So just finished the Helsreach book, and I gotta say, the entire chapter of the Black Templars are kinda, jerks. From Helbrect and his "Thank you sir may I have another" initiation ceremony, to Grimaldus going full Darth Vader on anyone who slightly loses hope while he is constantly bemoaning how he's going to die, to the constantly weepy apothacary who gets smacked around for crying, it's all so.....not what I expected.
1. Never read a book where SM's disdain for anything not a SM was so....prevelent. Their disrepect for base humans is borderline Racist, and yet they have this out of no where respect for the Princeps of Ad Mech.
2. Black Templars call themselves Knights. This was a little confusing at first. Not really a bad thing, just thrown by it at first. Are they the only chapter that does this? I know the Death Company call themselves "Knights of Caliban", but I've never seen the words Space Marine almost uniformly replaced by "Knight".
3. Love the portrayal of the efficacy of the Storm Troopers. Best I've read yet. Even the way they are talked about in the Guard books pales to this. They are basically slightly insane master Combatants.
4. Machine Spirts taking over the drivers is silly and I don't like it.
Are BT's basically just slightly more angry Word Bearers? They are the same as to their being fervently religious sects, but I still don't know if this is their only lore portrayal?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: 2. Black Templars call themselves Knights. This was a little confusing at first. Not really a bad thing, just thrown by it at first. Are they the only chapter that does this? I know the Death Company call themselves "Knights of Caliban", but I've never seen the words Space Marine almost uniformly replaced by "Knight".
I think you may mean Dark Angels instead of Death Company? But anyway, yes, Space Marines are often compared to Knights and knightly orders, with many even having the word "Knight" or similar in their Chapter name. Not to mention, to give the Templars of our history their full name, they were usually referred to as the "Knights Templar".
Are BT's basically just slightly more angry Word Bearers? They are the same as to their being fervently religious sects, but I still don't know if this is their only lore portrayal?
I've only got Codex lore and the BTs' original lore from their first appearances in White Dwarf to go by... but basically, yeah, pretty much! They're almost unique among Marine Chapters, in that most don't actually worship the Emperor as a God in the way they do. But of course, because they worship the Emperor they're devout and holy, whereas because the Word Bearers don't they're filthy traitorous scum.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: 2. Black Templars call themselves Knights. This was a little confusing at first. Not really a bad thing, just thrown by it at first. Are they the only chapter that does this? I know the Death Company call themselves "Knights of Caliban", but I've never seen the words Space Marine almost uniformly replaced by "Knight".
I think you may mean Dark Angels instead of Death Company? But anyway, yes, Space Marines are often compared to Knights and knightly orders, with many even having the word "Knight" or similar in their Chapter name. Not to mention, to give the Templars of our history their full name, they were usually referred to as the "Knights Templar".
Are BT's basically just slightly more angry Word Bearers? They are the same as to their being fervently religious sects, but I still don't know if this is their only lore portrayal?
I've only got Codex lore and the BTs' original lore from their first appearances in White Dwarf to go by... but basically, yeah, pretty much! They're almost unique among Marine Chapters, in that most don't actually worship the Emperor as a God in the way they do. But of course, because they worship the Emperor they're devout and holy, whereas because the Word Bearers don't they're filthy traitorous scum.
Yup, thank you for the correction! But it's also funny to me that the Sisters in the book find the BT's to be annoying and over-zealous. This is a company of Sisters, calling someone else too-pious.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Never read a book where SM's disdain for anything not a SM was so....prevelent. Their disrepect for base humans is borderline Racist, and yet they have this out of no where respect for the Princeps of Ad Mech.
Might just be author interpretation, but they are fanatical and driven by dogma and martial pride. It wouldn't be humans they distain so much as lack of will - in another templar fluff piece for instance a force of them arrive on a world to observe it's impressive piety (after the governer had wiped out a significant fraction of the population for not being pious enough), and in the 'know no fear' short story their attitutes towards their sororitas allies mainly boils down to distate at their own failings rather than anything the sisters themselves do.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: 2. Black Templars call themselves Knights. This was a little confusing at first. Not really a bad thing, just thrown by it at first. Are they the only chapter that does this? I know the Death Company call themselves "Knights of Caliban", but I've never seen the words Space Marine almost uniformly replaced by "Knight".
Dark Angels were originally native-american themed with feathers, lightning bolts, charm-necklaces. In 3rd edition Azrael was recruited from tribal headhunters and of the chapter itself "no records of its beginnings nor any mention of its part in the Emperor's Great Crusade". 4th edition saw the original nobles of Caliban become horse-riding knights in dark forests full of monsters.
By comparison the templars were medieval crusader-themed burn the witch and deus vult from the start but as the faction slowly faded into the ranks of black-painted ultramarines the dark angels have taken on the knightly chapter trappings more and more while the ghostwalking spirituality of their old fluff has mostly gone.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Are BT's basically just slightly more angry Word Bearers? They are the same as to their being fervently religious sects, but I still don't know if this is their only lore portrayal?
The World Bearers are uncontrolled berzerkers who want to kill, maim, and burn for the sake of blood for the blood god. The templars by comparison are kill, maim and burn because they have an enduring hatred for and desire to annihilate anyone they consider their enemy.
The difference in target selection. Black Templars will never get worked up and rampage back through a friendly unit of guardsmen for example (unlike the Flesh Tearers) - they have a very specific idea of who they want dead and are very enthusiatic about it, but a 'friendly' is going to be much safer around them than around... Iron Hands for example. They are unforgiving but not actively malicious nor murderous for the sake of murder.
A.T. wrote: The World Bearers are uncontrolled berzerkers who want to kill, maim, and burn for the sake of blood for the blood god. The templars by comparison are kill, maim and burn because they have an enduring hatred for and desire to annihilate anyone they consider their enemy.
The difference in target selection. Black Templars will never get worked up and rampage back through a friendly unit of guardsmen for example (unlike the Flesh Tearers) - they have a very specific idea of who they want dead and are very enthusiatic about it, but a 'friendly' is going to be much safer around them than around... Iron Hands for example. They are unforgiving but not actively malicious nor murderous for the sake of murder.
Word Bearers or World Eaters? There's no World Bearers.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Yup, thank you for the correction! But it's also funny to me that the Sisters in the book find the BT's to be annoying and over-zealous. This is a company of Sisters, calling someone else too-pious.
Zealous or pious?
You can't be too pious, but some of the sisters orders are actually known for considered tactical actions that probably don't reach the templars 'head-on daylight assault across the mindfield' level of zeal.
There's a scene in one of the "War of the Beast" books where Black Templars start killing their abhuman allies and the other Chapters have to tell them to stop it.
A.T. wrote: Dark Angels were originally native-american themed with feathers, lightning bolts, charm-necklaces. In 3rd edition Azrael was recruited from tribal headhunters and of the chapter itself "no records of its beginnings nor any mention of its part in the Emperor's Great Crusade". 4th edition saw the original nobles of Caliban become horse-riding knights in dark forests full of monsters.
Worth mentioning - the Dark Angels' knightly fluff regarding "The Order" actually comes from their 2nd ed Codex (and possibly even earlier? I joined in 2nd, I suppose there's a chance it was covered in White Dwarf or elsewhere even before that). In any case, the 2nd ed details cover both Caliban's largely tribal nature (the "peasants" if you will), and the existence of The Order being a society of their own above the tribes, tucked up safe in their fortress between quests into the wilderness.
It seems the 3rd ed retraction was some kind of attempt to give them back some additional sense of mystery, possibly combined with 3rd's Codexes being much smaller - but happily they gave up on that approach for 4th ed and restored their previous lore.
Super Ready wrote: Worth mentioning - the Dark Angels' knightly fluff regarding "The Order" actually comes from their 2nd ed Codex
Yeah, they did seem a bit all over the place with what the dark angels were supposed to be early on between different sources (I think I first saw them in space hulk) and the design of the models themselves that seemed at completely odds with the european-knight theme.
Grimaldus gets in a pretty heated discussion with a completely indifferent Salamander in the book, where the Salamander takes a Holding action to protect fleeing civilians, and the BT's demand them to attack, which is denied. Grimaldus or Primus, one of the two, has to fight to stop from attacking the Salamander, for what he believes (wrongly) is cowardice. That is what I would call Zealous. It's kinda funny, the orks aren't so different in their contempt for anything not them, and willingness to slaughter without end, just to do so.
To be fair, I'm not sure what anyone would expect from the Black Templars, even just a cursory visual inspection screams "we're not good guys", dour dudes in black armor festooned with skull iconography and known for their zealous fanaticism and warcry of "no pity, no remorse" is pretty much inherently defining them to fundamentally be jerks, and everything about their personality traits and worldviews would make the BT's archetypal villains in any other IP. The only reason they're not lumped in with such in 40k all the time is that they're typically set facing the inhuman, mostly allowing their less savory facets to be swept aside.
Well, Grimaldus is described as having soft and thoughtful eyes, intelligence, and cares about people, not just personal advancement. It's clear the author wanted, or started to make him a semi-likable character, then remembered it was 40k, and veered off into making him a complete bastard. The only really likeable character in the whole book is Andre the insane Storm Trooper. Mostly because he says jokes from time to time: on a conscript trying to unload his rifle:"You have to ask the respect the Lasguns' spirit! Ask it nicely!" Had me laughing for a solid minute.
Also some orks show more respect for humans than some marines do.
When it comes to marines respecting humans sgt. Rafael of the blood angels had it right at armageddon when he almost dismissed a guardsman as "only human" then caught himself and realized to be dismissive of humans was to be dismissive of the emperor who cared for the human race and to begin the journey that the chaos traitors made 10,000 years ago.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Grimaldus gets in a pretty heated discussion with a completely indifferent Salamander in the book, where the Salamander takes a Holding action to protect fleeing civilians, and the BT's demand them to attack, which is denied.
The original character-piece that established the Grimaldus character was the defense of Helsreach where he commanded a small force of black templars and the defending milita and imperial guard forces.
After a two month siege the orks broke through the defenses and began the assault in earnest, and the guard fled. Grimaldus announced that he and the templars would not take one step back - victory or death - enough to rally the defenders into one last action. Everyone except Grimaldus died on both sides, the three servitors that come with his model carry bits of the temple he fought in.
Compared to actual jerks like the Iron Hands who would leave a world to die because they do not see the value in saving it compared to the potential cost to the chapter. A templar will demand you throw yourself to die fighting impossible odds, but he'd be first into the fray. Everyone fights, no-one quits.
It is a pragmatic/fatalistic fanatacism as Sigismund himself put it : "We will spend our lives fighting to secure this Imperium, and then I fear we will spend the rest of our days fighting to keep it intact.
There is such involving darkness amongst the stars. Even when the Imperium is complete, there will be no peace. We will be obliged to fight on to preserve what we have fought to establish. Peace is a vain wish. Our crusade may one day adopt another name, but it will never truly end. In the far future, there will be only war."
By default, any human from the Imperium should be considered a "jerk" (to put it lightly) unless proven otherwise. It's the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." Sure, you can admire their perseverance, determination and skill... they'd crawl through an ocean of fire and climb mountains to accomplish their goals. It's just that their goals include things like sadistically murdering innocent babies who are born intersex or with six fingers or whatever.
Black Templars are pretty par for the course for the Imperium. Chapters like Salamanders are abnormal in that context.
Honestly it sounds like just a slightly off portrayal by the author.
I think one of the better examples of BT marines was in Forges of Mars. Maybe it was because the Templars were essentially guests aboard the Admech ship but while they were still jerks and religious zealots they did actually come through in the end and put themselves out there to protect the human/semi-human characters.
I wish there were better books about the "Faith" aspect of Astartes, and what led them to be this way. Certainly not the Emperor, he would have opposed it in extremely strong terms, being a strict Secularist. So was it Dorn?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I wish there were better books about the "Faith" aspect of Astartes, and what led them to be this way. Certainly not the Emperor, he would have opposed it in extremely strong terms, being a strict Secularist. So was it Dorn?
It's actually a minority of Astartes who feel this way. And it wasn't Dorn; probably has more to do with Sigismund.
The Space Wolves, for example, certainly *venerate* Russ and the Emperor, but they don't worship them. They *worship* the world-spirit of Fenris.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So just finished the Helsreach book, and I gotta say, the entire chapter of the Black Templars are kinda, jerks. From Helbrect and his "Thank you sir may I have another" initiation ceremony, to Grimaldus going full Darth Vader on anyone who slightly loses hope while he is constantly bemoaning how he's going to die, to the constantly weepy apothacary who gets smacked around for crying, it's all so.....not what I expected.
1. Never read a book where SM's disdain for anything not a SM was so....prevelent. Their disrepect for base humans is borderline Racist, and yet they have this out of no where respect for the Princeps of Ad Mech.
2. Black Templars call themselves Knights. This was a little confusing at first. Not really a bad thing, just thrown by it at first. Are they the only chapter that does this? I know the Death Company call themselves "Knights of Caliban", but I've never seen the words Space Marine almost uniformly replaced by "Knight".
3. Love the portrayal of the efficacy of the Storm Troopers. Best I've read yet. Even the way they are talked about in the Guard books pales to this. They are basically slightly insane master Combatants.
4. Machine Spirts taking over the drivers is silly and I don't like it.
Are BT's basically just slightly more angry Word Bearers? They are the same as to their being fervently religious sects, but I still don't know if this is their only lore portrayal?
This was the book that made me start buying Black Templars
Yep the BT like alot of Marines are often dicks especially with regard to "mortals" - however its notable that Grimaldus does mellow (once he has gotten past his self hatred/abadonment issues)
He also respects those who have proven themselves - eg the fighter squadron who have fought alongside the Templars before.
