Even though GW describes the 41st millennium to be dystopian and grimmdark, I don't personally think its that bad

I mean sure the Imperium is a dictatorship, but various governments under the Imperium have their own independent governing bodies

Also the Tau Empire seems to really lighten everything up and the fact that the prominent Space Marine chapters such as the Space Wolves, Salamanders, Blood Angels and the Ultramarines have humanitarian motives seems to lighten things up as well

I guess that Warhammer became less grimmdark over the years

PresidentOfAsia wrote:
Also the Tau Empire seems to really lighten everything up

Nothing says "lightened up" like forced sterilization, ghettos, totalitarian dictatorships, and mind-control.

In fact, that you consider Tau good guys shows what a crapsack place 40k actually is, because they are arguably the goodest guys.

DarknessEternal wrote:

PresidentOfAsia wrote:
Also the Tau Empire seems to really lighten everything up

Nothing says "lightened up" like forced sterilization, ghettos, totalitarian dictatorships, and mind-control.

In fact, that you consider Tau good guys shows what a crapsack place 40k actually is, because they are arguably the goodest guys.

Hey, they don't have any evidence for mind control!

But yeah, it's really that bad.

It used to be a lot darker. go find yourself a copy of Rogue Trader or the second edition 40K, the backstories were a bit more grim.

It wasn't darker, it was more british. And Orks were practically green Space Nazis, not hilarious monsters.
Two things tell you how dark Warhammer is:
Tau are considered neutral or good.
Orks are considered funny.

Of course you need bright spots and a bit humanity on the micro scale. The Imperium couldn't survive if every week a system would be blown up. If you have a bit of luck, you can lead a decent life in the middle layers of a Hive during a period of piece.
If you don't...well, there's Cadia, Armageddon and Necromunda.

I think it could be more dark and disturbing. Too many people see things as "the good guys against the bad guys" ...

I am playing SoB because they are fanatical, cruel warriors, lobotomized by a theocratic dictatorship.
Imho, SM are almighty monastic orders and so beyond the issues that may arise in a normal human life.
That's no "the good side". There is no good side. All the stuff that can make us think that there is a good side is for younger customers, sadly.

Well, let's see..

IOM: Doomed to die. When they do, they will take the entire galaxy with them.

Tyr: Eat anything. Unstoppable. All the galaxy can do is delay the inevitable.

T'au: Space Commies. Nuff said.

DE: S&M hunters that kill to save themselves from their past mistakes.

Eldar: Gone in a few thousand years. Thankfully, when they all die, Ynnead will rise and save the Galaxy.

Orks: Orks. They kill for fun. They don't care about morality.

Deamons: See name for why they are Grimdark.

CSM: See Anti-Christ for full description.


So yeah, 40k is fairly grimdark.

I've seen people make it more grimdark and people think it's messed up. Any darker and people will find it tasteless.

It's dark enough to be interesting, but there's enough humor to keep it from being wretched. As Mr Nobody said, when people make it much grimmer or darker people don't react well. See (or preferably don't) the diorama of a bunch of Guardsmen about to rape an Eldar guardian. That's just too much.

It's gotten to be less of a parody of British culture like Judge Dredd and become more of its own thing. It's still meant to be taken with some humor since it's pretty aware how ridiculous it all is, while still being cool.

Although the background has changed a little, and will continue to change, I think it's core concept will remain the same. The basis of this is not how many skulls are carried on armour, nor how many worlds are wiped out by Nids or exterminatus, but the underlying knowledge that nothing will save humanity from this. There will be no Knight in shining armour,no Luke Skywalkers or Picards, coming in at the last moment to save us in an unlikely display of heroism.

The knights in shining armour did exist for a time, 10,000 years ago, but they turned against each other and destroyed everything they had built in a war of unimaginable proportions. And they started humanity on it's slow, painful and inexorable journey towards destruction. That for me is 'grimdark', the brutal but fair understanding of human nature at the heart of the 40k concept, and it's deeply pessimistic viewpoint of the human condition. It's what separates this sci-fi franchise from many of the others, and I think is why it is so appealing for many of us. Even though part of you cries out for a hero to step in and get the girl, it's that much more evocative because that almost never happens!

If somewhere in the future of the background writing we see a reversal of this - perhaps a voyage to the Nid homeworld to destroy the 'queen', the re-birth of the Emperor and the beginnings of a new crusade, or the purging of orcs so they are no longer a menace to the Imperium. Then that will be the moment that 'grimdark' dies, and we are given something quite different. Fortunately (at least from my perspective) quite a few of the BL writers have gone on to say that they understand this unique character of the 40k background, and so hopefully it will persist for some time yet!

40K is "grimdark" in that it's more grimdark than just about any other setting. It revolves around a general feeling of hopelessness, where there are threats so grave that obliterating billions of innocents to stop them comes out as a net good and hatred and intolerance against non-humans and psychics is the only sane, justifiable path. That the lot of the average Imperial citizen isn't meaningfully worse than that of the average modern human doesn't really weaken that tone.

The Tau certainly don't lighten things up, though. Their open-minded tolerance is actually just ignorance and naivety. Remember the story about them hailing necrons as saviors, and getting slaughtered for it? Or the other one about them working with Dark Eldar, and getting slaughtered for it? When it comes down to actually dealing with problems, they're just as brutal as the Imperium, only with a heaping dose of incompetence to make justified brutality into pointless brutality.

To posters who are reading this I will probably add replys and posts to my threads tommorow as I am a little busy here. Real life is a big distraction. This post is the only one from me for today.

My opinion written here is based on the novels and 4th edition with a few additions of 5th edition fluff and non of the fluff of Matt Ward.

Bah! People have simply become too westernized and soft hearted. Thats what I love about the Imperium of man, instead of acting like most modern real life humans or Cthulhu mythos humans when confronted with evil aliens or daemons, they don't cower in fear. They get more weapons, soldiers and ships and unleash massive amounts of fu@k y*u. They understand what has to be done when the going gets tough and they never back down. People complain about the intolerance of psykers and other religions but they don't understand the context of why the intolerance. I'm sure that if there was a cult in real life that prayed to daemons, people would ignore and tolerate them until they summon daemons. Then anything resembling tolerance or the freedom of religion for that cult would disappear as people would call for the cults annihilation. So please stop the hypocrysy of critisizing the Imperium about that.

40k isn't too Grim Dark to me.

Yes, it is an age of war. An age of horrors modern men of our age can only imagine. But it is ALSO an age of victory!

Man has endured for 10,000 years since the internment of the Emperor in the Golden throne. For 10,000 years mankind has exerted its will on a Galaxy FILLED with foes seeking the slightest taste of human souls and blood.

In a universe that almost seems DESIGNED to cause humanity to fail, mankind survives and sometimes thrive.

Heroes fight impossible odds for the sake of all mankind, and win.

Soldiers fight monsters from realms of nightmare, and win.

Regular ordinary men and women, sustained by faith, continue to embrace survival and mankinds birthright to rule the stars, even when they must live in the most repressive regime imaginable. Because the WISE know that what is done is done for the good of mankind. The Imperium of Man is a sign of hope, only in this crappy universe and not in others of course.

Man, in a malign universe, endures. 10,000 years AFTER the fall of the Man whose foresight was NEEDED to ensure mankinds ascendance, the Imperium STILL rules the stars.

It is filled with men and women who do what must be done.
Who fight the good fight REGARDLESS of the cost to themselves.

IN THE EMPERORS HOLY NAME!!!

I, sometimes in the dark, wonder what would happen if all of us fat, westernized, frail and soft-hearted peole of earth(including myself as one of them) are transported along with our planet to a universe similar to 40k except their is no Imperium of man, only evil aliens and daemons everywhere and god is evil. What would we do? Probably go emo and kill ourselves.

Hey, they don't have any evidence for mind control!

But yeah, it's really that bad.

Havent you read the codex...Ethrals use these helmets to mined control Vespids


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PresidentOfAsia wrote:Even though GW describes the 41st millennium to be dystopian and grimmdark, I don't personally think its that bad
I mean sure the Imperium is a dictatorship, but various governments under the Imperium have their own independent governing bodies
Also the Tau Empire seems to really lighten everything up and the fact that the prominent Space Marine chapters such as the Space Wolves, Salamanders, Blood Angels and the Ultramarines have humanitarian motives seems to lighten things up as well
I guess that Warhammer became less grimmdark over the years

To answer your question I think you have the right to also imagine yourself. I hate it how everything is so negative. So Instead of saying everybody is gonna die and tyranids, or orks, or necrons will rule the universe. I decided to switch it around beacuse its really a matter of opinion and I have to hear many b*ll sh*t things from other people saying 'Imperium is gonna fail, its bound to.' or 'Eldar, or getting raped everyday (even if they sort of do.) by chaos, necrons, and imperium.' or then what I hear most frequently is that, 'Tyranids are winning they are killing everything.' My answer to that is "If they are winning then why Imperium holds, and we hear so many stories of them getting defeated...Just beacuse they are scary doesnt mean they are winning."

My point is that nobody is winning and even tough there are many wars it doesnt mean everything is bad. There are many Imperial and Tau planets that havent even seen wars. There is a lot to this epic tale then just wars.

Yes.

Korraz wrote:It wasn't darker, it was more british.

Same thing

I am sorry, but "grimdark" is not "hoplessly dystopian".

"Grimdark", as coined by 40K (and to a lesser degree Warhammer Fantasy which shares many stylistic points), already carries within itself its own parody. It's dark exaggerated to the point of hilarity. A battle with hundreds or thousands of dead is dire tragedy. A battle with billions upon billons of dead is a spoof. The implausibly vast numbers, scales and extra skulls on top of 40K-style "grimdark" have always fallen firmly into the latter.

Yes, it is.

Maphysto wrote: Yes, it is.

That contains a fair amount of unconfirmed or outright refuted fan-fiction (e.g. Nid's flee from something nastier).

But even without that, it's taking the stuff more serious than the authors arguably do themselves.

See DarkerandEdgier. Than again, the irony inherent to turning everything up to 11 and adding more skulls on top may just be lost state-side; also see AmericanKirbyIsHardcore

Zweischneid wrote:

Maphysto wrote: Yes, it is.

That contains a fair amount of unconfirmed or outright refuted fan-fiction (e.g. Nid's flee from something nastier).

But even without that, it's taking the stuff more serious than the authors arguably do themselves.

See DarkerandEdgier. Than again, the irony inherent to turning everything up to 11 and adding more skulls on top may just be lost state-side; also see AmericanKirbyIsHardcore

I dunno, maybe I'm just a wimp, but I always found 40k to be pretty frightening. The IoM is basically the (il)logical conclusion of everything that's ever been wrong with our species. If you live in the Imperium and don't have the incredible luck to be born into nobility, you're bascially nothing more than a resource to be used. And Emperor help you if you're born a null.

Maphysto wrote:
I dunno, maybe I'm just a wimp, but I always found 40k to be pretty frightening. The IoM is basically the (il)logical conclusion of everything that's ever been wrong with our species. If you live in the Imperium and don't have the incredible luck to be born into nobility, you're bascially nothing more than a resource to be used. And Emperor help you if you're born a null.

It is. But it is so over the top frightinging, that it (purposfully) becomes a pardoy of itself. It's not just industrial wasteland and (near-)slave-labour, it's billions upon billions stuffed into planet-filling hives of industrial menial labour. It's not genetically enhanced super soldiers that fight at the IoMs border, it's immortal, 10ft. super-solders who spit acid and dual-wield chainsaws. It's not a secret police keeping the peace, it's the goddamn spanish inquisition headed by Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau that will just nuke entire planets for their own petty intriques. Oh.. and it has skulls on everything. Lots of skulls with more skulls etched on the skulls.

Brother SRM wrote:See (or preferably don't) the diorama of a bunch of Guardsmen about to rape an Eldar guardian. That's just too much.

Ye gods, that's tasteless. One of the plus sides of playing a wargame set in a fantasy world is that you can absolve it of this kind of thing. Morbid fascination aside, I'm glad I've not seen this. You're right, this is too far, and the maker was taking their toy soldiers to a very nasty place.

Ok, 40k is as grimdark as you want it to be. If you want a serious Ork army, all martial and proud then go for it. Write up a little bit of fluff, create a colour scheme and an army list and just do it! If you want a Space Marine force that dosnt take itself too seriously then ditto Orks.
If I could point you in the direction of the most excellent Chapter 13 on the P&M forum you will see a quite brilliant example of a Marine army that does not take itself too seriously.
Or how about a freak offshoot of a Tyranid Hive that fell throu a wormhole and came out the otherside as vegetarians? I guess the only limit is your imagination. If you have read any 40k novel recently you will see how, besides the normal protagonist 's there is a whole seething mass of humans and aliens in the galaxy just trying to get by....I guess what I'm trying to say is while the official fluff is all well and good, there is so much scope to create your own. So go out there and do it!
Peace.

htj wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:See (or preferably don't) the diorama of a bunch of Guardsmen about to rape an Eldar guardian. That's just too much.

Ye gods, that's tasteless. One of the plus sides of playing a wargame set in a fantasy world is that you can absolve it of this kind of thing. Morbid fascination aside, I'm glad I've not seen this. You're right, this is too far, and the maker was taking their toy soldiers to a very nasty place.

Which is an interesting thing to say about a game in which we regularly build armies and act out irrational genocide and never-ending killing of others, taking pleasure in it...

Maybe I just have skewed morals, Miraclefish.

Maphysto wrote:

Zweischneid wrote:

Maphysto wrote: Yes, it is.

That contains a fair amount of unconfirmed or outright refuted fan-fiction (e.g. Nid's flee from something nastier).

