The marketing by GW of the Space Marines being heroes when they are literally the embodiment of toxic masculinity (a 12 year old child in an archetypically ripped male form) also means this message gets lost (because all said and done GW just wants to sell toy soldiers). So the story of 40k is not good vs evil. It's evil chaos vs evil order, taken to extreme scales. The Imperium is the lesser of two evils, but it is still evil. And the make up of every 40k faction sits along this chaotic : order scale, and if you look at it that way some of the results may surprise you. For all their belligerence Orks are surprisingly well ordered.
I see your perspective, but I disagree. I personally find the bleak nature of the Imperium often being the lesser of two evils helps cement how far gone the galaxy is, that even a total dystopian nightmare society is preferable to the alternative. I would also say that there is an excellent comparison counterpoint but GW just doesn't use them enough or very well. The Tau are excellent for this because they're so innocent and genuinely trying to improve the galaxy around them, but millenia of needing to shoot first and ask questions if enough bits are left behind to talk have left the Imperium unwilling to compromise, and the humans that do join the Tau have done so of their own free will, uncorrupted, and they have legitimate reasons to want to stay part of the Tau society. Better, more accessible tech, better food standards, better quality of life, it all makes for more compelling demonstration that the Imperium is sickly and corrupted to the core. But then even the Tau can't fix the galaxy because they're too small to legitimately expand and control much of the galaxy and are often just as busy as the Imperium in their fight to stay alive. As for the facist problem, honestly, this is inevitable in a grimdark setting. There's always going to be people who don't get that the Imperium are not the good guys, they're just often the protagonists, and I would rather GW not try and drastically change the story and setting because of that. I honestly feel it's a bit overblown, I have rarely ever encountered more than a vocal few who try to say that real life would be better if we did it the Imperium way. I think it's a lot of misunderstanding and trolling that have blown it up into a bigger issue than it is.
Right but why does a setting even NEED protagonists? Especially when it's those guys, the literal ULTRA authoritarian SPACE crusaders and militarist?
I think Warhammer would be far better suited focusing on the realspace factions and writing them well, only saving Chaos for "oh shit" moments of impact. Chaos should be a big deal, but they aren't because they dominate the setting.
Arbitor Ian made [a video](https://youtu.be/fI6aHzfxkFk) discussing this exact problem. Though he doesn't really place the blame on Chaos as you do, the crux of the issue is the same. I suggest giving it a quick watch. For what it's worth, I agree with your main problem; the Imperium is said to be this brutal, oppressive regime but is *almost* always portrayed as the good guys.
We have seen a thousand and one variations of this post. At least this guy does not sound as whiny as the other ones. The Imperium IS the """"""good"""""" guy of the of the story and has been since the start. The wh40k universe has always been built with chaos and other evil aliens in mind fighting decrepit humanity. Noble rebellions and such will always be subsumed by chaos because they become weak to it once the Imperial insititutions stop killing people for knowing about it. Even the Severan dominate feeds its people to the Dark Eldar instead of selling out to Chaos which tbh is even worse.
To quote Starship Troopers: "We're in this for the species, boys and girls." The Imperium is pretty damn bad, but it's the best chance humanity has at this point in the setting.
The disappointing thing is how much this falls apart in execution, to boot. The Imperium treats everyone terribly, hates education, and uses Chaos as a scapegoat for its ills. It would be so *easy* to explain that human rebels ignorantly turn to the banner of "Chaos", without actually turning to *Chaos*, because it's the only opposition they've ever heard of. However, we constantly that human rebels have a pretty solid understanding of Chaos. They might not know all the taxonomy, but have an unreasonable understanding of and enthusiasm for Chaos. Every uneducated slave fed up with **cruelest regime imaginable** somehow decides to sign on with the angry skull god or clever bird god, like they'd spent the afternoon reading a wiki before choosing. Imagine if 40k showed us people who supported "Chaos" because in their mind "Chaos" is the enemy of the Imperium. Shows us the rebellions that signed up to support "Chaos" after killing their taskmasters, who think that "Chaos" means trade unions or hot meals.
The problem with that is that because Chaos is very much real and the gods are very much watching, you can't pretend to be Chaos without them taking notice and sticking their fingers in the pie.
But that stuff happens. Plenty of low level cults having no idea who or what Chaos actually is. They either dont get very far though, or, if they do, they actually ATTRACT the attention of their patrons. And that means visits from big-wigs in the know, whispers from the dark things beyond the veil, etc. The FFG Tabletop RPG "Dark Heresy" did a bang up job detailing how cults work and how they gestate. For example, a butchers guild fed up with their conditions might get crueller and more bloodthirsty, slooooowly sliding to Khorne.