I enjoyed his relationship with the Crone - although she is not just a Princeps - she is an ancient warrior who commands a substantial portion of a entire Titan Legion. The kind eyes thing was fun and even caught him off guard
The religious element worked well for me - they are zealous and fanatical but he does not kill out of hand....even gives mortals a chance to prove themselves.
Agree on the Stormtrooper portrayal - sad for him at the end....
Various Chapters have their own naming conventions - they often use Brother but its not that uncommon.
Outright worship doesn't seem prevalent in the Imperial Fists, so I doubt it was Dorn. It seems largely contained in the Black Templars, and a few lesser known successor chapters.
Thadin wrote: Outright worship doesn't seem prevalent in the Imperial Fists, so I doubt it was Dorn. It seems largely contained in the Black Templars, and a few lesser known successor chapters.
Yup, this. The Fists are most definitely not the type - it's outlined somewhere (I want to say in the Fists supplement) that when the Black Templars were split out, they were made up of the original Legion's most hot-headed and fervent members, particularly those who rankled at Dorn's eventual decision to follow the Codex Astartes. Those that remained in the progenitor Chapter (and the Crimson Fists) were the more level-headed, pragmatic ones.
And yet the Black Templars were the sole Chapter to give even the beginnings of a British food when The Inquisition ORK SNIPERS made it their mission to wipe the Celestial Lions from existance.
BaconCatBug wrote: And yet the Black Templars were the sole Chapter to give even the beginnings of a British food when The Inquisition ORK SNIPERS made it their mission to wipe the Celestial Lions from existance.
BaconCatBug wrote: And yet the Black Templars were the sole Chapter to give even the beginnings of a British food when The Inquisition ORK SNIPERS made it their mission to wipe the Celestial Lions from existance.
Authors gonna author.
"even the beginnings of a british food"?
What adjective would you describe British food with?
BaconCatBug wrote: And yet the Black Templars were the sole Chapter to give even the beginnings of a British food when The Inquisition ORK SNIPERS made it their mission to wipe the Celestial Lions from existance.
Authors gonna author.
"even the beginnings of a british food"?
What adjective would you describe British food with?
BaconCatBug wrote: And yet the Black Templars were the sole Chapter to give even the beginnings of a British food when The Inquisition ORK SNIPERS made it their mission to wipe the Celestial Lions from existance.
Authors gonna author.
"even the beginnings of a british food"?
What adjective would you describe British food with?
Varied, tasty, diverse.... any of these.
I mean we could debate for ages on the merits of british cooking and weather or not Fish 'n Chips and yorkshire pudding forgives their tendancy to boil vegatables down until the consistancy of a slimy paste or not. but given the term used was "even the beginnings of a british food" I'm assuming he was thinking something specific.
A.T. wrote: Thinking of world eaters. Mixing up my legions.
Makes sense. Easy to do.
The World Bearers were a loyalist chapter of the cursed 13th founding known for their skills in close assault and their strong faith. After being attacked by their own allies on several occasions the Chapters was re-founded with a new name, the Word Eaters.
I was under the impression the Adepta Sororitas, despite the fanbases fascination for headcanoning them as swooning over Salamanders, despise the Astartes as mutants.
I don't know if "despise" is the right word for it, that indicates outright hate. I always thought of it as "disdain", or sometimes "grudging respect" where earned. But also, it's been noted in a few sources (not least of all, the latest Sisters Codex) that they actually get on better with Black Templars than most Chapters because of their similarities.
So any authors pinning tension on a strained relationship between the two, is playing fastball with established canon.
I remember in a SoB novel I read (sorry, can't remember which right now, one of the James Swallow books I think) they derided the Astartes use of psykers, but that obviously wouldn't be an issue with the Templars, so I could see them getting on with them better.
The sisters are quite literally one of the worst "haters" groups. They are like Dirty Harry, they hate everyone until you prove worthy of a modicum of grudging respect.
BT's are a lot like that too, so you see the similarity. Big difference is that BT's count themselves as gods to the "weak mortals". Whereas Sisters are just SUPER catholic in their self hating "I am not worthy" schtick.
All SM are essential brainwashed warrior soldiers who belive the emperor is a good. It would make any jihad from american tv post 9/11 look very tame in comparison.
They are also recruited at a young age. Age 13 to 18 or something. To be inserted through the traumatic episode that is becoming a SM and joining such a warrior cult does not make for the sharpest thinkers. Or the most psykological sound.
This is rarly explored in the setting. While it works for the hole black humor facist empire angle, I am not supriced when somebody are jerks.
Also please check out the chacaradons during the abbadon wars. Now they are very unpleasant.
Any SM chapter taken at their worst and most brutal looks positively horrid. But the worst and most destructive have to be the Minotaurs. They wipe out entire cities just to take down a few Heretics. They have no thought for friendly fire, or attacking friends. They openly attacked Custodes during the aftermath of the invasion of Terra, and got whooped, but still. They make the Salamanders look like Mr. Rogers in Power Armor.
Niiai wrote: All SM are essential brainwashed warrior soldiers who belive the emperor is a good.
I take it you meant to say "god" here...? I see the point in your post - but this is worth correcting. SM are almost alone in the Imperium, in that (apart from the odd Chapter like the Black Templars) they do not believe the Emperor is a god and do not worship him. They revere and greatly respect him, and recognise him as very powerful and mighty, but most definitely not as a god.
This is addressed multiple times in the fluff and is a long-standing source of conflict between various Marine Chapters and the Ecclesiarchy, who are kind of forced to put up with them.
This is addressed multiple times in the fluff and is a long-standing source of conflict between various Marine Chapters and the Ecclesiarchy, who are kind of forced to put up with them.
There's literally an entire page dedicated to this in the 9th edition codex.
Black Templars are loyalist purists and pious fanatics. Praise their purges and xenocides! Praise their pogroms and massacres of the unclean! Hail their witch-hunts and glorious crusades! Rejoice in their pyres and skull pyramids and mass graves, for they cleanse mankind! Give praise to the God-Emperor for their unceasing devotion and singleminded slaughter across the stars!
No regret. No remorse. No mercy.
Black Templars are a good piece of 40k worldbuilding, true to the depraved and tongue-in-cheek degenerate comedy-wrapped-in-tragedy bonkers spirit of the setting. There should be more like them among the Astartes. They truly are Imperial exemplars.
Niiai wrote: All SM are essential brainwashed warrior soldiers who belive the emperor is a good.
I take it you meant to say "god" here...? I see the point in your post - but this is worth correcting. SM are almost alone in the Imperium, in that (apart from the odd Chapter like the Black Templars) they do not believe the Emperor is a god and do not worship him. They revere and greatly respect him, and recognise him as very powerful and mighty, but most definitely not as a god.
This is addressed multiple times in the fluff and is a long-standing source of conflict between various Marine Chapters and the Ecclesiarchy, who are kind of forced to put up with them.
I am a dyslectic typing on my phone. I did mean to say god. It depends a bit on how you define worshop and how you define god. The BT as you refer to. The SW has Russ as their top dog, and the emperor is the 'allfather', an Odin referense. I would say how most chapters in most of the books and games I have played regard the emperor as something like a god, or akin to a god. At the very least in some form of autocratic rule. Also, the SM are thematically based on knights who traditionaly are christian. And the ships they drive around in are formed like giant churches. Saying they do not worship the emperor is in my eyes splitting hairs. But this is the not the hill I am going to die on, so feel free to pour over me with counter arguments, it matters little.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Any SM chapter taken at their worst and most brutal looks positively horrid. But the worst and most destructive have to be the Minotaurs. They wipe out entire cities just to take down a few Heretics. They have no thought for friendly fire, or attacking friends. They openly attacked Custodes during the aftermath of the invasion of Terra, and got whooped, but still. They make the Salamanders look like Mr. Rogers in Power Armor.
Never heard of the Marines Malevolent before, have you?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The sisters are quite literally one of the worst "haters" groups. They are like Dirty Harry, they hate everyone until you prove worthy of a modicum of grudging respect.
BT's are a lot like that too, so you see the similarity. Big difference is that BT's count themselves as gods to the "weak mortals". Whereas Sisters are just SUPER catholic in their self hating "I am not worthy" schtick.
In the Illuminati card game there were all these different factions and each had an opposite. The opposite of groups classed as 'Fanatic' was other fanatics.
So I can clearly see Templars and Sisters hating each other. It would be like ISIS and Christian Fundamentalists meeting up. They ain't gonna bond over their commonalities.
Remember that many marine chapters spend most of their time separated from mortals. The only time they spend with normies is when they are purging heretics, rebels or have to work with Imperial Guard/PDF.
You have probably been with with someone of less intelligence or social skill (like a child) and found yourself getting frustrated, even though you should know better (its not their fault!).
Marines who ordinarily rely on their brothers finding themselves reliant on fragile, fearful non superhumans with slower brains and bodies feel that frustration, but in the case of the Templars, they won't have had much practice or guidance in managing it, or even communicating effectively.
What do you mean you can't descend into the poison filled labyrinth? You need to wait for a rebreathers to be issued?
We have them on the run! What do you mean rest and rearm?
Argive wrote: If burning heretics in holy fire makes you a jerk well I don't wan nothing to do with that 40k universe where that's the case
Hate to say it... virtually everyone in 40k is a jerk. Yes, burning heretics in holy fire does make you a jerk, it just means you happen to be in relatively safe company while doing it.
Argive wrote: If burning heretics in holy fire makes you a jerk well I don't wan nothing to do with that 40k universe where that's the case
Hate to say it... virtually everyone in 40k is a jerk. Yes, burning heretics in holy fire does make you a jerk, it just means you happen to be in relatively safe company while doing it.
I happen to think that a lot of the cruelty is practical. Burning a heretic means that no trace of organic material is left(which could be tainted by chaos, and could otherwise infect others/enter the corpse starch recycling). Blessed promethium cleanses spiritual infection and protects the community.
You could humanely put someone to death and cremate their corpse afterwards, but you run the risk of the heretic being immune to mundane weapons or lethal injections. Plus, where is the flair in that?
BaconCatBug wrote: I was under the impression the Adepta Sororitas, despite the fanbases fascination for headcanoning them as swooning over Salamanders, despise the Astartes as mutants.
Its not that simple - its 40k it depends on the situation, the Order, the individual Sisters and the Astartes.
The Sisterhood know and recognise that the Astartes are the creations and children of the Emperor and revere them as such.
However those who encounter them and fight alongside them can be surprised by how they act.
They also know that hundreds of thousands of Marines have fallen to Choas in the past so they are not by any stretch infalable.
The Flesh-Tearers massacure on Armageddon of Civilians caused the Canoness present to report their behaviour to the Inquisiton - which makes sense - if you are worried that Astartes are in danger of falling into heresy or worse - who do you tell.
The novel in the OP Helsreach does have Grimladus acknowledging the piety and even bravery of the Sisterhood but he is still conscious that to him, they are weak mortals. When Mortals do show promise he does recognise this
mrFickle wrote: Don’t the black Templar’s exists to continue the great crusade, for them it never stopped. Surely they should respect humans above all other chapters
Did many of the Marines respect or understand mortals in the original Great Crusade?
mrFickle wrote: Don’t the black Templar’s exists to continue the great crusade, for them it never stopped. Surely they should respect humans above all other chapters
Did many of the Marines respect or understand mortals in the original Great Crusade?
Some less than others but yes until they had to choose between the war master and humanity.
So in the same Chapter, Grimaldus both derided Yarrick (The guy who fought a warboss in Melee) for being weak and cowardly for giving up a world without a fight (Smart tactical plan) and then laments that the "Mortals" are incapable of properly dealing with the situation at hand. Throughout the book Grimaldus accuses several brothers of lacking fore-thought or intelligence, and rushing blindly into a situation thus causing brothers to be wounded. But then wants to fight the largest Ork Fleet in HISTORY, because "THES COLURS DON'T RUN SON!" He's a walking contradiction of intent and purpose as a character, only eclipsed by the completely flawed attempt at a character that makes up his Chapter Master (Helbrect).
mrFickle wrote: Don’t the black Templar’s exists to continue the great crusade, for them it never stopped.
No, the Black Templars exist because Dorn didn't want to start another civil war by defying Guillimans demands (the Imperial Fists were actually fired on when they didn't back him initially), but at the same time he didn't have the mindset to pull a Russ by saying yes to his face and then ignoring him.
The templars were all of the most stubborn Fists told to head out and keep fighting the good fight, unspokenly far enough away from Terra that any failure to follow the codex astartes (particularly the 1000 marine limit) would be impossible to prove with them all spread out and moving around. This all continued until 6th edition when they were wiped out and replaced by a chapter of cunningly disguised ultramarines.
On the subject of templars and sisters it is interesting to note that one of the first (if not the first) deployment of the young neophyte Helbrect was in a long campaign alongside the sisterhood (Vinculus), and that the first contact between the sisters and the templars would almost certainly have been the siege of the ecclesiarchal fortress on Terra at the end of the apostasy where the two fought until the Emperor himself intervened.
I was with you right up till "This all continued until 6th edition when they were wiped out and replaced by a chapter of cunningly disguised ultramarines."
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I was with you right up till "This all continued until 6th edition when they were wiped out and replaced by a chapter of cunningly disguised ultramarines."
Please explain?
I'm pretty sure he's referring to when Black Templars got rolled back into the main space marine codex during 6th edition, where the previous blurb about BT having a variable number from 3k-6k marines got removed and it was assumed they were back at the usual 1k size for a SM chapter. A lot of the original flavour was changed, like their hatred/intolerance towards all psykers being changed to only unsanctioned/heretical/xenos psykers while they respect and venerate certain psykers like astropaths for their communion with the Emperor. This is also where they went fully explicit with the Templars worshipping the Emperor, rather than implicitly like before.