But even without that, it's taking the stuff more serious than the authors arguably do themselves.

See DarkerandEdgier. Than again, the irony inherent to turning everything up to 11 and adding more skulls on top may just be lost state-side; also see AmericanKirbyIsHardcore

I dunno, maybe I'm just a wimp, but I always found 40k to be pretty frightening. The IoM is basically the (il)logical conclusion of everything that's ever been wrong with our species. If you live in the Imperium and don't have the incredible luck to be born into nobility, you're basically nothing more than a resource to be used. And Emperor help you if you're born a null.

To me the Imperium makes perfect sense in the 40k setting since it has daemons. Why is it that everyone focuses on the problems of the Imperium in 40k and not the alien races. How about the Eldar, they consider everyone to be inferior. They ruled the galaxy for what seems like millions of years and instead of being constructive and benevolent, they grow bored and decide to bukkake themselves and the human race into hell. The Eldar's "playing" around caused the warp storms that are the main cause of the age of strife and thus the main cause of the fall of human civilization. As I already stated I don't really see 40k as that grimdark, as for what I want. I want 40k to become more mature no more skulls on skulls and massive pauldrons.

Read my previous post and all becomes clear.

Yeah. Tau are awesome good guys. Greater Good and all that. So long as you agree with them and will embrace their way of thinking. Don't forget how they pay off the Kroot - by letting them eat the dead. Wonderful chaps.

The 'independent' governance of the world isn't really that independent. Bad things happen if you don't follow imperial creed and woe be to the planetary governor who falls short on their tithes to the Imperium.

Orks, yeah, ha ha funny red goes faster, blue's lucky, until you read the fluff where poor squishy under equipped guardsman are facing wave after wave of unrelenting green killing machines.

Space Wolves love their Fenrisian Ale, sure and my saddest day will be when there are no more Commissar Cain novels but without any humour at all, it becomes unpalatable.

Don't forget as well that many people start playing 40k as kids before they've even hit their teenage years. Half the time I walk into GW, regardless of which store here I go to and I wonder if it's a wargaming store or a creche. Nothing wrong with ten year olds excited over their first company of Space Marines. They'll grow up experienced 40k players with many more years to play the game than I'll ever have. If you make the 40k setting any darker, parents will not allow their children to play. These kids are your opponents of the future, bringing 40k to a new generation. I'm already part of one international RPG club that's 18+ because of the dark themes and I reckon it's not nearly as dark as 40k.

I may be a little biased here because they scare the living crud outta me but you don't get much scarier than undead, unemotional, semi-sentient, relentless, sixty million year old robots that reform and are bent on killing anything and everything.

Not of course to forget the 'nids. Bugs can be annoying. Swarms can be highly unsettling. Starship Troopers x 100 is down right terrifying.

I wouldn't want to be born a psyker in the Imperium. Small chance I can live. Large chance I, like millions of other pyskers, will be sacrificed to keep the Emperor going.

Studies into special effects have recently shown that CGI being too realistic bombs out at theatres (when the whole movie's done in CGI). It makes it too real but because it's CGI it's unsettlingly 'wrong' to the human psyche. Same with that RPG organisation I'm with. It's setting is very similar to the here and now so more realistic. So even though it's not darker than 40k, it's closeness to our own lives and world make it more serious and therefore 18+.

So yes, 40k is quite grimdark enough. And I love every minute of it.

CadianCommander wrote:Yeah. Tau are awesome good guys. Greater Good and all that. So long as you agree with them and will embrace their way of thinking. Don't forget how they pay off the Kroot - by letting them eat the dead. Wonderful chaps.

The 'independent' governance of the world isn't really that independent. Bad things happen if you don't follow imperial creed and woe be to the planetary governor who falls short on their tithes to the Imperium.

Orks, yeah, ha ha funny red goes faster, blue's lucky, until you read the fluff where poor squishy under equipped guardsman are facing wave after wave of unrelenting green killing machines.

Space Wolves love their Fenrisian Ale, sure and my saddest day will be when there are no more Commissar Cain novels but without any humour at all, it becomes unpalatable.

Don't forget as well that many people start playing 40k as kids before they've even hit their teenage years. Half the time I walk into GW, regardless of which store here I go to and I wonder if it's a wargaming store or a creche. Nothing wrong with ten year olds excited over their first company of Space Marines. They'll grow up experienced 40k players with many more years to play the game than I'll ever have. If you make the 40k setting any darker, parents will not allow their children to play. These kids are your opponents of the future, bringing 40k to a new generation. I'm already part of one international RPG club that's 18+ because of the dark themes and I reckon it's not nearly as dark as 40k.

I may be a little biased here because they scare the living crud outta me but you don't get much scarier than undead, unemotional, semi-sentient, relentless, sixty million year old robots that reform and are bent on killing anything and everything.

Not of course to forget the 'nids. Bugs can be annoying. Swarms can be highly unsettling. Starship Troopers x 100 is down right terrifying.

I wouldn't want to be born a psyker in the Imperium. Small chance I can live. Large chance I, like millions of other pyskers, will be sacrificed to keep the Emperor going.

Studies into special effects have recently shown that CGI being too realistic bombs out at theatres (when the whole movie's done in CGI). It makes it too real but because it's CGI it's unsettlingly 'wrong' to the human psyche. Same with that RPG organisation I'm with. It's setting is very similar to the here and now so more realistic. So even though it's not darker than 40k, it's closeness to our own lives and world make it more serious and therefore 18+.

So yes, 40k is quite grimdark enough. And I love every minute of it.

The Tau are not good guys. The are simply the lesser evil of 40k along with the Imperium and the Eldar. Doi you know ho many atrocities in real life have been commited with the excuse of the "Greater Good"? Hell even the Inquisitions Exterminatus are done for the "Greater Good" of the Imperium and Humanity.

I will post this again for all Tau sympathizers who have been blinded by Tau propanganda:

Friend You are blinded by Tau propaganda. The reason the Imperium launched the Damocles Crusade is because of this:

"Exactly when the Tau Empire and the Imperium of Man first made contact with one another is unknown, for each was slow to recognise the nature of the other. For the Tau's part, it was fringe, dissident or overtly renegade elements of humanity that they first encountered, in the form of Free Captains and pirates across the coreward borders of the region called the Damocles Gulf in the Ultima Segmentum to the galactic east of Terra. The initial contacts ranged from friendly negotiations and trade to outright hostility. It was some time before the Tau Water Caste understood the fact that the humans they had encountered were merely the forgotten outcasts of an incomprehensively vast interstellar empire that stetched across the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy. This empire was so vast, that any overt agression on the Tau's part might lead to the outright destruction of their nascent empire and the extinction of their species.

Though many of the more passionate leaders of the Tau Fire Caste called for a war of conquest against the Imperium, the Ethereals issued their instructions for the integration of the Imperium of Man into the Tau Empire. The Water Caste were to align themselves with nearby dissident human factions and over the course of several decades of patient negotiations insinuate themselves into the courts of several dozen Imperial Commanders (Planetary Governors). The influence of the Tau thus spread further and more rapidly into the Imperium than any amount of military conquest could have taken it, until a swathe of human worlds were trading with the Tau Empire in preference to the Imperium's own merchant trade cartels and Rogue Traders. Alien goods and technology flowed through the markets of these border worlds in blatant contradiction of the laws of the Imperium. The second phase of the Ethereals' instructions were thus ready to be initiated.

Upon a score of worlds, Water Caste envoys whispered long-rehearsed words into willing ears. The seeds of rebellion had long been cultivated by the Tau and now bore traitorous fruit as each Imperial Governor declared himself free of the shackles of the Imperium's rule. In the ensuing power vacuum, the Tau Empire expanded, claiming for themselves those human worlds that came to be known as the Farsight Enclaves.

The Imperium's response was unusually swift but characteristically brutal. War was declared and the Damocles Gulf Crusade was launched by the Ultima Segmentum Command, involving units of the Imperial Guard, the Imperial Navy and the several Chapters of Space Marines. "

"the manifest destiny of the Tau to expand the Greater Good across the galaxy. "

I would like anyone reading this to take the analogy of what would happen if the USA was paying no attention to Mexico and generally ignoring Mexicol until it started using their hidden negotiators and manipulators caused Hawaii to secede from USA and join Mexico. I'm sure I don't have to say that America would not be happy about this development.

Also the Tau don't really care for individualism. And even if you are born as a psyker in the Tau empire, you are screwed either way as you either become possessed by daemons or become a warp portal or the Tau experiment on you. You are completely screwed if you are a psyker and human in 40k.

Bad things do happen to those who don't follow the Imperial creed besides the Imperium crushing you like being invaded by aliens or eaten by aliens or being used by aliens like genestealers and don't forget the daemons.

Errr....you missed the sarcasm in what I said.

Damn text and it's lack of tone.

Like completely.

In 40k, noone's the good guy.

No, it is not as grimdark as the internet wants you to believe.

The collective conscience known as the internet is stupid after all.

Yes, it's a dark setting, but not all is suffering and pain. Even in the Imperium, there are some good times. It's practically the Inquisition's job to make sure of that (to justify this-- the Inquisition's members and subbordinates put their lives, minds, and souls in jeopardy in order to make the Imperium a better place, and because of their efforts, there is some small amount of light and joy on some of the planets some of the time that would not be there otherwise). Yeah, the Inquisition is one of the darkest organizations in 40k... but it still does good work, doing its best, sacrificing all in the name of the betterment of mankind's suffering masses.

I use to think Warhammer 40k was kind of Scary and cynical,

but not anymore once I looked more into the fluff

For one, the biggest Space Marine Chapters such as the Salamanders, UltraMarines, Blood Angels and the Space Wolves have very humanitarian motives and are very friendly.

Also, various Guard regiments such as the Catachans or the Elysians don't throw away human lives like the Cadians and even then, Guard Regiments that do throw away human lives a lot always ensures that each Guardsmen dies with full honor instead of being the millionth man to clog up tank treads and not care about it(kind of what Chaos does with Cultist). Also Penal Legions still have a chance at a second life.

Also, the Emperor was an Atheist.

This entire argument depends on you drawing your conclusions from the point of view of a human, or one of the other mortal, moral/amoral, species.
Do you think any of this seems grimdark to an Ork? How about a Nid? Chaos Daemon?
Truthfully, at least half the armies in the game are all for never ending war and violence.
What is grimdark to a human, is very well a walk in the park for a Xenos.

Melissia wrote:No, it is not as grimdark as the internet wants you to believe.

The collective conscience known as the internet is stupid after all.

Yes, it's a dark setting, but not all is suffering and pain. Even in the Imperium, there are some good times. It's practically the Inquisition's job to make sure of that (to justify this-- the Inquisition's members and subbordinates put their lives, minds, and souls in jeopardy in order to make the Imperium a better place, and because of their efforts, there is some small amount of light and joy on some of the planets some of the time that would not be there otherwise). Yeah, the Inquisition is one of the darkest organizations in 40k... but it still does good work, doing its best, sacrificing all in the name of the betterment of mankind's suffering masses.

I think you said it all with the statement 'for the betterment of mankinds suffering masses'.

Because in this galaxy that's what they do, suffer, but hanging on while suffering is better than elimination.

There is a bright side though. Much of the undiscovered worlds and worlds left to their own devices due to the labyrinthine Imperial bureacracy are kept isolated and safe by actions of the Imperium intended or otherwise. This can last thousands of years. Those worlds through that isolation have no idea what awaits them in the stars. Once they get out there though they generally let out a collective "ah, crap..."

As far as well-known sci-fi universes go it's the darkest.

Looking at other major sci-fi universes: Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo, Starcraft, we see it's the darkest. Starcraft is probably the only real contender as Brood War ends with basically a villain victory, but there are still real "good guys" there and SC2 has brightened things up.

Uhlan wrote:I think you said it all with the statement 'for the betterment of mankinds suffering masses'.

The same suffering masses that exist in real life, except in far larger quantities.

Concerning grimdark:

tvtropes wrote:
On the subject of servitors: arco-flagellants. Oh god. Criminals and heretics forcibly re-educated, their arms replaced with horrid powered melee weapons like electro-flails, cybernetics all over their wasted forms, drug feeds hooked up to their bodies, and their faces covered in a blank mask. Normally rather passive, kept in a permanent trance of religious images (and this is the Church Militant of the 40k 'verse) and calming thoughts. Say the word, and the arco-flagellant goes berserk, butchering everything in its path. As well as the Penitent Engines, devices designed to cause torture even worse than arco-flagellation. And, to top it all off, the Church Militant seems to think that even these torture devices are not horrific enough, and is always trying to invent new ones.

I'd say 40k is grimdark if for the Inquisition/Ecclesiarchy elements alone. Granted we don't have human bombs anymore, but I'd say horrible things are still lurking in the corners.

daedalus wrote:Concerning grimdark:

tvtropes wrote:
On the subject of servitors: arco-flagellants. Oh god. Criminals and heretics forcibly re-educated, their arms replaced with horrid powered melee weapons like electro-flails, cybernetics all over their wasted forms, drug feeds hooked up to their bodies, and their faces covered in a blank mask. Normally rather passive, kept in a permanent trance of religious images (and this is the Church Militant of the 40k 'verse) and calming thoughts. Say the word, and the arco-flagellant goes berserk, butchering everything in its path. As well as the Penitent Engines, devices designed to cause torture even worse than arco-flagellation. And, to top it all off, the Church Militant seems to think that even these torture devices are not horrific enough, and is always trying to invent new ones.

I'd say 40k is grimdark if for the Inquisition/Ecclesiarchy elements alone. Granted we don't have human bombs anymore, but I'd say horrible things are still lurking in the corners.

