The Imperium. Basically every human that thinks of the emperor in a good way is a brain washed nazi and the space marines are the worst of them. Here's an example - a random space marine chapter invades a new world, they are here to spread the word of the emperor. For the emperor! It goes something like this, join me and believe in my way of thinking or die. Simple as that, that's how they operate. It's the same way the Nazis tried world domination. The Imperium will set up death camps, all sorts.
What's the point of this thread? After some thought just to change your prospective a bit, I don't want to say most people but I'd say a lot of people think the imperium are the good guys...umm because they are human? Well humans are fething gak in general. Have you watched the news lately? Other countries trying to stop other countries owning there own laws etc. I could go on but it's not the forum for it.
You and I love it tho, because it's a galaxy full of weird, wonderful, interesting characters, things revolve around killing other things. Even a planet is a character. I mean Catachan the death world can't stop killing things. 40k is based around war and war is killing.
When you put some proper thought in to it you might realize the lore hasn't got much room for empathy and proper justice. In less your Tau.
Macabre Galatic wrote: The title is funny but this is no joke, everyone's got a hard on for them. The Imperium. Basically every human that thinks of the emperor in a good way is a brain washed nazi and the space marines are the worst of them. Here's an example - a random space marine chapter invades a new world, they are here to spread the word of the emperor. For the emperor! It goes something like this, join me and believe in my way of thinking or die. Simple as that, that's how they operate. It's the same way the Nazis tried world domination. The Imperium will set up death camps, all sorts.
What's the point of this thread? After some thought just to change your prospective a bit, I don't want to say most people but I'd say a lot of people think the imperium are the good guys...umm because they are human? Well humans are fething gak in general. Have you watched the news lately? Other countries trying to stop other countries owning there own laws etc. I could go on but it's not the forum for it.
You and I love it tho, because it's a galaxy full of weird, wonderful, interesting characters, things revolve around killing other things. Even a planet is a character. I mean Catachan the death world can't stop killing things. 40k is based around war and war is killing.
When put some proper thought in to it you might realize the lore hasn't got much room for empathy and proper justice. In less your Tau.
Everyone has realised this already, but the imperium doesn't go out of its way to do some bad things, its just the only way to survive, like the allies killing one of their own squads, with artillery to destroy 3 German divisions in WWII.
Also tau aren't good. they re like the imperium, just don't always go violence first. They are like the Ottomans, crazy phsycos, just realised that if your empire doesn't mind you they don't rebel.
If you thought the Imperium were good guys you missed the point of 40K entirely.
That being said though the whole premise of 40K is that this inquisition-redkhmer-fascism-dictatorship seems to be the only "hope" of humanity to survive. Or at least all the crap going on in the 40K galaxy shaped humanitys government to be the most ruthless one we can imagine.
It is a bad place, there aren't really good guys in 40K.
Aside from Nurglings of course. They're cute. Everybody loves them.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: If you thought the Imperium were good guys you missed the point of 40K entirely.
Yes, and those now so disillusioned should join me and embrace the inevitable arrival of the star gods and true equality they will grant us. Admittedly while sucking us through orbital elevator sized straws, but equality none the less.
Don't trust that guy who talks about how loving his grandfather is, I don't want any of those rashes.
Sorry, was there some part of 'grim dark' that you missed? If it helps, you can always look upon it as a comment on the duality of Man? As always, YMMV, T&CA, May contain traces of nuts.
Desubot wrote: I dont think anyone here though the imperium was the good guy.
Also the idea that the Tau are space Persia made me crack up.
I for one definitely think the Imperium is the good guy of the 40k setting..... but that's the important part the setting.
If you're a human your options are
>space elves that will kill you
>space orks that will kill you
>space skeletons that will kill you
>space demons that will kill you
>space bugs that will eat you
>space aliens that will integrate you into their society/ use you for whatever your worth and sterilize you so that your race ceases to exist.
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
Everyone has realised this already, but the imperium doesn't go out of its way to do some bad things, its just the only way to survive, like the allies killing one of their own squads, with artillery to destroy 3 German divisions in WWII.
Also tau aren't good. they re like the imperium, just don't always go violence first. They are like the Ottomans, crazy phsycos, just realised that if your empire doesn't mind you they don't rebel.
It's arguably not the only way to survive, but instead a consequence of the policies enacted at the Imperium's foundation. The Imperium was an already an awful place before the Horus Heresy, it's just more awful now because everything is also on fire. And it, at the time, was actively making the universe a more awful place for everybody with it's policies, and such tendencies have then become entrenched and perpetuated in the modern day by tradition and bureaucratic momentum.
That's kind of one of the things I feel is off about the "new fluff". At some point I feel it's started to unwittingly cross a line from "fascists are stupid and funny and make everything grim-and-dark" to "fascist are cool". Part of this is because of a focus on the Imperium's leaders as "good" and "heroic" [as opposed to distant and uncaring and kind of irrelevant compared to a bureaucracy that sustained by inertia], part of this is because of the construction of a "good vs. evil" narrative as opposed to "everybody sucks, your dudes exist and fight in this awful place".
Desubot wrote: I dont think anyone here though the imperium was the good guy.
Also the idea that the Tau are space Persia made me crack up.
I for one definitely think the Imperium is the good guy of the 40k setting..... but that's the important part the setting. If you're a human your options are >space elves that will kill you >space orks that will kill you >space skeletons that will kill you >space demons that will kill you >space bugs that will eat you >space aliens that will integrate you into their society/ use you for whatever your worth and sterilize you so that your race ceases to exist.
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
>space elves that will kill you with mind bullets. >space elves that will kill you with dongs of the cyber and non-cyber variety. >space elves that will kill you with bad stand-up routines and recycled jokes. >space elves that will kill you with dinosaurs with frikin lazer beems on their heads.
That's kind of one of the things I feel is off about the "new fluff". At some point I feel it's started to unwittingly cross a line from "fascists are stupid and funny and make everything grim-and-dark" to "fascist are cool". Part of this is because of a focus on the Imperium's leaders as "good" and "heroic" [as opposed to distant and uncaring and kind of irrelevant compared to a bureaucracy that sustained by inertia], part of this is because of the construction of a "good vs. evil" narrative as opposed to "everybody sucks, your dudes exist and fight in this awful place".
There are definitely parallels consider 40k was probably based on irl.
my understanding of it was that its a society based entirely on the fanatic worship of mankind it self which got twisted by the ultimate gak poster to becoming the worship of the man god emperor of man kind with a side worship of the machine spirit by a bunch of robe wearing robosexuals.
if anything its a brutal theocracy and yet mostly justified considering in this universe, all xenos are out to get you besides the monkeys. Psykers are absolutely dangerous, and even your thoughts can bring the death of an entire system.
The new stuff is sort of moving things forward but i havent been really keeping track of it. how is it really glorifying the imperium any more than it used too?
I for one definitely think the Imperium is the good guy of the 40k setting..... but that's the important part the setting.
If you're a human your options are
>space elves that will kill you
>space orks that will kill you
>space skeletons that will kill you
>space demons that will kill you
>space bugs that will eat you
>space aliens that will integrate you into their society/ use you for whatever your worth and sterilize you so that your race ceases to exist.
And if you're not a human, the humans will most definitely kill you! Half of the xenos species are actually nicer towards humans (while still being utterly terrible) than the humans are towards the xenos.
And let's not forget that by joining the Chaos you actually have a chance to eventually earn immortality as a Daemon Prince. Cosmically slim chance, sure, but a chance nevertheless! And the life in the Imperium sucks anyway, so it is definitely worth the gamble, right!
Macabre Galatic wrote: The Imperium. Basically every human that thinks of the emperor in a good way is a brain washed nazi and the space marines are the worst of them. Here's an example - a random space marine chapter invades a new world, they are here to spread the word of the emperor. For the emperor! It goes something like this, join me and believe in my way of thinking or die. Simple as that, that's how they operate. It's the same way the Nazis tried world domination. The Imperium will set up death camps, all sorts.
What's the point of this thread? After some thought just to change your prospective a bit, I don't want to say most people but I'd say a lot of people think the imperium are the good guys...umm because they are human? Well humans are fething gak in general. Have you watched the news lately? Other countries trying to stop other countries owning there own laws etc. I could go on but it's not the forum for it.
You and I love it tho, because it's a galaxy full of weird, wonderful, interesting characters, things revolve around killing other things. Even a planet is a character. I mean Catachan the death world can't stop killing things. 40k is based around war and war is killing.
When you put some proper thought in to it you might realize the lore hasn't got much room for empathy and proper justice. In less your Tau.
The game has always made this a selling point, theres never really beeen any subtlety here, in fact, the introduction to every edition of the game has opened with the following passage for a reason
Warhammer 40,000 wrote:To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods
Nothing about the 40k setting should be seen as a good place to live
Even with the Tau, they're only "reasonable" within the 40k universe, when they show up in orbit, you will bow to the greater good, or the Tau air caste will bombard your world until it does, and they do not yet know the full panoply of dangers that drive the Imperium to do what it does.
Everyone has realised this already, but the imperium doesn't go out of its way to do some bad things, its just the only way to survive, like the allies killing one of their own squads, with artillery to destroy 3 German divisions in WWII.
Also tau aren't good. they re like the imperium, just don't always go violence first. They are like the Ottomans, crazy phsycos, just realised that if your empire doesn't mind you they don't rebel.
It's arguably not the only way to survive, but instead a consequence of the policies enacted at the Imperium's foundation. The Imperium was an already an awful place before the Horus Heresy, it's just more awful now because everything is also on fire. And it, at the time, was actively making the universe a more awful place for everybody with it's policies, and such tendencies have then become entrenched and perpetuated in the modern day by tradition and bureaucratic momentum.
That's kind of one of the things I feel is off about the "new fluff". At some point I feel it's started to unwittingly cross a line from "fascists are stupid and funny and make everything grim-and-dark" to "fascist are cool". Part of this is because of a focus on the Imperium's leaders as "good" and "heroic" [as opposed to distant and uncaring and kind of irrelevant compared to a bureaucracy that sustained by inertia], part of this is because of the construction of a "good vs. evil" narrative as opposed to "everybody sucks, your dudes exist and fight in this awful place".
how was the imperium pre-heresy making the universe a "worse place" for humans
It was eliminating every threat to humanity and the races that literally turned a real of pure energy into an ocean of murder rape spaw babies that want to come kill/rape/trick/disease/ect every living organism in the universe. The imperium's warriors are "heroic" regardless of what you think of there commanders orders. These are humans fighting monsters that want nothing more then to end humanity and they are often shoved into mass unmarked graves for their trouble.
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JNAProductions wrote: Yeah, the Tau are, despite being the nicest guys in 40k, horrible people.
Not sure about that the tau do forced sterilizations and a "join us or be killed policy" and that's simply for expansions.