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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So in the same Chapter, Grimaldus both derided Yarrick (The guy who fought a warboss in Melee) for being weak and cowardly for giving up a world without a fight (Smart tactical plan) and then laments that the "Mortals" are incapable of properly dealing with the situation at hand. Throughout the book Grimaldus accuses several brothers of lacking fore-thought or intelligence, and rushing blindly into a situation thus causing brothers to be wounded. But then wants to fight the largest Ork Fleet in HISTORY, because "THES COLURS DON'T RUN SON!" He's a walking contradiction of intent and purpose as a character, only eclipsed by the completely flawed attempt at a character that makes up his Chapter Master (Helbrect).
Also, I don't remember the scene where Grimaldus bad talks Yarrick, if I remember correctly he is implied to respect him despite being only a commissar during the war meeting. Can you give us a quote?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I was with you right up till "This all continued until 6th edition when they were wiped out and replaced by a chapter of cunningly disguised ultramarines."
Please explain?
Earlier Templars were characterised as a firmly non-codex compliant chapter - no tac squads, no devastators, no squad sergeants (formed into Sword Brethren squads), similar to the space wolves rather than the more codex-like structure of the Blood Angels/Dark Angels.
When their codex was dropped and they were moved in with marines they became your standard ten men in a rhino supported by devastators, scouts, artillery, etc. By 7th edition you actually got better bonuses on the charge with Ultramarines than with Templars.
Plus sweeping fluff changes regarding their size, attitudes, structure and doctrines and so on.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So in the same Chapter, Grimaldus both derided Yarrick (The guy who fought a warboss in Melee) for being weak and cowardly for giving up a world without a fight (Smart tactical plan) and then laments that the "Mortals" are incapable of properly dealing with the situation at hand. Throughout the book Grimaldus accuses several brothers of lacking fore-thought or intelligence, and rushing blindly into a situation thus causing brothers to be wounded. But then wants to fight the largest Ork Fleet in HISTORY, because "THES COLURS DON'T RUN SON!" He's a walking contradiction of intent and purpose as a character, only eclipsed by the completely flawed attempt at a character that makes up his Chapter Master (Helbrect).
When does Grimaldus say that - I recall him looking at Yarick with respect - like the vast majority of the Astartes present.
Can you quote the relevant sections if you have time - Grimaldus is often a dick but thats part of his character - its even noted by other BTs
=Angel= wrote: I happen to think that a lot of the cruelty is practical. Burning a heretic means that no trace of organic material is left(which could be tainted by chaos, and could otherwise infect others/enter the corpse starch recycling). Blessed promethium cleanses spiritual infection and protects the community.
You could humanely put someone to death and cremate their corpse afterwards, but you run the risk of the heretic being immune to mundane weapons or lethal injections. Plus, where is the flair in that?
The problem is that the cruelty and hatred and negative emotion associated with that just ends up feeding Chaos. The Imperium is needlessly cruel and corrupt; it's not a pragmatic society. The pragmatic society in 40k would be the Tau (who still do horrible gak to survive, but are not needlessly cruel like the humans).
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So in the same Chapter, Grimaldus both derided Yarrick (The guy who fought a warboss in Melee) for being weak and cowardly for giving up a world without a fight (Smart tactical plan) and then laments that the "Mortals" are incapable of properly dealing with the situation at hand. Throughout the book Grimaldus accuses several brothers of lacking fore-thought or intelligence, and rushing blindly into a situation thus causing brothers to be wounded. But then wants to fight the largest Ork Fleet in HISTORY, because "THES COLURS DON'T RUN SON!" He's a walking contradiction of intent and purpose as a character, only eclipsed by the completely flawed attempt at a character that makes up his Chapter Master (Helbrect).
When does Grimaldus say that - I recall him looking at Yarick with respect - like the vast majority of the Astartes present.
Can you quote the relevant sections if you have time - Grimaldus is often a dick but thats part of his character - its even noted by other BTs
Let me get home and re-read it. I could have sworn it was Grimaldus, but it may have been the other Chapter's leader that was there, which name escapes me, but there was a second chapter in the room and someone clearly displays shock and anger at the declaration that Yarrick makes to abandon the first "platform/moon/world" or whatever in the system to the orks.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So in the same Chapter, Grimaldus both derided Yarrick (The guy who fought a warboss in Melee) for being weak and cowardly for giving up a world without a fight (Smart tactical plan) and then laments that the "Mortals" are incapable of properly dealing with the situation at hand. Throughout the book Grimaldus accuses several brothers of lacking fore-thought or intelligence, and rushing blindly into a situation thus causing brothers to be wounded. But then wants to fight the largest Ork Fleet in HISTORY, because "THES COLURS DON'T RUN SON!" He's a walking contradiction of intent and purpose as a character, only eclipsed by the completely flawed attempt at a character that makes up his Chapter Master (Helbrect).
When does Grimaldus say that - I recall him looking at Yarick with respect - like the vast majority of the Astartes present.
Can you quote the relevant sections if you have time - Grimaldus is often a dick but thats part of his character - its even noted by other BTs
Let me get home and re-read it. I could have sworn it was Grimaldus, but it may have been the other Chapter's leader that was there, which name escapes me, but there was a second chapter in the room and someone clearly displays shock and anger at the declaration that Yarrick makes to abandon the first "platform/moon/world" or whatever in the system to the orks.
I found the scene you are referring to, it is a Captain of the Angels of Fire, a lesser successor chapter, that demands that they defend Hades Hive as a symbol of mankind's defiance and superiority over the Orks. Grimaldus actively disagrees with him and sides with Yarrick in having the foresight to see that it would be destroyed rather than attempted to be occupied by Ghazghkull's forces.
GW isn't exactly subtle with their naming conventions - Black Templars are Templars who were also historically jerks. The symbolism of the Black Templars chapter is there to make you consider the historical analogue. To get an idea of the BT you have to think of the crusades, a lot of burning of heretics and pillaging and doing bad things in the name of religion because you see yourself towards absolution. The utter belief that you are right in your duty and to question is to perhaps admit that you aren't exactly doing 'Good'.
Given that everyone in 40k is a jerk, the Templars aren't exactly different. They are more inquisitorial than the other chapters.
Olthannon wrote: GW isn't exactly subtle with their naming conventions - Black Templars are Templars who were also historically jerks. The symbolism of the Black Templars chapter is there to make you consider the historical analogue. To get an idea of the BT you have to think of the crusades, a lot of burning of heretics and pillaging and doing bad things in the name of religion because you see yourself towards absolution. The utter belief that you are right in your duty and to question is to perhaps admit that you aren't exactly doing 'Good'.
For what it's worth, that's how other people (namely, the King of France) treated the Templars, not the Templar's own M.O. (whose main 'crime' was running a succesful international financial credit institution and being creditors to the wrong people).
If we're going for historical analogies, a far better comparison for the whole "burn the unbeliever and pillage his lands" stick would be the Teutonic Knights, who also incidentally match the Black Templars colors.
Its actually kinda funny, GW has gone out of there way to portray their main characters (Black Library talking here) as NOT jerks. They portray Eisenhorn as likeable, they portray most of their Commissars as likeable or even approachable (Severina is the outlier) and they portray most Space Marines as honorable, and eager to do the right thing. Is it just me or has GW strayed from their GrimDark upbringings for a much more Space Fantasy thing?
No, they haven't. They still do horrible things, these things are just portrayed in a positive light now cause 90% of BL writers are Imperial fanboys at this point.
1. Never read a book where SM's disdain for anything not a SM was so....prevelent. Their disrepect for base humans is borderline Racist, and yet they have this out of no where respect for the Princeps of Ad Mech.
A princeps is a high-ranking figure with a relative amount of independence and very directly commands a titan, which packs considerable firepower. Insulting them can harm your tactical efforts while gak-talking a guardsman is free.
For what it's worth, that's how other people (namely, the King of France) treated the Templars, not the Templar's own M.O. (whose main 'crime' was running a succesful international financial credit institution and being creditors to the wrong people).
If we're going for historical analogies, a far better comparison for the whole "burn the unbeliever and pillage his lands" stick would be the Teutonic Knights, who also incidentally match the Black Templars colors.
It would be nice if that were true, that they simply were good guys doing their best. Just because Philip IVth was in debt to them doesn't make them any less unpleasant. The templar knights had a bad image problem because of all that indiscriminate killing they did.
For what it's worth, that's how other people (namely, the King of France) treated the Templars, not the Templar's own M.O. (whose main 'crime' was running a succesful international financial credit institution and being creditors to the wrong people).
If we're going for historical analogies, a far better comparison for the whole "burn the unbeliever and pillage his lands" stick would be the Teutonic Knights, who also incidentally match the Black Templars colors.
It would be nice if that were true, that they simply were good guys doing their best. Just because Philip IVth was in debt to them doesn't make them any less unpleasant. The templar knights had a bad image problem because of all that indiscriminate killing they did.
At the danger of moving into threadjack territory, I'd like some credible sources on that. The Knights Templar fell out of public favor the more they stopped being a primarily military and started becoming a primarily financial institution, and the charges brought forth against them were: intermingling too much with the local Muslims in the Middle East and adopting their beliefs (so, the opposite of murder-y fanaticism), being depraved homosexuals (always a classic accusation against all-male institutions), and secret devil/Baphomet-worshippers (again, standard conspiracy stuff about secretive societies, "Baphomet" likely being a corrupted form of "Mahomet/Muhammad" some poor Templar screamed out while having the gak tortured out of him). The latter part levolved into anti-Freemason paranoia in later centuries.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Did you just make a case for the Christian Crusades being a good thing? You really must love the 40k lore.
Do you need some Tylenol? It looks like you must have hurt your back pretty badly, what with all those tons of straw you had to carry.
He didn't make any comment about the Crusades being "good" or "bad", he simply offered the facts on why the the Knights Templar fell out of (Christian) public favour. Regardless of what the modern / your personal view of the Crusades are, in the historical context, "intermingling too much with the local Muslims in the Middle East and adopting their beliefs" is indeed something that would cause them to fall out of favour with the Christian sphere of influence.
Cronch wrote: No, they haven't. They still do horrible things, these things are just portrayed in a positive light now cause 90% of BL writers are Imperial fanboys at this point.
Nice and sutiably dark bit in the new Inferno book 5 by Ultramarine Sgt
Spoiler:
A Guardsman and Eldar, both wounded managed to fight their way clear of Orks before Marines arrive, Sgt glances at two of them as Guardsman salutes and puts a bolt round through the head of the unresisting Eldar and tellls the Guardsman to get back to the fight and to show "no mercy". To be fair he didn't shoot the Gaurdsman as well.....
Templars also lost influence as they failed to keep their holdings in the Holy Land and their purpose became less clear as well as their independance from the laws (and taxes) of the kings of Europe (mainly France). Even then many were protected by the King of Portugal and others.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Its actually kinda funny, GW has gone out of there way to portray their main characters (Black Library talking here) as NOT jerks. They portray Eisenhorn as likeable, they portray most of their Commissars as likeable or even approachable (Severina is the outlier) and they portray most Space Marines as honorable, and eager to do the right thing. Is it just me or has GW strayed from their GrimDark upbringings for a much more Space Fantasy thing?
There's a large portion of the fanbase that wants the Imperium to be portrayed as good guys *because* they are baby-murdering xenophobic fascists, without a hint of irony.
It's also funny that those some people HATE HATE HATE, anything about Tau culture or lore. Gotta hate the Tau who don't have centuries of the worst imaginable gak as their backstory. Honestly the best "race" or faction in the entire lore is likely the Orks. They don't hate anyone, they just love fightin. Or they hate everyone equally. Has there ever been any lore as to whether or not the average ork has the capacity to be racist/xenophobic?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: It's also funny that those some people HATE HATE HATE, anything about Tau culture or lore. Gotta hate the Tau who don't have centuries of the worst imaginable gak as their backstory. Honestly the best "race" or faction in the entire lore is likely the Orks. They don't hate anyone, they just love fightin. Or they hate everyone equally. Has there ever been any lore as to whether or not the average ork has the capacity to be racist/xenophobic?
Well, they believe Orks are the best, so there's that.
They will also enslave or murder you without feeling an iota of remorse.
No one is a good faction in 40k. They're all terrible.
The Squats were too trusting. But is the Absence of racism not-racism? Are the Nid's or Necrons Racist? Certainly not. The nids exist off hunger and sheer desire to extend their race. The Necrons are just machine slaves following their design. Their gods might be, but they have no intent in the matter.
It's like saying a Bolter is evil I think. There are no "Good guys" I will give you that. But to say the Nids are Evil is to anthropomorphize them.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:It's also funny that those some people HATE HATE HATE, anything about Tau culture or lore. Gotta hate the Tau who don't have centuries of the worst imaginable gak as their backstory. Honestly the best "race" or faction in the entire lore is likely the Orks. They don't hate anyone, they just love fightin. Or they hate everyone equally. Has there ever been any lore as to whether or not the average ork has the capacity to be racist/xenophobic?
Hmm Those Sterilisation Programs ala the Aschen from Stargate except worse, the rampant T'au superiority disguised as Xenophilia, the enslavement of the Vespids... yeah the T'au are the good guys!
JNAProductions wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: It's also funny that those some people HATE HATE HATE, anything about Tau culture or lore. Gotta hate the Tau who don't have centuries of the worst imaginable gak as their backstory. Honestly the best "race" or faction in the entire lore is likely the Orks. They don't hate anyone, they just love fightin. Or they hate everyone equally. Has there ever been any lore as to whether or not the average ork has the capacity to be racist/xenophobic?
Well, they believe Orks are the best, so there's that.
They will also enslave or murder you without feeling an iota of remorse.
No one is a good faction in 40k. They're all terrible.
See, the thing with the Orks is, yes, they will enslave and butcher you, and have a good time doing it, but it's not out of any sense of malice, it's simply Kraterocracy in it's purest form. Also, ya know, the fact they were literally created to be so, so it's not really their fault.