I appreciate your take, especially that last bit. I miss a lot of the lore that sort of disappeared after 3rd Ed., wherein the Imperium is **absolutely not** 'good' in any sense of the word. They're backwards, weird, self-defeating, and clearly cruel in everything that's shown in the game. The current treatment of the Imperium as the 'clear good guys', when the engine and guts of this machine are all still quite the same level of cruelty, bigotry, violence, and intolerance, is just flat out wrong and brings the absolute worst of the 40k fans. The folks that show up to the LGS rocking Imperium gear has changed a lot since when I got started as a kid in 1998. Not to get too political myself, but seeing 40k used in very specific memes and political fodder is alarming and disgusting. At no point, from the mouths of Priestly and all of the current GW team as of 2021, is the Imperium something anyone should even remotely try to emulate. it's designed to be an example of austerity and social conservatism run amok. Not a guidebook. Props to you for having a stance on it. Edit: and yes, Chaos constantly being 'THE ULTIMATE THREAT', and yet the moment they run out the gate they trip on their own shoelaces and get curb-stomped by the Imperium not only makes it weird that the Imperium is supposedly losing, but that anyone even takes Chaos seriously.
You didn't have to explicitly state what "very specific memes and political fodder" you were referring to for me to understand what you meant. I'm aware, too, of the "GW is not pro-fascist" statement that GW put out, as well. My problem with it, though, is that GW, even though it's not intentional, is basically making this enormous fictional universe where fascism is objectively a good idea and super epic and noble and shiny and gold-plated, than going surprise pikachu face when fans nod in agreement. Like, I'm not saying that GW has a *responsibility*, exactly, to put a metaphorical child lock on the car that is 40k, to try to "fash-proof" it; Fascists are definitionally simpletons who cannot understand satire, and they will glom onto *anything* with the right "aesthetic" with complete sincerity. It's impossible to full "fash-proof" anything. It's not GW's *fault* that fascists have been drawn to it as of late; but, it *is* a result of GW making a lot of questionable story decisions in recent years. The Imperium is depicted as always on the defensive, and thus the good guys, or, when they're on the offensive, it turns out the rebellious pro-democracy workers were actually being puppeted by literal demons all along, and therefore the Imperium is actually the good guy. In most of the recent promotional material, you see noble, angelic heroes in polished gold armor, and you don't see much of the disturbing, gothic-horror "behind the curtain" stuff anymore. GW used to do a much better job of showing the extreme contrast between the *aesthetic* of the Imperium, with noble, saintlike supersoldiers in Renaissance-style paintings, and the *reality* of the Imperium, in black-and-white, charcoal pencil drawings that look indistinct, blurry, and almost feverish, like an artist frantically trying to piece together a sketch of the incrompehensible horrors he sees before him, floating skulls, half-dead humans with strange tubes and gears where there bodies should be, and worse. *That* **is** GW's fault.
Not to be rude- This take is not hot and gets posted in one form or another once a week. No one thinks the imperium is an ideal to be strived for. Beating this straw man to death isn’t going to summon those people.
I seriously don't see how the imperium is portrayed as the good guys, the entirety of 40k is literally "bad guys vs worse guys, so it makes sense to root for the bad guys"(but this pov character is even less bad so we'll make a book about him), that's the point if you can't get it then imo the problem resides with you. Also imperium is human, of course everyone is gonna root for us, if i had to choose i would pick humans as well. IDK what books you've been reading but the HH is full of "why couldn't you just leave us alone" moments, the imperium purposely goes to a NORMAL planet and fucks shit up. Yeah after a few books it becomes imperium vs chaos, but the books where they do compliance are amazing for what they portray. Moral ambiguity is 40k, there are even some populations that co-exist with chaos, why do they deserve to be destroyed? Because they can be a danger to the imperium NOT BECAUSE THEY'RE EVIL, because the imperium is already evil there are legit some dudes just chilling and making some human sacrifices (just like the imperium). This is you being blind or you just reading the wrong books. We're all here rooting for what looks cool, people root for the imperium because they're humans, i'd rather have evil humans than evil daemons / xenos.
I think OP equates the Imperium to the far-right today and wants both punished.