Desubot wrote: I dont think anyone here though the imperium was the good guy.
Also the idea that the Tau are space Persia made me crack up.
I for one definitely think the Imperium is the good guy of the 40k setting..... but that's the important part the setting.
If you're a human your options are
>space elves that will kill you
>space orks that will kill you
>space skeletons that will kill you
>space demons that will kill you
>space bugs that will eat you
>space aliens that will integrate you into their society/ use you for whatever your worth and sterilize you so that your race ceases to exist.
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
Tell that to the Diasporex and all the other human civilizations destroyed during the Great Crusade that where just fine.
Also, all the "Omg Tau sterilize populations" people grow up. That was the damm Dark Crusade, that game couldn't be less canon. Tau are as bad as our regular goverments on Earth. Using diplomacy to achieve their goals and integrate others, and brute force when that fails. And that by Warhammer 40k standard is as good as you can expect. Humans aren't used as slaves. You have fluff stating how they move people from outher worlds to inner worlds, to kept humans protected from Imperial reprisals, because the Imperium hates humans that defect to the Tau even more than the Tau's.
Of course people that want to portray Tau as some kind of maniatical and genocidal space Indians will ignore all the books, novels, and Codex of Tau or where they are mentioned and just point out the same and old 3-4 examples that you can find in 4dchan wiki.
That's kind of one of the things I feel is off about the "new fluff". At some point I feel it's started to unwittingly cross a line from "fascists are stupid and funny and make everything grim-and-dark" to "fascist are cool". Part of this is because of a focus on the Imperium's leaders as "good" and "heroic" [as opposed to distant and uncaring and kind of irrelevant compared to a bureaucracy that sustained by inertia], part of this is because of the construction of a "good vs. evil" narrative as opposed to "everybody sucks, your dudes exist and fight in this awful place".
Well said, I couldn't agree more!
Yep, the first ones to forget than the Imperium weren't supposed to be the good guys was GW.
Desubot wrote: I dont think anyone here though the imperium was the good guy.
Also the idea that the Tau are space Persia made me crack up.
I for one definitely think the Imperium is the good guy of the 40k setting..... but that's the important part the setting.
If you're a human your options are
>space elves that will kill you
>space orks that will kill you
>space skeletons that will kill you
>space demons that will kill you
>space bugs that will eat you
>space aliens that will integrate you into their society/ use you for whatever your worth and sterilize you so that your race ceases to exist.
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
Tell that to the Diasporex and all the other human civilizations destroyed during the Great Crusade that where just fine.
Also, all the "Omg Tau sterilize populations" people grow up. That was the damm Dark Crusade, that game couldn't be less canon. Tau are as bad as our regular goverments on Earth. Using diplomacy to achieve their goals and integrate others, and brute force when that fails. And that by Warhammer 40k standard is as good as you can expect.
Of course people that want to portray Tau as some kind of maniatical and genocidal space Indians will ignore all the books, novels, and Codex of Tau or where they are mentioned and just point out the same and old 3-4 examples that you can find in 4dchan wiki.
All those other human civilizations were wiped out so that the imperial truth could be undertaken to defeat chaos (literal evil) yet you want to paint tau as the good guys that do a "join our cause or die" policy as well except that they aren't doing it for anything other than self-benefit..... sorry but Imperium are the good guys in this story not the aliens that will use you and seralize your specics until your race dies off all just to gain more political power not to fight an overarching evil
The Imperium literally destroyed a Human Civilization that already won agaisnt Chaos by virtue of teaching their population about it, how to NOT be corrupted by it.
Heck, it were the already Chaos Corrupted marines that had to be used by the Chaos God to destroy that civilization.
The Emperor's plan to destroy Chaos was an utter failure. Thats the fething point of the Horus Heresy and modern 40k.
Galas wrote: The Imperium literally destroyed a Human Civilization that already won agaisnt Chaos by virtue of teaching their population about it, how to NOT be corrupted by it.
Heck, it were the already Chaos Corrupted marines that had to be used by the Chaos God to destroy that civilization.
The Emperor's plan to destroy Chaos was an utter failure. Thats the fething point of the Horus Heresy and modern 40k.
Yeah actually if you go back and read that specific human faction was about to be brought in peacefully to the Imperium by the Warmaster before getting tricked by space demons...... so the main enemy of the good guys messed it up... your not making a good case
Galas wrote: The Imperium literally destroyed a Human Civilization that already won agaisnt Chaos by virtue of teaching their population about it, how to NOT be corrupted by it.
Heck, it were the already Chaos Corrupted marines that had to be used by the Chaos God to destroy that civilization.
The Emperor's plan to destroy Chaos was an utter failure. Thats the fething point of the Horus Heresy and modern 40k.
Yeah actually if you go back and read that specific human faction was about to be brought in peacefully to the Imperium by the Warmaster before getting tricked by space demons...... so the main enemy of the good guys messed it up... your not making a good case
Nope, it was Erebus and Khor-Pareon (If I remember correctly) the two to trick the Imperium in destroying that civilization. The Imperium isn't, and hasn't never been the good guys, and all those "Actually good guys" human civilizations they destroy in the Great Crusade are there just to make that point as clear as clean water.
I think this 'Imperium needs to be this brutal for the humanity to survive' viewpoint needs to die. No they don't; they think they do, but they're wrong. I am really not comfortable with thinking that basically is 'in some situations fascism is justified.' The Imperium is evil, and that's that, no need to pretend otherwise.
Galas wrote: The Imperium literally destroyed a Human Civilization that already won agaisnt Chaos by virtue of teaching their population about it, how to NOT be corrupted by it.
Heck, it were the already Chaos Corrupted marines that had to be used by the Chaos God to destroy that civilization.
The Emperor's plan to destroy Chaos was an utter failure. Thats the fething point of the Horus Heresy and modern 40k.
Yeah actually if you go back and read that specific human faction was about to be brought in peacefully to the Imperium by the Warmaster before getting tricked by space demons...... so the main enemy of the good guys messed it up... your not making a good case
Nope, it was Erebus and Khor-Pareon (If I remember correctly) the two to trick the Imperium in destroying that civilization. The Imperium isn't, and hasn't never been the good guys, and all those "Actually good guys" human civilizations they destroy in the Great Crusade are there just to make that point as clear as clean water.
Yes two humans corrupted by chaos (thanks necrons and eldar) .... sorry the Imperium is the good guys of the setting. Once again unless you want humanity to go extinct (which is fine if you aren't human) the Imperium is most certainly the good guys
Asmodios wrote: Yes two humans corrupted by chaos (thanks necrons and eldar) .... sorry the Imperium is the good guys of the setting. Once again unless you want humanity to go extinct (which is fine if you aren't human) the Imperium is most certainly the good guys
The ENTIRE point of the 40k setting is that no-one is the good guys and that Humans are EXTRA DOUBLE CHOCOLATE SPECIAL not the good guys.
At least it was before GW introduced Cawl Sue and his Extra Goody Gumdrop Marines.
Crimson wrote: I think this 'Imperium needs to be this brutal for the humanity to survive' viewpoint needs to die. No they don't; they think they do, but they're wrong. I am really not comfortable with thinking that basically is 'in some situations fascism is justified.' The Imperium is evil, and that's that, no need to pretend otherwise.
Yeah, saying that the Imperium is doing what it is doing to survive is not only missing the point and basically making justifications for it, is also plain wrong. We are in the year 40.000, the Imperium is only 10.000 years old, and humanity was alive for far longer. And it will be alive for much longer after the Imperium collapses. As it was shown, as it has been shown. And is presently being proven by all the human civilizations that survive outside Imperial influence.
Crimson wrote: I think this 'Imperium needs to be this brutal for the humanity to survive' viewpoint needs to die. No they don't; they think they do, but they're wrong. I am really not comfortable with thinking that basically is 'in some situations fascism is justified.' The Imperium is evil, and that's that, no need to pretend otherwise.
How would you do it then, being mind full of the fact that Tzeench feeds on schemes and will pretty much ruin all your plans if it doesn't coincide with his plans. how will you kumbaya the entirety of the human race without them all thinking things that suddenly power up the powers of chaos really quickly. that and the space elves that also will probably ruin your plans. or spontainious orks. or nids. or sleepy necrons. or other "problems" [edit: in this setting]
Asmodios wrote: Yes two humans corrupted by chaos (thanks necrons and eldar) .... sorry the Imperium is the good guys of the setting. Once again unless you want humanity to go extinct (which is fine if you aren't human) the Imperium is most certainly the good guys
The ENTIRE point of the 40k setting is that no-one is the good guys and that Humans are EXTRA DOUBLE CHOCOLATE SPECIAL not the good guys.
At least it was before GW introduced Cawl Sue and his Extra Goody Gumdrop Marines.
You can take that view if you aren't a human in the 40k setting.... but if you are human the Imperium is definitely the good guys. Hard times make hard choices
Ultimately competing conceptions for good make conversation about this topic difficult if two people don't already agree.
Is doing bad things for the right reasons ok? Well it presupposes we agree on what is good, and what is bad in the first place.
There are certain truths we generally agree to - murder is bad. Killing for the joy of it, or to cause suffering, is bad. The chaos gods cannot be considered good, because of their extreme perversion of basic truths.
Intent also has to play a role in this discussion. Good people can do bad things. Bad people can do good things. But intent is generally what separates them.
Asmodios wrote: You can take that view if you aren't a human in the 40k setting.... but if you are human the Imperium is definitely the good guys. Hard times make hard choices
I think the ultimate irony of 40k is how effective it's been at showing just how much people buy into the fascist propaganda that the game was parodying.
A hard choice is when you make the sacrifice yourself, given the nature of aristocracy in 40k, we don't see that many of them in universe.
This, everyone is a hero in their own story. When well written, pretty much every faction has realistic motivations and goals. They usually just come at the expense of someone else, kinda like how the real world works a lot of the time.
Paraphrasing here, but Yul Brenner was once asked whether he liked playing good guys or bad guys in the movies he starred in. He said it didn't matter, both thought they were righteous.
Everyone faction in 40k thinks they are doing what is best for their faction. It doesn't mean that it is. I completely agree that the IoM is doing a heck of a lot of things that are actually counter to their continued survival while being quite evil, but the IoM is either too inept, corrupt, or otherwise lack the perspective to understand that. Even the non-Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain (I have a comical and serious background to my army) version of my Black Legion warband still believe they are fighting the oppression of the IoM even after ten millennium with Horus being completely justified and right in his actions. They believe their brutality and heinous acts serve the greater goal of freeing humanity from the Emperor's slavery and are completely necessary to do so. As an outside observer, I know for a fact that my warband is completely deluded and wholly evil as befitting the Chaos Space Marines. In my opinion, the IoM is exactly the same just not the same degree of evil that my warband is.