The Orks are the pinnacle of creation. For them, the great struggle is won. They have evolved a society which knows no stress or angst. Who are we to judge them? We Eldar who have failed, or the Humans, on the road to ruin in their turn? And why? Because we sought answers to questions that an Ork wouldn't even bother to ask! We see a culture that is strong and despise it as crude. — From Culture vs. Kultur: Thoughts on Orkish Society by Uthan the Perverse, a controversial Eldar philosopher
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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The Squats were too trusting. But is the Absence of racism not-racism? Are the Nid's or Necrons Racist? Certainly not. The nids exist off hunger and sheer desire to extend their race. The Necrons are just machine slaves following their design. Their gods might be, but they have no intent in the matter.
It's like saying a Bolter is evil I think. There are no "Good guys" I will give you that. But to say the Nids are Evil is to anthropomorphize them.
Preeeeeety sure the whole reason the Necrons exist is like, galactic level racism (though I guess technically Xenophobia is a more fitting word), first against the Old Ones, then against anything that didn't live on a C'tan-Eating-Your-Star-Irradiated-To-Hell-And-Back planet, then against anything that had the sheer audacity to dare evolve into anything more complex than a virus.
BaconCatBug wrote: Hmm Those Sterilisation Programs ala the Aschen from Stargate except worse, the rampant T'au superiority disguised as Xenophilia, the enslavement of the Vespids... yeah the T'au are the good guys! .
Compared to the Imperium, they *are* the good guys. They're the "making hard choices to survive" faction. The Imperium is the "needlessly cruel far beyond what is necessary for survival" faction.
BaconCatBug wrote: Hmm Those Sterilisation Programs ala the Aschen from Stargate except worse, the rampant T'au superiority disguised as Xenophilia, the enslavement of the Vespids... yeah the T'au are the good guys! .
Compared to the Imperium, they *are* the good guys. They're the "making hard choices to survive" faction. The Imperium is the "needlessly cruel far beyond what is necessary for survival" faction.
The Imperium is just Skaven in space.
The Imperium has spent Nearly ELEVEN GODS-DAMNED-MILLENIA being beset on all sides by vile Xenos and Chaos. Humanity learned during the Age of Strife what happens when you take half measures, or treat with Xenos. You get, well, The Age of Strife. It was the Eldar, after all, that caused Golden Age Humanity to crumble into the shell that the Emperor had to begin his Great Crusade to restore. It was Chaos who sliced the Imperium in twain, and it was the Orks who very nearly finished the job.
And let's not forget, DAOT Humanity were even more aggressive, but had the tech to back up their bluster. When the Eldar look at humanity, wiping out entire Solar Systems because a fraction of their population turned to Chaos and they judged that the ones who didn't stop them before the Astartes had to get involved (Iron Hands, woo!) were not worthy of mercy, they think "Well at least the Mon-keigh have calmed down a little and are back to using just normal weapons rather than GUNS THAT SHOOT BLACK HOLES BACK IN TIME TO DESTROY AN ENEMY BEFORE IT WAS EVEN AN ENEMY."
The Imperium of Man is making the hard choices to survive, and even then it's not working. After 11,000 years of this I am surprised the Imperium isn't MORE cruel. It's just like the Eldar, if you can sacrifice a billion lives to potentially save a trillion later on, it's worth whatever "nastiness" that comes with it. The only difference is the scale, since the Eldar would happily sacrifice a trillion Mon-keigh lives for a bakers dozen of Eldar.
Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
Like... for serious, are you all right? If you seriously think the Imperium hates black people, I don't really know what to say I've never heard anything so ludicrously wrong in my life. I guess Tallarn doesn't exist in your reality? Or the Catachan? Or the Nocturnean?
Also, if you think T'au are Communist or Leftist, you have zero clue whatsoever as to what those two terms mean. Yeah, a society that is made up of five explicitly classes where one of those classes rules over the other four and only one of those classes controls the means of production is 100% what Karl Marx said. /s
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So just finished the Helsreach book, and I gotta say, the entire chapter of the Black Templars are kinda, jerks. From Helbrect and his "Thank you sir may I have another" initiation ceremony, to Grimaldus going full Darth Vader on anyone who slightly loses hope while he is constantly bemoaning how he's going to die, to the constantly weepy apothacary who gets smacked around for crying, it's all so.....not what I expected.
1. Never read a book where SM's disdain for anything not a SM was so....prevelent. Their disrepect for base humans is borderline Racist, and yet they have this out of no where respect for the Princeps of Ad Mech.
I know, isn't it great? Seriously, it's one of the reasons I've always liked the Templars. You see, in this world of mostly squishy humans, Space Marines are so far removed from mere mortals, even the best of them will to most seem aloof, stand-offish, almost impossible to relate to, etc. So yes, the Templars are indeed 'jerks', and that's putting it mildly.
2. Black Templars call themselves Knights. This was a little confusing at first. Not really a bad thing, just thrown by it at first. Are they the only chapter that does this? I know the Death Company call themselves "Knights of Caliban", but I've never seen the words Space Marine almost uniformly replaced by "Knight".
Again, this is part of their flawed character that makes them a little more interesting compared to the various vanilla / poster boys / goodie goodies out there. Marines in general view themselves as superior to normal humans, because, well... they are. The Black Templars take that superiority complex even further by placing themselves above 'normal' Space Marines. They are Knights, Sons of Dorn, them and a bunch of other Imperial Fist successors who take part in the Feast of Blades, etc, they all circle-jerk in an elitist club reserved for the Knights, who are better than mere 'regular' Astartes - from their own viewpoint, of course.
I'll say it - yeah, the BT's are brutal, zealous, fanatical killers. If you're not a fellow Son of Dorn, they will view themselves as above you and as better than you and they will not attempt to hide their disdain or contempt at your (perceived) inferiority. In short, they're downright unpleasant to be around, they're real ... and that's all only to those fighting on their side.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
I don't think you actually seem to know the 40k lore very well if you assume that the Imperium is the alt right and Tau are leftists in any way. Both are authoritarian oligarchal empires that have a "my way or the highway" approach to expansionism, but the Tau are anything but communist when they have a literal caste system that prevents any social mobility. Similarly, it's incredibly reductionist to the Imperium to the alt right when they're so decentralized that governance is really about paying taxes and lip service to the Emperor than anything else, that's why you can range from feral worlds with borderline cavemen to fully fledged democracies that exist on worlds in the Imperium.
As long as the imperial tithe is paid and the black ships keep being supplied i font think iom cares at all about how a planet is run. Apart from maybe if the population has some tentacles growing out of rheir elbow...
Argive wrote: As long as the imperial tithe is paid and the black ships keep being supplied i font think iom cares at all about how a planet is run. Apart from maybe if the population has some tentacles growing out of rheir elbow...
There are some other lines.
Heavy xenos trade or ideas, religious leanings that aren't toward the Emperor, strong independence streaks, and that kind of thing.
Some small level of mutation in the bottom rung of society is actually more likely to be overlooked.
Some small level of mutation in the bottom rung of society is actually more likely to be overlooked.
It's only "overlooked" because mutants know to hide or else they'll be genocided. Mutants that are useful to the Imperium's war machine (like psykers, beastmen, etc) are sometimes kept around, but if you're born intersex or with a sixth finger or something? Genocided. And if your parents try to protect you, they'll be killed too, probably tortured to death to serve as an example. Recent fluff materials say that about half of mutants hide their mutation, but out of the ones that are caught, only 1 in 1000 is kept alive, the others are just killed. So the Imperium kills 99.9% of people with physical deformities, at birth if possible. That's incredibly monstrous and shouldn't be understated.
Grimskul wrote: I don't think you actually seem to know the 40k lore very well if you assume that the Imperium is the alt right and Tau are leftists in any way. Both are authoritarian oligarchal empires that have a "my way or the highway" approach to expansionism, but the Tau are anything but communist when they have a literal caste system that prevents any social mobility. Similarly, it's incredibly reductionist to the Imperium to the alt right when they're so decentralized that governance is really about paying taxes and lip service to the Emperor than anything else, that's why you can range from feral worlds with borderline cavemen to fully fledged democracies that exist on worlds in the Imperium.
The Imperium is right wing to the point that it would make Hitler blush, but the point is that the alt-right types *perceive* the Tau as communists/leftists, and thus despise them. Craftworld Eldar are the closest thing to a communist state in 40k; the Tau are following the philosopher-king ideal, IMO, with the Ethereals taking the place of the philosopher-king caste.
BaconCatBug wrote: The Imperium has spent Nearly ELEVEN GODS-DAMNED-MILLENIA being beset on all sides by vile Xenos and Chaos. Humanity learned during the Age of Strife what happens when you take half measures, or treat with Xenos. You get, well, The Age of Strife. It was the Eldar, after all, that caused Golden Age Humanity to crumble into the shell that the Emperor had to begin his Great Crusade to restore. It was Chaos who sliced the Imperium in twain, and it was the Orks who very nearly finished the job.
The Imperium's in a rough spot, so are the Tau. But the difference is the Imperium is the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." They're not pragmatic. They're needlessly genocidal and tyrannical. And because of how the Immaterium works, they're strengthening Chaos with their corrupt, hateful, genocidal tendencies. They're not choosing the path of survival; they're in fact choosing a path that increases the chance they will be wiped out, because they're so maniacal and bloody-minded on the issue.
Again, if you want the faction that has to do horrible things to survive, that's the Tau.
BaconCatBug wrote: And let's not forget, DAOT Humanity were even more aggressive, but had the tech to back up their bluster. When the Eldar look at humanity, wiping out entire Solar Systems because a fraction of their population turned to Chaos and they judged that the ones who didn't stop them before the Astartes had to get involved (Iron Hands, woo!) were not worthy of mercy, they think "Well at least the Mon-keigh have calmed down a little and are back to using just normal weapons rather than GUNS THAT SHOOT BLACK HOLES BACK IN TIME TO DESTROY AN ENEMY BEFORE IT WAS EVEN AN ENEMY."
DAOT humanity wasn't a degenerate, corrupt bunch of religious maniacs, though. They weren't feeding Chaos with their toxic psyches (like the Eldar were at that time).
BaconCatBug wrote: The Imperium of Man is making the hard choices to survive, and even then it's not working. After 11,000 years of this I am surprised the Imperium isn't MORE cruel. It's just like the Eldar, if you can sacrifice a billion lives to potentially save a trillion later on, it's worth whatever "nastiness" that comes with it. The only difference is the scale, since the Eldar would happily sacrifice a trillion Mon-keigh lives for a bakers dozen of Eldar.
Nope. It's the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." Cruelty is not about expedience; it's about taking pleasure from suffering. And at least the Dark Eldar, another group of well-known sadists, have pragmatic reasons for the pain they inflict on others (extending their lifespans etc). The Imperium doesn't gain anything from it. They're just heartless, worthless excuses for human life who want to see everyone else suffer.
Also, the Imperium is worse than the example you give about the Eldar - the Imperium would sacrifice 2 humans for every Eldar to exterminate their entire race, because they're gakky like that. They'll chop off their arm if someone else has to lose a hand.
Nope. It's the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." Cruelty is not about expedience; it's about taking pleasure from suffering. And at least the Dark Eldar, another group of well-known sadists, have pragmatic reasons for the pain they inflict on others (extending their lifespans etc). The Imperium doesn't gain anything from it. They're just heartless, worthless excuses for human life who want to see everyone else suffer.
Also, the Imperium is worse than the example you give about the Eldar - the Imperium would sacrifice 2 humans for every Eldar to exterminate their entire race, because they're gakky like that.
I would too because that's a really good trade. Every time a state power sends its armies to fight it accepts some trade in life. Do you think Mankind loses 2 guardsmen/civilians for every 1 Eldar casualty? It must be so much higher than that. Here's the math, say you have about a billion Eldar. You can either allow them to burn, loot, murder, rape, pillage etc for another few millenia until they finally die out: killing hundreds, maybe thousands of billions of humans in the process, disrupting the war effort against Chaos, the battle for the survival of the galaxy.
Or you can lose 2 billion people now.
There are hives much bigger than that on Necromunda that Hive Primus doesn't even know about. You could get 2 billion volunteer heroes, make their surviving families royalty, scribe their names and deeds on a planet sized middle finger to the Eldar made from shattered craftworlds. You could conscript 2 billion prisoners sentenced to death for murder, rape, jaywalking. You could amass 2 billion political prisoners who jeopardised the stability of the Imperium by advocating peace with xenos or wealth redistribution and throw them out of space helicopters until the Eldar were dead.
Its not a nice decision to have to make, but the correct decision is obvious. 40k is a universe that forces such grim equations on you. The cruelty is almost always necessary.
They'll chop off their arm if someone else has to lose a hand.
The Imperium is so obviously needlessly cruel it's actively hilarious.
There's no "survival" related reason to posthumously sentence an entire regiment to death for not showing up to their muster because they were wiped out. That's just spitting on the graves of those Guardsmen out of spite.
There's no "survival" related reason not to use automatic loaders on your starship cannons instead of hundreds of thousands of slaves. It is literally cheaper, better in combat, and easier. Pointless cruelty.
The Imperium is a wreck. I play an Inquisitor with some of my armies and she is a Recongegator, because holy feth. Sometimes you read lore and it's just "WHY?" and the answer is "grimderp". Which, in-setting, is just pointless cruelty.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.
Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.
Anything else is the Enemy.
The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.
I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.
Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind.
Yes, but to the...let's say minority of people who think the imperium is "good guys" and you know, used to have wet dreams about "god emperor Cheeto", it's real easy to make the mental jump of "well we have no actual aliens, but...man those Eldar sure are coded queer, and the Tau have been inspired by the Yellow Peril" and project their IRL feelings on 40k and vice versa.