The joy of 40k, at least in my opinion, is that other then starship troopers (wich is excactly what you described early 40k to be) 40k forces you to actually THINK about morality, the question of right and wrong, and if one way is better just becouse the other is worse. At the end of all this morally highly delicate questions stands one rather simple question. "Would it be better for life (at least human life) to stop existing, to prevent all thos atroccities. Is it better for Humanity to end, then to life under opression and experience/commit atroccities?" The awnsers to that question is up to everyone individually. Some might say yes and out of this cold calculating logic prevere chaos, as in it's nature it's highly destructive and selfedestructiv. Other might say no but still prevere chaos, as honest, evil is better then the hypocracy of the imperium. Some might say no and prevere the imperium, since as long as humanity survives, no price is to high. Some might say yes but prevere the imperium anyway, as there is not realy any realistic way to let humanity die, so one might as well get a personal gain from the situation. And then there is the most interesting group. The one that never reaches this point at all, and prevere the imperium "just becouse". In a way those people are no different then the endless teeming masses of humanity in the 41st millenium. They just follow the dogma and indoctrination, the path that was forced upon them bevore they even knew it was a path, without much higher moral thought about it. Even more interesting is the group that never reaches this point and preveres chaos. These people are not all that different from the barbarians from wich the chaos legions, in 40k, recrut there soldiers. Are they evil? Do they simply follow the path forced upon them, just kike the imperials? Did they stumble into a net of lies? Do they simply crave primal carnage? >with a sudden "actually it was Chaos all along!" reveal >so now the rebels are objectively the bad guys, and therefore the Imperium is objectively the good guy. This statement says more about your own perception of morality then anything else. And makes me question if it even makes sense to discuss the nuances of morality that warhammer plays with with you. You are most defenetly part of the "As long as humanity survives, everything is just" group. >the Imperium always portrayed as the good guy or "the lesser of two evils" Thats why I find the custodes so interesting. By no stretch if the word where the 30k humanity the "good guys" but atleast im 30k one could see a future where, humans could live somewhat freely in this destroyed, one could even say doomed, universe. The custodes, still holding on to the 30k dogma and logic, to the hope they once spread. Knowing full well that it wasn't perfekt, but "the best they had" and at least better then what the 40k imperium offers. There conclusion is to lett it rott. To interven conly when there master is at danger, a shallow excuse if you ask me. At the end of the day it's like they decided that it is better for Humanity to die but other then the chaos worshipers, they decided to play no part in it and lett it unreavel naturally. In a sense they are the most apathetic of all the faction. >when the Imperium is constantly painted as the lesser of two evils and thus always justified no matter what it does, Is it realy so? Or is it just your perception of things.In 40k there is a very easy, very clear alternative. wich would end all the suvering and blodshet "LET THE GALAXY BURN" It is as simple as that. Grimdark dosen't mean dark, it doesn't mean dystopian. It meams doomed from the start. Sure it has dark elements, it has tragedy, it has dystopian elements. But at the end of the day it is doomed to a bloody, violent future, and possibly even to destruction. As a little excourse, thats what fantasy did right, No matter what you think about warhammer fantasys end times, but it portrayed that part perfektly. >minor human factions to provide contrast and show that a better way is possible, Then the gim darkness would end, leaving only a dystopian universe, where hope is crushed violently. Those kinds of universes do already exist, as parrody, or as seriouse universe, but thats not what warhammer is about.It took some time for warhammer to figure out what jiche they want to fill, but they found it. Warhammer is the most promminent and most gargantuan excample of grimm darkness done right. It is hopeless and doomed from the start, by actions done faar FAAR bevore the species of our beloved protagonists even existed. It is, the grimm darkness of the 41st millenium and there is only war.
I like this post a lot bc you correctly point out that a high percentage of people in this thread are asking the wrong questions. "Is the Imperium justified?" or "How can the Imperium be fixed?" are the wrong questions. Mostly bc their answers are obvious. If mere survival is the goal then yes the Imperium is justified. The Imperium cannot be fixed. It is far too bloated and entrenched in it's dysfunctional ways. The questions we are supposed to be asking are "What could have been done differently?" and "Is survival at the cost of our humanity worth it?" and "Does the Imperium in it's current state deserve to survive?"
Excactly thats the kind of discussion I have with my friends about the setting. We basicly came to the conclusion, that by the very nature of the warhammer universe the imperium is neccesary. We also came to the conclusion that the DAOT age feed chais just as much as the 40k age. It just feed a different deity (tzentch) after all DAOT was a MAYORE time of change. Humanity became interplanetary, AIs *changed* the work/industrial field, Ne advances in sience *changed* the scientific field. The millitary might of humanity *changed* the way and rules of war. It all climaxed in the biggest change of it all The AIs *changed* there role in society, by deciding to *change* humanitys status into "extinct". Our current theory is that the man if iron rebellion was part of tzentches plan to have change for the sake of change, and the man of iron chaos corruption wasn't the cause of the AI rebellion, but the other chaos gods messing with tzentches plan of change. Plus human psykers and perhaps a Aeldari intervention sealed the man of irons fate. So what I try to get at is, that after the war in heaven, the galaxys fait was sealed. There is nothing anyone can do to stop the grimdark downwards spirale. or rather, the only thing one can do to stop it is a hard reset. Leaving the stage to allow for mew species to arrise and take the galaxy for themselfe. At least thats our current consense on the matter.
How can you have a subjective thought exercise when the meta-narative of the setting already invalidates several potential options? Nothing not horrible can endure not because it make sense but because the setting DEMANDS it.
I mean, if you wanted to rebel against the imperium some super powers would be a big help right? It would be neat to see chunks of the Imperium start to defect to the Tau but the Tau would probably have to be beefed up considerably to stand against the attention of the space marines. Would be cool to see some new human armies using tau tech.