A lot of you guys on this thread are easy prey for brown shirts.
But that said.
Come away with us mortals, step though this door to a magical realm , escape the drudgery of your imperium, petty bureaucrats imposing their petty rules on you and telling you its for your own good. We offer a thousand experiences. Each more intense than the last. And true freedom, with out bounds or limits. Step through, step through, a magical city beyond the stars awaits.
Paraphrasing here, but Yul Brenner was once asked whether he liked playing good guys or bad guys in the movies he starred in. He said it didn't matter, both thought they were righteous.
Everyone faction in 40k thinks they are doing what is best for their faction. It doesn't mean that it is. I completely agree that the IoM is doing a heck of a lot of things that are actually counter to their continued survival while being quite evil, but the IoM is either too inept, corrupt, or otherwise lack the perspective to understand that. Even the non-Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain (I have a comical and serious background to my army) version of my Black Legion warband still believe they are fighting the oppression of the IoM even after ten millennium with Horus being completely justified and right in his actions. They believe their brutality and heinous acts serve the greater goal of freeing humanity from the Emperor's slavery and are completely necessary to do so. As an outside observer, I know for a fact that my warband is completely deluded and wholly evil as befitting the Chaos Space Marines. In my opinion, the IoM is exactly the same just not the same degree of evil that my warband is.
Yep, everyone is a hero in their own story, even the most heinous villains. In fact, especially them.
Crimson wrote: I think this 'Imperium needs to be this brutal for the humanity to survive' viewpoint needs to die. No they don't; they think they do, but they're wrong. I am really not comfortable with thinking that basically is 'in some situations fascism is justified.' The Imperium is evil, and that's that, no need to pretend otherwise.
Yeah, saying that the Imperium is doing what it is doing to survive is not only missing the point and basically making justifications for it, is also plain wrong. We are in the year 40.000, the Imperium is only 10.000 years old, and humanity was alive for far longer. And it will be alive for much longer after the Imperium collapses. As it was shown, as it has been shown. And is presently being proven by all the human civilizations that survive outside Imperial influence.
Back to reality, wearing flowers in their hair will only make humanity more tasty for the ‘Nids.
Edited by ingtaer, lets keep real world politics out of it please.
Macabre Galatic wrote: The Imperium. Basically every human that thinks of the emperor in a good way is a brain washed nazi and the space marines are the worst of them. Here's an example - a random space marine chapter invades a new world, they are here to spread the word of the emperor. For the emperor! It goes something like this, join me and believe in my way of thinking or die. Simple as that, that's how they operate. It's the same way the Nazis tried world domination. The Imperium will set up death camps, all sorts.
.
But the imperium can't be nazi, the stand on religion and economics is totaly different. Even the race thing is drasticly different, same with the world domination, They weren't interested in it. Only communists were and even that was a very short 20s thing , the idea died very fast, as fast as Stalin could get rid of old communist guard .. As for justice, there is war justice. Anything your dudes do is ok, if you win. And everything the others do is bad, specially if you end up winning. That is why I like some w40k stuff, the specifics can be kind of a meh, but the world as a whole works and is very realistic.
The ENTIRE point of the 40k setting is that no-one is the good guys and that Humans are EXTRA DOUBLE CHOCOLATE SPECIAL not the good guys.
Most of the world would disagree. In most cases what ever your country does to win, specially if it does actually win or seem to be winning, is considered to be ok. Even in europe this was considered a thing vide Machiaveli, Matternich or Lenin. The whole part of how to be a good leader according to Conucian tradition is more or less that. Do anything possible, to hold power and keep peace and prosperity of the country, with community > individual. With only variations being the physical dispute if a single ruler is ok, or more precise when is a single rule ok, and when is collective governance better.
One of the reasons Chaos is so strong is because the imperium is the worst place you can imagine (until you meet Chaos, probably). If the imperium wasn't the fascist craphole it is there weren't as many cultist uprisings, rebellions and what not. The Imperium makes it very hard for its citizens not to search for an alternative.
The unfortunate thing about the setting is that other alternatives usually have been brought down by someone with the bigger gun, or Chaos. And that Imperium fanboys didn't like that Tau weren't actually that evil in the beginning, so GW had to retcon them into evil insidious aliens . It's still better to live in the Tau empire than in the Imperium, but the tau empire is so small that it's hardly worth a footnote in galactic scale...
I think the very fact that the human faction(s) in the narrative are not good guys is crucial to the identity of the universe.
Too often in Sci Fi and Fantasy the humans fit neatly into the "Paladin" archetype. To an extent this is still true for the Astartes but their means and motivations are sufficiently murky.
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Necrons on the other hand just want their stuff back, to defeat Chaos and the Immaterium and repel the Tyranids. They take prisoners, have honorable codes of combat, sometimes warn those living above a waking tomb world and give them the option to leave.
Indisputably the good guys of 40k, change my mind.
I'm amazed that with all that "anything is justified because it's a fight for survival" apologism for Imperial ways of things nobody mentions Eldar as the best guys out there - they are actually fighting to not go exctinct right now, not in some distant and hypothetical future as Imperium excuses itself. Most of freaking Iyanden have even died once already.
That above was of course sarcastic, but in all seriousness, Exodites are probably the most peacefull established faction in the entire lore, they are just herding their dragons and fending off greedy Knight Houses invading their safe heavens and only ever conduct defensive wars, not even trying to reestablish galaxy dominance. This does not prevent the mighty Imperial "good guys" inhabiting myriads of worlds to feel so insecure by their existence to want to eradicate them on their few remaining and insignificant planets.
Yeah, Imperium are most definitely the good guys of the setting
Dark Eldar are more of a murdercracy. It doesn't matter how good you are at what you do, but if you are capable of killing the previous eldar on the job.
There is an ancient race, a technological supremacy, who mastered the power that eluded the Emperor. They are cursed to a fate worth than death, an eternity of horror at the hands of a great force of dire malevolence at the heart of a realm of chaos and madness. To elude this fate, their dark burden is to enact these cruel horrors on other beings, to rejuvenate themselves. The Dark Eldar are hardly evil per se, but cursed.
Thinking about it from a purely utilitarian standpoint killing a person who won't suffer infinitely and eternally after death is better than letting a person who will suffer infinitely and eternally after death die, because infinity and eternity are pretty much the biggest things. So the total amount of suffering in the universe is actually decreased every time the DE abduct and torture somebody to death. (looking at this from the timeframe of eternity not just "right now")
And really, they often do the torturing and killing in arena settings so it's not even a 1-to-1 exchange. They can get a lot of years/community of DE for each year of torture victim.
I mean, when you add in the fact that you have this massive overpopulation problem in the galaxy (Hive Cities, Space Fungus, Evil Bug Swarm, etc) you can kind of see the Dark Eldar as less malevolent force but more like the big cats of the African savanna, or the wolves of the American West. They keep populations in check. With overpopulation comes starvation, comes disease, comes overburdening of the land, etc etc. You need predators like the DE to ensure that this does not happen.
When you think of it, the DE are like a force of nature in the W40K universe. And nature isn't really evil. As humans throughout history have recognized, the true power of this world is the force of nature, whether personified in God, or a lesser "gaia", or in some flow of spiritual force/forces like Dao or Chi, or recognized by the Buddah as a sort of web of existence, or many other interpretations. Can we really call this force evil?
Thinking about it with a clear head after this chain of argumentation, we can see that DE are really the "good" guys as much as you can have good guys in a morally ambiguous universe like W40K. They are a personification of a force of nature, and nature is what is "good" simply because it is not evil.
In addition, they operate daily to reduce the total amount of suffering that will happen in the lifetime of the universe. Therefore they are not simply "not evil' they are actually unambiguously good.
Headlss wrote: A lot of you guys on this thread are easy prey for brown shirts.
But that said.
Come away with us mortals, step though this door to a magical realm , escape the drudgery of your imperium, petty bureaucrats imposing their petty rules on you and telling you its for your own good. We offer a thousand experiences. Each more intense than the last. And true freedom, with out bounds or limits. Step through, step through, a magical city beyond the stars awaits.
Dude. It's a game. You're like my mom telling me I'm going to get possessed by demons for playing D&D.
EffervescentAvocado wrote: There is an ancient race, a technological supremacy, who mastered the power that eluded the Emperor. They are cursed to a fate worth than death, an eternity of horror at the hands of a great force of dire malevolence at the heart of a realm of chaos and madness. To elude this fate, their dark burden is to enact these cruel horrors on other beings, to rejuvenate themselves. The Dark Eldar are hardly evil per se, but cursed.
Thinking about it from a purely utilitarian standpoint killing a person who won't suffer infinitely and eternally after death is better than letting a person who will suffer infinitely and eternally after death die, because infinity and eternity are pretty much the biggest things. So the total amount of suffering in the universe is actually decreased every time the DE abduct and torture somebody to death. (looking at this from the timeframe of eternity not just "right now")
And really, they often do the torturing and killing in arena settings so it's not even a 1-to-1 exchange. They can get a lot of years/community of DE for each year of torture victim.
I mean, when you add in the fact that you have this massive overpopulation problem in the galaxy (Hive Cities, Space Fungus, Evil Bug Swarm, etc) you can kind of see the Dark Eldar as less malevolent force but more like the big cats of the African savanna, or the wolves of the American West. They keep populations in check. With overpopulation comes starvation, comes disease, comes overburdening of the land, etc etc. You need predators like the DE to ensure that this does not happen.
When you think of it, the DE are like a force of nature in the W40K universe. And nature isn't really evil. As humans throughout history have recognized, the true power of this world is the force of nature, whether personified in God, or a lesser "gaia", or in some flow of spiritual force/forces like Dao or Chi, or recognized by the Buddah as a sort of web of existence, or many other interpretations. Can we really call this force evil?
Thinking about it with a clear head after this chain of argumentation, we can see that DE are really the "good" guys as much as you can have good guys in a morally ambiguous universe like W40K. They are a personification of a force of nature, and nature is what is "good" simply because it is not evil.
In addition, they operate daily to reduce the total amount of suffering that will happen in the lifetime of the universe. Therefore they are not simply "not evil' they are actually unambiguously good.
Exodites, Harlequins and Craftworld Eldars also suffer the same fate at the time of dying .And they aren't as jerks about it.
Asmodios wrote: You can take that view if you aren't a human in the 40k setting.... but if you are human the Imperium is definitely the good guys. Hard times make hard choices
I think the ultimate irony of 40k is how effective it's been at showing just how much people buy into the fascist propaganda that the game was parodying.
A hard choice is when you make the sacrifice yourself, given the nature of aristocracy in 40k, we don't see that many of them in universe.
The number 1 guy in charge sacrificed himself to the most horrible fate imaginable which is an eternity on the golden throne that is slowly ripping his soul apart all so he can stop literal hell from spilling out and killing/enslaving all of humanity.
