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I know i will take some flak for this but chaos space marines are not always that evil. For example, the alpha legion started out with admirable intentions, but were branded as pure evil so they became evil. Another example is the iron warriors; the main reason for their rebellion was the way the emperor used them as absolute fodder, decimating their legion. Also, some chaos marines are born into being chaos, such as the marines created by daemonoccuba. Can you really say that all of them are any more evil than the imperium?

As I've said before (and will probably say again):

But what is evil anyway?
Is there reason to the rhyme?
Without evil there can be no good,
so it must be good to be evil sometimes.

 Happyjew wrote:
As I've said before (and will probably say again):

But what is evil anyway?
Is there reason to the rhyme?
Without evil there can be no good,
so it must be good to be evil sometimes.

Relax, guuuuuuuuy.

Btw I know that 99.99999% of chaos marines are hitler In space

For me personally, Chaos represents the best aspects of humanity, taken too far - just as the Imperium represents ordered society, taken too far and ending in stagnation, The 4 Gods represent good qualities, taken to unhealthy extremes.

For example, Tzeencth is the will to change ourselves and society for the better, warped into change for change's own sake, while we all know that Nurgle loves and cherishes his children.

As far as CSM are concerned, I like the Emperor's children as an example. They start out as striving to be the best they can be, and with a sense of the aesthetics of near-perfection - the bad side of Chaos happens when you go too far, it's a lack of moderation that leads to their "evil-ness"

It's no bad thing to try and better yourself, or to fear death, or enjoy life - with moderation.

Personally, I think Chaos is only as evil as "Order" is - the trick would be to find the balance between the two.

It may be widely considered "Evil," but I would hesitate to call it bad. Say what you want about Khorne or Slaanesh, they give their devout followers what they want, and appreciate all of them. Nurgle loves his followers to undeath(almost sounds like a funny joke), but it's a love forced on them in the form of festering pustules of malignant ooze. Tzeentch just tricks people into following him with promises of power that have strings attached. You would never see Khorne doing that. What a piece of gak.

I think dark apostle said it best hence in 40k no one is a good guy. Its a battle of extremes going on.

To quote the Culexus assassin Syncella in 'Seventh Retribution' (stellar book by the by):
"But you and I, Lysander, know the war we fight is not a matter of right or wrong. It is a clash between two different flavors of amorality..."

In the 41st millennium, no one is really good, and so no one is really evil. Clearly there are exceptions (Honsou virus bombed a planet out of sheer spite, so I think he counts as evil), but given the immoral and amoral methods and actions of any given faction we can see why 40k is referred to as Grimdark.

It's far more evil than I thought it was at first.

These are the same people who say "Let no good deed go unpunished. Let no evil deed go unrewarded.", and they say it perfectly seriously with no irony. They also say "Destroy, for the sake of Destruction. Kill, for the sake of Killing.", again perfectly seriously and with no irony.

Chaos encourages its adherents to kill and destroy for the sake of doing so, to be evil for the sake of being evil, and they reward them for doing so. There's nothing redeemable about Chaos. The Imperium might not be "good", but Chaos is most certainly "bad", and they love every second of it.

To paint all of Chaos with a single brush, is fool: Chaos is not Bad no more than the Imperium is good. Chaos is simply that; Chaos. And in a lot of ways, you have to start making distinctions between the Forces of Chaos (Daemons) and those who are enslaved to Chaos (the Chaos Space Marines, Legion of the Damned, etc).

I'll agree with most of the above (especially the quote to Lysander): This isn't a fight between good and evil. It's a fight between polar amoral opposites. Chaos and Order, both of which, when taken to the extreme generate equally large losses of life.

But let me spin this a little further.

Firstly: The Champions of Chaos do not Do for the sake of Doing. The Do for the sake of Power and ultimately, Immortality (in the case of CSM). Pleasing the Dark Gods just happens to be the best way of achieving said immortality.