It's not uniquely 40k problem, fantasy as a whole have sometimes been...not exactly subtle about using non-humans as stand in for things (sci-fi too, if you have any character with autistic traits, you can bet it'll be an android or "logical" alien race), but 40k is the one which has the "kill the xenos, purge the unclean" vibe going that idiots take at face value.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.
How are they "powered" by cruelty and hate?
Not to be crass, but the entire church, the Inquisition, the Sisters of Battle, and the GK/BTs are literally driven by hatred, their "faith" is just Hatred of the "unclean". It's not even an allegory at this point. Also, you know that the Navy routinely gets up to a planet and literally abducts humans for slave labor on their ships, most of which don't survive the first years, and are "recycled". The entire Commissariat has long operated that fear and cruelty is the only way to "inspire" the troops. Need me to go on? I could go into what literally happens to the humans deemed to being made into Servitors?
Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind.
Yes, but to the...let's say minority of people who think the imperium is "good guys" and you know, used to have wet dreams about "god emperor Cheeto", it's real easy to make the mental jump of "well we have no actual aliens, but...man those Eldar sure are coded queer, and the Tau have been inspired by the Yellow Peril" and project their IRL feelings on 40k and vice versa.
It's not uniquely 40k problem, fantasy as a whole have sometimes been...not exactly subtle about using non-humans as stand in for things (sci-fi too, if you have any character with autistic traits, you can bet it'll be an android or "logical" alien race), but 40k is the one which has the "kill the xenos, purge the unclean" vibe going that idiots take at face value.
Well thats fair - indeed the Orks used to call the Eldar - "Pansy Elves" - The Tau are also to capture Manga /Animae fans
On a positive note - I did notice more gay background characters recently - and ones they did not make a fuss about but simply there - its anoying when show/ etc make a super big deal of stuff. Yeah the Autistic thing is often badly done - the recent Predator film distorting what Autism is and then trying to make a "desired trait" was.....not great.
Right Wing is not just a white thing either - racism and hatred for "others" seems to be a fairly unversal thing across all cultures - for example the Japanese in WWII or the Budihists in Myanmar or some many others in so many places.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.
How are they "powered" by cruelty and hate?
Not to be crass, but the entire church, the Inquisition, the Sisters of Battle, and the GK/BTs are literally driven by hatred, their "faith" is just Hatred of the "unclean". It's not even an allegory at this point. Also, you know that the Navy routinely gets up to a planet and literally abducts humans for slave labor on their ships, most of which don't survive the first years, and are "recycled". The entire Commissariat has long operated that fear and cruelty is the only way to "inspire" the troops. Need me to go on? I could go into what literally happens to the humans deemed to being made into Servitors?
Yep fairly accurate description - although many of the Faithful do also believe in a merciful protector - the Same god but that "good" side is reserved for the pure and faithful humans - pretty standard religion really ?
Amberley Vail and Ciaphas Cain are, by Imperial standards fairly easy going, liberal even - but .....
Amberely remebers fondly as child her books showing burning heretics orgrinding them beneath the wheels of a Land Raider and Cain has try hard to control himself and not attack a Tau allied human (and she is even young and pretty and he is....Cain) but he wants to kill her so great is his disgust at human traitors living with the Tau - he feels much more disgust and anger at them than the actual Xenos.
Guys, nobody with a modern western viewpoint could survive in the imperium. Period. Eventually he'd be killed or kill himself to avoid maybe being turned into a servitor or arco flagellant.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.
How are they "powered" by cruelty and hate?
Not to be crass, but the entire church, the Inquisition, the Sisters of Battle, and the GK/BTs are literally driven by hatred, their "faith" is just Hatred of the "unclean". It's not even an allegory at this point. Also, you know that the Navy routinely gets up to a planet and literally abducts humans for slave labor on their ships, most of which don't survive the first years, and are "recycled". The entire Commissariat has long operated that fear and cruelty is the only way to "inspire" the troops. Need me to go on? I could go into what literally happens to the humans deemed to being made into Servitors?
I literally wish people would use the word "literally" more literally.
Because the Imperium "literally" being powered by cruelty/hate means they somehow siphon it, fill it in canisters, and use it as fuel/power source/ammunition/whatever.
To use an actual example from the setting, kinda like the Dark Eldar do with pain - they are indeed literally feeding on it.
So while the Imperium is both cruel and hateful, they aren't literally powered by it.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.
Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.
Anything else is the Enemy.
The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.
I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.
With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.
In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.
Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.
Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.
To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.
So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.
Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.
Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.
Well there are some hints that "maybe" the Tau have had help from the Eldar - but I am not aware of anything more than that. However nothing seems to be protecting them from the Imperium, the Dark Eldar (who see them as great fun) or the Necrons looking to purge.
Yes the whole point of them is that offer a better world than the Imperium - that also may or may not have a darker side. However it should be something that very very few ever hear about given the remoteness of the very very small empire.
They are also moving towards a possible civil war and of course their AI's leave them vulnerable to a new Iron men issue and/or posession of the IA's by Chaos. PLus they are beginnig to realise quite how bad Chaos can be and some veterans at least are going down the route of "kill all non tau" in PA - or at least kill all humans.
As I said like the Tau - always have done but just donlt like some of the look of their tech
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.
Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.
Anything else is the Enemy.
The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.
I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.
With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.
In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.
Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.
Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.
To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.
So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.
Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.
Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.
I disagree with the degree that you give Tau as an existential threat to the Imperium. For one, just because humans have defected to the Tau regime means very little compared to the degree to which Chaos has subverted imperial forces. Think about it, through the Horus Heresy, Chaos had half the Legions and a significant chunk of the Imperial Army AND the Mechanicus side with Horus, shattering the Emperor's dream of lifting humanity into its final evolutionary form with the protection of the webway. The Imperium is still consistently warring from without thanks to traitors from the Eye of Terror and cults from within that do the same thing with offering "alternative" forms of rule than that of the Imperial yoke. Again, Chaos is the one that has split the Imperium in two.
Meanwhile, the Tau have captured fringe worlds and only recently had more luck with the Startide Nexus, which has now backfired with the attention of the Death Guard waltzing over to it. It says something that there is fluff where the Tau have admitted that it is better to just kill marines than attempt to subvert them, since the attempts of one of their psychic client races resulted in too many of them being overloaded/dying to be worth committing to overwriting the hypno indoctrination they have. So when Chaos has an easier time subverting Marines than Tau do, on top of how the Imperials have always been stopped from finishing the Tau due to Tyranid or Ork threats, I'm pretty sure the Tau isn't as large a problem to the Imperial Creed as think it would be.
=Angel= wrote: I would too because that's a really good trade. Every time a state power sends its armies to fight it accepts some trade in life. Do you think Mankind loses 2 guardsmen/civilians for every 1 Eldar casualty? It must be so much higher than that. Here's the math, say you have about a billion Eldar. You can either allow them to burn, loot, murder, rape, pillage etc for another few millenia until they finally die out: killing hundreds, maybe thousands of billions of humans in the process, disrupting the war effort against Chaos, the battle for the survival of the galaxy.
Or you can lose 2 billion people now.
The point is that even if there was an alien race that was friendly and would actually help the Imperium against Chaos, the Imperium would still sacrifice a whole mess of its own citizens to exterminate them, because it hates non-humans and wants them to suffer. Also, remember, by being such a warmongering, genocidal society, the Imperium is feeding Chaos (Khorne in this case) and just hastening their own demise. The extremes the Imperium is willing to go to are actually counterproductive; it's not that their extreme methods are insufficient, they're actually creating their own doom by being such genocidal extremists.
=Angel= wrote: Its not a nice decision to have to make, but the correct decision is obvious. 40k is a universe that forces such grim equations on you. The cruelty is almost always necessary.
Nope. With the way the Immaterium/Warp works, thinking you have the decision "forced on you" is just resigning to defeat; responding to harsh circumstances with hatred and negative emotions just makes the galaxy worse.
Tau are the ones who promise a "better tomorrow" while the Imperium promises that you will die, horribly, but it will often be quick, so that's nice. The reason the IOM fears the Tau is that they can see the writing on the wall when entire planets willingly go over to the Tau just to escape the cruel existence of imperial rule.
Granted the truth might be far from the promise, but there is a reason the Tau are feared. They often don't even have to fight to take a world.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Tau are the ones who promise a "better tomorrow" while the Imperium promises that you will die, horribly, but it will often be quick, so that's nice. The reason the IOM fears the Tau is that they can see the writing on the wall when entire planets willingly go over to the Tau just to escape the cruel existence of imperial rule.
Granted the truth might be far from the promise, but there is a reason the Tau are feared. They often don't even have to fight to take a world.
The IoM keeps an eye on them - but there are more danagerous immediate threats and some are more insidious or available to a imperial citizen
Also Chaos promises even more - immortatity, power, indulgance, far more than anything that the Tau can provide - and you just need to give up your soul .....why not - your life is nothing anyway.....
Genestealer Cults across the galaxy provide for their "family", they love them, nuturue them, protect them - until the Hive fleet is called.
The Tau have limited FTL, limited reach and limited ability to even inform imperials - yeah a few minor planets have gone over to them......but compare that to those that have fallen to Chaos or the GSCults. People on a tiny amount of frontier worlds might have heard of them, a few imperial nobles and Rogue Traders ma have their cool shiny tech and thats a threat - but its a small one (or should be) - let it grow and it will become powerful.
BUt the Tau have to survive Chaos, the Necrons, Orks, the Dark Eldar, their own growing internal tensions, their AI - their accension is by no means assured - no more than their very survivial - otherwise it would not be 40k
They have now grown enough to be noticed - they should be afraid.....
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.
Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.
Anything else is the Enemy.
The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.
I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.
With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.
In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.
Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.
Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.
To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.
So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.
Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.
Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.
I disagree with the degree that you give Tau as an existential threat to the Imperium. For one, just because humans have defected to the Tau regime means very little compared to the degree to which Chaos has subverted imperial forces. Think about it, through the Horus Heresy, Chaos had half the Legions and a significant chunk of the Imperial Army AND the Mechanicus side with Horus, shattering the Emperor's dream of lifting humanity into its final evolutionary form with the protection of the webway. The Imperium is still consistently warring from without thanks to traitors from the Eye of Terror and cults from within that do the same thing with offering "alternative" forms of rule than that of the Imperial yoke. Again, Chaos is the one that has split the Imperium in two.
Meanwhile, the Tau have captured fringe worlds and only recently had more luck with the Startide Nexus, which has now backfired with the attention of the Death Guard waltzing over to it. It says something that there is fluff where the Tau have admitted that it is better to just kill marines than attempt to subvert them, since the attempts of one of their psychic client races resulted in too many of them being overloaded/dying to be worth committing to overwriting the hypno indoctrination they have. So when Chaos has an easier time subverting Marines than Tau do, on top of how the Imperials have always been stopped from finishing the Tau due to Tyranid or Ork threats, I'm pretty sure the Tau isn't as large a problem to the Imperial Creed as think it would be.
You're right, in cold numerical terms that tau aren't as big a threat as the imperium sees them, but you forget that the imperium is ran by raving paranoid fanatical maniacs who possibly see the tau as a greater threat than the are. Sometimes military strategies aren't dictated by rational, sane, reasonable facts and realities. Take WW2 for an example: Hitler wanted to take Stalingrad as a personal slap at uncle Joe. He committed vastly more forces to the city then was rational to. The russians defended it so good ol' dolfy sent more and more forces into it, while his generals were begging him to just bypass the damn city and go for moscow.
Even Paulus, the general hitler assigned to take stalingrad after firing the last generals who said it was a disaster, said it could not be done, he begged hitler for permission to retreat, But Nnnnooooooooo! Hitler wanted stalingrad for personal reasons and to hell with sound strategy!
Stalingrad is now remembered as the graveyard of the third reich. Because one maniac decided to take it despite every sane, rational reason not to keep trying and wasted vast resources and men trying.
I'm sure there are a lot of high ranking people in the imperium who are just as insane and fanatical as old 'dolf was, and they likely see the tau empire as a much more important target than it really is.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! I literally, just this minute, had the funniest thought about the origin of the tau. What if tzeentch created them to be a boogeyman for the imperium to waste vast resources on crushing because it feared them far more than they deserved, leaving other parts of it ripe for chaos conquest? Ghawd that would just be ssssoooooooo Tzeentchian!
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.
Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.
Anything else is the Enemy.
The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.
I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.
With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.
In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.
Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.
Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.
To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.
So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.
Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.
Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.
I disagree with the degree that you give Tau as an existential threat to the Imperium. For one, just because humans have defected to the Tau regime means very little compared to the degree to which Chaos has subverted imperial forces. Think about it, through the Horus Heresy, Chaos had half the Legions and a significant chunk of the Imperial Army AND the Mechanicus side with Horus, shattering the Emperor's dream of lifting humanity into its final evolutionary form with the protection of the webway. The Imperium is still consistently warring from without thanks to traitors from the Eye of Terror and cults from within that do the same thing with offering "alternative" forms of rule than that of the Imperial yoke. Again, Chaos is the one that has split the Imperium in two.
Meanwhile, the Tau have captured fringe worlds and only recently had more luck with the Startide Nexus, which has now backfired with the attention of the Death Guard waltzing over to it. It says something that there is fluff where the Tau have admitted that it is better to just kill marines than attempt to subvert them, since the attempts of one of their psychic client races resulted in too many of them being overloaded/dying to be worth committing to overwriting the hypno indoctrination they have. So when Chaos has an easier time subverting Marines than Tau do, on top of how the Imperials have always been stopped from finishing the Tau due to Tyranid or Ork threats, I'm pretty sure the Tau isn't as large a problem to the Imperial Creed as think it would be.