Asmodios wrote: You can take that view if you aren't a human in the 40k setting.... but if you are human the Imperium is definitely the good guys. Hard times make hard choices
I think the ultimate irony of 40k is how effective it's been at showing just how much people buy into the fascist propaganda that the game was parodying.
A hard choice is when you make the sacrifice yourself, given the nature of aristocracy in 40k, we don't see that many of them in universe.
The number 1 guy in charge sacrificed himself to the most horrible fate imaginable which is an eternity on the golden throne that is slowly ripping his soul apart all so he can stop literal hell from spilling out and killing/enslaving all of humanity.
If you are trying to portray the Emperor as a good guy not only most people here but even GW will disagree with you.
I think a lot of people pushing the “it’s the only option!” angle probably need to familiarise themselves a bit better with typical, real-world fascist rhetoric, then come back to this discussion.
Asmodios wrote: You can take that view if you aren't a human in the 40k setting.... but if you are human the Imperium is definitely the good guys. Hard times make hard choices
I think the ultimate irony of 40k is how effective it's been at showing just how much people buy into the fascist propaganda that the game was parodying.
A hard choice is when you make the sacrifice yourself, given the nature of aristocracy in 40k, we don't see that many of them in universe.
The number 1 guy in charge sacrificed himself to the most horrible fate imaginable which is an eternity on the golden throne that is slowly ripping his soul apart all so he can stop literal hell from spilling out and killing/enslaving all of humanity.
If you are trying to portray the Emperor as a good guy not only most people here but even GW will disagree with you.
Not a "good guy" as a mortal would think of it because the emperor operates on a scale that is beyond mortals. But look at his overall goal (to expanded humanity to the stars and permanently destroy chaos). Once again the alternative is allowing space elves to bring about literal hell on the entire universe all so they can have fun on a Saturday night.
40k is a cosmic horror story. The setting sucks because of the boundary conditions of the universe; there are endless unstoppable entropic forces out to destroy everything, and any attempt to build a stable civilization inevitably sinks into a morass of atrocity and barbarism in a desperate scramble to survive.
Any "good guys" exist to pull out Greek-tragedy tropes about doomed heroes struggling in the face of fate/inevitability, not to make a point about what's "good" or "bad", or about what fascist atrocities are justifiable, or any of the other things people who misunderstand the nature of the story accuse people who like it of.
40k is, by its nature, monstrously dystopian. Little about the Imperium is admirable. It's not even really supposed to be realistic. The Imperium does terrible things because it must (or believes it must) and usually is forced into doing so because it is so inherently poorly managed and unable to rise above its lowest common denominator after the fall from grace, that's a core part of the setting.
It's all gone to pot and there are no subtle, easy, or nice answers to anything, it is a crazy universe left to the insane to run while being assailed from all directions by the unimaginable, a ten thousand year dark age of madness.
Vaktathi wrote: ...it is a crazy universe left to the insane to run while being assailed from all directions by the unimaginable, a ten thousand year dark age of madness.
And because it was written by the British it's also there to make snarky remarks about itself.
"In the darkness, a blind man is the best guide. In an age of madness, trust to the madman to lead the way."
"Only the insane have the strength to prosper. Only those who prosper may judge what is sane."
Exactly. The grimdark really lays out the mental hoops the Imperium has to jump through to justify its actions and views, and when faced with literal daemons and terrifying gribbly aliens it becomes just understandable enough to make the setting work.
nou wrote: I'm amazed that with all that "anything is justified because it's a fight for survival" apologism for Imperial ways of things nobody mentions Eldar as the best guys out there - they are actually fighting to not go exctinct right now, not in some distant and hypothetical future as Imperium excuses itself. Most of freaking Iyanden have even died once already.
That above was of course sarcastic, but in all seriousness, Exodites are probably the most peacefull established faction in the entire lore, they are just herding their dragons and fending off greedy Knight Houses invading their safe heavens and only ever conduct defensive wars, not even trying to reestablish galaxy dominance. This does not prevent the mighty Imperial "good guys" inhabiting myriads of worlds to feel so insecure by their existence to want to eradicate them on their few remaining and insignificant planets.
Yeah, Imperium are most definitely the good guys of the setting
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
How would you deal with the situation then. say you became the highlords of terra, what do?
We could imagine a parallel universe where the humanity has formed an enlightened Star Trek style alliance with the xenos species. People are taught about the warp and its dangers. Through positive thinking and mindfulness the Aeldari, the humanity and other psychically sensitive species work to slowly mould the Warp to be less hostile. It is just because everyone in 40K is a hateful donkey-cave they are incapable of doing this.
I want to be absolutely clear, this is not criticism of the setting, I love it for being a dystopic miserable hellhole. I just find seeing virtue in this hateful nihilism to be distasteful.
Crimson wrote: We could imagine a parallel universe where the humanity has formed an enlightened Star Trek style alliance with the xenos species. People are taught about the warp and its dangers. Through positive thinking and mindfulness the Aeldari, the humanity and other psychically sensitive species work to slowly mould the Warp to be less hostile. It is just because everyone in 40K is a hateful donkey-cave they are incapable of doing this.
I want to be absolutely clear, this is not criticism of the setting, I love it for being a dystopic miserable hellhole. I just find seeing virtue in this hateful nihilism to be distasteful.
Last time i remember the emperor tried to work with the aeldari and they got back stabbed pretty hard pretty much every time. that isnt a human issue its a space elf issue. imperial manifest destiny also doesnt work with the tau greater good so thats probably out. nids no way, ork no way, necrons no way, so pretty much all xenos are out.
imho in this hypothetical setting, the best option which was the emperors plan in the first place is taking over the webway. better less risky travel, better reinforcements and less waste of materials means better economy for all worlds and peoples. second would be to QUICKLY figure out how the pylons work to fully remove warp influence. but that would require the admech to get they heads out of their port holes. also wipe out the tau as they are worthless.
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
I must have forgotten that time where hell itself would literally come spewing out onto earth unless a thousand innocent people were sacrificed a day.... There isn't a place for peacetime morality in the Imperium you have to make the hard choice of doing something like sacrificing 1000 people a day to protect a million worlds. The math simply adds up in the Imperium's favor every time. There isnt a single thing they have done that isnt worth the entirety of humanity
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
How would you deal with the situation then. say you became the highlords of terra, what do?
The problem, as I view it, is not that the Imperium itself is awful. The issue is not events within the work but how the work is presented and understood. As far as the fiction is concerned it's fine if nobody who'd want to be nice even could get into power. But what I'd want firmly put into place is the triple thing of 1) the Imperium is evil 2) by free choice and 3) this is a tragedy, possibly an irreversible one. From thereon events can unfold more or less as they have.
To actually answer your question, there's obviously going to be compromises in terms of what the Imperium even has the manpower to do and what it can accomplish in any given time span under these circumstances. Given the Big Problem that 40K faces of guiding humanity through its maturation into a psychic species, something would absolutely have to be done to establish a galactic ideology that in turn created mature individuals. If hive cities are no longer such monuments to misery and people generally lead ok lives you'll have massively fewer people tempted by demon cults. If there's no material reason to desire power to change your life then all that'll remain are the truly dedicated petty donkey-caves and a sensible authority could likely catch that sort of thing before it went out of hand.
This kind of thing probably would've had to start with the actual establishment of the Imperium for it to have real impact. But hey, it isn't like a work dealing with future inevitable destruction due to a simple unwillingness of past rulers to prevent it would be irrelevant to contemporary humans...
I must have forgotten that time where hell itself would literally come spewing out onto earth unless a thousand innocent people were sacrificed a day.... There isn't a place for peacetime morality in the Imperium you have to make the hard choice of doing something like sacrificing 1000 people a day to protect a million worlds. The math simply adds up in the Imperium's favor every time. There isnt a single thing they have done that isnt worth the entirety of humanity
You are taking the work at face value when my criticism of it is on a meta level. "But it's justified in the fiction!" is precisely the problem.
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
I must have forgotten that time where hell itself would literally come spewing out onto earth unless a thousand innocent people were sacrificed a day.... There isn't a place for peacetime morality in the Imperium you have to make the hard choice of doing something like sacrificing 1000 people a day to protect a million worlds. The math simply adds up in the Imperium's favor every time. There isnt a single thing they have done that isnt worth the entirety of humanity
Well, even Guilliman sees that the Imperium did crappy work in the last 8000 years or so. So there are hints that the Imperium doesn't have to be as bad as it is in the 41st millenium. (The emperor was a dictator as well, just not as totalitarian and dogmatic as his successors in the high lords of terra).
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
How would you deal with the situation then. say you became the highlords of terra, what do?
The problem, as I view it, is not that the Imperium itself is awful. The issue is not events within the work but how the work is presented and understood. As far as the fiction is concerned it's fine if nobody who'd want to be nice even could get into power. But what I'd want firmly put into place is the triple thing of 1) the Imperium is evil 2) by free choice and 3) this is a tragedy, possibly an irreversible one. From thereon events can unfold more or less as they have.
To actually answer your question, there's obviously going to be compromises in terms of what the Imperium even has the manpower to do and what it can accomplish in any given time span under these circumstances. Given the Big Problem that 40K faces of guiding humanity through its maturation into a psychic species, something would absolutely have to be done to establish a galactic ideology that in turn created mature individuals. If hive cities are no longer such monuments to misery and people generally lead ok lives you'll have massively fewer people tempted by demon cults. If there's no material reason to desire power to change your life then all that'll remain are the truly dedicated petty donkey-caves and a sensible authority could likely catch that sort of thing before it went out of hand.
This kind of thing probably would've had to start with the actual establishment of the Imperium for it to have real impact. But hey, it isn't like a work dealing with future inevitable destruction due to a simple unwillingness of past rulers to prevent it would be irrelevant to contemporary humans...
The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.
The Imperium appears evil due to its massive scale, but really it works to ensure the maximum good:
Individual People's rights are slimmed, to prevent lose thoughts and actions that can lead to entire planets being snuffed into chaos. This is overall Good.
Those suspected of heresy are executed, because heresy can spread, and lead to planets being snuffed out. Therefore executing heretics is trading one life for billions, this is good.
10,000 souls are fed directly to the Emporer every day. This would be evil, except it's the only way for travel to work properly, and the travelers can spread medical supplies, food, and other aid to billions of people. Sacrificing thousands to help countless billions, comes out to good.
See, the imperium is only evil if you believe in Moral Absolutism as opposed to a system of Morals based on the situation. Is lying always wrong, or is lying sometimes justified? Can killing in self defense br justified, or is it always verboten?
Whether or not the imperium is evil or good is pointless -- it's a dark mirror to our own society, though which we should reevaluate our own belief system, like own would with any allegory.