Secondly; We all know that there are Sorcerers and such who perform sacrifice and such, and all the daemon-ry and blah-blah. Ever read Ahriman:Exile? That book alone paints a very different picture of the CSM, particularly one like Ahriman. Instead of being Hitler...actually, that is a very good analogy if we're talking about the actual history of Hitler and not what has been prescribed to us by an Imperial system at large.

Here is what I mean (and yeah, he still did bad things) - Hitler, like all politicians in this world, do not rise to power of their own talent and accord. They are financed by an individual that has recognized a "winning trait" in that politician. Something that resonated with enough people to catch the billionaires eye, to make him want to finance his campaign. And it all comes with an understood promise/deal: I'll back you if you do what I say. This is why the Koch Brothers in America have their hands in dominant shares of both the Republican and Democratic parties come election time. So getting off of that soap box, lets take it to the CSM.

You find out that each and every one of them was arrogant enough to believe a deal could be struck with the Ruinous Power that would benefit them, and each was in turn enslaved to those powers. The best expression of this I can give is when Horus looks at the newly-Daemon Primarch Fulgrim and his reaction to seeing his brothers soul tormented and chained within his own body. Horus was especially naive and arrogant, and hence easy to manipulate by Chaos, for believing himself "Chosen." Sure, he was Chosen, just like people were Chosen to be stoned to death in the old Lottery. XD

You read enough of these stories and you start to feel bad for these guys. For me, it is currently Magnus the Red. Here is a Primarch who knew with better clarity than any other Primarch, and possibly the Emperor himself, what lay within the Warp and what it's plans were for his brothers and father, and he risked it all to save Horus and the Imperium. And he failed because the odds were simply too great. And his punishment for failure? Porcupine quillees, an orb of light with a thousand eyes, yet he is blind and a red monster. And he is all but separate from the Warp now, almost entirely unreachable yet still seeming to work at some impossibly higher level.

And there is Ahriman himself! This sorcerer tries to save his Legions soul from Change and he blasts them to dust, and afterwards he faces hell and high water trying to figure out how to put them back together, or at least undo the spell.

In a thread I posted in earlier, I described in detail how the Chaos Gods and Daemons played into this, per their Codex. Simply put, they have less respect for the Space Marines and even less respect for the Primarchs themselves, than they do for Humanity and the rest of the universe. Both the Primarchs and the CSM are but tools of acquisition now, and what are they acquiring? The untold billions of mortal souls left that makes up the main course. THAT my friends is worth something. And we couldn't have done it without little ol Perty and Maggy and...

Yeah. Surely, the gods have a grim sense of humor indeed.

So, all these examples, evil?

Good/Evil are perspective/morality. I always tend to think that it's likely that any other race/civilization may not even have the concepts. Also in GW terms, Chaos is essentially psychic races emotional debris. Which you can run with all day long.

Moral Relativism has no place in the 41st millennium. It is the mark of the heretic, the traitor and the pawn of the Ruinous Powers. Neutrality is a sign of moral weakness. Mercy the sin of the foolish.

 LoyalistAlphaLegion wrote:
To quote the Culexus assassin Syncella in 'Seventh Retribution' (stellar book by the by):
"But you and I, Lysander, know the war we fight is not a matter of right or wrong. It is a clash between two different flavors of amorality..."

Added to my to-read list. This quote is sweet.

Thank you.

On topic: Chaos is not Evil. Chaos is Chaos. Order/Law can be Evil too, and Chaos can be Good. In the last editions the Imperium and the Space Marines have been gradually pushed towards "good", and thus Chaos turned into "evil". But it is a gross simplification that I think deteriorates the setting.