You're right, in cold numerical terms that tau aren't as big a threat as the imperium sees them, but you forget that the imperium is ran by raving paranoid fanatical maniacs who possibly see the tau as a greater threat than the are. Sometimes military strategies aren't dictated by rational, sane, reasonable facts and realities. Take WW2 for an example: Hitler wanted to take Stalingrad as a personal slap at uncle Joe. He committed vastly more forces to the city then was rational to. The russians defended it so good ol' dolfy sent more and more forces into it, while his generals were begging him to just bypass the damn city and go for moscow.
Even Paulus, the general hitler assigned to take stalingrad after firing the last generals who said it was a disaster, said it could not be done, he begged hitler for permission to retreat, But Nnnnooooooooo! Hitler wanted stalingrad for personal reasons and to hell with sound strategy!
Stalingrad is now remembered as the graveyard of the third reich. Because one maniac decided to take it despite every sane, rational reason not to keep trying and wasted vast resources and men trying.
I'm sure there are a lot of high ranking people in the imperium who are just as insane and fanatical as old 'dolf was, and they likely see the tau empire as a much more important target than it really is.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! I literally, just this minute, had the funniest thought about the origin of the tau. What if tzeentch created them to be a boogeyman for the imperium to waste vast resources on crushing because it feared them far more than they deserved, leaving other parts of it ripe for chaos conquest? Ghawd that would just be ssssoooooooo Tzeentchian!
I mean the comparison doesn't really work because you're basically comparing the Imperium to Germany, and Tau as Russia. Russia is FAR larger and more capable in both resources and manpower than Germany ever had, which is the complete opposite case of the situation of the Imperium and the Tau Empire. A better comparison would be comparing Germany to Belgium, since that's basically what the Tau are in comparison as a whole. Furthermore, even before Guilliman's return, the Tau have been consistently seen as a lesser threat. The forces sent on crusade against them have been consistently recalled for other fronts that have been deemed more important. As much as the Imperium is cruel, the High Lords are anything but incompetent. You don't get to the highest hiearchy of a brutal regime without some form of ruthless cunning, wit and political maneuvering. Given that the Tau Empire is effectively a backwater xenos upstart that the Imperium has dealt with before, I don't see anyone pulling a Hitler anytime soon given that the Imperium has literally been split in half and one of their most level-headed primarchs, Guilliman, has come back to restore stability during this upheaveal.
Also, you can keep whatever head-canon you want, but it's incredibly unlikely that Tzzentch had much to do with the Tau at all. They have barely any presence in the warp (whereas Tzzentch is typically drawn to psykers, ala Thousand Sons) and if he's already pulled the greatest Tzzentchian plot in bleeding the Imperium for 10 millenia already by getting Magnus to breach the Webway and consign the Emperor to the Golden Throne for 10,000 years. Kinda hard to top that.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.
The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.
Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.
Anything else is the Enemy.
The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.
I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.
With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.
In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.
Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.
Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.
To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.
So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.
Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.
Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.
I disagree with the degree that you give Tau as an existential threat to the Imperium. For one, just because humans have defected to the Tau regime means very little compared to the degree to which Chaos has subverted imperial forces. Think about it, through the Horus Heresy, Chaos had half the Legions and a significant chunk of the Imperial Army AND the Mechanicus side with Horus, shattering the Emperor's dream of lifting humanity into its final evolutionary form with the protection of the webway. The Imperium is still consistently warring from without thanks to traitors from the Eye of Terror and cults from within that do the same thing with offering "alternative" forms of rule than that of the Imperial yoke. Again, Chaos is the one that has split the Imperium in two.
Meanwhile, the Tau have captured fringe worlds and only recently had more luck with the Startide Nexus, which has now backfired with the attention of the Death Guard waltzing over to it. It says something that there is fluff where the Tau have admitted that it is better to just kill marines than attempt to subvert them, since the attempts of one of their psychic client races resulted in too many of them being overloaded/dying to be worth committing to overwriting the hypno indoctrination they have. So when Chaos has an easier time subverting Marines than Tau do, on top of how the Imperials have always been stopped from finishing the Tau due to Tyranid or Ork threats, I'm pretty sure the Tau isn't as large a problem to the Imperial Creed as think it would be.
You're right, in cold numerical terms that tau aren't as big a threat as the imperium sees them, but you forget that the imperium is ran by raving paranoid fanatical maniacs who possibly see the tau as a greater threat than the are. Sometimes military strategies aren't dictated by rational, sane, reasonable facts and realities. Take WW2 for an example: Hitler wanted to take Stalingrad as a personal slap at uncle Joe. He committed vastly more forces to the city then was rational to. The russians defended it so good ol' dolfy sent more and more forces into it, while his generals were begging him to just bypass the damn city and go for moscow.
Even Paulus, the general hitler assigned to take stalingrad after firing the last generals who said it was a disaster, said it could not be done, he begged hitler for permission to retreat, But Nnnnooooooooo! Hitler wanted stalingrad for personal reasons and to hell with sound strategy!
Stalingrad is now remembered as the graveyard of the third reich. Because one maniac decided to take it despite every sane, rational reason not to keep trying and wasted vast resources and men trying.
I'm sure there are a lot of high ranking people in the imperium who are just as insane and fanatical as old 'dolf was, and they likely see the tau empire as a much more important target than it really is.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! I literally, just this minute, had the funniest thought about the origin of the tau. What if tzeentch created them to be a boogeyman for the imperium to waste vast resources on crushing because it feared them far more than they deserved, leaving other parts of it ripe for chaos conquest? Ghawd that would just be ssssoooooooo Tzeentchian!
I mean the comparison doesn't really work because you're basically comparing the Imperium to Germany, and Tau as Russia. Russia is FAR larger and more capable in both resources and manpower than Germany ever had, which is the complete opposite case of the situation of the Imperium and the Tau Empire. A better comparison would be comparing Germany to Belgium, since that's basically what the Tau are in comparison as a whole. Furthermore, even before Guilliman's return, the Tau have been consistently seen as a lesser threat. The forces sent on crusade against them have been consistently recalled for other fronts that have been deemed more important. As much as the Imperium is cruel, the High Lords are anything but incompetent. You don't get to the highest hiearchy of a brutal regime without some form of ruthless cunning, wit and political maneuvering. Given that the Tau Empire is effectively a backwater xenos upstart that the Imperium has dealt with before, I don't see anyone pulling a Hitler anytime soon given that the Imperium has literally been split in half and one of their most level-headed primarchs, Guilliman, has come back to restore stability during this upheaveal.
Also, you can keep whatever head-canon you want, but it's incredibly unlikely that Tzzentch had much to do with the Tau at all. They have barely any presence in the warp (whereas Tzzentch is typically drawn to psykers, ala Thousand Sons) and if he's already pulled the greatest Tzzentchian plot in bleeding the Imperium for 10 millenia already by getting Magnus to breach the Webway and consign the Emperor to the Golden Throne for 10,000 years. Kinda hard to top that.
I agree but in reality the Tau in 40k are more comparable in size and power to say a single airfield in England during the War
Unit1126PLL wrote: There's no "survival" related reason not to use automatic loaders on your starship cannons instead of hundreds of thousands of slaves. It is literally cheaper, better in combat, and easier. Pointless cruelty.
Would you rather have your guns loaded by thousands of slaves, or have to rely on tech support from the mechanicum and everything that comes with it ?
Unit1126PLL wrote: There's no "survival" related reason not to use automatic loaders on your starship cannons instead of hundreds of thousands of slaves. It is literally cheaper, better in combat, and easier. Pointless cruelty.
Would you rather have your guns loaded by thousands of slaves, or have to rely on tech support from the mechanicum and everything that comes with it ?
You already depend on the mechanicum to maintain your plasma reactors, your high energy weapon systems, your local communications, your 'cogitator banks' (Computers) and so on.
The idea of mass slave labor on imperium ships is just power tripping and cruelty for it's own sake, like in 1984.
The good thing about 40k is the fact that everyone is awful, it was written under a regime of misery and projects that into the future. To be honest, given the way things are at the minute I see more of a likelihood of 40k in our future than star trek!
40k is a mixture of subtlety and in your face generic tropes. To me that is what makes it so appealing.
In that regard the Tau are feared in the same way as the cold war soviets. As others have said, the fact that whole planets will happily join to escape the imperial boot is enough to worry. Don't want average citizens to find out there's something slightly better out there.
You can argue all day long about who is more or less of a society of bastards but at the end of the day as we all know; in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
Matt Swain wrote: You already depend on the mechanicum to maintain your plasma reactors, your high energy weapon systems, your local communications, your 'cogitator banks' (Computers) and so on.
Lack of choice in the matter.
Armsman - "Sir, the autoloader has failed"
Officer - (sigh) "Request the mechanicum"
(three months later)
Mechanicum - "Prepare the five thousand verses of tightening, bring forth ten thousand quarts of the holy oil, as it is written so it shall be done"
Applying logic to 40k is silly. Why are their mufflers on the backs of Dreads in a universe where plasma packs exist? Why are their still fossil fuels in a world where infinite energy exists in weapons? Why do we still use free thinking human Soldiers in the guard when literal servitors cost less to feed, train, maintain, and wont run in combat (Main weakness of guard) Why do LASER GUNS have recoil in this universe? Arguing over why slaves exist is a moot point. Almost nothing about 40k makes complete sense.
Matt Swain wrote: You already depend on the mechanicum to maintain your plasma reactors, your high energy weapon systems, your local communications, your 'cogitator banks' (Computers) and so on.
Lack of choice in the matter.
Armsman - "Sir, the autoloader has failed" Officer - (sigh) "Request the mechanicum" (three months later) Mechanicum - "Prepare the five thousand verses of tightening, bring forth ten thousand quarts of the holy oil, as it is written so it shall be done"
(the admech are jerks)
I mean, your entire starship is basically this. It's why you have the admech on board. By this logic it's better to have slaves on treadmills generate power (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your reactor, after all!) and have slaves doing math and coming up with firing solutions (Since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your cogitator after all!). The gellar field should just be slaves inside a double hull - they'll be possessed first, protecting the rest of the ship (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your gellar field, after all!). The void shields could just be slaves in voidsuits holding onto each other in a big web surrounding the ship to prematurely detonate enemy ordnance (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your shield generator, after all!). Pointless.
Deciding it's acceptable to wait for the admech for literally everything on a starship except the autoloader, and THAT'S why you use slaves instead, is even worse than it just being because of pointless cruelty.
I mean, your entire starship is basically this. It's why you have the admech on board. By this logic it's better to have slaves on treadmills generate power (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your reactor, after all!) and have slaves doing math and coming up with firing solutions (Since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your cogitator after all!). The gellar field should just be slaves inside a double hull - they'll be possessed first, protecting the rest of the ship (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your gellar field, after all!). The void shields could just be slaves in voidsuits holding onto each other in a big web surrounding the ship to prematurely detonate enemy ordnance (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your shield generator, after all!). Pointless.
Deciding it's acceptable to wait for the admech for literally everything on a starship except the autoloader, and THAT'S why you use slaves instead, is even worse than it just being because of pointless cruelty.
I doubt it's a matter of them deciding; planning out a new ship design is anathema to the backwards humans of the 41st millenium. They probably just lost the schematics for the auto loader.
I mean, your entire starship is basically this. It's why you have the admech on board. By this logic it's better to have slaves on treadmills generate power (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your reactor, after all!) and have slaves doing math and coming up with firing solutions (Since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your cogitator after all!). The gellar field should just be slaves inside a double hull - they'll be possessed first, protecting the rest of the ship (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your gellar field, after all!). The void shields could just be slaves in voidsuits holding onto each other in a big web surrounding the ship to prematurely detonate enemy ordnance (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your shield generator, after all!). Pointless.
Deciding it's acceptable to wait for the admech for literally everything on a starship except the autoloader, and THAT'S why you use slaves instead, is even worse than it just being because of pointless cruelty.
I doubt it's a matter of them deciding; planning out a new ship design is anathema to the backwards humans of the 41st millenium. They probably just lost the schematics for the auto loader.
Except other ships (even other Imperial ships) have autoloaders.
The slavery thing is just pointless cruelty. A lot of "we do it FOR DA SURVIVULZ" is really just thinly veiled pointless cruelty. That used to be the POINT of the setting, but people love their imperium so...
Unit1126PLL wrote: Except other ships (even other Imperial ships) have autoloaders.
The slavery thing is just pointless cruelty. A lot of "we do it FOR DA SURVIVULZ" is really just thinly veiled pointless cruelty. That used to be the POINT of the setting, but people love their imperium so...
Servitors cost more than a human being in 40k, that's simply the reality of the universe.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Except other ships (even other Imperial ships) have autoloaders.
The slavery thing is just pointless cruelty. A lot of "we do it FOR DA SURVIVULZ" is really just thinly veiled pointless cruelty. That used to be the POINT of the setting, but people love their imperium so...
Servitors cost more than a human being in 40k, that's simply the reality of the universe.
Right but they are also less survivable. I guess when I said "pointless cruelty" I included "enslaving people because free labor is cheap" as pointless. But you're right, the point is to value human life even less than the Chaos Gods and some xenos species do
So perhaps not literally pointless. It's actually even worse and crueler than pointlessness.
BaconCatBug wrote: You're dangerously close to the Thermian fallacy right now.
"This aspect of a fictional universe is bad according to my morality! The authors have the power to not make it like that, so they should!"
No? I think the authors know full well what they're doing. After all, they outright state it's the bloodiest, cruelest regime imaginable in the tagline. It's that way on purpose.
My problem is with people who think that the Imperium is the "good guys" and is the best it can be, and couldn't be better.
BaconCatBug wrote: You're dangerously close to the Thermian fallacy right now.
"This aspect of a fictional universe is bad according to my morality! The authors have the power to not make it like that, so they should!"
My problem is with people who think that the Imperium is the "good guys" and is the best it can be, and couldn't be better.
Do people really think that ?
Or do they think that based on the in-universe history, plot armour logic & limitations the IOM is the way it is because it just is and cant be different because it wouldin't be the IOM any more.