Rosebuddy wrote: The problem, as I view it, is not that the Imperium itself is awful. The issue is not events within the work but how the work is presented and understood. As far as the fiction is concerned it's fine if nobody who'd want to be nice even could get into power. But what I'd want firmly put into place is the triple thing of 1) the Imperium is evil 2) by free choice and 3) this is a tragedy, possibly an irreversible one. From thereon events can unfold more or less as they have.
1) but it already sort of is. the point is that good guy bad guy evil good is all left intentionally vauge with nothing but "heros" on all sides. its for players to pick. 2) it pretty much already is besides 2)because of the circumstances and events that had took place which shaped the imperiums choices to begin with. life would probably have been 2000% better if we still had AIs and STCS doing all the work for people to lounge around and get "educated" but it didnt because the hubris of man created the men of iron which wrecked gak. it was the "free will" of magnus that ruined everything when he broke the emperors psychic barrier that ruined man kinds access to the web way. free choice doesnt exist in a universe where a blue troll controls fate it self.
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
I must have forgotten that time where hell itself would literally come spewing out onto earth unless a thousand innocent people were sacrificed a day.... There isn't a place for peacetime morality in the Imperium you have to make the hard choice of doing something like sacrificing 1000 people a day to protect a million worlds. The math simply adds up in the Imperium's favor every time. There isnt a single thing they have done that isnt worth the entirety of humanity
Well, even Guilliman sees that the Imperium did crappy work in the last 8000 years or so. So there are hints that the Imperium doesn't have to be as bad as it is in the 41st millenium. (The emperor was a dictator as well, just not as totalitarian and dogmatic as his successors in the high lords of terra).
Guilliman has the viewpoint of the Imperium at its absolute peak vs 10 thousand years of decay after fighting enemies on all sides.... and even he is still fighting for the Imperium vs the alternative
The Imperium is unquestionably an evil empire. It was created as a satire to all manner of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Part of that satire is the idea that to come even half-way close to justifying authoritarianism, you have to have literal daemons, genocidal aliens, and the ever-present chance of a human being born that later nukes an entire planet out of the blue. It is not supposed to be saying that authoritarianism is a good thing, it is supposed to be saying that you have to paint it into a ridiculous setting to even come close. It is basically a reductio-ad-absurdum argument where you have to go to such extreme lengths to make authoritarianism look like a good idea, and that even those are not enough (there are many ways the Imperium could potentially do better). "Authoritarianism cannot be good, because you would need to have literally planet-killing human bombs being born in every generation to come close to justifying absolute population control."
As an aside, the Imperium as a whole and individual worlds don't directly tally. The Imperium is a sort of centralised, authoritarian, ultra-conservative, theocratic, oligarchy which is forced to oversee a feudal empire (the closest parallel would be a regime like Franco's ultraconservative Spain combined with one of the bad feudal states like high-medieval France). As such, so long as individual worlds conform to certain Imperial requirements (giving up untrained psykers; not tolerating sentient aliens, AI, mutants, or Chaos; paying their tithes), they can actually be pretty egalitarian and democratic etc. Of course, it still sucks if you are born a psyker/mutant, but it is possible for an individual world to be as pleasant as current existence for the most part. The Imperium only has any kind of central control at all because they have a near monopoly on interstellar void travel.
1) but it already sort of is. the point is that good guy bad guy evil good is all left intentionally vauge with nothing but "heros" on all sides. its for players to pick. 2) it pretty much already is besides 2)because of the circumstances and events that had took place which shaped the imperiums choices to begin with. life would probably have been 2000% better if we still had AIs and STCS doing all the work for people to lounge around and get "educated" but it didnt because the hubris of man created the men of iron which wrecked gak. it was the "free will" of magnus that ruined everything when he broke the emperors psychic barrier that ruined man kinds access to the web way. free choice doesnt exist in a universe where a blue troll controls fate it self.
Yes, the Imperium is widely thought of as awful, but the other two points are clearly not universally held. "They did the best they could" is not as tragic as "they chose to do this when they didn't need to". Emphasis on the Imperium as being restricted from kind acts by the existence of their eternal, endlessly vile enemies is what makes 40K fascist propaganda. Having the Imperium understood explicitly as unecessary doesn't take away from the grimness, the darkness, the grim darkness or the madness and horror of the setting. Frankly it increases it because now there is no justification.
The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.
Extremely weak utilitarian standards, I'd say. Any utilitarian argument made for any given policy is pretty heftily outweighed by the additional misery caused by the thoughtless implementation of it. What do you think that the Imperium's brutal policy on mutants means for people born with Down's syndrome?
The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.
Extremely weak utilitarian standards, I'd say. Any utilitarian argument made for any given policy is pretty heftily outweighed by the additional misery caused by the thoughtless implementation of it. What do you think that the Imperium's brutal policy on mutants means for people born with Down's syndrome?
Actually, as a predictable genetic mutation with no warp-related influence, they would probably be fine with chromosomal disorders and the like on most Imperial worlds. Many may even be able to repair such conditions in-utero. Some worlds will likely treat such people as sub-humans, but still humans.
The term "mutant" generally refers to unpredictable changes with no pattern, usually related to warp-taint or extreme pollution, although it is also used for psykers (which should more properly be considered abhumans to be honest). That is why mutants are not tolerated- they are dangerous in what they represent. If there is a predictable pattern of mutation, they are considered abhumans at worst, like beastmen (the most deviant form of abhuman, but a predictable genetic strain of human nonetheless and tolerated on most Imperial worlds). The poor treatment of abhumans is a side effect of mutants being dangerous, which spills over into a general Imperial distaste for non-standard forms of human. This only extends so far though- Catachans are essentially a form of abhuman that still basically looks like a normal human (but with extreme physical strength for a normal human), yet they are tolerated fine because they are phenotypically human in appearance.
Note that mutant can still be used as a perjorative by many Imperials for types of abhuman.
1) but it already sort of is. the point is that good guy bad guy evil good is all left intentionally vauge with nothing but "heros" on all sides. its for players to pick. 2) it pretty much already is besides 2)because of the circumstances and events that had took place which shaped the imperiums choices to begin with. life would probably have been 2000% better if we still had AIs and STCS doing all the work for people to lounge around and get "educated" but it didnt because the hubris of man created the men of iron which wrecked gak. it was the "free will" of magnus that ruined everything when he broke the emperors psychic barrier that ruined man kinds access to the web way. free choice doesnt exist in a universe where a blue troll controls fate it self.
Yes, the Imperium is widely thought of as awful, but the other two points are clearly not universally held. "They did the best they could" is not as tragic as "they chose to do this when they didn't need to". Emphasis on the Imperium as being restricted from kind acts by the existence of their eternal, endlessly vile enemies is what makes 40K fascist propaganda. Having the Imperium understood explicitly as unecessary doesn't take away from the grimness, the darkness, the grim darkness or the madness and horror of the setting. Frankly it increases it because now there is no justification.
The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.
Extremely weak utilitarian standards, I'd say. Any utilitarian argument made for any given policy is pretty heftily outweighed by the additional misery caused by the thoughtless implementation of it. What do you think that the Imperium's brutal policy on mutants means for people born with Down's syndrome?
They are fine with Orgryns, Ratlings and worst of all, Felinids/Furries, so I doubt they would care about Downs.
1) but it already sort of is. the point is that good guy bad guy evil good is all left intentionally vauge with nothing but "heros" on all sides. its for players to pick. 2) it pretty much already is besides 2)because of the circumstances and events that had took place which shaped the imperiums choices to begin with. life would probably have been 2000% better if we still had AIs and STCS doing all the work for people to lounge around and get "educated" but it didnt because the hubris of man created the men of iron which wrecked gak. it was the "free will" of magnus that ruined everything when he broke the emperors psychic barrier that ruined man kinds access to the web way. free choice doesnt exist in a universe where a blue troll controls fate it self.
Yes, the Imperium is widely thought of as awful, but the other two points are clearly not universally held. "They did the best they could" is not as tragic as "they chose to do this when they didn't need to". Emphasis on the Imperium as being restricted from kind acts by the existence of their eternal, endlessly vile enemies is what makes 40K fascist propaganda. Having the Imperium understood explicitly as unecessary doesn't take away from the grimness, the darkness, the grim darkness or the madness and horror of the setting. Frankly it increases it because now there is no justification.
The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.
Extremely weak utilitarian standards, I'd say. Any utilitarian argument made for any given policy is pretty heftily outweighed by the additional misery caused by the thoughtless implementation of it. What do you think that the Imperium's brutal policy on mutants means for people born with Down's syndrome?
Hang on. outside of something like 2 major events (chaos baby nabbing and subsequent man children corruption) most of what the imperium did to them selves was their choice and is what lead them to the gak pile they run now. Technological regression caused the men of iron which was caused by humanities choice to go down the AI rabbit hole which is slowly becoming relevant. The massive crusades caused by humanities choice to manifest destiny the entire galaxy in the first place, the religion of the god emperor of man kind entirely logars fault but also set up by the man emperor of man kind from his heavy social engineering.
but anyway you spin it. pretty much every faction keeps everything inherently grey so that people come to their own conclusions.
Haighus wrote: The Imperium is unquestionably an evil empire. It was created as a satire to all manner of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Part of that satire is the idea that to come even half-way close to justifying authoritarianism, you have to have literal daemons, genocidal aliens, and the ever-present chance of a human being born that later nukes an entire planet out of the blue. It is not supposed to be saying that authoritarianism is a good thing, it is supposed to be saying that you have to paint it into a ridiculous setting to even come close. It is basically a reductio-ad-absurdum argument where you have to go to such extreme lengths to make authoritarianism look like a good idea, and that even those are not enough (there are many ways the Imperium could potentially do better). "Authoritarianism cannot be good, because you would need to have literally planet-killing human bombs being born in every generation to come close to justifying absolute population control."
The hickup in parodying fascism by depicting the only kind of world wherein it could be justified is that you are depicting fascism as justified. Saying that unthinking hostility towards strangers is only reasonable if all strangers are orks runs into the problem that nazis view black people as orks already. So portraying a world wherein nazi policy based on such mad notions is in fact correct just nets you nazi propaganda.
Actually, as a predictable genetic mutation with no warp-related influence, they would probably be fine with chromosomal disorders and the like on most Imperial worlds. Many may even be able to repair such conditions in-utero. Some worlds will likely treat such people as sub-humans, but still humans.
The Imperium wouldn't bother with teaching people that there is a difference. Ogryn and ratlings are only tolerated for their military utility. If they had none they'd at best be enslaved for labour. The Imperium makes a concerted effort to foster xenophobia and framing anything that deviates from the preferred Imperial norm as an impure mutant is a positive as far as they are concerned. People will mental and developmental disabilities are treated horribly on this planet that actually exists without a galactic murderchurch telling everyone constantly to hate the weird.
