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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Concerning grimdark:

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

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

daedalus wrote:Concerning grimdark:

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Men must die so that Man can endure"

That, I think, sums it all up nicely.

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

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

In the IG, you are a number.

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









Cute Necrons say, "HAI2U!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

but not anymore once I looked more into the fluff

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

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

Also, the Emperor was an Atheist.

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

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

Ascalam wrote:

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

but not anymore once I looked more into the fluff

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

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

Also, the Emperor was an Atheist.

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

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

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

DarknessEternal wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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

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

KingDeath wrote:

Ascalam wrote:

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

but not anymore once I looked more into the fluff

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

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

Also, the Emperor was an Atheist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

BuFFo wrote:

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

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

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









Cute Necrons say, "HAI2U!"

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

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

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

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

Automatically Appended Next Post:

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

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

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

im2randomghgh wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Imperial inquisition ain't the Spanish Inquisition.

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

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

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

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

Swiftblade wrote:

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

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

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

QFT

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

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

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