Or around every corner... chaos demons, chaos worshipers, tyrannid scouting infestations and the myriad human affectations taken to the nth degree.

Maybe 40k is like cable and broadcast news. We only hear about the bad things...

40k is not dark at all. It's turned into a child's game over the years.

I miss the days when Orks took human children as slaves and worked them to death. And used guitars...

"Men must die so that Man can endure"

That, I think, sums it all up nicely.

PresidentOfAsia wrote:Also, various Guard regiments such as the Catachans or the Elysians don't throw away human lives like the Cadians and even then, Guard Regiments that do throw away human lives a lot always ensures that each Guardsmen dies with full honor instead of being the millionth man to clog up tank treads and not care about it(kind of what Chaos does with Cultist). Also Penal Legions still have a chance at a second life.

Yeah, no. Tell that to the Valhallans and all the thousands of Valhallan-mentality guard regiments.

In the IG, you are a number.

40k is not grimdark. It is full of fairy vehicles powered by bubbles and rainbows.









Cute Necrons say, "HAI2U!"

In the grand scheme of warfare, all soldiers are just numbers. This does not mean that a military commander needlessly wastes the lives of his troops in achieving his objective, but neither does he shy away from their inevitable deaths when he (and they) knows that, through their sacrifice, victory will be achieved.

In the novels, many IG Commanders are depicted as being one or another of Europe's military leaders, many of which were tyrants who threw away the lives of their men (in every definition of the phrase) in pursuit of glory, not victory. Part of this is done because such writing is "grimdark". Part of this is done to illustrate the human nobility of those IG commanders who, though they may lose 50,000 of the 75,000 men under their command in winning the battle, did not lose those 50,000 men in a personal quest for glory, bad tactics, petty revenge for some imagined slight, or other such failing... their sacrifice was required, and was, indeed, the absolute minimum sacrifice, that victory required.

Again, "Men must die so that Man can endure".

While the codices make the universe seem extremely dark (and granted it's war; it's dark), the novels are better examples that state otherwise. They give a better description of normal Imperial life: not too much unlike ours, just with aliens.

BuFFo wrote:40k is not dark at all. It's turned into a child's game over the years.

I miss the days when Orks took human children as slaves and worked them to death. And used guitars...

That's still around, Ork slavery is still very much a part of the fluff. The latest Ork codex goes into how Orks will conquer and enslave entire worlds just to have them manufacture their weapons

In the "old days" of Ere We Go and Waaargh Da Orks, Orks were less savage. I remember the slavery parts would talk about how a human slave could gain a level of respect in Ork society and actually had a chance of living through the experience. Modern Orks would never respect or accept a Ume' on any level nowadays and they'll always work their slaves to death or simply tire and dispose of them.

Really I often hear how much more "childish" 40k has gotten but I've read Rogue Trader and it doesn't seem any more dark than the current codex's. The only real "bright spot" I guess are the Tau and GK codex's, but these are counterbalanced by the "everything is fethed" nature of the Tyranid and Necron ones imo.

Then you have stuff like the 5th ed DE Codex which basically is a list of how many depraved acts GW could come up with in 100 pages.

Harriticus wrote:That's still around, Ork slavery is still very much a part of the fluff. The latest Ork codex goes into how Orks will conquer and enslave entire worlds just to have them manufacture their weapons

Really? I must be missing it! lol... I need to find it!

Really I often hear how much more "childish" 40k has gotten but I've read Rogue Trader and it doesn't seem any more dark than the current codex's. The only real "bright spot" I guess are the Tau and GK codex's, but these are counterbalanced by the "everything is fethed" nature of the Tyranid and Necron ones imo.

Yeah, in retrospect, I feel 40k was at it's most grim in 2nd edition.

Then you have stuff like the 5th ed DE Codex which basically is a list of how many depraved acts GW could come up with in 100 pages.

Yeah, well, even in the DE book the language is kept child friendly, and is not REALLY dark. I feel a Commissar shooting a family man in the face because he won't run head long into a Hive Tyrant more Dark than anything in the DE codex, personally...

PresidentOfAsia wrote:I use to think Warhammer 40k was kind of Scary and cynical,

but not anymore once I looked more into the fluff

For one, the biggest Space Marine Chapters such as the Salamanders, UltraMarines, Blood Angels and the Space Wolves have very humanitarian motives and are very friendly.

Also, various Guard regiments such as the Catachans or the Elysians don't throw away human lives like the Cadians and even then, Guard Regiments that do throw away human lives a lot always ensures that each Guardsmen dies with full honor instead of being the millionth man to clog up tank treads and not care about it(kind of what Chaos does with Cultist). Also Penal Legions still have a chance at a second life.

Also, the Emperor was an Atheist.

The Salamanders are very friendly when not setting you on for for kicks, Ultramarines are very friendly when not sacrificing you to cover some manuever they feel like trying, The Blood Angels are extremely friendly, wben not roaming your city at night draining people of blood..

The wolves are the only ones that i would consider as being regularly humanitarian, mainly because a of their F-you attitude towards Imperial Authority

Ascalam wrote:

PresidentOfAsia wrote:I use to think Warhammer 40k was kind of Scary and cynical,

but not anymore once I looked more into the fluff

For one, the biggest Space Marine Chapters such as the Salamanders, UltraMarines, Blood Angels and the Space Wolves have very humanitarian motives and are very friendly.

Also, various Guard regiments such as the Catachans or the Elysians don't throw away human lives like the Cadians and even then, Guard Regiments that do throw away human lives a lot always ensures that each Guardsmen dies with full honor instead of being the millionth man to clog up tank treads and not care about it(kind of what Chaos does with Cultist). Also Penal Legions still have a chance at a second life.

Also, the Emperor was an Atheist.

The Salamanders are very friendly when not setting you on for for kicks, Ultramarines are very friendly when not sacrificing you to cover some manuever they feel like trying, The Blood Angels are extremely friendly, wben not roaming your city at night draining people of blood..

The wolves are the only ones that i would consider as being regularly humanitarian, mainly because a of their F-you attitude towards Imperial Authority

The very same wolfs which keep their planet in a perpetual state of poverty and civil war because they think that a bunch of starved children make great recruits?
Great humanitarians they are...

DarknessEternal wrote:

PresidentOfAsia wrote:
Also the Tau Empire seems to really lighten everything up

Nothing says "lightened up" like forced sterilization, ghettos, totalitarian dictatorships, and mind-control.

In fact, that you consider Tau good guys shows what a crapsack place 40k actually is, because they are arguably the goodest guys.

We covered this as extensively as is physically possible here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/357650.page

Also, the Tau sterilization of exterminatus is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better than having your face eaten by the life eater. Additionally, the only reference to this was at the end of a relic video-game.

The Tau do NOT stick the Gue'vesa in ghettos, they are not treated quite as well as Tau in their society, but it is only marginally worse. The Gue'vesa are valued for their strength, courage, skill, insight, tactics, and skill in mêlée combat.

The totalitarianism is simply because they all have a common goal, a manifest destiny that they are willing to fight for, together. Plus, totalitarianism isn't as bad as it sounds, and it effectively removes the aspects of greed and hubris, helping societies reach their potential. It also gives everyone a place in the community, and caters to individual skillsets.

It is not a dictatorship. Dictators hold power through military intervention, and considering that the Tau military fall under the category of "ruled" rather than "ruling", it doesn't apply. The Ethereals have power similar to the Inquisitors, except that they have that power through awe, reverence, and respect, rather than fear and the ability to say "man, whoever thought that daemons would have swords? maybe we should just blow up the planet".

Ethereals do not have mind-control over Tau, as the Tau do not have psykers, and the only psykers that are even loyal to them are kroot shamans, who the Tau don't even know about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BuFFo wrote:
Yeah, well, even in the DE book the language is kept child friendly, and is not REALLY dark. I feel a Commissar shooting a family man in the face because he won't run head long into a Hive Tyrant more Dark than anything in the DE codex, personally...

Really? You find it more grimdark than injecting mercury into someone's liver? That would be just about the maximum amount of pain. In Blood Gorgons [spoiler] The dark eldar use this technique to drive a CHAOS SPACE MARINE into a brain-damaged vegetable.

KingDeath wrote:

Ascalam wrote:

PresidentOfAsia wrote:I use to think Warhammer 40k was kind of Scary and cynical,

but not anymore once I looked more into the fluff

For one, the biggest Space Marine Chapters such as the Salamanders, UltraMarines, Blood Angels and the Space Wolves have very humanitarian motives and are very friendly.

Also, various Guard regiments such as the Catachans or the Elysians don't throw away human lives like the Cadians and even then, Guard Regiments that do throw away human lives a lot always ensures that each Guardsmen dies with full honor instead of being the millionth man to clog up tank treads and not care about it(kind of what Chaos does with Cultist). Also Penal Legions still have a chance at a second life.

Also, the Emperor was an Atheist.

The Salamanders are very friendly when not setting you on for for kicks, Ultramarines are very friendly when not sacrificing you to cover some manuever they feel like trying, The Blood Angels are extremely friendly, wben not roaming your city at night draining people of blood..

The wolves are the only ones that i would consider as being regularly humanitarian, mainly because a of their F-you attitude towards Imperial Authority

The very same wolfs which keep their planet in a perpetual state of poverty and civil war because they think that a bunch of starved children make great recruits?
Great humanitarians they are...

Missing out on the fact that they like it that way, and that they themselves were part of that culture before being chosen

Telling a Norseman that he couldn't fight his nearest neighbours and had to live in a hive city somewhere like other imperial citizens wouldn't go down well, and they have a thing for maintaining tradition.

They have a solid fluff history of telling the inquisition to get lost in order to save lives. Yes, for Astartes, they are humanitarian.

BuFFo wrote:

Harriticus wrote:That's still around, Ork slavery is still very much a part of the fluff. The latest Ork codex goes into how Orks will conquer and enslave entire worlds just to have them manufacture their weapons

Really? I must be missing it! lol... I need to find it!.

Dashofpepper wrote:40k is not grimdark. It is full of fairy vehicles powered by bubbles and rainbows.









Cute Necrons say, "HAI2U!"

Has anyone heard of the 1d4chan chapter, the PRETTY MARINES!?!?

Yes. Everyone has heard of Pretty Marines. And Angry Marines. And no, we don't need an image dump of them again.

im2randomghgh wrote:Ethereals do not have mind-control over Tau, as the Tau do not have psykers, and the only psykers that are even loyal to them are kroot shamans, who the Tau don't even know about.

Pheremones and the helmets given to the vespid leaders...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BuFFo wrote:
Yeah, well, even in the DE book the language is kept child friendly, and is not REALLY dark. I feel a Commissar shooting a family man in the face because he won't run head long into a Hive Tyrant more Dark than anything in the DE codex, personally...

Really? You find it more grimdark than injecting mercury into someone's liver? That would be just about the maximum amount of pain. In Blood Gorgons [spoiler] The dark eldar use this technique to drive a CHAOS SPACE MARINE into a brain-damaged vegetable.

That's not the book he was talking about. The Dark Eldar codex pretty much stops at "they totally torture people for fun and stuff". 40K fluff is much more kiddie friendly than warhammer fantasy fluff; the Dark Elf army book is more descriptive, and the Malus Darkblade novels even more so (which include, among other things, the protagonist telling a captive Bretonian how he and his crew had raped and tortured the man's fiance to death, before handing him her face and hurling him over the rail (this is how he's introduced, in the first chapter of the first book; it serves to nicely reassure the reader that Malus isn't a pansy with inexplicably counter-cultural views like Salvatore's Drizzt), or the Slaaneshi ritual scenes... those were written by Dan Abnett, by the way, so it's not a matter of different authors...).

im2randomghgh wrote:

BuFFo wrote:
Yeah, well, even in the DE book the language is kept child friendly, and is not REALLY dark. I feel a Commissar shooting a family man in the face because he won't run head long into a Hive Tyrant more Dark than anything in the DE codex, personally...

Really? You find it more grimdark than injecting mercury into someone's liver? That would be just about the maximum amount of pain. In Blood Gorgons [spoiler] The dark eldar use this technique to drive a CHAOS SPACE MARINE into a brain-damaged vegetable.

That isn't in the DE codex, of which is what I was talking about.

For me, anything not in a rule book is not 40k fluff.

Pacific wrote:Although the background has changed a little, and will continue to change, I think it's core concept will remain the same. The basis of this is not how many skulls are carried on armour, nor how many worlds are wiped out by Nids or exterminatus, but the underlying knowledge that nothing will save humanity from this. There will be no Knight in shining armour,no Luke Skywalkers or Picards, coming in at the last moment to save us in an unlikely display of heroism.

The knights in shining armour did exist for a time, 10,000 years ago, but they turned against each other and destroyed everything they had built in a war of unimaginable proportions. And they started humanity on it's slow, painful and inexorable journey towards destruction. That for me is 'grimdark', the brutal but fair understanding of human nature at the heart of the 40k concept, and it's deeply pessimistic viewpoint of the human condition. It's what separates this sci-fi franchise from many of the others, and I think is why it is so appealing for many of us. Even though part of you cries out for a hero to step in and get the girl, it's that much more evocative because that almost never happens!

If somewhere in the future of the background writing we see a reversal of this - perhaps a voyage to the Nid homeworld to destroy the 'queen', the re-birth of the Emperor and the beginnings of a new crusade, or the purging of orcs so they are no longer a menace to the Imperium. Then that will be the moment that 'grimdark' dies, and we are given something quite different. Fortunately (at least from my perspective) quite a few of the BL writers have gone on to say that they understand this unique character of the 40k background, and so hopefully it will persist for some time yet!