Haighus wrote: The Imperium is unquestionably an evil empire. It was created as a satire to all manner of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Part of that satire is the idea that to come even half-way close to justifying authoritarianism, you have to have literal daemons, genocidal aliens, and the ever-present chance of a human being born that later nukes an entire planet out of the blue. It is not supposed to be saying that authoritarianism is a good thing, it is supposed to be saying that you have to paint it into a ridiculous setting to even come close. It is basically a reductio-ad-absurdum argument where you have to go to such extreme lengths to make authoritarianism look like a good idea, and that even those are not enough (there are many ways the Imperium could potentially do better). "Authoritarianism cannot be good, because you would need to have literally planet-killing human bombs being born in every generation to come close to justifying absolute population control."
The hickup in parodying fascism by depicting the only kind of world wherein it could be justified is that you are depicting fascism as justified. Saying that unthinking hostility towards strangers is only reasonable if all strangers are orks runs into the problem that nazis view black people as orks already. So portraying a world wherein nazi policy based on such mad notions is in fact correct just nets you nazi propaganda.
Actually, as a predictable genetic mutation with no warp-related influence, they would probably be fine with chromosomal disorders and the like on most Imperial worlds. Many may even be able to repair such conditions in-utero. Some worlds will likely treat such people as sub-humans, but still humans.
The Imperium wouldn't bother with teaching people that there is a difference. Ogryn and ratlings are only tolerated for their military utility. If they had none they'd at best be enslaved for labour. The Imperium makes a concerted effort to foster xenophobia and framing anything that deviates from the preferred Imperial norm as an impure mutant is a positive as far as they are concerned. People will mental and developmental disabilities are treated horribly on this planet that actually exists without a galactic murderchurch telling everyone constantly to hate the weird.
Your assuming that they wouldn't see utility in someone with below average cognitive abilities? There are plenty of jobs in the imperium where you don't need to be smart, and it pays not to ask questions.
Haighus wrote: The Imperium is unquestionably an evil empire. It was created as a satire to all manner of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Part of that satire is the idea that to come even half-way close to justifying authoritarianism, you have to have literal daemons, genocidal aliens, and the ever-present chance of a human being born that later nukes an entire planet out of the blue. It is not supposed to be saying that authoritarianism is a good thing, it is supposed to be saying that you have to paint it into a ridiculous setting to even come close. It is basically a reductio-ad-absurdum argument where you have to go to such extreme lengths to make authoritarianism look like a good idea, and that even those are not enough (there are many ways the Imperium could potentially do better). "Authoritarianism cannot be good, because you would need to have literally planet-killing human bombs being born in every generation to come close to justifying absolute population control."
The hickup in parodying fascism by depicting the only kind of world wherein it could be justified is that you are depicting fascism as justified. Saying that unthinking hostility towards strangers is only reasonable if all strangers are orks runs into the problem that nazis view black people as orks already. So portraying a world wherein nazi policy based on such mad notions is in fact correct just nets you nazi propaganda.
I think you missed the bit where I said it still isn't enough to justify it. That even random nuke people being born everywhere isn't enough to justify it. The idea is to paint "functional, justified" authoritarianism as absurd...
As it happens, if psykers existed in the way they do in 40k, some kind of control mechanism would be justified. It doesn't mean an authoritarian regime is justified, but societies already routinely quarantine dangerous individuals. Egalitarian society is a balance between the needs of the collective and of the individual- neither wins out (you can view this very effectively under the "4 ethical pillars" framework- justice and autonomy are frequently in opposition to each other to some extent).
Also- the IoM isn't fascist/nazi. It is much more aligned with an authoritarian ultraconservative ideology than fascism, what with the strong theocracy, monarchism, and adherence to tradition. This only applies to the central state, with planets being under a loose feudal control and able to organise themselves how they like. Some of those may be something like a fascist state.
Actually, as a predictable genetic mutation with no warp-related influence, they would probably be fine with chromosomal disorders and the like on most Imperial worlds. Many may even be able to repair such conditions in-utero. Some worlds will likely treat such people as sub-humans, but still humans.
The Imperium wouldn't bother with teaching people that there is a difference. Ogryn and ratlings are only tolerated for their military utility. If they had none they'd at best be enslaved for labour. The Imperium makes a concerted effort to foster xenophobia and framing anything that deviates from the preferred Imperial norm as an impure mutant is a positive as far as they are concerned. People will mental and developmental disabilities are treated horribly on this planet that actually exists without a galactic murderchurch telling everyone constantly to hate the weird.
I mean, I never said they would be treated well universally. As you say, even in the present day people with conditions like Down's are not. In fact, most cases in the developed world are terminated before they are even born nowadays.
The point I was making is that the Imperium draws a clear distinction between acceptable, predictable mutations that follow a pattern, and random, tainted mutations. The latter cannot be tolerated in anything greater than a subhuman slave caste which can never achieve rights approaching a normal human, however nice the individual planet is. They are expressly marked out by Imperial law. The former can, and are well tolerated in many contexts and worlds. Also, individual planets frequently treat their populations as slave labour, or little better, so it isn't really substantially different for abhumans. They just get additional xenophobia as a side-effect of the mutant hate (as I expressly mentioned).
Basically, I don't expect people with trisomy 21 or similar to be treated significantly different to other Imperial citizens or abhumans in many cases, if they make it as far as being born. Certainly there is no Imperial law that would discriminate against them, it would be on a planet-by-planet basis.
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
I will convert this into what my Black Legion warband thinks:
At the end of the day the Black Legion does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race from the end times. Sometimes, you have to put a population to death to make sure the Imperial Truth and the Inquisition don't exterminatus an entire sector. Sometimes you have to press gang men and women in the Cult of Chaos just to have the tools you need to fight the Emperor and the threat he and the Imperium of Man pose. Once the Warmaster is topples the IoM, only then can humanity truly be free and capable to fend off the xeno threats.
Now I know that my warband is completely deluded, corrupt and wholly evil. That doesn't mean they don't think what they are doing is not for the betterment of humanity. They think what they are doing is the only way for humanity to survive. Same goes for the IoM. Even in the 42nd millennium, pockets of humanity are discovered surviving outside the Emperor's light. If they can survive without the IoM for 12000 years, anyone can. That's the point. The IoM thinks what they are doing is the only way. It really isn't and probably in many ways actually counter productive to the survival of humanity. But that is grimdark for you.
EffervescentAvocado wrote: There is an ancient race, a technological supremacy, who mastered the power that eluded the Emperor. They are cursed to a fate worth than death, an eternity of horror at the hands of a great force of dire malevolence at the heart of a realm of chaos and madness. To elude this fate, their dark burden is to enact these cruel horrors on other beings, to rejuvenate themselves. The Dark Eldar are hardly evil per se, but cursed.
Thinking about it from a purely utilitarian standpoint killing a person who won't suffer infinitely and eternally after death is better than letting a person who will suffer infinitely and eternally after death die, because infinity and eternity are pretty much the biggest things. So the total amount of suffering in the universe is actually decreased every time the DE abduct and torture somebody to death. (looking at this from the timeframe of eternity not just "right now")
And really, they often do the torturing and killing in arena settings so it's not even a 1-to-1 exchange. They can get a lot of years/community of DE for each year of torture victim.
I mean, when you add in the fact that you have this massive overpopulation problem in the galaxy (Hive Cities, Space Fungus, Evil Bug Swarm, etc) you can kind of see the Dark Eldar as less malevolent force but more like the big cats of the African savanna, or the wolves of the American West. They keep populations in check. With overpopulation comes starvation, comes disease, comes overburdening of the land, etc etc. You need predators like the DE to ensure that this does not happen.
When you think of it, the DE are like a force of nature in the W40K universe. And nature isn't really evil. As humans throughout history have recognized, the true power of this world is the force of nature, whether personified in God, or a lesser "gaia", or in some flow of spiritual force/forces like Dao or Chi, or recognized by the Buddah as a sort of web of existence, or many other interpretations. Can we really call this force evil?
Thinking about it with a clear head after this chain of argumentation, we can see that DE are really the "good" guys as much as you can have good guys in a morally ambiguous universe like W40K. They are a personification of a force of nature, and nature is what is "good" simply because it is not evil.
In addition, they operate daily to reduce the total amount of suffering that will happen in the lifetime of the universe. Therefore they are not simply "not evil' they are actually unambiguously good.
The torture is mostly imperial propaganda. It's new experience that keeps she who thirsts away. Any new experience and more of it. Mortals are taken to the greatest of cities to experience a life time of pleasures (and some pains )they couldn't possibly imagine. Drugs, sex and violence of course. But those are easy. The mortal visters also experience the most sublime art, and music. Poetry, dance, Love.
To be chosen to go the city is to live as honored guests to a race of indulgent immortals, your every whim will be catered to, and all you have to do is throw your whole heart and soul into your passions.
JNAProductions wrote: Yeah, the Tau are, despite being the nicest guys in 40k, horrible people.
I don't know where that meme came from. HOW they are nice people? All Imperium wants from you is taxes. You provide them, not worship chaos, roughly obey laws, great, you're left alone and can be doing whatever you want. Tau ruthlessly brainwash you, if individual is deemed non-compliant, lobotomy, if population is non-compliant, chemical castration or outright gunning down by Tau enforcers. Imperium at worst wants to control your body. Tau want to control your mind. Anyone who actually considers it for a bit should instantly know which one is (by far) much scarier.
Then you have latest Tau books where even mindless compliance isn't enough and things are actually much worse, for both Tau (fanatical caste enforcement to the point civilians will get really illegal guns to shot themselves to escape potential lobotomization for the "crime" of 'having hobbies' pretty much) and slave races (who are being gunned down for "crime" of 'having maybe possibly slightest psyker genetic potential' on the spot). How can anyone read this and think they are any better than IoM (and not, in fact, horribly and infinitely worse) I have no idea.
I also like how people who took one look at Krieg (despite them being actually based on French) go 'yup, Imperium is fascist' without ever bothering to read actual definition of fascism. Tau are actually far closer to it than Imperium is...
Irbis wrote: I don't know where that meme came from. HOW they are nice people? All Imperium wants from you is taxes.
And conscription, and unwavering obedience to contradictory demands, slaving to make quota for those taxes,while serving under which ever corrupt incompetent that is effectively the local god head for the entirety of your short dirty life.
Mean while the tau at least promise an egalitarian ideal.
I don't know where that meme came from. HOW they are nice people?
I think it stems from the fact that their creed has the word, "good" in it, which I think might be the only usage of the word good in the entire 41st millennium but I'm pretty sure that anyone into 40k that's post adolescent, already realizes it's propaganda.
That said, I really don't agree that the T'au are somehow worse than the Imperium. Maybe the same, at best.