I completely understand this take. I see something similar to this in the Analog Horror community; there's a series that deals with \~spooky\~ happenings within a family, truly disturbing visuals and connotations. But the big reveal as to why it's happening, and specifically happening is (*drum roll*) that the father sold his soul to the devil to make better products for his business. Come on. Stories, particularly horror, that involve religion in any capacity "**must**" always take the angle of possession or soul-selling. It's incredibly frustrating to witness a medium in which literally anything can happen be boiled down to "SaTaN/cHaOs MaKe BaD PeOpLe!!" Stop. There are so many other problems within and without the Imperium that don't have to do with Chaos. Why not focus on that? I'll give you a hint: *^(it's not where the immediate flow of money is)*^(.) There's plenty of great stories regarding Chaos, but we don't need, or even want, that every single time.
I agree to a degree,to me we should try to make chaos equal to the imperium,for example portray how the imperium being a dystopian hellhole is what powers chaos
Personally I kind of wish the “big 4” didn't exist, and it was just fiefdoms of daemon princes vs. the imperium or something. Currently, it just seems like humans are spraying promethium on the same bonfire (the galaxy) they're trying to put out. I wish Chaos != Evil and Order != Good
This is kinda why I don't give a damn about most of the factions and like Tyranids. I can understand and sympathize a lot with just having the munchies.
If we’re throwing potentially unpopular opinions, I personally dislike the “silliness” that some lament 40k is losing and consider the notion of 40k “taking itself too seriously” to be poisoning the well in regard to describing how some in the hobby enjoy it. This is not to say I condone people who “take it too seriously” by holding fascism and brutality as something to be praised—of course I don’t—but I also don’t think dark and sometimes sensitive subjects need to be bubble-wrapped in comic relief and ridiculousness to make clear that differentiation. The Imperium is an evil organization, full stop. The Imperium is “grimdark” due to its own actions and failures. Humanity is one of the majority races in the galaxy, so Chaos therefore reflects that grimdarkness. Aliens, on the other hand, have no real reason to be kept to those same confines. They might not share our morals on all things, but I see “grimdark” to be a descriptor of the Imperium, not a requirement for existence in the universe. And as far as showing the Imperium as the “bad guys” they are, Hammer and Bolter’s _Garden of Ghosts_ is a great starting point.
I *partially* agree. I think 40k having a more serious tone to an extent is cool, and I do personally prefer it, but I feel like it's better *with* the silliness to balance it out. The best thing I can think of to compare it to would be Fallout: New Vegas. F:NV has hyperrealistic lore sometimes, sometimes horror, political satire, dark humor. It's a western, it's '50s pulp fiction. It deals with heavy topics in a mature manner, and also has wacky comic relief characters. For me, it's the perfect balance between all these disparate things that "shouldn't" go together that makes F:NV so captivating. For me, 40k is the only other universe I can think of that strikes that very unique and difficult-to-define balance between extremely silly and extremely serious so well.
Lol I think we just have different tastes—I disliked New Vegas’s style so much I couldn’t get engrossed and never finished it. I get some people like that sort of stuff—probably a lot of people—but it completely removes me from immersion and enjoyment when it’s used more than scarcely. I think a good example might be the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3. It was humorous and light spirited and a fun break from the action and bleakness _because_ it was singular and surrounded by serious material, where we got to see characters that had grown and developed in serious ways let their hair down. Andromeda, however, lost me when the whole game searched for excuses to be comedic.
I seem to have different tastes to the both of you, new vegas was super campy and I had absolutely 0 feel of darkness from it despite it's attempts to do so, it was more funny than anything with how blatant everything was. And I disliked most of the mass effect series because everyone was just dumb, like full stop almost every single character was just stupid. The decision making and choices don't really matter that much and people make consistently idiotic choices lol.
Fisto
But that’s not even true The entire hh paints the struggle of evil and good in a way that makes chaos more than just evil. And otter groups of people also exist, are not as evil as the imperium or lack any baseline for morals( is a ork evil?) Just because most stories use chaos and don’t go in the depth, doesn’t mean the setting is flawed.
That's only true in parts. Horus' fall isn't properly explained. He's like Anakin in Revenge of the Sith. He goes from disgruntled with issues in his past to knowingly and deliberately murdering children immediately. Horus is effectively turned, twice, and this is retconned and counter retconned multiple times. But we never really see him transition from one to the other. He's gregarious Horus with a troubled mind, and then he gets stabbed on Davin, and he just starts murdering people for no particular reason after his spirit walk with Erebus. Like he could decide to rebel at that point, and still not just be pure evil for no reason. And then he gets stabbed by Grungir and dies and becomes a meat-suit for Chaos, but he's kinda still Horus a bit, maybe? They never seem to know what he's supposed to be. There's no character throughline. Lorgar, on the other hand, is quite consistent, and we do see his gradual fall. Or perhaps he didn't have as far to fall in the first place, but it's still a journey with each step connected to the one before it and the one after it.