I think 40k is able to be a "dark" setting without it being so dark to the point it just turns people off. The extent of what the IoM is willing to do is scary sometimes, a society based mostly on the whims of a dead god. What is scarier than that when you think about it, honestly? Thier God, thier hope, is essentially dead.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:Ethereals do not have mind-control over Tau, as the Tau do not have psykers, and the only psykers that are even loyal to them are kroot shamans, who the Tau don't even know about.

Pheremones and the helmets given to the vespid leaders...

The Strain Leader control is just supposition based on the fact that no one expects a race to be so trusting, but they fail to account for the mentality of aliens to be just as, i dunno, alien as the alien itself.

Even in the Tau codex, it says that the pheromone thing is simply Imperial supposition...

Melissia wrote:No, it is not as grimdark as the internet wants you to believe.

The collective conscience known as the internet is stupid after all.

Yes, it's a dark setting, but not all is suffering and pain. Even in the Imperium, there are some good times. It's practically the Inquisition's job to make sure of that (to justify this-- the Inquisition's members and subbordinates put their lives, minds, and souls in jeopardy in order to make the Imperium a better place, and because of their efforts, there is some small amount of light and joy on some of the planets some of the time that would not be there otherwise). Yeah, the Inquisition is one of the darkest organizations in 40k... but it still does good work, doing its best, sacrificing all in the name of the betterment of mankind's suffering masses.

I always thought the inquisition was the most grimdark part of 40k. They're not out to make your day better, they're out to kill, maim and beat anyone they feel is guilty or just don't like. At least that's what the spanish inquisition was like.

The Imperial inquisition ain't the Spanish Inquisition.

They're more efficient and have a purpose aside from the furthering of their own employment.

Melissia wrote:The Imperial inquisition ain't the Spanish Inquisition.

They're more efficient and have a purpose aside from the furthering of their own employment.

Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.

Swiftblade wrote:

Melissia wrote:The Imperial inquisition ain't the Spanish Inquisition.

They're more efficient and have a purpose aside from the furthering of their own employment.

Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.

QFT

Melissia wrote:The Imperial inquisition ain't the Spanish Inquisition.

They're more efficient and have a purpose aside from the furthering of their own employment.

Inquisiton decides to use an entire company of guardsmen to help cleanse the planet. Cleansing is done, Inquisitor decides company of guardsmen is tainted. Inquisitor orders death of entire company of guardsmen.

halonachos wrote:

Melissia wrote:The Imperial inquisition ain't the Spanish Inquisition.

They're more efficient and have a purpose aside from the furthering of their own employment.

Inquisiton decides to use an entire company of guardsmen to help cleanse the planet. Cleansing is done, Inquisitor decides company of guardsmen is tainted. Inquisitor orders death of entire company of guardsmen.

*finishing sentence*

Because they can.

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.

wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT

wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

Indeed, Inquisitors who abuse their power are the exception.

You don't hear about the good Inquisitors for the same reason that you don't hear about Ninjas.

To quote Freefall:

OMG. Someone who actually knows what a ninja is. <cries with happiness>

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.

wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT

wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

In just about every inquisitorial book, the inquisitors have been rogue or extreme. It is not as rare as you seem to think it is. Having the power to destroy worlds in the blink of an eye kind of unhinges the mind. In savage scars, an Inquisitor attempt to kill a world simply because the Tau used to live on it, after months of campaigning on the ground, after losing titans, guardsmen, and astartes, after the Tau had already evacuated, after being commanded not to by Lord Inquisitor Kryptmann. The only thing that stopped him were several Guardsmen and Sergeant Sarik of the Scars.

Not only is that not true (I can think of quite a few books with non-rogue and non-extreme inquisitors), that's only because the rogue and extreme Inquistiors are the only ones you ever notice. As noted by Inquisitor Vail, the best Inquisitors are the ones you don't suspect are Inquisitors.

Most Inquisitors are puritan, as noted by Dark Heresy.

Melissia wrote:Not only is that not true (I can think of quite a few books with non-rogue and non-extreme inquisitors), that's only because the rogue and extreme Inquistiors are the only ones you ever notice. As noted by Inquisitor Vail, the best Inquisitors are the ones you don't suspect are Inquisitors.

Most Inquisitors are puritan, as noted by Dark Heresy.

I am simply stating what I have noticed in my experience. I respect your point to, but have my views.

Of course, the only books I've read with inquisitors were:

Scourge the Heretic
The Ravenor books
The Eisenhorn books
Savage Scars
The Lost
GK Omnibus

I have read others with inquisitors, obviously, but these are the only ones where the inquisitors played a major role.

Almost all those books have rogue/extreme/eisenhornish Inquisitors.

im2randomghgh wrote:I respect your point to, but have my views.

Which are wrong.

GW has a tendency to use rogue inquisitors as a plot point, because they're dangerous and GW's Black Library writers are often low quality to begin with. But the actual lore of the Inquisition, in Inquisition source material, proves that just because there's a few notable exceptions does not mean that Inquisitors commonly go rogue.

The vast majority of the Inquisition rumbles along unseen and unheralded for obvious reasons. A well known inquisitors presence can still have a dramatic effect by weight of sheer reputation, but I think it would be the those hidden assets that would be the ones to capitalize on those effects.

im2randomghgh wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.

wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT

wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

In just about every inquisitorial book, the inquisitors have been rogue or extreme. It is not as rare as you seem to think it is. Having the power to destroy worlds in the blink of an eye kind of unhinges the mind. In savage scars, an Inquisitor attempt to kill a world simply because the Tau used to live on it, after months of campaigning on the ground, after losing titans, guardsmen, and astartes, after the Tau had already evacuated, after being commanded not to by Lord Inquisitor Kryptmann. The only thing that stopped him were several Guardsmen and Sergeant Sarik of the Scars.

Of course Inquisitors become unhinged with time because they unlike everyone else who are either thick headed, ignorant or brainwashed.They know all about the horrors that threaten to destroy humanity and the galaxy. They may be extraordinary humans with strong mental fortitude but they are still humans and thus have limits to how much they can take. Jesus Christ, their is an Inquisitor in the dark heresy core rulebook who has become cynical and pessimistic due to his long fight against daemons and those who worship achieving nothing in the long run. He believes humanity is doomed to destruction and that it is desirable because their will be no more sufering. In the rpg books which I consider to be more canon than the crappy fluff that GW and ward are releasing, their is a story of an Inquisitor stuck on an imperial world invaded by daemons threatening to overrun the planet. He sent a call of reinforcements of daemon-hunters but they can't arrive due to a warp storm. He has the other choice of exterminatus but he doesn't want to issue that order so he asks the church to raise a militia to fight the daemons, instead they give him exorcists which help him banish the daemons.

But of course, to you the fact that Inquisitors can become insane due them knowing things man was not meant to know or going crazy like in cthulhu means their pure evil because the perfect Tau are above such things. The 40k Inquisition are better than the Real Life inquisition because they fight against real daemons, aliens and cults. While our earths inquisition fought against nothing but their imaginations and lust for power.

"tau are above such things'

They don't summon deamons, mut they've had their share of 'bargaining with the devil' nonetheless. I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

It depends who is writing what your reading.

Most authors portray it as a harsh restricted life. And as a human, if you don't run into any invasion fleets, or join the military, or have your world overrun by chaos. you should usually be fine.

But then some authors make the entire galaxy feel like a depressing hell-pit that makes you want to cut yourself with a broken toothpick.

Ascalam wrote:"tau are above such things'

They don't summon deamons, mut they've had their share of 'bargaining with the devil' nonetheless. I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

They couldn't, they are almost psychic pariahs, and they barely register in the warp.

Plus their sheltered, devout ways would help them resist the Taint even if they were susceptible to it. The "Plague of Unbelief" wouldn't affect them, for example, due to their faith in their Ethereals.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if you want proof that there are thousands, many, many thousands, of extremist inquisitors, then take the example of the Illuminati, and more specifically, the Ordo Hydra.

Star Child my ass...

You don't need to register in the warp to perform a ritual

I grant it to be unlikely, but since they are so frickin' gullible i could see them being tricked into activating a chaos Icon or similar artifact


Agree 110% on the Star Child lunacy Ridiculous piece of fluff..

Ascalam wrote:You don't need to register in the warp to perform a ritual

I grant it to be unlikely, but since they are so frickin' gullible i could see them being tricked into activating a chaos Icon or similar artifact


Agree 110% on the Star Child lunacy Ridiculous piece of fluff..

You DO need to register in the warp for it to have an effect though.

And I wouldn't say gullible so much as naive...

Back on topic...a good example of grimdark would be:

The crime scene in Nemesis
or
Mechanicum
or
Fulgrim (the novel)
or
well...most of the HH books actually, or most of the BL books really...

Melissia wrote:Not only is that not true (I can think of quite a few books with non-rogue and non-extreme inquisitors), that's only because the rogue and extreme Inquistiors are the only ones you ever notice. As noted by Inquisitor Vail, the best Inquisitors are the ones you don't suspect are Inquisitors.

Most Inquisitors are puritan, as noted by Dark Heresy.

Indeed, it's generally just the 'characterful' ones which are worth reading about

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.

wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT

wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

Time to point out random fluff to help prove my point!

Inqusitor Kryptman ordered the Exterminatus of several planets simply on the hint the nid's might use them. Inquisitors vary from humanitarian heroes to horrible souless monsters.

Ascalam wrote:I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

Except for the fact that the Tau still don't have a firm grasp on that whole concept of gods.

Oh, and im2randomghgh, by faith in the Ethereals, I assume you mean mind controlled by the Ethereals thanks to the Eldar.

Platuan4th wrote:

Ascalam wrote:I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

Except for the fact that the Tau still don't have a firm grasp on that whole concept of gods.

Oh, and im2randomghgh, by faith in the Ethereals, I assume you mean mind controlled by the Ethereals thanks to the Eldar.

Where did you get Eldar from?

And no, the pheromone thing is just supposition, and even so, it is not like all Tau have ethereals beside them all day being like "smell me"

To think that only the "good guys" win is wrong, even in the fiction. Bad things do happen. Very very bad things.

Munga wrote:To think that only the "good guys" win is wrong, even in the fiction. Bad things do happen. Very very bad things.

There are no good guys in wh40k. The Tau are the least evil, but are still, in the opinion of some (not me), morally dubious. And even their relative beneficence is due in fairly large part to their naivety and relative youth (as a species).

And I will assume you meant the IoM, but they lose, often. Very often. (storm of iron). And speaking of SoI, that novel was a perfect example of grimdark.

When you think about it, 40k is still fairly grimdark. While I am certain a lot of the 5th edition codexes have completely lost their connection to the fluff and are much less grimdark, theres still the other stuff. Like the description on Guass Flayers! They take your skin off layer by layer...in most of the fluff you can hear of space marines being heard over the vox screaming as their skin is flayed from their bones...yowch!

I would like it if (there was no matt ward) 40k was much more grimdark, but it isnt exactly lacking....oh and I am not found wanting *dodges daemonhammer*

the fact that the prominent Space Marine chapters such as the Space Wolves, Salamanders, Blood Angels and the Ultramarines have humanitarian motives seems to lighten things up as well

Humanitarian? Ha, if you thats what you call dedicating themselves to exterminating all xenos in the galaxy without prejudice.

im2randomghgh wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:

Ascalam wrote:I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

Except for the fact that the Tau still don't have a firm grasp on that whole concept of gods.

Oh, and im2randomghgh, by faith in the Ethereals, I assume you mean mind controlled by the Ethereals thanks to the Eldar.

Where did you get Eldar from?

And no, the pheromone thing is just supposition, and even so, it is not like all Tau have ethereals beside them all day being like "smell me"

No, but they do have them on hand very frequently, and constantly in the case of the leadership of the different castes. What happens the second all the Ethereals with Farsight's expeditionary force are killed? He realizes they were screwing with his head and goes rogue with the forces under his command, getting as far away from their influence as he can.

im2randomghgh wrote:

Munga wrote:To think that only the "good guys" win is wrong, even in the fiction. Bad things do happen. Very very bad things.

There are no good guys in wh40k. The Tau are the least evil, but are still, in the opinion of some (not me), morally dubious. And even their relative beneficence is due in fairly large part to their naivety and relative youth (as a species).

And I will assume you meant the IoM, but they lose, often. Very often. (storm of iron). And speaking of SoI, that novel was a perfect example of grimdark.

To me they're worse than the Imperium. The Imperium is brutal because what it's facing demands it, and its xenophobia is justified in that Xenos generally want to eat humans, and when they don't, who cares what happens to them? It's not like they're humans. The Tau, on the otherhand, are no less brutal when it comes to dealing with threats they perceive, but they're naive and ignorant of the worst threats. Brutality can be justified; incompetence can't.

Swiftblade wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.

wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT

wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

Time to point out random fluff to help prove my point!

Inqusitor Kryptman ordered the Exterminatus of several planets simply on the hint the nid's might use them. Inquisitors vary from humanitarian heroes to horrible souless monsters.

Yet Leviathan continued to carve its bloody path through the Imperium. Perhaps Leviathan's main gain was the vital forge world of Gryphone IV, home of the War Griffons Titan legion. Kryptman knew he had to slow down the hive fleet's advance to buy time for Battlefleets Solar and Tempestus to muster. With grim finality, he ordered a cordon to be established. Every world within was to be evacuated and undergo immediate Exterminatus wherever possible. With one stark, callous decision, the Inquisitor had inflicted the Imperium's worst act of genocide upon on its own since the Horus Heresy. Kryptman was denounced as a radical and a traitor; when migrating Orks claimed a score of former human worlds, he was stripped of his title and thrown out of the Inquisition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For info on Tau and the races of 40k read a thread I created here it is- http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/364848.page

Many people seem to think that races in 40k are lovy dovey. Tvtropes itself has said that the Imperium and humanity has pretty much ran into thousands of alien races and 9 times out of 10 the aliens were evil and doing things to human. I think tvtropes are wrong, its pretty much to me 8 times out of 10, humans are simply too paranoid but then again they have good reason to be. Here are some races who are evil or just no way to live with them in peace:

Hrud- waiting for the races of the galaxy to pretty much wipe each other and than they will rise up from their warrens and kill the survivors

Thyruss or however its spelled- who make war to please their gods by giving them some nice war series to watch.