Irbis wrote:
All Imperium wants from you is taxes. You provide them, not worship chaos, roughly obey laws, great, you're left alone and can be doing whatever you want.
Except that the taxes are people, so people are most definitely not "left alone."
Irbis wrote:Tau ruthlessly brainwash you...
Isn't that what Imperial propaganda and the Imperial creed is for?
Irbis wrote:...if individual is deemed non-compliant, lobotomy,
Servitors?
Irbis wrote:if population is non-compliant, chemical castration or outright gunning down by Tau enforcers.
And the Imperium deals with non-compliance how?
Irbis wrote:Imperium at worst wants to control your body. Tau want to control your mind. Anyone who actually considers it for a bit should instantly know which one is (by far) much scarier.
Then you have latest Tau books where even mindless compliance isn't enough and things are actually much worse, for both Tau (fanatical caste enforcement to the point civilians will get really illegal guns to shot themselves to escape potential lobotomization for the "crime" of 'having hobbies' pretty much) and slave races (who are being gunned down for "crime" of 'having maybe possibly slightest psyker genetic potential' on the spot). How can anyone read this and think they are any better than IoM (and not, in fact, horribly and infinitely worse) I have no idea.
Couldn't everything you've listed here also apply to the Imperium?
Irbis wrote:I also like how people who took one look at Krieg (despite them being actually based on French) go 'yup, Imperium is fascist' without ever bothering to read actual definition of fascism. Tau are actually far closer to it than Imperium is...
I thought it was obvious there are no 'good guys' in 40k. Every race thinks they're doing the 'right' thing just like war in the real world. Which is why it's such a great parody.
Imperium think they're saving humanity through their inhumane tyranny.
CSM think they're following a truth or saving humanity or freeing humanity.
Tau believe their myriad atrocities are for the 'greater good'.
Orks are built for war and don't really comprehend a life without it.
Chaos daemons are similar to Orks in that it is their nature that drives them. They don't really have a choice in the matter.
Eldar and Necrons are both doing everything they need to in order to ensure the survival of their respective race.
GSC believe they are fighting oppressive tyrants to free the downtrodden and they are absolutely correct. Its just a shame they do so for Geiger-esque aliens.
Tyranids are a hungry hive mind, but I believe there is more to it than that, personally. Like there is a sentience there. But it's survival of the fittest pushed to its limits.
Some settings are so bleak and so awful that just to survive you must make horrible choices. 40k is one such setting. There are different shades of grey and that's it.
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
"Hmm, this cultist knows where their leader is hiding but won't give us the information, should be torture him?" "No, that'd be rude." "You're right, sorry."
EDIT: when did the subject change to '40k nazis and you love them'
"Hmm, this cultist knows where their leader is hiding but won't give us the information, should be torture him?"
"No, that'd be rude."
"You're right, sorry."
I don't get it. Are you defending torture
kastelen wrote: EDIT: when did the subject change to '40k nazis and you love them'
"Hmm, this cultist knows where their leader is hiding but won't give us the information, should be torture him?"
"No, that'd be rude."
"You're right, sorry."
I don't get it. Are you defending torture
kastelen wrote: EDIT: when did the subject change to '40k nazis and you love them'
Seemingly, the moment you posted.
If the ends justify the means and don't affect me, then somewhat I guess. I think Rosebud made their subject it and everyone who replied to them had their subject changed.
Asmodios wrote: At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys
If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.
"Hmm, this cultist knows where their leader is hiding but won't give us the information, should be torture him?"
"No, that'd be rude."
"You're right, sorry."
EDIT: when did the subject change to '40k nazis and you love them'
"No we don't torture him becuase people will say whatever they think we want to hear to make the pain stop. Once we start hurting people we can't trust what they say any more."
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
It isn't. It has some elements that are shared with fascism, but it is a feudal state with an authoritarian, ultraconservative, theocratic oligarchy at the core.
I'd say it is closer to medieval France than the HRE though- both were feudal, but France was able to exert greater control over its vassals if it had to, which is how the Imperium is able to operate due to their near monopoly on interstellar travel. The HRE was barely an empire at all for much of its history (apart from the very beginning before and shortly after France split off), with only the Hapsburg territories functioning as a coherent state (basically Austria).
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
It isn't. It has some elements that are shared with fascism, but it is a feudal state with an authoritarian, ultraconservative, theocratic oligarchy at the core.
I'd say it is closer to medieval France than the HRE though- both were feudal, but France was able to exert greater control over its vassals if it had to, which is how the Imperium is able to operate due to their near monopoly on interstellar travel. The HRE was barely an empire at all for much of its history (apart from the very beginning before and shortly after France split off), with only the Hapsburg territories functioning as a coherent state (basically Austria).
That's why i said pre 30 years war, were the emperor had more influence, that said i can see france also as a inspiration.
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
It isn't. It has some elements that are shared with fascism, but it is a feudal state with an authoritarian, ultraconservative, theocratic oligarchy at the core.
I'd say it is closer to medieval France than the HRE though- both were feudal, but France was able to exert greater control over its vassals if it had to, which is how the Imperium is able to operate due to their near monopoly on interstellar travel. The HRE was barely an empire at all for much of its history (apart from the very beginning before and shortly after France split off), with only the Hapsburg territories functioning as a coherent state (basically Austria).
That's why i said pre 30 years war, were the emperor had more influence, that said i can see france also as a inspiration.
I think you'd have to go back to Frederick II to get the HRE as an actual empire. I think medieval France works much better because it was still very much a feudal state, but the monarch had enough centralised power that they could focus on any one of their vassals and crush them if they were being rebellious (obvious exceptions being the several centuries of intermittent war against those dang Dukes of Normandy, and the Duchy of Burgundy at its height).
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
Facism is a far easier reference point for most people than specifically narrowing down a period based on of a pair of acronyms I don't know off hand.
Live for the state, oh no anyone unlike you should be sent to the killing floor, obey your superiors without question, and an endless propaganda machine.
I'm sure there's plenty of historical parallels, but the average person is only going to know so many of them and may as well take the easy one.
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
Facism is a far easier reference point for most people than specifically narrowing down a period based on of a pair of acronyms I don't know off hand.
Live for the state, oh no anyone unlike you should be sent to the killing floor, obey your superiors without question, and an endless propaganda machine.
I'm sure there's plenty of historical parallels, but the average person is only going to know so many of them and may as well take the easy one.
But fascism is wrong if looking at anything but the vaguest parameters. You are far better off using the catch-all term authoritarianism if that is your intention. Most people understand that term too. Using fascism as a catch-all for authoritarianism is lazy, it would be like using anarchism as a catch-all for all extreme libertarian concepts.
HRE is Holy Roman Empire. I don't actually know PLC.
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
Facism is a far easier reference point for most people than specifically narrowing down a period based on of a pair of acronyms I don't know off hand.
Live for the state, oh no anyone unlike you should be sent to the killing floor, obey your superiors without question, and an endless propaganda machine.
I'm sure there's plenty of historical parallels, but the average person is only going to know so many of them and may as well take the easy one.
But fascism is wrong if looking at anything but the vaguest parameters. You are far better off using the catch-all term authoritarianism if that is your intention. Most people understand that term too. Using fascism as a catch-all for authoritarianism is lazy, it would be like using anarchism as a catch-all for all extreme libertarian concepts.
HRE is Holy Roman Empire. I don't actually know PLC.
It's because most people think they know what Fascism is because CNN told them so, despite CNNs definition of Fascism being the equivalent of me calling a Bacon Sarnie a Vegan Dish, so they just regurgitate what their corporate overlords tell them to.
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
Facism is a far easier reference point for most people than specifically narrowing down a period based on of a pair of acronyms I don't know off hand.
Live for the state, oh no anyone unlike you should be sent to the killing floor, obey your superiors without question, and an endless propaganda machine.
I'm sure there's plenty of historical parallels, but the average person is only going to know so many of them and may as well take the easy one.
But fascism is wrong if looking at anything but the vaguest parameters. You are far better off using the catch-all term authoritarianism if that is your intention. Most people understand that term too. Using fascism as a catch-all for authoritarianism is lazy, it would be like using anarchism as a catch-all for all extreme libertarian concepts.
HRE is Holy Roman Empire. I don't actually know PLC.
It's because most people think they know what Fascism is because CNN told them so, despite CNNs definition of Fascism being the equivalent of me calling a Bacon Sarnie a Vegan Dish, so they just regurgitate what their corporate overlords tell them to.
PLC is Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Ah, gotcha! Should've known that one... Hmm, I can see strong elements of that state in the Imperium.
I wouldn't say it is as far off as that, more that they tell everyone a cheese and lettuce sandwich is the only vegan dish. Its actually vegetarian, and there are myriad other options that never get mentioned, but closer than a bacon butty. Still, that is just a disagreement in degree
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
It isn't. It has some elements that are shared with fascism, but it is a feudal state with an authoritarian, ultraconservative, theocratic oligarchy at the core.
I'd say it is closer to medieval France than the HRE though- both were feudal, but France was able to exert greater control over its vassals if it had to, which is how the Imperium is able to operate due to their near monopoly on interstellar travel. The HRE was barely an empire at all for much of its history (apart from the very beginning before and shortly after France split off), with only the Hapsburg territories functioning as a coherent state (basically Austria).
That's why i said pre 30 years war, were the emperor had more influence, that said i can see france also as a inspiration.
I think you'd have to go back to Frederick II to get the HRE as an actual empire. I think medieval France works much better because it was still very much a feudal state, but the monarch had enough centralised power that they could focus on any one of their vassals and crush them if they were being rebellious (obvious exceptions being the several centuries of intermittent war against those dang Dukes of Normandy, and the Duchy of Burgundy at its height).
Ah yes the burgundians, talk about failing Hard
Bei grandson das gut, bei murten der Mut, bei nancy das Blut.
Well overall i still think the HRE, especially the institution of the regents that voted for the emperor have more in common with the empire and it's general government after the "death" of the emperor then france, Precisely because the french kings were not dependant on the support as much as gaulliman.
You do know, that what ultimately sunk PLC/I RP into more than a hundred years of non-existence was Liberum Veto that made parliamentary congregations unable to decide on anything and that it was increasingly disfunctional, multicultural noble democracy (since XV century) with electable king (since XVI century), with increasingly limited power of the king, torn apart, between other things, because of handing out noble privileges to different interest/ethnic groups, right? And that it had the largest Jewish diaspora in conteporary Europe, with Jews expelled from other states migrating there, significant Tatar minority and four religious orders (roman catholic, orthodox, jewish and muslim) coexisting in relative peace, sometimes within single cities? How exactly that is similar to IoM and how exactly one goes in one sentence from fascism to PLC/I RP?
nou wrote: You do know, that what ultimately sunk PLC/I RP into more than a hundred years of non-existence was Liberum Veto that made parliamentary congregations unable to decide on anything and that it was increasingly disfunctional, multicultural noble democracy (since XV century) with electable king (since XVI century), with increasingly limited power of the king, torn apart, between other things, because of handing out noble privileges to different interest/ethnic groups, right? And that it had the largest Jewish diaspora in conteporary Europe, with Jews expelled from other states migrating there, significant Tatar minority and four religious orders (roman catholic, orthodox, jewish and muslim) coexisting in relative peace, sometimes within single cities? How exactly that is similar to IoM and how exactly one goes in one sentence from fascism to PLC/I RP?