With the exception of the necrons, the factions typically associated with order (Tau, Imperium, Elder to a lesser extent) are usually at least TRYING to be "good" in the vast majority of portrayals we've seen of them (IE, there are individuals within the factions working towards the benefit of others as opposed to just selfish benefit. Even the leadership are at least possibly working towards the benefits of others as opposed to just selfish benefit). Chaos... really isn't, in most cases (same with the more chaotic factions. The Dark Eldar codex outright says they're the most evil beings in its intro). Well, except Nurgle, for his own given definition of "good". And the chaos gods have consistently been stated always to do things only for their own benefit (even Nurgle doesn't seem exempt from that statement if he's presumably included in the term "Chaos gods" whenever it comes up. Given that he'll only save your ass from his diseases if you give your soul to him, this is likely the case)

Note that I said "most cases", not all.

The vibe I get from the Word Bearers is that their assaults on Imperial Planets are in an effort to bring humanity into a united state under the symbol of Chaos Undivided rather then The God Emperor. Yes they throw hundreds of thousands of cultists to their deaths as so much cannon fodder... but so does the Imperial Guard.
Yes, they will initiate world-killing weapons of mass destruction simply to spite their opposition... but so does the Inquisition.
Certainly they call upon the powers of the Warp to achieve many of their goals... but so do the Grey Knights (as all psychic energy is gleaned from the Warp).
I maintain that Chaos is no more evil then the IoM, and frankly they're just more upfront about being massive 's.

Khorne was more interesting when there was more emphasis on the Martial honour and pride aspect. Now it seems Khorne is way to blood and guts above all else.

Lord of Lustria wrote:
Btw I know that 99.99999% of chaos marines are hitler In space

This

TheRedWingArmada wrote:
snip

Funny enough Redwing playing dawn of war 2 retribution upon getting heretics eliphas says something to the effect he does not understand why the chaos gods like mortals so much.

Well Melissia the main drawn point for chaos is powering oneself and living freely if you are strong enough and there are many humans in fluff becoming daemons,champions and heralds. I mean reading the word bearers novels the common man are forced to work in salt fields that make them slowly go blind and deteriorates the body while the nobles sit in their high towers growing fat by their expense. You try and protest? voice a concern? guess what you get *Blam* rest of you get back to work! Guess what they became cultists and no they were not enslaved there are various points of the word bearers complementing their skills. Its a battle of extremes chaos and order.

If the IOM was so great as well you would not also have humans rather staying with the Tau.

I first read the IOM fluff when I first started 40k the supposed "good" faction after doing so I simply said to the manager they are evil and he said "Yup" and he loves them to bits Hence the only group I like in the IOM side is the salamanders but majority of the time its other factions taking the piss out of them being humanitarian.

Then moving onto other factions and reading their fluff I realized NO one is "good", no one is "evil" its just extreme ideologies clashing moderation does not exist in 40k. As a chaos fan I don't really believe chaos is good in 40k by any stretch of the margin normally with chaos it starts moderate or on the lesser evil scale but it gets extreme pretty quickly. Its as the word bearers said chaos is simply a horrible truth.

Hence this if my favorite quote "There is no peace among the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods." The chaos gods don't really have to do anything since almost everything and everyone in 40k in fueling them.

The Word Bearers are actually some of the nicer Chaos worshippers, probably due to their selflessness (they honestly do believe in the Chaos Gods as the truth and serve them for the sake of serving them, unlike the VAST majority of other followers).

That said, they still do a ton of evil things (including human sacrifices, etc) and sometimes revel in it.

However, that's really just the Word Bearers. The vast majority of other Chaos followers serve Chaos for their own selfish ends and are extremely evil to the core. A few of them also believe in Chaos as the truth and as the uniter of humanity but are still selfish anyways.

It should be noted that the vast majority of times (all of them to my knowledge, really) the concept of human sacrifice turns up in Imperial fluff, inquisitors call Heresy on it. Although one major exception is ironically the Emperor himself eating psykers, although at least we haven't seen any fluff where anyone ENJOYS sacrificing those psykers to him (in fact, the only Black Library fluff we have on the matter is that he really wanted it to just be a temporary thing until a better solution could be found).

I suppose in the end it can be summed up that most of the evil things the Imperium does are usually out of nescescity and many Imperials actually don't enjoy it (but some do), whereas Chaos will usually do evil things just for the hell of it and find it fun (and you'll almost never find a Chaos worshipper feeling guilty about it).