Slaught- A race who have been implied to have been playing with the human race since before the age of strife. They like to manipulate humans into causing massive wars with each other or hell anyone else. Then they move in and eat the bodies.

Yu'Vath- An alien empire of slavering warp worshiping sorcerers who built an empire on the back of enslaved humans for well slavery and daemon fodder fuel seeing as the Yu'Vath are sorcerers after all. Their entire tech base is basically sorcery.

from tvtropes wrote:Humans, by official policy of the Imperium of Man, are not supposed to tolerate the existence of xenos. Policy is not always followed.

* Ciaphas Cain exemplifies the trope quite well. You would expect him, of all the people in the WH 40 K universe, to at least be apathetic towards any aliens not actively killing him. Even he is a complete xenophobe; despite never really being put in a situation where it matters if he is actually a xenophobe or not, he still makes a few comments about it.
o Possibly Justified in that 9 times out of 10 pretty much any alien in the known universe will kill a human on sight.
o On the other hand, being an absolute xenophobe eliminates any hope of alliance with the remaining 10%, which is why policy takes a hike in some Enemy Mine situations.

Need I go on?

This is something I found in tvtropes that made me a fan of the Imperium of man in 40k:

For this troper, there's the last part of The Last Chancers, where Kage regains control of himself from a Daemon, before he was about to kill Colonel Schaeffer looks at his comrades and himself and has a personal revalation of what it means to be a Last Chancer, then performs a Heroic Sacrifice.

* The revelation he comes to right before it really makes me misty eyed.
It all becomes crystal clear in that moment of awakening. Sacrifice, the Imperium is built on it. The sayings are all true. The Blood of Martyrs is the Seed of the Imperium. The Loyal Slave Learns to Love the Lash. Only in Death does Duty End.
For ten thousand years we have endured, sometimes we have prospered, other times merely survived. For a hundred centuries we have fought and died, spilt the blood of of our enemies and our own over an uncountable number of battlefields. Mankind has sacrificed itself, for itself, so that it might last another generation, and another, and another. Those sacrifices are for no greater cause than the acts themeselves. It is done in the unspoken hope that some day, perhaps in another ten thousand years, a generation will live without sacrifice and mankind's destiny is assured for eternity.
The Emperor will not remember you by your medals and diplomas, but by your scars.
It is not only in death that we offer up our lives to Him, but also in life. We are not judged merely by the manner of our deaths, we do not earn His eternal grace merely by dying in His name. It is by the way we live out our lives before we die that defines who we were. it is easy to sacrifice a body, for it's nothing more that a mortal shell for our soul. To sacrifice your life, not your death, is the ultimate test of faith.
It is a test I have always failed. I have lied and cheated and killed my fellow men for my own reasons. I have squandered the opportunities for glory I was given. Time and again I stood upon the precipice of true sacrifice and turned away.
Von Strab's look of triumph turns to horror as I fling my arms around him, lfting him off the ground. I see von Spenk's astonished face flash past as I drive forwardsm with the overlord in my arms, the panicked bellows of Urkug sounding in my ears.
His legs hit them rope barrier and buckle, and my momentum carries us forward, toppling us head or heels into the precipice.
Now I truly understand what it means to have a Last Chance. I'm glad I finally took it.

@ Sir pseudonymous, the Tau are the only race in the entire galaxy that will ever offer a peaceful alternative, ever.

They are less brutal, only attacking planets that are either a threat to them or that they need for their sphere-expansions, whereas the IoM attacks planets solely because there are xenos on it.

Forgive the Tau for being naive, they were in their stone age 6000 years ago, and humans were 4.4 million years ago, so it is not incompetence of any kind on the Tau's part. Yes, they thought they killed Slaanesh when they destroyed a slaaneshi chaos lord, but that's because they have no gods. If you were part of the army, and heard the enemy soldiers asking someone for direction, and assumed it was a person rather than automatically assuming it was a god, would you be considered naive?

I think the Tau are there to set the meter on what's good, Tau are their to say this is what counts for nice in 40k.

im2randomghgh wrote:
They are less brutal, only attacking planets that are either a threat to them or that they need for their sphere-expansions, whereas the IoM attacks planets solely because there are xenos on it.

Whats the real difference between the Imperium and Tau in this statement? The Tau attack planets to conquer and take the planet. The Imperium attack planets in order to conquer planets and take them. Both sides do it because they want to expand, so what the Imperium is wrong for expanding but Tau expansion is alright?

The only difference is the way in which they expand and how they handle aliens, thats it.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think the Tau are there to set the meter on what's good, Tau are their to say this is what counts for nice in 40k.

So you are saying that a lighter form of fascism is good. The Tau are a somewhat lighter form of fascist seeing as they say that all sentient beings must stop doing their own things that do not benefit the Greater Good and focus on the greater good, which is essentially fascism seeing as a person must put set aside all individualism and do everything for the greater good.

Read a thread I created especially a post I created recently with evidence of Tau "benevolence".

Their are no good guys in 40k only shades of evil.

I can't say I know what the definition of Grimdark is...all I know is that I hate how Orks speak in the 40k Universe ;(

Would you prefer clipped oxfordian english?

Or bad native-american romance novel speak?
'me big ork..you mine now... '

Orks speak like drunken rednecks because that's basically what they are

*curious not snarky* How would you have them speak?

im2randomghgh wrote:They couldn't, they are almost psychic pariahs

Not even close. They have weak souls, yes, but they are nowhere NEAR Blank or Pariah status.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:
They are less brutal, only attacking planets that are either a threat to them or that they need for their sphere-expansions, whereas the IoM attacks planets solely because there are xenos on it.

Whats the real difference between the Imperium and Tau in this statement? The Tau attack planets to conquer and take the planet. The Imperium attack planets in order to conquer planets and take them. Both sides do it because they want to expand, so what the Imperium is wrong for expanding but Tau expansion is alright?

The only difference is the way in which they expand and how they handle aliens, thats it.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think the Tau are there to set the meter on what's good, Tau are their to say this is what counts for nice in 40k.

So you are saying that a lighter form of fascism is good. The Tau are a somewhat lighter form of fascist seeing as they say that all sentient beings must stop doing their own things that do not benefit the Greater Good and focus on the greater good, which is essentially fascism seeing as a person must put set aside all individualism and do everything for the greater good.

I bolded the part where you basically gave up and contradicted everything you had said.

The IoM rarely, if ever, expands at this point. That died with the GC, now they can barely maintain their borders. They attack planets simply because stuff lives there and "must be exterminated"

How they treat aliens. There is an enormous difference there. The kroot and Vespid are held in very nearly as high regard in Tau society as, well, Tau. The only reason that the kroot are treated as slightly inferior is because they eat...everything. But the Tau respect them and try to help them overcome their barbarous habits.

Codex Tau 4e wrote:It is a great compliment that the fire caste regard Vespid Stingwings as skillful and reliable allies

They genuinely want to treat everyone well, but are not willing to become underlings themselves, and it is this firm sense of patriotism that makes them refuse to bow to anyone (although I am interested in seeing what would happen when/if they meet the craftworld Eldar)

They are the least fascist it is possible to get. This is how left-wing right-wing works: too far to the right, you become fascist (Nazis, KKK etc.) on the opposite end of the spectrum, left-wing extremists become communists. The Tau are so thoroughly communist it is actually a bit amusing that you thought they weren't.

I also bolded the part where you defined communism.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:
They are less brutal, only attacking planets that are either a threat to them or that they need for their sphere-expansions, whereas the IoM attacks planets solely because there are xenos on it.

Whats the real difference between the Imperium and Tau in this statement? The Tau attack planets to conquer and take the planet. The Imperium attack planets in order to conquer planets and take them. Both sides do it because they want to expand, so what the Imperium is wrong for expanding but Tau expansion is alright?

The only difference is the way in which they expand and how they handle aliens, thats it.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think the Tau are there to set the meter on what's good, Tau are their to say this is what counts for nice in 40k.

So you are saying that a lighter form of fascism is good. The Tau are a somewhat lighter form of fascist seeing as they say that all sentient beings must stop doing their own things that do not benefit the Greater Good and focus on the greater good, which is essentially fascism seeing as a person must put set aside all individualism and do everything for the greater good.

Read a thread I created especially a post I created recently with evidence of Tau "benevolence".

Their are no good guys in 40k only shades of evil.

That's my point, that's the nicest thing you'll find in 40k, everything else is downhill from there.

I don't feel 40k is as grimdark as it used to be. Back in Rogue Trader it was more of a cyberpunk dystopia. They borrowed quite a bit from Moorcock, but that didn't really take off until the 90s (where a lot of comic book/fantasy/etc. media overall had a very cynical bent).

Nowadays, I think 40k has crossed straight into the campy territory. It's hard to take it with any level of seriousness since it's all just so goofy. I think this is mainly due to the demystification of the background material with the awful Horus Heresy books, as well as the Matt Wardian over-the-top WWF pro-wrestling machismo crap that has plagued the 5th edition fluff.

The Tau look down on the Kroot as barbarians and mind control the Vespid. I hardly would consider that treating them as equals.

im2randomghgh wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:
They are less brutal, only attacking planets that are either a threat to them or that they need for their sphere-expansions, whereas the IoM attacks planets solely because there are xenos on it.

Whats the real difference between the Imperium and Tau in this statement? The Tau attack planets to conquer and take the planet. The Imperium attack planets in order to conquer planets and take them. Both sides do it because they want to expand, so what the Imperium is wrong for expanding but Tau expansion is alright?

The only difference is the way in which they expand and how they handle aliens, thats it.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think the Tau are there to set the meter on what's good, Tau are their to say this is what counts for nice in 40k.

So you are saying that a lighter form of fascism is good. The Tau are a somewhat lighter form of fascist seeing as they say that all sentient beings must stop doing their own things that do not benefit the Greater Good and focus on the greater good, which is essentially fascism seeing as a person must put set aside all individualism and do everything for the greater good.

I bolded the part where you basically gave up and contradicted everything you had said.

The IoM rarely, if ever, expands at this point. That died with the GC, now they can barely maintain their borders. They attack planets simply because stuff lives there and "must be exterminated"

How they treat aliens. There is an enormous difference there. The kroot and Vespid are held in very nearly as high regard in Tau society as, well, Tau. The only reason that the kroot are treated as slightly inferior is because they eat...everything. But the Tau respect them and try to help them overcome their barbarous habits.

Codex Tau 4e wrote:It is a great compliment that the fire caste regard Vespid Stingwings as skillful and reliable allies

They genuinely want to treat everyone well, but are not willing to become underlings themselves, and it is this firm sense of patriotism that makes them refuse to bow to anyone (although I am interested in seeing what would happen when/if they meet the craftworld Eldar)

They are the least fascist it is possible to get. This is how left-wing right-wing works: too far to the right, you become fascist (Nazis, KKK etc.) on the opposite end of the spectrum, left-wing extremists become communists. The Tau are so thoroughly communist it is actually a bit amusing that you thought they weren't.

I also bolded the part where you defined communism.

I haven't given up anything up. If you are right in what you say then what planets has the Imperium just shown up and killed the species that resided their for no reason in recent warhammer 40k history. I know your going to say Tau but the Imperium were going to kill the Tau because they wanted the planet which is essentially expansion.

Heres some more:

Macharius. Warhammer 40,000 wiki wrote:Macharius was the Lord Commander Solar, the chief military commander of the Imperium's Segmentum Solar and one of the High Lords of Terra who is also perhaps the most famous commander of the Imperial Guard. He undertook the Macharian Conquests, also called the Macharian Crusade, of 392-399.M41, which in only seven standard years added nearly 1,000 new worlds to the Imperium at the very edge of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Calixis sector. Warhammer 40k wiki wrote:The Calixis Sector is a sector of the Milky Way Galaxy that serves as the setting for the Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy role-playing game, which focuses on the actions of Imperial Inquisitors and their chosen Acolytes and Throne Agents. The Calixis Sector is an Imperial sector located in the Segmentum Obscurus on the northern edge of the known galaxy, near the Halo Stars and the Eye of Terror. To the trailing edge of the galaxy, the Calixis Sector is bordered by the hazardous territories of the Fydae Great Cloud and to spinward by the Scarus Sector. Bordering to coreward of the galaxy, its nearest neighbour is the Ixaniad Sector. To rimward lie the contested and unregulated Imperial frontiers of the Halo Stars where humans and xenos mix in the quest for power and profit. Conquered by Lord Militant Angevin for the Imperium of Man a thousand years ago in the 40th Millennium during what became known as the Angevin Crusade, the Calixis Sector contains many heavily populated and important worlds, though it lies a great distance from the Imperium's core sectors. The sector's first Imperial Sector Governor was Drusus, one of Angevin’s most capable generals, a man now revered as a Saint of the Imperial Cult.