Do people really think that ?
Or do they think that based on the in-universe history, plot armour logic & limitations the IOM is the way it is because it just is and cant be different because it wouldin't be the IOM any more.
Unsurprisingly, there are quite a few people out there who see a horrifying fascist state that spans the known universe who proclaim "purge the xenos filth" as a good thing.
What we know and the writers know is that the 40k universe is supposed to seem horrible to us, it's meant to be a terrifying future where human life is meaningless and thrown away over nothing. However, there's plenty out there who take the whole thing at face value because it fits their world view.
Do people really think that ?
Or do they think that based on the in-universe history, plot armour logic & limitations the IOM is the way it is because it just is and cant be different because it wouldin't be the IOM any more.
Unsurprisingly, there are quite a few people out there who see a horrifying fascist state that spans the known universe who proclaim "purge the xenos filth" as a good thing.
What we know and the writers know is that the 40k universe is supposed to seem horrible to us, it's meant to be a terrifying future where human life is meaningless and thrown away over nothing. However, there's plenty out there who take the whole thing at face value because it fits their world view.
I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe. Especially on the internet, where people can say whatever without consequence just to troll others, I wouldn't take seeing a few people on the web being overzealous in their support of the Imperium to be indicative of a large movement of 40k enthusiasts to be pro-fascism or implementing the crazy stuff of 40kIRL.
Do people really think that ?
Or do they think that based on the in-universe history, plot armour logic & limitations the IOM is the way it is because it just is and cant be different because it wouldin't be the IOM any more.
Unsurprisingly, there are quite a few people out there who see a horrifying fascist state that spans the known universe who proclaim "purge the xenos filth" as a good thing.
What we know and the writers know is that the 40k universe is supposed to seem horrible to us, it's meant to be a terrifying future where human life is meaningless and thrown away over nothing. However, there's plenty out there who take the whole thing at face value because it fits their world view.
I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe. Especially on the internet, where people can say whatever without consequence just to troll others, I wouldn't take seeing a few people on the web being overzealous in their support of the Imperium to be indicative of a large movement of 40k enthusiasts to be pro-fascism or implementing the crazy stuff of 40kIRL.
Sadly certain figures adopted comparisons between the emperor and political figures they liked as a rallying call. that said if these people had even more then a cursory understanding of the Horus Heresy they'd not be using that comparison in a positive way. So I suspect it's more by people who "know about 40k, know the rough memes but aren't deep fans of the lore"
Grimskul wrote: I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe.
Well, you have people who think that behaving like the IoM is the right thing to do, considering the facts of the 40k universe. There are people like that all over this site.
Grimskul wrote: I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe.
Well, you have people who think that behaving like the IoM is the right thing to do, considering the facts of the 40k universe. There are people like that all over this site.
Well within the context of the fluff, the IoM has survived for 10 millenia, a mind-boggling amount of time, meaning that they are doing SOMETHING right or it would have fallen apart millenia earlier. The IoM as we know it is a result of civil war and what was learnt during the Age of Strife, that when humanity spread across the stars and signed the treaties with various alien empires that it was ultimately a mistake. First, mankind was betrayed by its own science when the Men of Iron turned against humanity. Secondly, when mankind was beset by warp storms and rampant unchecked psykers, the vast majority of aliens saw mankind's weakness and took advantage to slay or enslave humans. Similarly, the open societies that fostered psykers were amongst the first to fall to daemonic incursion as they became unwitting portals to the Empyrean. Between these two events, it's no wonder mankind as a whole is so xenophobic and mistrusting of technology. This kind of intergenerational trauma isn't something you just get over, and reflects the dark aspect of the setting of how "better safe than sorry" is actually better than risking progress that can be literally be a Tzzentchian plot for you to unwittingly summon demons. So I can see why, within what we are given in the setting, that people see the IoM as "right" as far as it being a viable empire in what it does to survive.
It is imperative for the spirit of the setting, as set down in the 1980s, that the Imperium of Man is needlessly cruel, insanely counter-productive, inept and corrupt. Since everyone is wrong in 40k (likewise imperative in the worldbuilding), the point of the Imperium as humanity's last strong shield is only valid in so far as one also considers that the rotting state of the Imperium has effectively doomed mankind in the long run: It's a dead end, incapable of a true scientific-technological revival, in the darkest of futures.
The Imperium is not meant to be a stern but sane protector of humanity. It is not meant to ultimately be a force for good, only being harsh because a hard universe demands it; far from it. It is meant to be an insane colossus on feet of clay, stampeding with blind fanaticism down the path of decay, spiralling ever downward.
The debate over the Imperium as a force for human survival, visavi the Imperium as a fundamentally rotten orgy of ineptitude and atrocity, reminds one a great deal of similar historical discussions about Stalin's Soviet Union. GW was always good at building settings which invited for discussion.
Remember that it is far more grimdark if the Imperium's enormous dysfunctionality, misery and massive purges are fundamentally unnecessary, and even counter-productive to the interests of human survival. The Imperium as merely just a necessary evil isn't grimdark enough. It is both evil, and a failed carrier of human interstellar civilization beyond just delaying the inevitable.
Therefore it is right and proper for Black Templars to be murderous jerks.
Do people really think that ? Or do they think that based on the in-universe history, plot armour logic & limitations the IOM is the way it is because it just is and cant be different because it wouldin't be the IOM any more.
Unsurprisingly, there are quite a few people out there who see a horrifying fascist state that spans the known universe who proclaim "purge the xenos filth" as a good thing.
What we know and the writers know is that the 40k universe is supposed to seem horrible to us, it's meant to be a terrifying future where human life is meaningless and thrown away over nothing. However, there's plenty out there who take the whole thing at face value because it fits their world view.
I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe. Especially on the internet, where people can say whatever without consequence just to troll others, I wouldn't take seeing a few people on the web being overzealous in their support of the Imperium to be indicative of a large movement of 40k enthusiasts to be pro-fascism or implementing the crazy stuff of 40kIRL.
I think there are vastly more people wanting to think that people genuinely relate to the IOM...Or believe its somehow anythign to do with reality (LOL) than there are people that actually do... I've yet to come across somebody that's not just troling, or simply coz thye are dumb enough that they think they would be a space marine..
The ones that seem to allude to this, seem to always think they'd fly space ships... Or be a space marine flying space ships. Because as soon as you consider you vastly more likely to be born as some undesirable grunt in line for a good ol purging in the holy fire the prospect no longer appeals... Its obviosuly nonsense..
Within the setting it makes perfect sense for BT to be doing their BT things.. I dont thinkt hey are jerks no more than a Tyranid trying to dissolve your face with acid so they can suck it up for breakfast is...
Grimskul wrote: I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe.
Well, you have people who think that behaving like the IoM is the right thing to do, considering the facts of the 40k universe. There are people like that all over this site.
Oh, no. Not people accepting the premise and setting of a fictional game for the purposes of the fiction and the game.
How dare they?
Grimskul wrote: I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe.
Well, you have people who think that behaving like the IoM is the right thing to do, considering the facts of the 40k universe. There are people like that all over this site.
Oh, no. Not people accepting the premise and setting of a fictional game for the purposes of the fiction and the game. How dare they?
But the premise of the setting is that the Imperium isn't right, that it isn't just "a necessary evil" and is in fact an "unnecessary evil" because that's the grimdarkest of all universes. So behaving like the IOM in-universe is actually a worse option than the alternatives, but through sheer inertia, brutality, and bloody cruelty it persists (maybe an allegory for the 40k wargame system as well ). Behaving like the IOM is not the right thing to do, obviously.
Karak Norn Clansman's post gets it pretty correct.
Grimskul wrote: I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe.
Well, you have people who think that behaving like the IoM is the right thing to do, considering the facts of the 40k universe. There are people like that all over this site.
Oh, no. Not people accepting the premise and setting of a fictional game for the purposes of the fiction and the game.
How dare they?
There's a difference between accepting the physical premise of a story, such as the existence of space travel and it being the year 40 000, and accepting a particular interpretation of the ethical core of a story.
Well within the context of the fluff, the IoM has survived for 10 millenia, a mind-boggling amount of time, meaning that they are doing SOMETHING right or it would have fallen apart millenia earlier. .
soviets took massive, astounding, shocking casualties during Barbarossa. Often due to idiotic "no retreat" orders leading to hundreds of thousands of men being encircled when they could've withdrawn easily. Fortunately for Stalin, Russia could mobilize a metric ton more of people and keep throwing them into the grinder till Germans ran out of fuel and stalled for the winter. Very little that Soviet HQ did that year was "right", but Russia had the manpower, and the men had the tenacity and bravery, to be used by absolute imbeciles and still keep up the fight. Quantity has a quality of it's own. IoM is in the same position. Nothing they do is particularly good, they just have the bodies to counteract the results of those bad decisions for now. We know that the Imperium is steadily losing territory for the entire 10,000 years, with occasional Crusade reclaiming some of them. We know the Imperium cannot mobilize enough troops to fully eradicate either chaos, tyranids or orks without the other foes using that weakness to invade even further (the Roman Empire dilemma). So logically, without something changing, Imperium will be nibbled to death over the course of next 10 or 50 thousand years till it reaches the point where it's mass no longer offers the buffer for it's stupidity.
Well within the context of the fluff, the IoM has survived for 10 millenia, a mind-boggling amount of time, meaning that they are doing SOMETHING right or it would have fallen apart millenia earlier. .
soviets took massive, astounding, shocking casualties during Barbarossa. Often due to idiotic "no retreat" orders leading to hundreds of thousands of men being encircled when they could've withdrawn easily. Fortunately for Stalin, Russia could mobilize a metric ton more of people and keep throwing them into the grinder till Germans ran out of fuel and stalled for the winter. Very little that Soviet HQ did that year was "right", but Russia had the manpower, and the men had the tenacity and bravery, to be used by absolute imbeciles and still keep up the fight. Quantity has a quality of it's own. IoM is in the same position. Nothing they do is particularly good, they just have the bodies to counteract the results of those bad decisions for now. We know that the Imperium is steadily losing territory for the entire 10,000 years, with occasional Crusade reclaiming some of them. We know the Imperium cannot mobilize enough troops to fully eradicate either chaos, tyranids or orks without the other foes using that weakness to invade even further (the Roman Empire dilemma). So logically, without something changing, Imperium will be nibbled to death over the course of next 10 or 50 thousand years till it reaches the point where it's mass no longer offers the buffer for it's stupidity.
When you're dealing with a galaxy spanning empire with not only unsafe and unpredictable warp travel, and communications prone to being sent incredibly late or potentially warped, it's not surprising that the Imperium responds with brute-force tactics to safeguard their territory, because you don't know how much things have gotten worse by the time your armies arrive. I feel transposing IRL stuff like the Soviet Union into 40k is a mistake, because in our IRL history, we have actual options and alternatives to what kind of governments we can live under (in some cases, many are largely stuck in totalitarian countries like North Korea). The Cold War was largely an ideological one, not a conflict that is attempting to safeguard humanity's actual survival against species that actively seek our death and those that seek to enslave it in an existential sense like daemons.
In contrast, what other option is there for humanity in 40k? Pre-existing "progressive" enclaves like the Diasporex and Interex were wiped aside by the Great Crusade, meaning that they would easily fall to any significant Ork WAAAGH!'s that were raging during the GC, or dire threats that severely tested Imperial might even at the apex of the Crusade like the Rangdan. I think it's significant that in the 10,000 years the Imperium existed that there are no significant human enclaves that have effectively challenged the Imperium ideologically or as an alternative human polity.
Okay, let's be friends with xenos. Most xenos at this point actively hate humanity, if you're lucky enough to establish friendly ties with them, then what? Most xenos species are miniscule when compared to the masses of humanity, so don't offer much in the way of protection. Similarly, that means to scale any useful tech to a planet wide level would take an incredible amount of time, assuming you're even able to get it past the Mechanicus' theology regarding tech heresy. Other xenos will just take advantage of your good-will or enslave you, whether its through subversion or literal mind-control, it's been established to have happened in the past during the Age of Strife.
Okay, let's say you want to change the Imperium from within. Have you seen how long it takes for established power structures to change over time just on earth? We can barely get along with each other on one planet or even within the same nation, much less an intergalatic empire. Try magnifying that to a scale that we can't even imagine. In the case of rapid change, it is almost always tied with revolution of some sort, and the vast majority are not bloodless. You want to be more progressive in tech? Good luck with trying to overcome the monopoly with the Mechanicum. That's a huge civil war on your hands that will lock up endless supply lines as various Forge Worlds effectively boycott desperately needed tech and support for maintaining ships, supplies and weaponry that the Imperium needs to survive.
This is why 40k is grimdark the way it is, not that the Imperium is good in any real conventional sense, but they're the best bet humanity has got for our species survival, even as it's bloated monstrosity of an empire is tearing and bleeding at the seams.
but they're the best bet humanity has got for our species survival
Except no, if the entire Imperium just disappeared one day, and the only humans alive would be the few uncharted worlds and tau humans, human quality of life would go up right away by...well a lot.
And remember, Imperium is NOT humanity's best chance for survival. We, as outside observers have been told by GW since 2nd ed pretty much that it is doomed. Like the whole galaxy. The question is only who will be left standing, the Chaos or the Tyranids, or maybe (less likely) Orks.
Every single brutality, every single world burned to crisp by the Inquisition because they saw demons is pointless.
Grimskul wrote: In contrast, what other option is there for humanity in 40k? Pre-existing "progressive" enclaves like the Diasporex and Interex were wiped aside by the Great Crusade, meaning that they would easily fall to any significant Ork WAAAGH!'s that were raging during the GC, or dire threats that severely tested Imperial might even at the apex of the Crusade like the Rangdan. I think it's significant that in the 10,000 years the Imperium existed that there are no significant human enclaves that have effectively challenged the Imperium ideologically or as an alternative human polity.