TiamatRoar wrote:
It should be noted that the vast majority of times (all of them to my knowledge, really) the concept of human sacrifice turns up in Imperial fluff, inquisitors call Heresy on it. Although one major exception is ironically the Emperor himself eating psykers, although at least we haven't seen any fluff where anyone ENJOYS sacrificing those psykers to him (in fact, the only Black Library fluff we have on the matter is that he really wanted it to just be a temporary thing until a better solution could be found).

There is a short story by the title of 'Sacrifice' by Ben Counter goes over in great detail how a Grey Knight is armed. Each and EVERY bolt round for their storm bolters is bathed in the blood of a "good man", whose throat is slit by priests of the Ecclesiarchy. The blood is collected in a silver bowl to cleanse and bless the bolt shell.

The wards of the Grey Knights armor is empowered by the death of hundreds upon hundreds of psykers. They are thrown bodily into a massive furnace, their flesh and bones rendered to ash, while their souls are used to fuel the armors hexagramatic wards.

In the Black Library book "Faith and Fire", an annual celebration led by the Ecclesiarchy, has a "mock" battle between the Eldar and the Sisters of Battle. It is mock in the sense that the contestants aren't really Adepta Sororitas or Eldar, and their armor isn't real... but the guns most assuredly are.

Maybe no other Chaos faction is as "nice" as the Word Bearers, but I doubt they're any worse than the IoM.

 Melissia wrote:
It's far more evil than I thought it was at first.

These are the same people who say "Let no good deed go unpunished. Let no evil deed go unrewarded.", and they say it perfectly seriously with no irony. They also say "Destroy, for the sake of Destruction. Kill, for the sake of Killing.", again perfectly seriously and with no irony.

Chaos encourages its adherents to kill and destroy for the sake of doing so, to be evil for the sake of being evil, and they reward them for doing so. There's nothing redeemable about Chaos. The Imperium might not be "good", but Chaos is most certainly "bad", and they love every second of it.

This is certainly quite true. It makes me think of people who like to see Dr. Doom or Magneto as not really evil. Self serving meglomania is evil, of which Chaos is a poster boy. The Imperium is evil as well, but it is at least for humanity.

The reason I enjoy the HH-era more than the later period is that it is more nuanced. It's not straight good v evil, with the route to damnation paved with good intentions. For example, Lorgar arguably worships Chaos because he believes that ascension is the only way for mankind to survive.

I'm suspect Chaos doesn't view itself as evil, and sees warp storms and tentacles as a sign of love.

Imperial Citizen Timothy might view the matter somewhat differently though, if his Dad came home from work with horns and murdered the rest of the family while yelling "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"

It's all relative. Personally though? Chaos is evil, and that's why we like it so much.

shinros wrote:
the main drawn point for chaos is powering oneself and living freely if you are strong enough and there are many humans in fluff becoming daemons,champions and heralds.

But are you free, though? Being a follower of Chaos basically entails being the plaything of an uncaring god, mind body and soul. Like your arm? Chaos might whimsically decide to replace it with a tentacle, and you have no say in the matter. Were you a clam, reasonable individual? Khorne will twist your mind until you are a frothing madman. Sure the Imperium are very oppressive, but they don't violate your body and soul quite so much as Chaos.

As for becoming a Daemon, then you pretty much exist as an extension of that god. If you act in a way which that god disapproves of, it's very easy to be punished. Still not really freedom.

 Zed wrote:
I'm suspect Chaos doesn't view itself as evil

Except it explicitly does.

 Melissia wrote:

 Zed wrote:
I'm suspect Chaos doesn't view itself as evil

Except it explicitly does.

Ditto. They aren't known as the Ruinous Powers, the Great Enemy, or any of a dozen other terms labeling them as evil for nothing. Chaos is the Snidely Whiplash of 40k and they're perfectly happy in that role.