As for the Tau being communist their are somewhat but the thing that prevents them from truly being called communist is their caste system and they are somewhat fascistic or at least thats how I feel and Deathwatch and other sources support me. But compared to the Imperium they are amateurs.

a simple summary of fascism wrote:"(Fascism) as a political science, the... state's nature is superior to that of the sum of the individuals comprising it -- individuals exist for the state, rather than the state existing to serve them. The resources that individuals provide from participating in the community are conceived as a productive duty of individual progress serving an entity greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, all individuals business is the state's business, and the state's existence is the sole duty of the individual."

"For the Greater Good!" is a lot like "For the Emperor" as well as a "For the Fatherland"

After getting into 40k, I ask myself what is life and how infinitely better our lives are compared to the beings (human) in the 40k universe. They have no hope, they have no say and they will never be free. A good job is the boring repititive task in the Administratum and that is for the lucky few. The majority of the others live in inhumane conditions and lead worthless lives. There's more, they are under a constant threat they are not even vaguely aware of, both from the chaotic forces of Chaos and the possibility that Necrons sleep under your planet's surface. Grimdark? Its so much more.

Melissia wrote:The Tau look down on the Kroot as barbarians and mind control the Vespid. I hardly would consider that treating them as equals.

They view the Kroot as barbarians, but they still treat them well, as they hope to ride them of their habit of [b]eating their comrades[/i]

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:
They are less brutal, only attacking planets that are either a threat to them or that they need for their sphere-expansions, whereas the IoM attacks planets solely because there are xenos on it.

Whats the real difference between the Imperium and Tau in this statement? The Tau attack planets to conquer and take the planet. The Imperium attack planets in order to conquer planets and take them. Both sides do it because they want to expand, so what the Imperium is wrong for expanding but Tau expansion is alright?

The only difference is the way in which they expand and how they handle aliens, thats it.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think the Tau are there to set the meter on what's good, Tau are their to say this is what counts for nice in 40k.

So you are saying that a lighter form of fascism is good. The Tau are a somewhat lighter form of fascist seeing as they say that all sentient beings must stop doing their own things that do not benefit the Greater Good and focus on the greater good, which is essentially fascism seeing as a person must put set aside all individualism and do everything for the greater good.

I bolded the part where you basically gave up and contradicted everything you had said.

The IoM rarely, if ever, expands at this point. That died with the GC, now they can barely maintain their borders. They attack planets simply because stuff lives there and "must be exterminated"

How they treat aliens. There is an enormous difference there. The kroot and Vespid are held in very nearly as high regard in Tau society as, well, Tau. The only reason that the kroot are treated as slightly inferior is because they eat...everything. But the Tau respect them and try to help them overcome their barbarous habits.

Codex Tau 4e wrote:It is a great compliment that the fire caste regard Vespid Stingwings as skillful and reliable allies

They genuinely want to treat everyone well, but are not willing to become underlings themselves, and it is this firm sense of patriotism that makes them refuse to bow to anyone (although I am interested in seeing what would happen when/if they meet the craftworld Eldar)

They are the least fascist it is possible to get. This is how left-wing right-wing works: too far to the right, you become fascist (Nazis, KKK etc.) on the opposite end of the spectrum, left-wing extremists become communists. The Tau are so thoroughly communist it is actually a bit amusing that you thought they weren't.

I also bolded the part where you defined communism.

I haven't given up anything up. If you are right in what you say then what planets has the Imperium just shown up and killed the species that resided their for no reason in recent warhammer 40k history. I know your going to say Tau but the Imperium were going to kill the Tau because they wanted the planet which is essentially expansion.

The Great Crusade. Though this WAS expansion, one of it's primary objective was to eradicate all xenos in the galaxy. Remember the Megarachnid? They fought them just cuz.

As for the Tau being communist their are somewhat but the thing that prevents them from truly being called communist is their caste system and they are somewhat fascistic or at least thats how I feel and Deathwatch and other sources support me. But compared to the Imperium they are amateurs.

a simple summary of fascism wrote:"(Fascism) as a political science, the... state's nature is superior to that of the sum of the individuals comprising it -- individuals exist for the state, rather than the state existing to serve them. The resources that individuals provide from participating in the community are conceived as a productive duty of individual progress serving an entity greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, all individuals business is the state's business, and the state's existence is the sole duty of the individual."

"For the Greater Good!" is a lot like "For the Emperor" as well as a "For the Fatherland"

The Tau are super communist. They are often referred to as the "space commies". The castes have nothing, or very little, to do with social structure. They different castes are different sub-species of Tau. The air caste are taller than humans but are super lanky: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/TAU-AIR-CASTE-PILOTS.html

The fire caste are the strongest Tau, being as physically powerful as a guardsman.

The water caste originally lived in the water, and are very streamlined and similar in build to humans but shorter and weaker.

The Earth caste have a more modest build, but have better motor functions and (one can assume) intelligence for their purpose.

Ethereals. Nuff said.

Communism Definition: a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single political party. That Political Party would be the Ethereals.

I think 40k as more gimbleak than grimdark.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think 40k as more gimbleak than grimdark.

It really depends, and I also think it might be desensitization. The first wh40k related thing I ever did was read storm of iron (before even realizing there was a TT game) and I thought this was just about the most apocalyptic thing imaginable. Now that I am used to the warhammer40k universe, I don't see these things as being quite so grimdark.

I originally pictured Astartes as monstrous freaks who smash apart worlds as if they were insubstantial. I pictured Astartes as being 15 feet tall, and being completely 100% immune to all regular infantry, no matter how many there were. I imagined them being unstoppable. I pictured titans being as tall as mountains, I pictured terminators as being the equivalent of not only tanks, but super-heavies. I pictured them being true angels of death, or rather demons/monsters of death. Everything was just shades of darkness. Humanity was doomed. Now that I know more, it is so very, very much less.

im2randomghgh wrote:They view the Kroot as barbarians, but they still treat them well, as they hope to ride them of their habit of [b]eating their comrades[/i]

Which just proves how naive (or just plain stupid) they are and how much they're trying to force their culture on everyone else just like... everyone else does.

This is the kroot method of reproduction and genetic variance. It's like an Ork asking a human to stop having sex because it creeps him out. It's not gonna happen and the human probably just finds it amusing.

im2randomghgh wrote:The Tau are super communist. They are often referred to as the "space commies".

They're called "Space Commies" as a jab at their whole being "space asian-stereotypes" thing.

The castes have nothing, or very little, to do with social structure. They different castes are different sub-species of Tau. The air caste are taller than humans but are super lanky: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/TAU-AIR-CASTE-PILOTS.html

The fire caste are the strongest Tau, being as physically powerful as a guardsman.

The water caste originally lived in the water, and are very streamlined and similar in build to humans but shorter and weaker.

The Earth caste have a more modest build, but have better motor functions and (one can assume) intelligence for their purpose.

Ethereals. Nuff said.

Communism Definition: a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single political party. That Political Party would be the Ethereals.

That's an extremely flawed definition of Communism. Pretty much the exact opposite of it, really. Communism, as envisioned by Marx, was a path to Anarchism from Victorian Industrial Capitalism. The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" thing was basically a temporary logistics position to reorganize a stratified society into an Anarchist utopia. Of course, anyone who actually found themselves in such a position didn't actually follow through with the whole "actually practicing the ideology they preached" thing, either because of greed, the revelation that Anarchism simply doesn't work in large populations, or a combination of both.

The Tau don't fit any of that. Yeah, there's the tagline about working for the good of all, but that's more of a pseudo-humanist/nationalist platitude than a facet of communism. Further, the Ethereals aren't a political party, they're a ruler caste, like European royalty, only with actual biological reasons for it (pheremones) instead of just being an arbitrary family whose distant ancestors once did something notable like violently usurp the previous regime or have money.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:The Tau are super communist. They are often referred to as the "space commies".

They're called "Space Commies" as a jab at their whole being "space asian-stereotypes" thing.

The castes have nothing, or very little, to do with social structure. They different castes are different sub-species of Tau. The air caste are taller than humans but are super lanky: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/TAU-AIR-CASTE-PILOTS.html

The fire caste are the strongest Tau, being as physically powerful as a guardsman.

The water caste originally lived in the water, and are very streamlined and similar in build to humans but shorter and weaker.

The Earth caste have a more modest build, but have better motor functions and (one can assume) intelligence for their purpose.

Ethereals. Nuff said.

Communism Definition: a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single political party. That Political Party would be the Ethereals.

The Tau don't fit any of that. Yeah, there's the tagline about working for the good of all, but that's more of a pseudo-humanist/nationalist platitude than a facet of communism. Further, the Ethereals aren't a political party, they're a ruler caste, like European royalty, only with actual biological reasons for it (pheremones) instead of just being an arbitrary family whose distant ancestors once did something notable like violently usurp the previous regime or have money.

The Ethereals aren't a political party, but there simply aren't any democracies in the 41st millennium. They are the closest fit to it, as modern political science isn't meant to adequately describe the governmental methods of little grey people who will come into existence in 32,000 years (in the hypothetical, too).

They work for the greater good of all, leave all decisions to their rulers, have little to no personal posession, have a set role in society they are meant to fulfill, and FIGHT FOR THE MOTHERLAND! (not sure where that came from, but it happened, and can't un-happen)

either way, very,very communist.

And the Ethereal pheromones is not 100%, as it is said that it is speculated by the Imperium that they use pheromones.




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Melissia wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:They view the Kroot as barbarians, but they still treat them well, as they hope to ride them of their habit of [b]eating their comrades[/i]

Which just proves how naive (or just plain stupid) they are and how much they're trying to force their culture on everyone else just like... everyone else does.

This is the kroot method of reproduction and genetic variance. It's like an Ork asking a human to stop having sex because it creeps him out. It's not gonna happen and the human probably just finds it amusing.

The kroot do NOT reproduce this way. They do this to gain the traits of the fallen/prey, but it does not create new kroot.

Naive, yes. Stupid, no.

Tau: It has been 6,000 years since their cave-age and they have advanced WAY beyond human technology.

Human: It has been 2.2 million years +another 38,000 years since the beginning of our cave-age. Our technology is fail by comparison.


And as for the naivety, they way their react to problems and such is remarkably similar to how modern humans would. They are probably more like us than the IoM is.

im2randomghgh wrote:The Ethereals aren't a political party, but there simply aren't any democracies in the 41st millennium.

Except for a number of Imperial worlds...

They are the closest fit to it, as modern political science isn't meant to adequately describe the governmental methods of little grey people who will come into existence in 32,000 years (in the hypothetical, too).

Except that we can describe it quite clearly, just not in one catchy buzzword. It's an extremely nationalist state ordered around a caste system (notably one based on actual biological traits, as opposed to arbitrary delineations). Beyond that, there's no information on the specifics of their style of government, or their economy for that matter (presumably because those are complex, involved topics that the authors don't feel like researching because they know almost no one actually cares about details as unrelated to blowing things up as local politics and economics). We could probably guess it's a meritocratic technocracy, but for all we are given rank may be determined by interpretive dance offs.

They work for the greater good of all,

Humanist/nationalist.

leave all decisions to their rulers,

Authoritarian/nationalist.

have little to no personal posession,

Not actually mentioned anywhere, and is more of a stoic/ascetic trait than communist.

have a set role in society they are meant to fulfill,

Caste system, also presumably technocratic elements.

and FIGHT FOR THE MOTHERLAND! (not sure where that came from, but it happened, and can't un-happen)

Straight up nationalism.

either way, very,very communist.

Exactly none of that slots into the basics of communism, though some of the traits can be found in communist states (although no more than in non-communist states).

The closest to communism you get in 40K is probably the Exodites, seeing as how they're stone-age hunter-gatherers/horticulturalists, which, at least in humans, has meant an effectively anarchist society.

And the Ethereal pheromones is not 100%, as it is said that it is speculated by the Imperium that they use pheromones.

It's a better explanation than "they magically decided to stop their little race war and listen to these random, never-before seen outsiders who said 'it would totally be great if everyone just like, got along man, and did their part while listening to us and treating us as gods, man'," along with explaining why Farsight went rogue the second the Ethereals accompanying him were killed, and then took his forces and ran away from Tau space to where he knew they wouldn't dare send anyone after him.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:The Ethereals aren't a political party, but there simply aren't any democracies in the 41st millennium.

Except for a number of Imperial worlds...

They are the closest fit to it, as modern political science isn't meant to adequately describe the governmental methods of little grey people who will come into existence in 32,000 years (in the hypothetical, too).

Except that we can describe it quite clearly, just not in one catchy buzzword. It's an extremely nationalist state ordered around a caste system (notably one based on actual biological traits, as opposed to arbitrary delineations). Beyond that, there's no information on the specifics of their style of government, or their economy for that matter (presumably because those are complex, involved topics that the authors don't feel like researching because they know almost no one actually cares about details as unrelated to blowing things up as local politics and economics). We could probably guess it's a meritocratic technocracy, but for all we are given rank may be determined by interpretive dance offs.

They work for the greater good of all,

Humanist/nationalist.

leave all decisions to their rulers,

Authoritarian/nationalist.

have little to no personal posession,

Not actually mentioned anywhere, and is more of a stoic/ascetic trait than communist.

have a set role in society they are meant to fulfill,

Caste system, also presumably technocratic elements.

and FIGHT FOR THE MOTHERLAND! (not sure where that came from, but it happened, and can't un-happen)

Straight up nationalism.

either way, very,very communist.

Exactly none of that slots into the basics of communism, though some of the traits can be found in communist states (although no more than in non-communist states).

The closest to communism you get in 40K is probably the Exodites, seeing as how they're stone-age hunter-gatherers/horticulturalists, which, at least in humans, has meant an effectively anarchist society.

And the Ethereal pheromones is not 100%, as it is said that it is speculated by the Imperium that they use pheromones.

