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I can't say that it has for me as I play both Imperial and Chaos armies. However, reading the HH books has made a impact on how I look at the armies. They make it much more interesting when writing a fluffy list.

Re: Cthulhu/Nodens:

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure its a minor detail mentioned somewhere explicitly.

And who says Chaos is the evil one?

I'm no longer of the opinion that Chaos is evil. They want only to survive and the Master of Mankind broke his promise to them after making a deal for the gene-forging abilities to create the Primarchs and the Astartes, in return the Emperor was to inform Mankind of the nature of the Warp so that they could join together united, rather than divided by fear and war like all the other races of the galaxy have done.

Choas is not Good or Evil...It is just Chaotic

So in a time when the Imperium strifed for order It was evil...

Actually, in 40K-land, it is pretty Evil.

Agreed. As fun as relativism is, there's really no gray area with Chaos.

It's muy evil.

No, Chaos is amoral. That's kind of the point.

With prewarning that I'm probably not going to read a wall of philosophical text, I disagree. Chaos is predominantly negative in its actions and motives.

So? So's the sun. You don't blame the sun if you get burned. It's been a big theme in the Horus Heresy books.

All'za dem humies iz stooopid, and da onlee wurf o' dem iz fer fightin' an' steelin' dere stuff fer da Meks ta skrap moar waggonz an' buggiez and deffkoptas an' gargants fer da nexx WAAAGH!!!

No the HH series hasn't really changed my opinion of the Verse, I was chaos all the way, cept when it comes to the Wolves or my Home-brew chapter. Now I like Chaos more, but I suppose the books have made me like some of the loyalists more.

Oh and Manchu you've always known my allegiance, you after all gave me my signature.

Nurglitch wrote:So? So's the sun. You don't blame the sun if you get burned. It's been a big theme in the Horus Heresy books.

I disagree - I think you're reading that particular interpretation into things.

It is pretty clear that Chaos in the 40K Galaxy is really not a good thing and can certainly be categorized as 'Evil', especially in terms of its aims and ultimate end results.

Nope, Chaos were cowardly, defective, whiny, traitorous scumbags before the books and they still are.

Nurglitch wrote:So? So's the sun. You don't blame the sun if you get burned. It's been a big theme in the Horus Heresy books.

If the sun was sentient and lured people to think it was benign by either appealing to their most base desires or outright trickery, and then took delight in the despair it caused by enslaving and destroying them then I would say it was evil as well.

If the sun was sentient and lured people to think it was benign by either appealing to their most base desires or outright trickery, and then took delight in the despair it caused by enslaving and destroying them then I would say it was evil as well.

So bascically People are chaotic anyway and Choas just emphasizes this?
Does Chaos actually take delight at the Despair and Enslavement or the at the chaos of It?

I really don't know how you could have read all of those books and not see that Chaos enjoys the suffering it causes. Fulgrim and A Thousand Sons in particular.

Also, the emphasis bit is not even close to the point I was making.

Brother Heinrich wrote:Additionally as far as Lorgar is concerned, the Emperor should have embraced and encouraged his son, not cast him down to grovel in the ashes of monuments raised to the Emperor himself. I bet he's having a custode kick him in his withered bum for that one.

On this, i've been thinking, what if the Emperors hand was forced into reprimanding Lorgar? He has to do the father thing sometime and keep his Children kind of in line. I guess it was the same case at Nikea with the likes of Mortarion complaining to him about the use of psykers.

Why was Guilliman there and only him and his legion? I guess it could be because they were the biggest Legion and if things soured they could've kept the Word Bearers in line. But i'm kinda thinking that Guilliman had been moaning to the Emperor and he decided that he had to step in to keep the peace. Maybe the Emperor was a great guy after all and fatherly and tried to keep his kids happy?

Also with the Chaos Gods saying how the Emperor went back on his deal. Maybe this is a half truth, which is often what the forces of Chaos speak. Perhaps they afford the Emperor the same kind of deal as they did to Horus, but realising the threat that they posed, declined and the Chaos powers were sucking grapes until the Primarch Project presented itself.

some ramblings there

There are humans who delight in the suffering of other people. Does this mean all humans are evil?

Chaos is ultimate freedom, which includes freedom from morals. It is amoral. If you want to call Chaos evil anyway remember that it is a direct mirror of humanity. It is exactly as evil or good as humanity, but unrestrained by the rules that may stop humanity from acting upon any evil intent.

Think of it this way - you have two psychopaths. They are both equally as evil in intent. They both desire to inflict harm upon others for their own gratification. However, one of the psychopaths is physically weak and therefore incapable of acting upon his intentions. Does this make him less evil? Less of a threat, certainly, but that isn't the same thing.

As for the books, they didn't change my opinion of the Chaos much. I was always of the opinion that the Emperor was an imcompetent tyrant who was elevated beyond his actual accomplishments by 10,000 years of worship by the Imperium, and that Chaos was the better option.

Rube wrote:
Think of it this way - you have two psychopaths. They are both equally as evil in intent. They both desire to inflict harm upon others for their own gratification. However, one of the psychopaths is physically weak and therefore incapable of acting upon his intentions. Does this make him less evil? Less of a threat, certainly, but that isn't the same thing.

Unless he has a bazooka

Pilau Rice wrote:

Rube wrote:
Think of it this way - you have two psychopaths. They are both equally as evil in intent. They both desire to inflict harm upon others for their own gratification. However, one of the psychopaths is physically weak and therefore incapable of acting upon his intentions. Does this make him less evil? Less of a threat, certainly, but that isn't the same thing.