Chaos enslaves the body and soul to be used and abused as the 'gods' see fit. Even a demon prince is still a pawn and subject to the whims of his/her patron 'deity'.

It doesn't mean the Imperium isn't also evil to class Chaos as evil.

 LoyalistAlphaLegion wrote:

There is a short story by the title of 'Sacrifice' by Ben Counter goes over in great detail how a Grey Knight is armed. Each and EVERY bolt round for their storm bolters is bathed in the blood of a "good man", whose throat is slit by priests of the Ecclesiarchy. The blood is collected in a silver bowl to cleanse and bless the bolt shell.

Hmm, I didn't know that about the Grey Knights. Well, that's certainly rather vile morality, although assuming the "blood of a good man" is proven to work against demons (which it probably is. The Ordos Malleus generally doesn't pull things out of its ass randomly when figuring out how to deal with demons), it technically does fall under the "they are doing it out of necessity and aren't enjoying it" thing. The festival, on the other hand.... although that's really no more evil than Rome's gladiator coliseums, which is still of morally heinous quality but relatively speaking isn't necessarily as bad as what other factions get down to. Again, it's not that the Imperium is good so much as they aren't AS evil as the other factions overall. And it varies from place to place. In one area you might find Space Marines who care about civilians while in another you won't, but when it comes to CHAOS, you'll almost (almost) never get that former one (the marines caring about the civilians) in the first place.

Basically the Imperium has good parts and evil parts to varying degrees, as do most of the "orderly" factions, but when it comes to the more chaotic factions, the evil starts outweighing the good quite a bit more than it does for the order-ish ones. Chaos on its best moral day/area might be better than the Imperium on its worse moral day/area, but you'll be hard pressed to argue that Chaos on its best moral day/area is better than the Imperium at its best moral day/area (or at least have as much quantity of it).

The fact that the blood of a GOOD man works against Chaos kinda proves the point that Chaos is inherently evil, though. Otherwise either any blood or evil blood would work just as well or "good" blood would not work. One or the other.

Hmm, actually, the title of this thread is "Chaos not as evil as you thought?
So this is all subjective. I personally hold that Chaos is just about as evil as any other faction under the right circumstances, more evil in others, and less in others still. Every book, every after action report; they're all snippits of the whole picture.
So yeah, the Chaos Gods and their followers are evil, but less evil than I had initially thought. You also have to recall that most of the books are written from an Imperial perspective, which will skew things in their favor.

 Troike wrote:

shinros wrote:
the main drawn point for chaos is powering oneself and living freely if you are strong enough and there are many humans in fluff becoming daemons,champions and heralds.

But are you free, though? Being a follower of Chaos basically entails being the plaything of an uncaring god, mind body and soul. Like your arm? Chaos might whimsically decide to replace it with a tentacle, and you have no say in the matter. Were you a clam, reasonable individual? Khorne will twist your mind until you are a frothing madman. Sure the Imperium are very oppressive, but they don't violate your body and soul quite so much as Chaos.

As for becoming a Daemon, then you pretty much exist as an extension of that god. If you act in a way which that god disapproves of, it's very easy to be punished. Still not really freedom.

0

To them they are more free than they were with than with the IOM and they are fine serving them most chaos servants who have a tentacle seem rather cool with having one.

It comes to another question how much are you willing to lose? For the sake of freedom? Same question to the IOM how much are you willing to lose for complete order?

Then it comes to the debate are they slaves or servants? I view them as servants but everyone has a different opinion.

I mean look at the soul hunter series septimus hated being a slave(I don't really consider him a slave anymore after reading the series) but he somewhat enjoyed it as well since his old daily life was boring and he described his previous life as simply being a cog in a broken machine. Now he fixes space marine armor and gets the to drive a thunderhawk where normally a human driving one would be punishable by death.