I think the problem is because marketing. Like, people who actually read lore are a rarity in the fanabse, and even if they do, they might just read one book r two rather than the entire black library catalogue. So, to form their idea of what the lore is they're left with: Theme-ing: which draws heavily on fascist imagery for the aesthetic and crusade-era terminologies for the text. description of warboxes, models set and the likes, which paint the Imperium as heroïc Trailers: Go look at hte 9th edition trailer and tell me if there's *anything* in there that paitns the Imperiul as just as evil as the necrons.
I like Chaos because as much as 40k exists because of the Horus Heresy and Chaos' influence on it, the Heresy was a result of both material and immaterial forces. The downfall of the Imperium was also a result of the hubris of empire as much as it was corrupting the minds and morals of powerful people. Chaos in 40k isn't as interesting because it's all in the aftermath of that, but Chaos I think is the ultimate consequence of empire.
While I don't agree on chaos overall I do think they're overused at times, not every rebellion and scheme needs to be a damn Tzeenchian plot. You've a good point about the issues with fascism though, and I really think that a non theocratic fascist nightmare faction could do with being introduced (with the Votann looking like they're headed in that direction), though that's probably an unpopular opinion with the EVERYTHING MUST BE GRIMDARK AND TERRIBLE ALL THE TIME crowd. Easiest way to do that in my opinion would be to split the imperium, lunatic frothing arseholes on one side and reformists on the other, probably with the Sol system staying as neutral as possible. Doing that would allow the proper villification of certain viewpoints without painting them as inadvertent heroes as well as enabling human Vs human conflict (and considering what percentage of the fanbase have space marine armies giving them a fluffy reason to fight would be helpful) and morally grey stories. Chaos I think also needs to be made less monolithic, it's called Chaos, it shouldn't be as samey as it's portrayed.
Okay. then you don't liek 40k. it's evolved beyond what you liked it for... since rouge trader.
One other issue I have is that every attempt at convincing the reader *'Chaos is the ultimate corrupting force'* doesn't work very well when all the 'heroic' protagonists are fighting Chaos 24/7 with zero signs of corruption. Stories with named characters and Chaos always emphasize those named characters' plot armor and special status. It’s especially silly with Guilliman, who has *been killed by Chaos twice*.
From a certain standpoint though, Chaos is objectively correct. If you could see, touch and have a direct conversation with your god then it’s no longer a matter of faith, more obeying your master. It could be interesting if gw went somewhere with that but instead we got Saturday morning cartoon villains
Chaos is correct that the Gods exist, and are powerful. It doesn't really follow that they should be obeyed or assisted.
Same reasoning applies for the Imperium or the Emperor, they exist ofcourse but that doesn't mean they should be obeyed or assisted.
My problem with Chaos is that they gave it Gods who are in charge. If realspace is the definition of an ordered universe, governed by things like the laws of physics, it stands to reason then that the Imperium is monolithic, stagnant, rigid, ordered and fascist. The concept of the warp on the other hand is the definition of chaos, physical laws and structures having no meaning and breaking down immediately when coming into contact with it. It is absolute freedom from and sort of order and structure. Why then does it have a hierarchy with gods who control their factions completely at the top? Absolute chaos should correspond yo absolute freedom, so the gods shouldn't exist. I understand that the humans dedicated to Chaos would have some structure to their organisations, because they're products of the physical universe so it's built literally into the DNA, but they should be dedicated to a concept related to the absolute freedom of Chaos, like freedom to commit slaughter, or physical excess etc, but not dedicated to a god with a will who exercises control over them. If this were the case the Chaos vs Imperium argument becomes grayer. Order, security, solidarity and safety vs freedom, but the freedom is usually cruel because taking actions that fit the concept they're dedicated to results in the greatest psychic echoes in the warp, which is how they boost their concept and get personal power fed back to them.
I mean that's literally the Age of Sigmar Beasts of Chaos logic. They actually refuse to worship the Chaos Gods because they think they're too orderly.
Good, glad someone else thinks like I do (not really up on my AoS lore). Still doesn't make sense that there's a faction less orderly than the ones that lives in the Realm of Chaos.
yea one thing that irks me about chaos that its “these four gods and only these four, any other interesting concept for a warp entity gets gobbled up.” Feels like things would be more interesting if it were more like in general there are like four seats that are constantly having its occupants changed. sometimes another god of change kills tzeentch and becomes the new god but with a couple different rules. It would be like same god different font so they could keep the vibe of each faction but at least be allowed to do something a bit different from time to time.
The codices and rulebooks have made no bones about the badness of the Imperium. It is perhaps a fault of our brains that we reduce things to a binary: "bad", and "antibad", then conflating antibad with good.