It's a better explanation than "they magically decided to stop their little race war and listen to these random, never-before seen outsiders who said 'it would totally be great if everyone just like, got along man, and did their part while listening to us and treating us as gods, man'," along with explaining why Farsight went rogue the second the Ethereals accompanying him were killed, and then took his forces and ran away from Tau space to where he knew they wouldn't dare send anyone after him.

Communism and Nationalism are not mutually exclusive, and yet you are presenting them as such.
In fact, communist parties more often then not use nationalism to help attain popularity.

An essay I found on it: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a912579402&fulltext=713240928

And part of the definition of communism is "...property is communally or governmentally controlled..." (got that from my text-book)

As for the Pheromones, they are still unconfirmed.
Were you to see people more beautiful and full of grace (relative to the Tau) than any person could ever be, descend from heaven with no warning, and start speaking with more wisdom than all your race has, put together, and are smarter than your scientists/wiser than your diplomats/more agile than your...agile dudes/more skilled at war than your warriors, you would probably listen to what they had to say...

With Farsight, he was already an aggressive, aggressive man who had a deep hatred of orks, and without the wise, level-headed ethereals,he was an attack dog off his leash. It even went so far as to call him "undaunted" when his ethereals were killed. He was an extremist. What's there to say?

im2randomghgh wrote:Communism and Nationalism are not mutually exclusive, and yet you are presenting them as such.
In fact, communist parties more often then not use nationalism to help attain popularity.

An essay I found on it: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a912579402&fulltext=713240928

And part of the definition of communism is "...property is communally or governmentally controlled..." (got that from my text-book)

My point was that the defining traits of the Tau are neither prerequisites for communism nor exclusive to regimes calling themselves communist. Nationalism is found throughout the spectrum, and technocracy was practiced most heavily by Industrial Capitalists. Communism, however, has a number of specific defining traits, that are either absent from or unmentioned in regards to the Tau.

As for the Pheromones, they are still unconfirmed.
Were you to see people more beautiful and full of grace (relative to the Tau) than any person could ever be, descend from heaven with no warning, and start speaking with more wisdom than all your race has, put together, and are smarter than your scientists/wiser than your diplomats/more agile than your...agile dudes/more skilled at war than your warriors, you would probably listen to what they had to say...

They probably would have been killed before they could open their mouths. You have a species in the middle of a suicidal race war (meaning each group is already highly xenophobic), some funny looking outsiders show up bearing a message that everyone should forget about all their own concerns and just obey them instead, and they don't get killed outright? There's got to be something extra going on there.

No, as they are a different sub-species than the enemy. That's like if you're hunting wolves and see a squirrel, and kill it because it looks like a wolf (it doesn't, in case you haven't seen a squirrel )

Guys, can we stop posting the debate about whether the Tau are controlled by Pheromones or if they are evil or whatever in this thread and instead move it into a thread I created especially for that reason seeing as the discussion about the Tau is derailing this thread from its purpose?

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Guys, can we stop posting the debate about whether the Tau are controlled by Pheromones or if they are evil or whatever in this thread and instead move it into a thread I created especially for that reason seeing as the discussion about the Tau is derailing this thread from its purpose?

This thread was here first!


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BTW Corporal_Reznov, awesome sig.

im2randomghgh wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Guys, can we stop posting the debate about whether the Tau are controlled by Pheromones or if they are evil or whatever in this thread and instead move it into a thread I created especially for that reason seeing as the discussion about the Tau is derailing this thread from its purpose?

This thread was here first!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW Corporal_Reznov, awesome sig.

Thanks for the compliment about the sig. But in truth I got it form a fellow dakka dakka member called Grey Templar, asked if I could use it, told me yes.

You may be right but from what I can see its derailing this thread from talking about grimdark to Tau conspiracies. Wouldn't it be better to keep all Tau conspiracy discussion focused in one thread so as not to cause further thread hijacking as this one has suffered.

I'm not forcing anyone to do anything, just saying!

Where is the original? I want to read the whole thing but dakka doesn't give us too much sig space

im2randomghgh wrote:Where is the original? I want to read the whole thing but dakka doesn't give us too much sig space

I'll pm it to you if you want.

Yup

Actually that grimmdark? Well...

A) Everywhere you look you have a war. Over planet, system, segmentum, race, god, everything....

B) Even if you live on some back-water world - you will be caught in it in some time of your life.

C) Humanity want's to purge galaxy of aliens, aliens wants to purge the galaxy of Humans - and other aliens.

D) Even when you fighting evil and wining - you are feeding evil just to do more bad things in the galaxy.

G) There is no high tech, no internet, no freedom of speech, no personal transportations ( cars ), no free newspaper, not even your own thought ( Inquisition see all, then Chaos, then C'tan, then everyone else )

D) The day you join in the army is the day you will probably finish your life - or soon enough.

The only nongrimdark thing is that you have a LOT of chicks ( after all, there are untold trillions of Humans out there... ). And you can have a lot of fun and a lot of children, anyway why not? In the end they will all end up in meat grinder or be slaves to some sick pointy ear guy.

Hope this answer your question...

Brother Coa wrote:Actually that grimmdark? Well...

A) Everywhere you look you have a war. Over planet, system, segmentum, race, god, everything....

B) Even if you live on some back-water world - you will be caught in it in some time of your life.

C) Humanity want's to purge galaxy of aliens, aliens wants to purge the galaxy of Humans - and other aliens.

D) Even when you fighting evil and wining - you are feeding evil just to do more bad things in the galaxy.

G) There is no high tech, no internet, no freedom of speech, no personal transportations ( cars ), no free newspaper, not even your own thought ( Inquisition see all, then Chaos, then C'tan, then everyone else )

D) The day you join in the army is the day you will probably finish your life - or soon enough.

The only nongrimdark thing is that you have a LOT of chicks ( after all, there are untold trillions of Humans out there... ). And you can have a lot of fun and a lot of children, anyway why not? In the end they will all end up in meat grinder or be slaves to some sick pointy ear guy.

Hope this answer your question...

...qua...quad...QUADRILLIONS OF CHICKS! BOOYAH!

Brother Coa wrote:Actually that grimmdark? Well...

A) Everywhere you look you have a war. Over planet, system, segmentum, race, god, everything....

B) Even if you live on some back-water world - you will be caught in it in some time of your life.

It's significantly rarer than war on modern Earth, taking the sheer scale of things into account. A country with 6% of the land on Earth and 4% of the population is currently involved in three wars (which also involve forces from other NATO countries, though I don't feel like looking up the total population of all relevant countries and whatnot), and maintains a military presence in countless other countries. Almost every Imperial world goes untouched for generations, centuries, or millennia, and only the smallest fraction of worlds is actively engaged in a conflict at any given time.

C) Humanity want's to purge galaxy of aliens, aliens wants to purge the galaxy of Humans - and other aliens.

The Imperium largely ignores aliens that aren't deemed an existential threat to humanity, and certainly doesn't bother with non-sentient xenos, even aggressive, hazardous ones (aside from enterprising merchants trying to find a use for them). The Ordo Xenos keeps tabs on them, but military expeditions out of Imperial space to deal with Xenos are limited to those that pose a perceived threat, while ones that don't are just added to a "to do" list and largely forgotten.

D) Even when you fighting evil and wining - you are feeding evil just to do more bad things in the galaxy.

It's debatable whether the ruinous powers meaningfully benefit from the scale of conflict in the Milky Way. It depends on whether the warp is still considered to be as universal and dimension-spanning as it used to be, in which case they're being fed from every galaxy, in every dimension, so whatever happens in the Milky Way is just a drop in an ocean for them.

G) There is no high tech, no internet, no freedom of speech, no personal transportations ( cars ), no free newspaper, not even your own thought ( Inquisition see all, then Chaos, then C'tan, then everyone else )

a) There are local networks akin to the internet on some worlds; b) there are personal transports of varying description based on the world in question; c) the only restrictions on speech are on a local level, or restricted to those things which pose an existential threat to anyone who knows about them, as well as anyone in their general vicinity; d) the C'tan see nothing; e) neither Chaos nor the Inquisition listens to everyone's thoughts (now Ravenor could, but didn't, for the very good reason of "there's too much junk data to search through").

D) The day you join in the army is the day you will probably finish your life - or soon enough.

That's from a single novel, referring only to the warzone it described, and is contradicted by every single other novel regarding the Guard.


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Corporal_Reznov wrote:Guys, can we stop posting the debate about whether the Tau are controlled by Pheromones or if they are evil or whatever in this thread and instead move it into a thread I created especially for that reason seeing as the discussion about the Tau is derailing this thread from its purpose?

I was debating whether or not to copy over what I'd written here, but it seemed like that discussion had moved past the "are Tau communist?" thing.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Actually that grimmdark? Well...

A) Everywhere you look you have a war. Over planet, system, segmentum, race, god, everything....

B) Even if you live on some back-water world - you will be caught in it in some time of your life.

It's significantly rarer than war on modern Earth, taking the sheer scale of things into account. A country with 6% of the land on Earth and 4% of the population is currently involved in three wars (which also involve forces from other NATO countries, though I don't feel like looking up the total population of all relevant countries and whatnot), and maintains a military presence in countless other countries. Almost every Imperial world goes untouched for generations, centuries, or millennia, and only the smallest fraction of worlds is actively engaged in a conflict at any given time.

C) Humanity want's to purge galaxy of aliens, aliens wants to purge the galaxy of Humans - and other aliens.

The Imperium largely ignores aliens that aren't deemed an existential threat to humanity, and certainly doesn't bother with non-sentient xenos, even aggressive, hazardous ones (aside from enterprising merchants trying to find a use for them). The Ordo Xenos keeps tabs on them, but military expeditions out of Imperial space to deal with Xenos are limited to those that pose a perceived threat, while ones that don't are just added to a "to do" list and largely forgotten.

D) Even when you fighting evil and wining - you are feeding evil just to do more bad things in the galaxy.

It's debatable whether the ruinous powers meaningfully benefit from the scale of conflict in the Milky Way. It depends on whether the warp is still considered to be as universal and dimension-spanning as it used to be, in which case they're being fed from every galaxy, in every dimension, so whatever happens in the Milky Way is just a drop in an ocean for them.

G) There is no high tech, no internet, no freedom of speech, no personal transportations ( cars ), no free newspaper, not even your own thought ( Inquisition see all, then Chaos, then C'tan, then everyone else )

a) There are local networks akin to the internet on some worlds; b) there are personal transports of varying description based on the world in question; c) the only restrictions on speech are on a local level, or restricted to those things which pose an existential threat to anyone who knows about them, as well as anyone in their general vicinity; d) the C'tan see nothing; e) neither Chaos nor the Inquisition listens to everyone's thoughts (now Ravenor could, but didn't, for the very good reason of "there's too much junk data to search through").

D) The day you join in the army is the day you will probably finish your life - or soon enough.

That's from a single novel, referring only to the warzone it described, and is contradicted by every single other novel regarding the Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Guys, can we stop posting the debate about whether the Tau are controlled by Pheromones or if they are evil or whatever in this thread and instead move it into a thread I created especially for that reason seeing as the discussion about the Tau is derailing this thread from its purpose?

I was debating whether or not to copy over what I'd written here, but it seemed like that discussion had moved past the "are Tau communist?" thing.

The Americans are a poor example of this, as they are the most pro-war of any nation currently on earth. They have had military conflict with every region on earth, minus Antarctica/Oceania. No offense to americans, it is just a bad example since there are 267 nations on earth and about 245 of them are at peace...

im2randomghgh wrote:The Americans are a poor example of this, as they are the most pro-war of any nation currently on earth. They have had military conflict with every region on earth, minus Antarctica/Oceania. No offense to americans, it is just a bad example since there are 267 nations on earth and about 245 of them are at peace...

But those are still wars, involving a population that comprises 4% of that of the Earth, as well as their allies, in addition to the countries the wars are taking place in or otherwise impacting. The Imperium doesn't face anywhere near that level of conflict. For instance, the very worst hivefleet the Imperium's seen has only impacted around .02% of Imperial territory, and that's considered an unprecedented catastrophe.

Also, the US has invaded Oceania a number of times, and still controls territory in it.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It's significantly rarer than war on modern Earth, taking the sheer scale of things into account. A country with 6% of the land on Earth and 4% of the population is currently involved in three wars (which also involve forces from other NATO countries, though I don't feel like looking up the total population of all relevant countries and whatnot), and maintains a military presence in countless other countries. Almost every Imperial world goes untouched for generations, centuries, or millennia, and only the smallest fraction of worlds is actively engaged in a conflict at any given time.

Which back me to my other question, why then those 70% of Imperial worlds that are in peace ( to say ) don't send Regiments of Guard to help stabilize the frontiers of the Imperium? And US are poor example of this, as is our planet. We know almost 100% of the surface ( oceans are explored to some 5% thus far ), how much knowledge Imperium alone has about galaxy ( do not include players who read alien codexes )?

The Imperium largely ignores aliens that aren't deemed an existential threat to humanity, and certainly doesn't bother with non-sentient xenos, even aggressive, hazardous ones (aside from enterprising merchants trying to find a use for them). The Ordo Xenos keeps tabs on them, but military expeditions out of Imperial space to deal with Xenos are limited to those that pose a perceived threat, while ones that don't are just added to a "to do" list and largely forgotten.

That's true, but still attack are not stooping - they are increasing. And their strategy of largely forgotten is not good strategy at all, in years they can grow into serious threat ( like the Tau ) and then Imperium will just have one more enemy to fight.

It's debatable whether the ruinous powers meaningfully benefit from the scale of conflict in the Milky Way. It depends on whether the warp is still considered to be as universal and dimension-spanning as it used to be, in which case they're being fed from every galaxy, in every dimension, so whatever happens in the Milky Way is just a drop in an ocean for them.