Funny enough

I just read a book called pawns of chaos where people on a medieval level planet(Now the planet was not HAHAHAH evil plans mwahaha throwing psychic bolts) was being invaded by the IOM. They worshiped tzeentch now this planet has a lot of psykers and a daemon a lord of change was bound to someone through a sacrifice. Since they were looking for a way to save the planet. This daemon touched two people the main character dathan and the girl he secretly likes. Now since they were bound to the daemon, the daemon wanted to envelope the reinforcement ships that were coming in order to sacrifice them. The girl followed the daemons plan to the letter and just about when the ships were about to be enveloped by the warp storm.

Dathan stopped it constantly throughout the book he keeps asking questions why do we do this? Well this daemon help us? and is everything predetermined? stuff like that he was also bound to the daemon but unlike the girl he kept asking questions why is this happening? Are we simple play things/slaves or servants/ourselves? He kept saying he is a man not a slave etc. The chosen summoned the lord of change said he is right to think these things(He is following the daemon plan). He also said Dathan would of been an amazing sorcerer better than he was if he had the talent. He even said the IOM view themselves as heroes and even if they kill and do things in the name of their "god" they are still doing the work of the gods they hate so much.

Dathan then said what does that make us? He said in his opinion something to the effect that we are simple servants to these powers. I can't put the whole conversation since its too long and I missed some details since I am typing this from my head but its really interesting.

So he went against the plan and pretty much backstabbed the girl he liked and the daemon and only 3 ships got away out of the 12. Literally the girl died but tzeentch began talking through the girl and said "You should betray me more often. Tzeentch was pretty much ecstatic with dathan screwing him over.

He said he is a simple man and not a slave and tzeentch totally liked that and simply said well I could use a man like you when you feel like joining me just ask got a open spot for you.

The book is really interesting it takes a more philosophical look at chaos and the imperium. To me I think the book is trying to show that the gods would rather have people/servants than complete slaves/pawns to their whims and their plans. I think the reason is the people who keep their head in the game are more interesting to them than the frothing madman who are consumed with the gods will and ideas.

Storm of iron kreogar was turning into a frothing madman and of khorne guess what? Khorne/daemon got pissed off with him and went to the human instead and told her to off him and be his herald.

In another book slaves to darkness(fantasy) the character was talking with the chaos gods trying to become a daemon prince and the chaos gods called him a slave and went NO I am not a slave I serve you I am still ME.(This answer impressed them) He became a daemon prince and when fighting the "good" faction the empire the sigmar champion his old love she called him a slave to darkness.

The daemon laughed and said that no I am a willing servant of darkness and its you who is the slave. Now as he was being banished he said to her "It was you that impressed the gods the most." course the warriors of chaos pillage the south but she the holy warrior of sigmar was burning, killing woman, children and everything else in the north. Some of the people in the north are simple tribes people but NOOO in her mind they are servants of chaos who want to ruin the empire they MUST BURN AND DIE FOR THEIR HERESIES! She was doing the dark gods work even if she was denying it hence the daemon(one of the main characters) calling her a slave.

The slave to darkness book series was showing that no side is better than each other.

Looking at books and the people who gained power it seems that the gods don't like people who lose themselves and their purpose hence the 4 of them getting on abbadons grill about being their champion.

Just want to chime in here off topic but directed at the four or five posts that mention "doing anything for the sake of others"

THIS. DOES. NOT. MAKE. YOU. GOOD.

If you sacrifice yourself for the sake of others does not make you inherently perfect. That is an extremely well cemented judeo-Christian ideology built into us at a young age by brainwashing. Just because there are stories of Jesus doing it does not mean that you doing it makes you Jesus. Just as being selfish and wanting to better yourself does not make you Lucifer. You can do either or both or neither and still be a good or bad or inbetween person. The only thing that really makes a difference is what you see in your own head. If you feel evil after crushing an insect, then by all means, go work a couple hours for Goodwill or revel in the evilness. If you donate money to cancer research and that makes you feel good, by all means, tease people on the Internet or revel in the righteousness. The only morality exists in our own heads. Everything else is merely a balancing act of chaos and order