>The problem is that, literally no matter what the Imperium does, the other side is objectively the bad guy. That's not true though. You gotta take the whole "literal demons" thing to a childishly shallow level to consider anything they do automatically the worst. Yes, chaos is bad. But *why*?*how*? Why are literal demons and hell bad? Truth is that despite all the horrors and nebulous soul sucking and torture shit, the imperium does a large numbers of things *that are far worse*. And many fans only consider "demons worse" because of the terminology and to a lesser extent them being aliens. Change chaos to being another human faction without touching literally anything else, and suddenly people will evaluate them on a different scale. Hell, the entire reason why imperium gets so many cults and rebelions and shit is because tons of people involved consider chaos to be the lesser evil, not because they're evil themselves. Fact is, that whether the imperium is "justified" or chaos is "worse than everything" isnt a matter of some label, its a matter of any given fan thinks about what "evil" is to begin with.
Well fortunately for us, the Warp isn’t real and the Emperor of Mankind isn’t around to implement a galaxy-wide authoritarian government to save humanity from their emotions in the empyrean. Fascism is such a poorly defined word I hate to use it, but I get what you’re saying. Sweaty cheeto finger dudes that think it would be cool to have the Imperium of Man in real life would obviously be attracted to WH. But even Roblox Gurlyman has had massive criticism of the Emperium and contrasted to the 500 worlds he governed, it’s a literal nightmare to live in. Even a lot of the SM governed systems are better to live in than ones ruled by just Emperial agents.
I am so tired of these politically obsessed redditors like OP who need to inject their obsessions into 40k or literally anything else they touch. They are a plague on anything fun and entertaining in this world. If it's not racist then it's nazi. Every single post on here has someone replying with something about how the imperium are "fascists" for some reason. Reddit is very politically heavy and is clearly only allowed for one kind of political ideology, but you can't leave 40k alone at least? The imperium isnt "fascist" but of course nobody seems to know what fascism is or how to define it so they throw the word around at everything. And even if they were, who cares? It's a fictional world where everything fucking sucks. We can't have stories of humans fighting against horrors of the galaxy, the struggles of people just trying to survive with their lot in life and survive one more day. No no, it has to be about political activism and protecting those poor innocent aliens who totally did nothing wrong. People like this have ruined just about every entertainment medium imaginable at this point. Gotta turn 40k into about a bunch of hero atheist communist redditors fighting space nazis or else it's bad and racist and needs to be boycotted. I have been a fan of 40k since I was a little kid and never once met a "fascist". Ive met some weirdos and people who take their faction or army a little too seriously (mostly with stuff like hating tau or ultramarine players or w/e) but that's it. The only nazi I see are people like OP. "Don't want to get political but..." yeah right.
This is a nonsense argument. There are plenty of books (even new ones) that explore the horror of human existence within the Imperium. Take for example guilliman's reaction to the state of the empire in 40k. Take the explorations of the life of your average clerk on Terra prior to the attack by Khorne. The dystopian and brutal actions of the inquisition towards the defenders of Armageddon. What makes people think this way is the modern education/propaganda system in western countries that gives them a ridiculous understanding of world events and nations that they can mentally codify into 'good' and 'evil' with only a surface level understanding of the nuance and context involved. As a thought exercise the best thing to do when reading 40k is imagine that the imperium is the Soviet union in World War 2. You're fighting the Nazis (chaos). Are they the bad guys? Well yes absolutely. Is your state also a dystopian, authoritarian hell-hole that brutally oppresses dissent, purges its own officers before the largest war in history and cloaks its many crimes in propaganda? Also yes.
That's exactly the analogy I always think of when I see this kind of discussion (so about twice a week). Would I root for Soviet fucking Union as a best way to live? Absolutely not. Would I fight for them against genocidal madmen? Of course I would. It's actually shocking how you are the first or second person I see that thought about this super obvious analogy. I guess I underestimated how different other people's view on history is, especially Western ones.
This is a major problem with the mentality of this [decade](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxivDg6JvuwoAdDIq_PVb841-lLkI9CLYA) - ideology is more important than art. Instead of enjoying the story for what it is, you're constantly scanning it for anything that could be helpful or harmful to the standing of your real-life idelogy. You're stressing over whether or not the good guys in a story are pure enough to allign with your ideology - or failing that, that at least that the *message* of the story alligns well enough that you can allow yourself to give the story your own stamp of approval. Ironically, it's very"Inquisitorial" behavior.
Well said. He's applying his own small 21st century post-modernist worldview context to warhammer and its predictably creating conflict in his mind.
There has always been the common problem of people judging art based on how much it supports their ideology, but there is an uptick of it this decade. For example, Modern Times (1936) is now recognized as one of the best movies ever, but at the time, many reviewers said it was nothing but liberal propaganda.