We don't know that, we only know about our galaxy and that's it. But the fact remains, when you fight Chaos Gods you are actually giving them power. Someone wrote on this forum long ago that: "When you kill someone in rage, you are feeding Khorne. When you thinking about tricking your enemies or simply flank them - You are feeding Tzeentch."

a) There are local networks akin to the internet on some worlds; b) there are personal transports of varying description based on the world in question; c) the only restrictions on speech are on a local level, or restricted to those things which pose an existential threat to anyone who knows about them, as well as anyone in their general vicinity; d) the C'tan see nothing; e) neither Chaos nor the Inquisition listens to everyone's thoughts (now Ravenor could, but didn't, for the very good reason of "there's too much junk data to search through").

Some worlds, like the great hive worlds. Not like Internet is spread like today and I really doubt that they have Facebook or YouTube there...
And I can't imagine the traffic in city of 32.000.000.000 people. I live inj city with 2.500.000 people and still I have to wait 45 minute to cross the bridge...
For speech is true, also it is forbidden to tell "I like Tau" or "Inquisition can suck my..." - you know what I mean...
What about Outsider, story said that everybody hear a thought in their heads when he is around. And Chaos daemons whispering in your ear when you are sleeping. And Inquisitors that can read minds on a city level? It's not true that they hear nothing, especially Chaos Gods whose realm is build from Human emotions... And I have read about the Inquisitors hear what people say while having dinner, and they live some few kilometers away...

That's from a single novel, referring only to the warzone it described, and is contradicted by every single other novel regarding the Guard.

A.....no.... It's just common knowledge when you start life in the Guard - you finish it in the Guard. Never hear about great number of Guardsman in pension, or that they serve the army and then go home. I can swear that 90% of people who enlist in the Guard never return, and when I see enemies they face - my fact is not far from truth ( I was not referring to "15 hour", I was referring to IG in general ).

And you didn't say anything about lot's of women in the galaxy

40k is not grimdark... it's about hope and as another poster said, victory.

Humanity has endured long into the future against the threats of not only the xenos, the witch, the heretic and the foul taint of chaos.

Even though worlds are lost, victories are abound for mankind.


It used to be darker and with the timeline, they are hinting at very dark times but there are too many stories of victory against all odds in so many of the new codex and even insane stuff that makes no sense in some marine books.

Brother Coa wrote:Actually that grimmdark? Well...

A) Everywhere you look you have a war. Over planet, system, segmentum, race, god, everything....

Corporal_Reznov wrote:War is not everywhere and even then it is mostly small time rebellions or pirate attacks.

B) Even if you live on some back-water world - you will be caught in it in some time of your life.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The 40k galaxy is a lot like the wild west in how secure it is for normal people. But thats how life is like there, its normal for them.

C) Humanity want's to purge galaxy of aliens, aliens wants to purge the galaxy of Humans - and other aliens.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Actually, Humanity wants to purge all chaos united humanity along with all the aliens. Aliens want to purge the entire human race from the galaxy and then purge each other.

D) Even when you fighting evil and wining - you are feeding evil just to do more bad things in the galaxy.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:True but that doesn't mean you should just give up.

G) There is no high tech, no internet, no freedom of speech, no personal transportations ( cars ), no free newspaper, not even your own thought ( Inquisition see all, then Chaos, then C'tan, then everyone else )

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Wrong. It depends on the planet in question but they do have high tech stuff. Civilians can own cars or trucks etc if they can afford it and if their world has them. Their is a type of tv network as shown in the Shira Calpurnia books as well as porn movies in data slates that are shown to exist in the Ciaphas Cain books. The Imperium even have nursery rhymes that true to the Imperium are quite morbid and humorous such as 'The tracks of the Land Raider crush the heretic' or 'Promethium, our happy heretic burning friend'.

Their is no freedom in 40k, not even under the Tau. The Tau will put you into re-education centers for speaking against the "Greater Good"

D) The day you join in the army is the day you will probably finish your life - or soon enough.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Ciaphas Cain books show otherwise.

The only nongrimdark thing is that you have a LOT of chicks ( after all, there are untold trillions of Humans out there... ). And you can have a lot of fun and a lot of children, anyway why not? In the end they will all end up in meat grinder or be slaves to some sick pointy ear guy.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The Imperium actually is quite egalitarian when it comes to gender issues or gender equality. They honestly don't care if you are gay, lesbian or heterosexual. So be anything you want just remember to praise the Emperor.

Hope this answer your question...

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Here's my answer

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Actually that grimmdark? Well...

A) Everywhere you look you have a war. Over planet, system, segmentum, race, god, everything....

Corporal_Reznov wrote:War is not everywhere and even then it is mostly small time rebellions or pirate attacks.

B) Even if you live on some back-water world - you will be caught in it in some time of your life.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The 40k galaxy is a lot like the wild west in how secure it is for normal people. But thats how life is like there, its normal for them.

C) Humanity want's to purge galaxy of aliens, aliens wants to purge the galaxy of Humans - and other aliens.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Actually, Humanity wants to purge all chaos united humanity along with all the aliens. Aliens want to purge the entire human race from the galaxy and then purge each other.

D) Even when you fighting evil and wining - you are feeding evil just to do more bad things in the galaxy.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:True but that doesn't mean you should just give up.

G) There is no high tech, no internet, no freedom of speech, no personal transportations ( cars ), no free newspaper, not even your own thought ( Inquisition see all, then Chaos, then C'tan, then everyone else )

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Wrong. It depends on the planet in question but they do have high tech stuff. Civilians can own cars or trucks etc if they can afford it and if their world has them. Their is a type of tv network as shown in the Shira Calpurnia books as well as porn movies in data slates that are shown to exist in the Ciaphas Cain books. The Imperium even have nursery rhymes that true to the Imperium are quite morbid and humorous such as 'The tracks of the Land Raider crush the heretic' or 'Promethium, our happy heretic burning friend'.

Their is no freedom in 40k, not even under the Tau. The Tau will put you into re-education centers for speaking against the "Greater Good"

D) The day you join in the army is the day you will probably finish your life - or soon enough.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Ciaphas Cain books show otherwise.

The only nongrimdark thing is that you have a LOT of chicks ( after all, there are untold trillions of Humans out there... ). And you can have a lot of fun and a lot of children, anyway why not? In the end they will all end up in meat grinder or be slaves to some sick pointy ear guy.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The Imperium actually is quite egalitarian when it comes to gender issues or gender equality. They honestly don't care if you are gay, lesbian or heterosexual. So be anything you want just remember to praise the Emperor.

Hope this answer your question...

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Here's my answer

In the end it's still: "In the grim darkness of the far future...THERE IS ONLY WAR!!!"

Brother Coa wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It's significantly rarer than war on modern Earth, taking the sheer scale of things into account. A country with 6% of the land on Earth and 4% of the population is currently involved in three wars (which also involve forces from other NATO countries, though I don't feel like looking up the total population of all relevant countries and whatnot), and maintains a military presence in countless other countries. Almost every Imperial world goes untouched for generations, centuries, or millennia, and only the smallest fraction of worlds is actively engaged in a conflict at any given time.

Which back me to my other question, why then those 70% of Imperial worlds that are in peace ( to say ) don't send Regiments of Guard to help stabilize the frontiers of the Imperium?

They do, more or less. Unless they're too far away from anything to get there before they die of old age/the problem's been resolved for years already. There generally aren't constant warzones that go without reinforcements for long enough to bring them in from far away, unless there are more pressing matters to attend to in the area, or the reinforcements run into trouble in the warp. It's kind of like a game of whack-a-mole played on a board the size of a football field, with perhaps two or three players. Something pops up, whoever's closest smashes it down again, and someone on the other side of the field doesn't bother heading for it.

The Imperium largely ignores aliens that aren't deemed an existential threat to humanity, and certainly doesn't bother with non-sentient xenos, even aggressive, hazardous ones (aside from enterprising merchants trying to find a use for them). The Ordo Xenos keeps tabs on them, but military expeditions out of Imperial space to deal with Xenos are limited to those that pose a perceived threat, while ones that don't are just added to a "to do" list and largely forgotten.

That's true, but still attack are not stooping - they are increasing. And their strategy of largely forgotten is not good strategy at all, in years they can grow into serious threat ( like the Tau ) and then Imperium will just have one more enemy to fight.

The Tau are no more a threat to the Imperium than, say, Luxembourg is to the US. Well, less than that, since Luxembourg has almost .2% of the population of that of the US, while the Tau come in at around or less than .001% the population of that of the Imperium.

It's debatable whether the ruinous powers meaningfully benefit from the scale of conflict in the Milky Way. It depends on whether the warp is still considered to be as universal and dimension-spanning as it used to be, in which case they're being fed from every galaxy, in every dimension, so whatever happens in the Milky Way is just a drop in an ocean for them.

We don't know that, we only know about our galaxy and that's it. But the fact remains, when you fight Chaos Gods you are actually giving them power. Someone wrote on this forum long ago that: "When you kill someone in rage, you are feeding Khorne. When you thinking about tricking your enemies or simply flank them - You are feeding Tzeentch."

No one but ostensibly the Emperor fights the Chaos gods though, they fight those rare lesser servants dragged into the Materium by warp maddened cultists.

And I can't imagine the traffic in city of 32.000.000.000 people. I live inj city with 2.500.000 people and still I have to wait 45 minute to cross the bridge...

In a city like that, there are trains or some analogue thereof. The upper class would have (flying) personal transports, and on a lower density world personal ground transports would be common.

For speech is true, also it is forbidden to tell "I like Tau" or "Inquisition can suck my..." - you know what I mean...

The Inquisition largely doesn't care about foolish statements, since they're much too busy hunting actual threats. The local cops might beat or kill you, but there are plenty of places on Earth where the same is true. The Inquisition even goes so far as to ignore the 40k equivalent of goths, who imitate the cultists they see in "vid dramas", since they're just idiots who dress funny and chant meaningless gibberish, as opposed to actual cultists who dress like everyone else and chant gibberish that makes one's ears bleed and one's stomach seize up, before summoning a daemon that eats everyone.

What about Outsider, story said that everybody hear a thought in their heads when he is around.

The outsider is imprisoned in a dyson sphere.

And Chaos daemons whispering in your ear when you are sleeping.

Unless you're a psyker or have otherwise marked yourself, a daemon, at least one in the warp, cannot do anything to you. A manifested daemon would be more likely to just eat you.

And Inquisitors that can read minds on a city level? It's not true that they hear nothing, especially Chaos Gods whose realm is build from Human emotions... And I have read about the Inquisitors hear what people say while having dinner, and they live some few kilometers away...

There are Inquisitors, like Ravenor, who can read minds at a great distance. He doesn't try to monitor populations thusly because of the sheer amount of junk data involved (basically the same reason why the NSA's attempt to monitor every electronic message in or out of the US is such an abject failure: the sheer amount of junk data means looking for anything threatening is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, only the haystack is the size of several football fields).

That's from a single novel, referring only to the warzone it described, and is contradicted by every single other novel regarding the Guard.

A.....no.... It's just common knowledge when you start life in the Guard - you finish it in the Guard. Never hear about great number of Guardsman in pension, or that they serve the army and then go home. I can swear that 90% of people who enlist in the Guard never return, and when I see enemies they face - my fact is not far from truth ( I was not referring to "15 hour", I was referring to IG in general ).

You're sentenced to death the moment you're born, at least as it stands now. In the Guard, it's not necessarily much of a reduction, especially if the individual in question came from the toxic environment of a hive, and depending on their skill and luck they may end up living much longer, as a high ranking officer would receive the best medical treatments available to extend their lives and thus usefulness to the Imperium; even a lowly grunt would get better medical care than the average citizen.

And you didn't say anything about lot's of women in the galaxy

They'd be no more abundant than in the average non-chinese-or-indian city, and any increase in population brings with it a greater number of males one is competing against. Also what im2randomghgh said, the population in is in the quadrillions (in excess of 10 quadrillion on hiveworlds alone, as a low range estimate of an average of 200 billion per hiveworld (there are some 32 thousand odd hiveworlds in the Imperium).

Is this grimdark?

No, you're right. It was to the tune of Wheels on the bus.
*sings*

The tracks on the landraider crush the heretic,
crush the heretic,
crush the heretic.
The tracks on the landraider crush the heretic,
all through the hive.

The turret on the landraider goes crack crack crack,
crack crack crack,
crack crack crack,
The turret on the landraider goes crack crack crack,
all through the hive.

The Commissar on the landraider goes FOR THE EMPEROR!
FOR THE EMPEROR!
FOR THE EMPEROR!
The Commissar on the landraider goes FOR THE EMPEROR!
all through the hive.

@Sir Pseudonymous

After you saying all this, Warhammer 40000 don't look that GrimDark at all...

Then why it is?

No one but ostensibly the Emperor fights the Chaos gods though, they fight those rare lesser servants dragged into the Materium by warp maddened cultists.

Not just ostensibly. Codex: Chaos Daemons outright states that the Emperor is the only reason Chaos hasn't taken over humanity and the only force powerful enough to hold Chaos back as it is right now.

Unless you're a psyker or have otherwise marked yourself, a daemon, at least one in the warp, cannot do anything to you. A manifested daemon would be more likely to just eat you.

That depends on the nature of the daemon and the nature of the warp around the location. In some location the veil between warp and realspace is thin enough that certain daemons can in fact manipulate reality somewhat. It's just that it's hard for them to do so.


As far as women in the Imperium? The Imperium doesn't care about gender. Pick up the gun and shoot, or be shot.