Unless he has a bazooka

Yeah that example doesn't work if you assume the psychopaths are American and can, like, buy an RPG from their local cornershop. :/

It hasn't changed my opinion, but I do see the tragedy in it all. Some of the Legions were unwitting pawns in all of this.

What amazes me is how influenced the traitors were.

The Alpha Legion were convinced by a bunch of Xenos to turn.

Lorgar (I think was weak to begin with) takes way too much advice from subordinates to the point where he is being "Handled".

Horus, although he seems to know what he's doing, seems to have been tricked.

Magnus, though loyal, lets his own arrogance get the better of him. I wouldn`t say he was a traitor, just a misguided primarch. He's the most tragic of the bunch and to be frank, Horus tricked the Wolves into attacking them. i wonder how he would feel knowing that truth...

Fulgrims obsession with perfection. He's the other real tragedy as well

Night Haunter is a psychopath to start with so no surprise there.

But you also have to look at the Imperial side.

Russ gets tricked into attacking Magnus.

The jury is still out on the Dark Angels.

And I'm still not convinced about Rogal Dorn. He seems insecure.

The HH series shows just how fallible the Primarchs are.

Alpharius:

No, there's a reason why The First Heretic mentions that 'Aurelian' means 'the sun', or that Horus was one of many Egyptian sun gods, or that Magnus has a single eye, or that legions like the Night Lords and the modern Imperium itself exist 'in the dark'. The Horus Heresy made no difference to the Astartes' program of invasion and genocide. Whether the Powers are gods or demons depends on your perspective, hence the neutral 'daemons'.

The Word Bearers and Lorgar don't decide to be evil, they decide that knowing the truth and preserving humanity is the greatest good, worth committing unbelievable atrocities. After all, that's what they've been doing since their inception, trying to preserve humanity by delivering the good news at the point of a sword.

In that sense the Word Bearer's reaction to the Emperor's rebuke is remarkably human. They don't change who they are or how they act simply because it's revealed they've been wrong all along, they adapt their beliefs to their actions.

So yeah, Chaos feeds on suffering. So what? So do we. That's why there's plenty of moral schemas out there by which any amount of suffering is morally right. Consequentially speaking, suffering is justified if the ends outweigh the means. Deontologically speaking, suffering is justified if otherwise a moral rule is broken, particularly if it's a just moral dessert (mmmh, dessert). From the perspective of virtue-ethics suffering is necessary for building good character.

The Emperor feels the Word Bearers should suffer the destruction of Khur, children should suffer the loss of their humanity to become Astartes, and requires that many branches of humanity should suffer extinction.

We feel that evil-doers should suffer punishment, that animals are delicious, and we let people starve because their suffering is worth our freedom (see Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom). How about that?

I think the problem is that people mistake the notion of an indifferent and arbitrary universe as being the same as the notion of an actively inimical universe. Perhaps the blame goes to the usual binary thinking of "Hey, the universe doesn't love me, therefore it hates me." I suspect it's a tension between the traditionally man-centered universe of loving and caring gods, and the other traditionally god-centered universe. Maybe it's just difficult for some people to understand the notion of fear and trembling before god, as if there's some sort of problem whereby god needs to be reconciled with evil.

Maybe that's why I like the Horus Heresy series, because the Emperor is the one that cares about humanity, but in trying to be its shepherd he puts himself at such a distance from humanity that he's as much an amoral force at the Chaos Gods themselves. Conversely the Chaos Gods don't care about humanity when they notice it, and their servants pretend to care insofar as it gives them a leg (or tentacle...) up in the war in heaven.

Crantor:

Have you read the part in The First Heretic where Lorgar, in the meeting aboard the Fidelitas Lex, notes that the Alpha Legion is in rebellion because: "[The Imperium] has failed us...by being flawed to its core, imperfect in its pursuit of a perfect culture, and in its weakness against the encroachment of xenos breeds that seek to twist humanity to alien ends"?

(I always like the evil side, because it's more interesting^^)

My view on the loyalist faction had changed. I don't see it as good anymore. Not good at all. Before i was just thinking they were the true savior of mankind (well i knew that they are not so nice as propaganda says)and all that ... disliking them because of their boringness.
Just started to read IA 3, and it supports my change in view (although perhaps not considered as "good fluff" by some all i've read sounds believable)

So in that term my support for the Chaos faction has risen. But in the same run the interest in "loyalist factions" / "the Imperium" has increased because of that. Quite funny to realise this hehe. Still hate smurfs and yellow submarines. Iron within

Keep reminds me of a pet peeve (yes, I have lots of those), but what's up with people believing that choosing the wrong horn of a moral dilemma is interesting?

I see it the other way: Moral monsters are not more interesting than compulsive saints. You know what they're going to do and there's no conflict in any decisions they make. Take Soul Hunter for example: The Night Lords do bad things to people in out-groups and to each other, but Talos is interesting (unlike the foil in his squad) because he faces the moral dilemma of staying true to the Night Lord's mandate or abandoning it in favour of service to the Chaos Gods.

Which is probably something that needs mention: The Chaos Gods may be amoral, but their followers are some real evil bastiches, although only complete lunatics like Kharn are moral monsters since they both mean harm, and don't face a moral dilemma in inflicting that on anyone and everyone within reach.

Likewise morons like Sigismund are great foils for the rebel villains because they're just as fanatical.