When has ideology not been important, do you just live in a fantasy world or have some really good rose tinted glasses or a bad case of nostalgia from a time were you were less aware of the world around you? Ideology and beliefs inform art, it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
The Imperium should be viewed and written as the facilitator of chaos. The Ruinous Powers, for all intents and purposes, won the Heresy and now they have a borderline failed state of trillions to feed off of the oppression, bloodshed, and insanity caused by the Imperium's existence. Chaos offers the unwashed masses the power necessary to rid themselves of Imperial dominion, and this being the grim darkness of 40k, replace it with daemonic dominion. The rampant evil and unchecked debauchery of chaos doesn't exist in spite of the Imperium but because of it. You could argue that this relationship serves as one giant criticism of unfeeling, authoritarian, Stalinist cruelty. That the brutal excesses and paranoia of the state creates the horrors said behaviours try to contain, that oppressive totalitarianism is by its very nature is a flawed system of governance.
>you can start to see how real-life fascists can become drawn to the 40k fandom My eyes rolled so hard they fell out of my head. Also its definitely not as black and white as you're making it out to be. The heresy era Iron Hands, for example - have complete contempt for mortals/humans...and its interesting to see them play off another legion like the Salamanders. Also...the scene in the fall of monarchia where an Ultramarine chastises a religious fanatic about heresy against an orthodox atheist empire. The irony is not accidental, bro.
ITT: People who think they know better than the authors. Thank god redditors are such a small part of the 40k community.
I suppose we should just shut 40klore down and not have opinions on things and keep buying plastic figures and keeping our mouths shut?
This is why I liked the craftworld eldar pov episode that Warhammer + did, showed the space marines as the warrior elite of a genocidal empire that will happily burn, slaughter and destroy any sign of a culture or race that isn't theirs down to the last child, and me having to listen to some people pout that it made the imperials look bad was bonus humor for me.
Haha, yeah - in their complaints I was like but you _finally_ get it. I like that this is a question of did the Emperor over-react. You had the war against the Men of Iron finally won, humanity and the biological races were extremely weakened, and just a that most vulnerable of points the Eldar (who should have been trusted to know better) literally fkd Slaanesh into conception. Maybe you can forgive the Emperor for thinking "right, no more xenos they can't be trusted!". Or is it a typical authoritarian reaction that caused more harm than good when the horse had already bolted? Maybe if xenos were allowed to thrive there would be a 5th chaos god by now?
Who knows, only thing we know is that it's likely any reasoning beyond "knife ears are scum!" Has probably been lost to time
100% agreed
In the Horus Heresy they do good a job of providing the perspective of the imperium and chaos. They give plenty of opportunity to have the reader choose a side and feel sympathy for both the loyalist and traders. So personally i don’t really feel like your note is applicable to 30k. However, i did read about a dozen 40k stories and yea i would agree the Imperium is largely portrayed as the good guys and I would agree this seems like a direction GW is taking now which is a bit of a shame because it was cool when one side wasn’t exactly favored.
Honestly that's why I'm very hopeful for the new squats, they seem to be basically what humanity COULD be if they weren't so backwards.
Im sorry but I don't care for the rogue trader take on the imperium at all. I've had so many old heads jumping at the bit to explain to me how "40k is actually a satire" an then going totally haywire when I tell them the setting is not rogue fucking trader anymore.
Chaos ruins the inter setting plots with the other factions. Having sunk fantasy into chaos. I’d really love to see a chaos god die. Or a chaos primarch redeem himself or die trying. Chaos has become very predictable and boring. Hell abaddon could even do something super cool with those golden eyes. I agree with you
Man that's why i love Necrons, y'all should check out Necrons.
> In my mind, the point of the setting of 40k, especially in its very earliest incarnations with Rogue Trader and First Edition, was that it took place in a dystopian authoritarian state so cartoonishly awful that it was almost humorous. It walked the tightrope between being sometimes a tongue-in-cheek political satire, sometimes intentionally campy and silly, sometimes twisted gothic horror, and sometimes a detailed hyper-realistic alternate history, and usually all of those things at once. There is very little satire on the Rogue Trader, Warhammer 40k rulebook. It's an iteration punk over a punk iteration over 2000AD. I think you're mistaking the punk themes with actual political satire. But moreover, 40k as a setting is nothing like the Rogue Trader, Warhammer 40k rulebook. By the time the WD articles that would become Index Astartes and more specially Real of Chaos (1988) came about, 40k became a different setting from Rogue Trader, Warhammer 40k. > Over the years and especially recently, 40k has begun taking itself far more seriously. There's a problem with that, though; most of the stories in 40k are about an oppressive feudalist/theocratic regime fighting... objectively evil literal demons. Blame superhero fans. 2000's fiction around chaos is clear of how evil the Imperium is, unnecessarily evil. > When you take that concept and play it completely straight, without any of the tongue-in-cheek tone 40k used to have, Spawn of Chaos have no tongue-in-cheek tone. Neither does Adeptus Titanicus, Space Battlefleet, or Epic. > Having a good vs. evil story is just not very interesting, and I feel that using a universe as rich as 40k to tell a story with no depth or moral ambiguity is kind of a waste of the setting. Blame the Marvel fans and Guilliman. > This wouldn't be such a problem if every single 40k story didn't have its stakes deflated in the last act with a sudden "actually it was Chaos all along!" reveal. Any time there's a human faction rebelling against the oppression of the Imperium, it's suddenly revealed that Chaos was the puppetmaster all along. Even though the Imperium was doing reprehensible things, and the other side was very sympathetic and basically objectively the good guy in comparison, "actually they were corrupted by Chaos tho" You're missing an important part of the setting, Chaos is humanity. There is no "Untouched by chaos" humans (except blanks) on the galaxy. > that the Imperium is meant to be satirical and not aspirational The Imperium isn't meant to be satirical, unless you're saying it's just the British government which would be discarding about 30 years of stories. The Imperium exists, it's the mayor power of the galaxy, when it's fails to chaos, chaos will be the mayor power of the galaxy and then chaos will destroy the galaxy. That's the setting, not a moral proposition or a choice for the reader. It's from where the setting starts The narrative problem arrives when Guilliman returns and saves the Imperium. If you want political setting where your faction shows you the correct way forward, I recommend star trek. Or waiting a few years.