That's like saying there was no significant Roman enclave that threatened the Roman Empire during its existence; there just aren't Romans outside of the Roman Empire. And after the Great Crusade, there just isn't a large enough human state to challenge the Imperium. It's a matter of might, at that point - again, the Imperium succeeding in spite of its bad decisions because of its massive amount of manpower and materiel, but its slowly losing because it's constitutionally incapable of making good decisions.
Grimskul wrote: Okay, let's be friends with xenos. Most xenos at this point actively hate humanity, if you're lucky enough to establish friendly ties with them, then what? Most xenos species are miniscule when compared to the masses of humanity, so don't offer much in the way of protection. Similarly, that means to scale any useful tech to a planet wide level would take an incredible amount of time, assuming you're even able to get it past the Mechanicus' theology regarding tech heresy. Other xenos will just take advantage of your good-will or enslave you, whether its through subversion or literal mind-control, it's been established to have happened in the past during the Age of Strife.
The more important side of things about being friendly with xenos is that if the Imperium had been doing it from the start, it likely wouldn't be in the position it's in now. The attitude of races like Eldar to the Imperium is just the Imperium's own malice and hatred reflected back at them. And that continues to the Immaterium; if the Imperium wasn't a relentless engine of hatred, oppression, and despair, the Warp would calm down some and warp entities wouldn't be so malicious. But the zealots that make up the Imperium would rather doom themselves than give up their mindless fanaticism.
Grimskul wrote: Okay, let's say you want to change the Imperium from within. Have you seen how long it takes for established power structures to change over time just on earth? We can barely get along with each other on one planet or even within the same nation, much less an intergalatic empire. Try magnifying that to a scale that we can't even imagine. In the case of rapid change, it is almost always tied with revolution of some sort, and the vast majority are not bloodless. You want to be more progressive in tech? Good luck with trying to overcome the monopoly with the Mechanicum. That's a huge civil war on your hands that will lock up endless supply lines as various Forge Worlds effectively boycott desperately needed tech and support for maintaining ships, supplies and weaponry that the Imperium needs to survive.
All you're saying is that the Imperium is nigh-impossible to get off of its doomed, unnecessary, and immoral path, not that it was the right one to get on.
Grimskul wrote: This is why 40k is grimdark the way it is, not that the Imperium is good in any real conventional sense, but they're the best bet humanity has got for our species survival, even as it's bloated monstrosity of an empire is tearing and bleeding at the seams.
You misunderstand the thesis of the setting. The Imperium is immoral, because it goes far beyond necessity to pointless cruelty.
but they're the best bet humanity has got for our species survival
Except no, if the entire Imperium just disappeared one day, and the only humans alive would be the few uncharted worlds and tau humans, human quality of life would go up right away by...well a lot.
And remember, Imperium is NOT humanity's best chance for survival. We, as outside observers have been told by GW since 2nd ed pretty much that it is doomed. Like the whole galaxy. The question is only who will be left standing, the Chaos or the Tyranids, or maybe (less likely) Orks.
Every single brutality, every single world burned to crisp by the Inquisition because they saw demons is pointless.
Your first sentence really contradicts yourself, since the Imperium falling apart would not lead to a sudden increase in human quality of life. In fact, it would arguably get worse. Now the overarching structure keeping the human worlds intact are gone, and it's the horrors of Old Night again. No more reliable interstellar travel with the loss of the Astronomicon, the Hive Cities will literally starve to death outside of cannibalism with the shipments of Agri Worlds being organized by the Administratum. No military reinforcement to help ongoing warzones and the few ones that aren't overrun will basically be paralyzed. No more black ships to handle the psyker tithe will also increase the likelihood of daemonic incursions. I don't see how living in literal hell is anywhere better than being under the Imperium.
We already see an aspect of this with Imperium Nihilus, where they're barely holding onto a semblance of order even with reinforcements from the other half of the Imperium.
Since you used the initial comparison, what you are proposing is saying that the US should have escalated the Cold War and nuked the Soviet Union so that way we could have a higher quality of life overall from humans since then we wouldn't have to worry about totalitarian regimes from the USSR while disregarding the nuclear fallout and the countless lives lost because of it.
The whole point of 40k is the Imperium being humanity's attempt to fight against the dying of the light. Using brutal measures to ensure survival does not mean it's good, I am not arguing that, but it is extremely dumb to disregard the Imperium as the main barrier between mankind as a competitive species and effective extinction.
The point is that, while perhaps the Imperium is the only thing working NOW, it was certainly not the only way it could've gone.
Imperium has a ton of inertia that keeps it going, but if the Imperium had been better from the very beginning, it's fully possible that humanity would've been in a much better place.
Cronch wrote: So logically, without something changing, Imperium will be nibbled to death over the course of next 10 or 50 thousand years till it reaches the point where it's mass no longer offers the buffer for it's stupidity.
Keep in mind that the broad purpose of the Imperium is to be a buffer against being nibbled to death.
Literally nibbled. Humanity is an emerging psychic race on a course to become more so in the fullness of time, the whole purpose of the Imperium and the Emperors crusade was to try and create conditions whereby humans survived through this transition to reach a point similar to the eldar - strong enough that they were no longer preyed upon by the warp, no matter what it cost to get there.
Grimskul wrote: I mean I don't think there's anything to really suggest that there's people who believe that in this thread outside of the context of the 40K universe.
Well, you have people who think that behaving like the IoM is the right thing to do, considering the facts of the 40k universe. There are people like that all over this site.
Oh, no. Not people accepting the premise and setting of a fictional game for the purposes of the fiction and the game.
How dare they?
There's a difference between accepting the physical premise of a story, such as the existence of space travel and it being the year 40 000, and accepting a particular interpretation of the ethical core of a story.
...no. No there isn't.
If either makes you want to reject the story, that's fine. But the premise as a whole is something for a reader to accept or reject, even if you want to call it a 'particular interpretation' to make that disassociation from what's actually on the page easier.
You don't get to say it isn't about a brutal regime any more than you get to say its about Rome in 2000 BC. The nastiness of the Imperium is something people have to accept because it isn't changing, just like they have to accept it isn't about real warfare.
Nor do people get to call others 'fascists' because they enjoy reading the material.
Uh... yes there is. Even if the authors were presenting the Imperium as morally right (which they aren't), we could critique the authors.
Also, you can enjoy the setting all you want, I know I do, but if you think the Imperium is laudable you either aren't reading very closely or have a very poor moral sensibility.
The Imperium is neither required for human survival nor morally right.
John Boyd said that "war is fought for survival on our terms". His point is that war isn't just about survival of a nation or state or mankind, but that it is about survival on our terms, or rather survival in a way that benefits us.
I would argue that part of the grimdarkness of the setting is that many of the enslaved humans would probably be better off dead than in Imperial clutches. The Imperium guarantees survival, but it isn't on mankind's terms. It isn't free, it isn't kind, it doesn't really have any redeeming qualities at all except possibly that you can lie low and MAYBE avoid attention.
Survival is irrelevant. What is important is surviving in a way that matters, and humanity in 40k doesn't meet that criterion.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: LOL. But I think he was responding the the first point/assertion, not stating it. I could be very wrong though.
Well it was all the same post.
Possibly the most relevant point though - "Survival is irrelevant. What is important is surviving in a way that matters, and humanity in 40k doesn't meet that criterion."
The general thrust of the Emperors plan is that what matters is not the survival of humanity as it currently is, but the humanity that might be - psykers strong enough to resist the warp gods.
There are alternatives as humanity could rid itself of psychic potential or surrender itself to the whims of the warp and either option could create an existance less 'grimdark' than the current one, but ultimately represent humanity deciding to fade away into the night. Choosing that what matters is here and now, not those who follow.
How you interpret that depends on how you see the Emperors motives - “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” ... or perhaps someone willing to perpetuate the misery and suffering of countless trillions across the ages to create his ideal world.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: LOL. But I think he was responding the the first point/assertion, not stating it. I could be very wrong though.
Well it was all the same post.
Possibly the most relevant point though - "Survival is irrelevant. What is important is surviving in a way that matters, and humanity in 40k doesn't meet that criterion."
The general thrust of the Emperors plan is that what matters is not the survival of humanity as it currently is, but the humanity that might be - psykers strong enough to resist the warp gods.
There are alternatives as humanity could rid itself of psychic potential or surrender itself to the whims of the warp and either option could create an existance less 'grimdark' than the current one, but ultimately represent humanity deciding to fade away into the night. Choosing that what matters is here and now, not those who follow.
How you interpret that depends on how you see the Emperors motives - “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” ... or perhaps someone willing to perpetuate the misery and suffering of countless trillions across the ages to create his ideal world.
The general thrust of the Emperor's plan seems to be "Humanity shall have no gods before me" even as much as he tormented Lorgar over that.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: LOL. But I think he was responding the the first point/assertion, not stating it. I could be very wrong though.
Well it was all the same post.
Possibly the most relevant point though - "Survival is irrelevant. What is important is surviving in a way that matters, and humanity in 40k doesn't meet that criterion."
The general thrust of the Emperors plan is that what matters is not the survival of humanity as it currently is, but the humanity that might be - psykers strong enough to resist the warp gods.
There are alternatives as humanity could rid itself of psychic potential or surrender itself to the whims of the warp and either option could create an existance less 'grimdark' than the current one, but ultimately represent humanity deciding to fade away into the night. Choosing that what matters is here and now, not those who follow.
How you interpret that depends on how you see the Emperors motives - “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” ... or perhaps someone willing to perpetuate the misery and suffering of countless trillions across the ages to create his ideal world.
The general thrust of the Emperor's plan seems to be "Humanity shall have no gods before me" even as much as he tormented Lorgar over that.
I disagree. The last thing the emperor wanted was to be revered as a god. He fought the unification wars to stop religious wars.
I disagree. The last thing the emperor wanted was to be revered as a god. He fought the unification wars to stop religious wars.
And Kim Jong-Un doesn't claim to be a god either... but listen to the stories that North Koreans tell about him and it's clear he's given supernatural significance. The IoM under the Emperor, even before the Ecclesiarchy, was about as enlightened as the DPRK.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: LOL. But I think he was responding the the first point/assertion, not stating it. I could be very wrong though.
Well it was all the same post.
Possibly the most relevant point though - "Survival is irrelevant. What is important is surviving in a way that matters, and humanity in 40k doesn't meet that criterion."
The general thrust of the Emperors plan is that what matters is not the survival of humanity as it currently is, but the humanity that might be - psykers strong enough to resist the warp gods.
There are alternatives as humanity could rid itself of psychic potential or surrender itself to the whims of the warp and either option could create an existance less 'grimdark' than the current one, but ultimately represent humanity deciding to fade away into the night. Choosing that what matters is here and now, not those who follow.
How you interpret that depends on how you see the Emperors motives - “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” ... or perhaps someone willing to perpetuate the misery and suffering of countless trillions across the ages to create his ideal world.
The general thrust of the Emperor's plan seems to be "Humanity shall have no gods before me" even as much as he tormented Lorgar over that.
I disagree. The last thing the emperor wanted was to be revered as a god. He fought the unification wars to stop religious wars.
From the HH things I read so far its pretty clear Emperors end goal is apotheosis coz what else is there once hes conquered the gaalxy and worked out the web way for humans ? It was just too soon when logar did it so he had to step in and appear he is stil about that secular truth. Eradicate all religions so that one religion can step in afterwards without opposition. Makes perfect sense.
1. KJU and KJI both claimed to be literal gods. They wanted basian authority, where the church could not be above the state, but they also wanted god worship. To say otherwise is clearly a misreading of history.
2. The emperor didn't want total authority, and he didn't want a church. He realized he couldn't have one without the other though, and so allowed it to form. HOWEVER, he basically forbade the Word Bearers from doing Word Bearer stuff, aka spreading the faith.
This may be the most historically similair that 40k could be to us. The church or the established essence of religion is the sole cause of every terrible suffering made by man in Humanity's existence.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: 1. KJU and KJI both claimed to be literal gods. They wanted basian authority, where the church could not be above the state, but they also wanted god worship. To say otherwise is clearly a misreading of history.
That's not my understanding of what goes on over there.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: 2. The emperor didn't want total authority, and he didn't want a church. He realized he couldn't have one without the other though, and so allowed it to form. HOWEVER, he basically forbade the Word Bearers from doing Word Bearer stuff, aka spreading the faith.
The Emperor definitely wanted total authority.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: This may be the most historically similair that 40k could be to us. The church or the established essence of religion is the sole cause of every terrible suffering made by man in Humanity's existence.
Even at my most strident periods of atheism, I'd still say you're incredibly wrong.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: 1. KJU and KJI both claimed to be literal gods. They wanted basian authority, where the church could not be above the state, but they also wanted god worship. To say otherwise is clearly a misreading of history.
That's a bizarre mishmash of realworld politics, customs, and the differences between religion, veneration, philosophy and spirituality. I don't think you're correct, but its also not appropriate to this site.
2. The emperor didn't want total authority, and he didn't want a church. He realized he couldn't have one without the other though, and so allowed it to form. HOWEVER, he basically forbade the Word Bearers from doing Word Bearer stuff, aka spreading the faith.
Eh. I'd argue that he absolutely did want total authority, and you're hinging a lot of the rest on the unreliable narrator problem.
This may be the most historically similair that 40k could be to us. The church or the established essence of religion is the sole cause of every terrible suffering made by man in Humanity's existence.
This is objectively not true. People do terrible things all the time that don't stem from religion (and other terrible things that do), but there's no basis for it to be the 'sole cause.'
See crimes of passion, or diseases from working around/with hazardous materials. Generations of coal miners didn't get various lung diseases from religion.
Its also not an appropriate line of discussion here.
this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.