Seriously, how? I am speechless...
Because the Imperium is like neither, but contains elements of both.
parliamentary congregations unable to decide on anything and that it was increasingly disfunctional, multicultural noble democracy
This sounds an awful lot like the Senatorum Imperialis, which has a huge amount of organisational inertia and competing factions.
The High Lords of Terra essentially ignore the Senatorum as much as they can to actually get things done.
Automatically Appended Next Post: No one is saying the PLC was fascist, just that the IoM shares some structural elements.
This sounds an awful lot like the Senatorum Imperialis, which has a huge amount of organisational inertia and competing factions.
The High Lords of Terra essentially ignore the Senatorum as much as they can to actually get things done.
Automatically Appended Next Post: No one is saying the PLC was fascist, just that the IoM shares some structural elements.
The thing is - polish parliment couldn't really be ignored, that's why Constitution of may 3rd tried to revoke nobility status for landless nobles. And PLC/I RP did not had anything resembling Emperor's Iron Grip on IoM or any fanatical religious or monarchic devotion - that is exactly why IRP ended in partitions and dissapeared from maps.
IoM is based on feudal model that was common for entire medieval europe, that is an undeniable fact. But if you know anything more about PLC/I RP than some basic pop references, then there are really very few and none specific commonalities between them and many, many contradictions, some listed above but that is really not an exhaustive list.
One more thing to note - there are norse marines, there are roman marines, there are celt marines, sparta marines and fething gengis khan mongol marines, but none polish husars marines. If anyone in GW knew gak about polish history so that they modeled anything based on it, they most certainly would include a chapter modeled after the most efficient and scary cavalry of contemporary europe. Here you have a fan attempt at filling this gap: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/733433.page. Even rouge traders are modeled after italian tropes from city-states era and not on polish sarmat nobles of equaling influence in contemporary europe.
I really, really don't think that there is anything consciously drawn from polish history in Warhammer of any flavour and any similarities are purely coincidential and from polish perspective far-fetched at most. The most I could agree vaguely resembles GW produced narratives is Chmielnicki uprising era, but again, that is nothing really all that different from War of the Roses or any other civil wars in medieval Europe. And Battle of Vienna and Sobieski figure are sufficiently epic and "culture clash" for the setting.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And to be constructive for a change: what I personally think IoM is modeled upon is late Pax Britannica British Empire with Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" levels of beurocracy added on top, Julius Ceasar wannabe instead of Victoria/Edward/George, with all sorts of ancient and medieval tropes sprinkled all over the place to support all those rainbow marines flavors and planetary variety of galaxy spanning empire.
I think the problem is that in trying to boil the Imperium down to any single ideology or historical period is problematic because it encompasses elements of so many. That said, it's definitely not not Fascist in a lot of aspects, as Salt Potato points out, but it is also many other things, some of which probably directly contradict any common definition of Fascism. Descriptions of the Imperium borrow from anything and everything it's authors and creators can find, so long as those things contribute to its dystopian image. Futuristic Dystopia is really the only thing about the Imperium that's solidly consistent.
Haighus wrote: I think you missed the bit where I said it still isn't enough to justify it. That even random nuke people being born everywhere isn't enough to justify it. The idea is to paint "functional, justified" authoritarianism as absurd...
Plenty of people think that the Imperium is justified, though. You don't, sure, but a lot do. That there have always been blurbs about how to be a man in such an age is to live under the most tyrannical regime imaginable is also unfortunately outweighed by the amount of fiction casting Imperial characters in heroic roles and hardly ever offering an alternative. Chaos is evil and must be suppressed, orks are violent and can't be coexisted with etc. Most of the 40K setting has been written in such a way that the Imperium couldn't be any other way because tolerance and curiosity get you killed.
I don't think that parodying fascism in this way is possible so the original aim was imho misguided but there really isn't a lot you'd have to change.
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
The basic conceit of peace being impossible because people are too different and the only thing you can do is shoot the other guy before he shoots you is a fundamentally fascistic world view. It's not that the Imperium's political and logistical workings are perfectly 100% fascist (to the extent that such a thing is possible anyway), it's that orks, chaos and genestealers etc all draw upon the exact same concepts as fascist writings on whatever they denote as the Other do. Orks are the barbarian hordes who are unthinking and inhuman in their aggression and can't be reasoned with, chaos is political/ideological dissidents and genestealers are miscegenation. Of course, alien supersoldiers breaking down and running amok and xenomorph rape monsters doing what they do aren't necessarily proof that whatever work includes them leans towards fascism but if the Imperium is shown as correct in committing monstrous acts to preserve the greater mass of humanity against these things then you're at a bit more than a 90 degree angle. "It's terrible but justified" is what the Nazis thought about the Holocaust, for example.
Rosebuddy wrote: The basic conceit of peace being impossible because people are too different and the only thing you can do is shoot the other guy before he shoots you is a fundamentally fascistic world view. It's not that the Imperium's political and logistical workings are perfectly 100% fascist (to the extent that such a thing is possible anyway), it's that orks, chaos and genestealers etc all draw upon the exact same concepts as fascist writings on whatever they denote as the Other do. Orks are the barbarian hordes who are unthinking and inhuman in their aggression and can't be reasoned with, chaos is political/ideological dissidents and genestealers are miscegenation. Of course, alien supersoldiers breaking down and running amok and xenomorph rape monsters doing what they do aren't necessarily proof that whatever work includes them leans towards fascism but if the Imperium is shown as correct in committing monstrous acts to preserve the greater mass of humanity against these things then you're at a bit more than a 90 degree angle. "It's terrible but justified" is what the Nazis thought about the Holocaust, for example.
The difference here is that the Imperium is 1000% correct.
Yeah the Imperium is not bad for killing Orks or Chaos. They are bad because they threat their own subjets like filth and barely something more than slaves, and are oblivious to any other alternative of doing things, that in most cases are better all around, with less cost in human lives.
But thats the Imperium.A total mess from top to bottom. And yeah, I know, not all imperial plantes are under strict control, many don't ever know they are part of the Imperium and could be even similar to our world. But thats not what the universe is about.
That's why i said pre 30 years war, were the emperor had more influence, that said i can see france also as a inspiration.
I think you'd have to go back to Frederick II to get the HRE as an actual empire. I think medieval France works much better because it was still very much a feudal state, but the monarch had enough centralised power that they could focus on any one of their vassals and crush them if they were being rebellious (obvious exceptions being the several centuries of intermittent war against those dang Dukes of Normandy, and the Duchy of Burgundy at its height).
Wasn't France really a thing till the defeat of the Fronda and the rise of absolutism?
I think that the eastern roman empire under Dioclecian or Constantin would fit much better. Same paralising type of burocracy too.
The basic conceit of peace being impossible because people are too different and the only thing you can do is shoot the other guy before he shoots you is a fundamentally fascistic world view. It's not that the Imperium's political and logistical workings are perfectly 100% fascist (to the extent that such a thing is possible anyway), it's that orks, chaos and genestealers etc all draw upon the exact same concepts as fascist writings on whatever they denote as the Other do. Orks are the barbarian hordes who are unthinking and inhuman in their aggression and can't be reasoned with, chaos is political/ideological dissidents and genestealers are miscegenation. Of course, alien supersoldiers breaking down and running amok and xenomorph rape monsters doing what they do aren't necessarily proof that whatever work includes them leans towards fascism but if the Imperium is shown as correct in committing monstrous acts to preserve the greater mass of humanity against these things then you're at a bit more than a 90 degree angle. "It's terrible but justified" is what the Nazis thought about the Holocaust, for example.
Ok first Nazi = fascisct?
There are fundamental diffrent ideological goals within both ideologies.
Where does the IoM state that peace is impossible? It is imperialistic and genocidal but fascisct is another quality, or would you declare any empire of this Planet as fascisct?
Hard times require hard meassures is about the most used excuse aswell as suffer now for an utopia in the future and inherent in most ideological radical streams and can be found aswell in communism.
Also Rogue traders exist, alliances with the knife ears happened, shoot on sight torwards Tau is also 50% of the time not happening.
Haighus wrote: I think you missed the bit where I said it still isn't enough to justify it. That even random nuke people being born everywhere isn't enough to justify it. The idea is to paint "functional, justified" authoritarianism as absurd...
Plenty of people think that the Imperium is justified, though. You don't, sure, but a lot do. That there have always been blurbs about how to be a man in such an age is to live under the most tyrannical regime imaginable is also unfortunately outweighed by the amount of fiction casting Imperial characters in heroic roles and hardly ever offering an alternative. Chaos is evil and must be suppressed, orks are violent and can't be coexisted with etc. Most of the 40K setting has been written in such a way that the Imperium couldn't be any other way because tolerance and curiosity get you killed.
I don't think that parodying fascism in this way is possible so the original aim was imho misguided but there really isn't a lot you'd have to change.
No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.
BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.
The basic conceit of peace being impossible because people are too different and the only thing you can do is shoot the other guy before he shoots you is a fundamentally fascistic world view. It's not that the Imperium's political and logistical workings are perfectly 100% fascist (to the extent that such a thing is possible anyway), it's that orks, chaos and genestealers etc all draw upon the exact same concepts as fascist writings on whatever they denote as the Other do. Orks are the barbarian hordes who are unthinking and inhuman in their aggression and can't be reasoned with, chaos is political/ideological dissidents and genestealers are miscegenation. Of course, alien supersoldiers breaking down and running amok and xenomorph rape monsters doing what they do aren't necessarily proof that whatever work includes them leans towards fascism but if the Imperium is shown as correct in committing monstrous acts to preserve the greater mass of humanity against these things then you're at a bit more than a 90 degree angle. "It's terrible but justified" is what the Nazis thought about the Holocaust, for example.
Interesting point. Though their means are often reflective of each other, are the ends of the Imperium and say the Nazi party the same? On the one hand, the Nazis' actions served to help them prosper, whereas the Imperium's actions serve to help them survive. Whereas the Nazi's blamed Germany's woes on scapegoats in order to justify attrocities in order to attain their property and wealth, as Bacon points out, those that the Imperium blames its woes upon are not scapegoats, but are a very real and genuine threat to our species survival.
. It's still better to live in the Tau empire than in the Imperium, but the tau empire is so small that it's hardly worth a footnote in galactic scale...