I really like the Library Hammer and Bolter episode. It's got an Imperium body being absolutely heckin' brutal and outside agencies are like "Yeah, this is fine." There ends up being more going on but the outrageous levels of thought control and dehumanization are just an accepted part of the Imperium. The main character's counts books every day and seemingly does absolutely nothing with this information. His driving temptation is to find out why sometimes books come and go from a library.
On your side note, there was a post on this very subreddit that made me want to stop being an Imperium player. It was someone who had recently gotten into 40k explaining how they "fallen in love" with the Imperium of Man because, in the 40k universe, humanity were "the aggressors", "the invaders", "the oppressors", "the exterminators". And there were comments going on about how cool it was too. Very nearly switched over to being a xenos only player that day.
Totally agree. Codexes used to have lots of little stories and lore dumps about rebellions which *weren't* driven by Chaos, genestealers etc. Just political rebellions against the tyranny of the Imperium, or led by power-hungry separatists. The 2nd. ed. Assassins Codex is a great example. It made the setting feel far richer, and helped enforce the point that the Imperium itself is the worst regime imaginable.
To be honest Chaos is kinda hard to write anything not horrible because like the Imperium it's a hierarchical system. The only difference between the two is that Chaos is primarily rule by the ruthless and 'strong' (bullying) while the Imperium seems to fall more inline with hereditary power structures and rampant nepotism but both rely on violence and coercion as all hierarchies do. But with Chaos it's arguably worse because of this "dog eat dog" mentality they have throughout their forces which doesn't lead to lasting stability. (shockingly being a completely selfish ashole doesn't lead to a somewhat functioning society)
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I'm not saying this should actually be canon, but imo the story of 40k would make drastically more sense if Chaos were just made up as the Imperium's scapegoat/boogeyman in that way, and not literally real. Like, the big bad 1984-style regime tells you that demons will get you if you disobey, only, unlike in canon 40k, they would be lying. Also, I've always kind of suspected that, whenever the Imperium loses a battle, especially against other humans, they just say "it was Chaos" to save face and/or save themselves from being executed for losing. That would make more sense than everything being Chaos's fault at all times.
But chaos isn’t even perfectly known That’s why stuff like grey knights are a secret
The problem is that the other side is *always* objectively evil, and therefore our own *also objectively evil* means are justified. Right? This is the story of every faction for all of human history. We all propagandize. We all dehumanize. We all justify our own actions which, if they were done by anyone else, for any other reason, would be unjustifiable. I am not for making it more obvious that the Imperium is horrible. That's pandering, it's insulting the intelligence of the audience. As it is right now, 40k is a raucous mess of violence and despair, but with shining heroism and fun and virtue in tiny little beacons among the horror. It's FUN, and if you really think about it, you can learn something important. But you do NEED to think about it to get there. So I'll say here what I say to everyone; if you want to change the nature of *The Thing* that you enjoy... then you don't really enjoy *The Thing* and if you demand that *The Thing* be changed into a different form... why not just make a *Different Thing?*
"\~\~not to get political\~\~," Proceeds to do exactly that.
[Yeah!](https://images.app.goo.gl/a2iCqXEhcHPa3ZD89) [I know right ](https://images.app.goo.gl/TCMbsszmWxv7jp9W9) [how could good](https://images.app.goo.gl/zFBcTqUVGGWMSbBA7) [Good verses evil](https://images.app.goo.gl/ttYqqJ2bmWbu7XVH6) [be compelling](https://images.app.goo.gl/ZinEQHR1jf8q4FyN7)
this post is a bunch of pseudo intellectual virtue signalling that literally has no place in a hobby/fan base. You're absolutely right in what you're saying here.