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Void__Dragon wrote:World Eaters and Orks appear to be having a good time.

Orks sure, but World Eaters try too hard.

LunaHound wrote:They rebel like all rebellions.

To be alive while being oppressed for the rest of their lives,

or make a final stand for change.

They pretty much get self rule provided they do a few things in return.
Taxes.
Psyker control/turn over to black ships.
Worship Emperor.
I'd say most planets rebel against the current leaders which just so happen to either pretend to/be the face of the Imperium on the planet or the leaders have token support from the Imperium and the populace sees it as complete backing so they rebel against the Imperium as well.
As for why a planetary leader would rebel/turn... probably chaos/xenos... the usual.

Melissia wrote:Orks sure, but World Eaters try too hard.

Try too hard at what?

Oh, and can't forget the Emperor's Children, who are arguably having the best time in all of 40k. Albeit, at the expense of anyone else they happen to be around, who tend to have the worst time when that happens, lol.

On a real note, lack of a true sense of scale plays a part. It is hard to imagine for me, who actually knows the Imperium has a million worlds, the sheer scale of what that actually means, imagine realising the scope of the Imperium when you probably are largely ignorant of it.

Plus there is the issue of Chaos, in ur imperium and corruptin' ur citizens.

Dark Eldar is just one swingin party.

A lot of that masks a severe existential dread though.

Because, as others have noted, the Imperium to the average citizen is a really abstract concept. Few, if any, ever travel to the stars and vanishingly few of those ever return to their homeworld. Even if they do, it might have been centuries due to warp travel time dilation. So any world is isolated to its own system, and they have little contact with the Imperium on average. The Black Ships arrive to take the psyker cull, the Administratum demands its tithes and the Munitorum conscripts Guardsmen, and the Ecclesiarchy extol zealotry and piety. Even the Arbites rarely actually prosecute anyone unless they committ a crime against an Imperial institution or engage in rebellion. So the Imperium becomes a distant figure, gradually becoming more incomprehensible and irrelevant to your life. The only parts you ever interact with are the sharp end of the stick; ruinous tax rates, friends and family conscripted for Guard regiments or Naval pressgangs, bigoted offworlder clerics who denounce everything about your culture, Arbites suppression sweeps. Your world doesn't have much to do with any other world not in their own system (or perhaps subsector when it comes to breadbasket/forge/hive world cliques that depend on each other).

You don't see the Imperium DO anything for you and your people. They just take and take and take. Tell you to shut up and work harder, tell you to be afraid of xenos, of psykers, of heretics. You've never seen a xenos, so how do you know they're real? Or really all a threat like the Imperium tells you they are? Or psykers? They say Wilhelm was just lucky at cards, but they dragged him off to the Black Ships. If he really is a psyker, then he was never a threat to anyone, just a card shark. And heretics? You can't even understand what the preacher means by heresy each week at the Templum; what's heretical in this week's sermon sounds a lot like what was extolled as virtuous last week. They tell you the Imperium is besieged everywhere, and the Emperor needs your sacrifice, unto death, to fulfill humanity's destiny. But the Emperor is dead, or close enough to it. He never hears our prayers. Our lives are spent in brutal toil and oppression in the service of those who claim to speak in His name.

They say every drop of sweat and blood fuels the might war machine of the Imperium, that protects us from innumerable threats. You never see this war machine; just fat Adeptus bureaucrats, corrupt Ecclesiarch bishops, brutal Arbites officers. The Imperium bleeds your world bit by bit, to protect us from phantoms and boogies. You might still believe in the God Emperor and mankind's manifest destiny to the galaxy, but the Imperium has exposed it's corruption and illegitimacy to you. You'll join the work stoppage, the crowds tarring and feathering indulgence-selling clerics, the mob who break out caches of weapons when the Arbites sweep through. If you are an inheritor of the galaxy, blessed with the perfect form of Man, then it's time to show those corrupt Imperium rats just what Men are made of!

And in a dimension of emotion and madness and energy, a horror of man and bird, twisting the skeins of fate, chuckles to itself.

"All according to plan..."

Boss_Bakbreaka wrote:Because, as others have noted, the Imperium to the average citizen is a really abstract concept....(snip)..."All according to plan..."

That... that is beautiful. I am so stealing that for the background for a campaign, if you don't mind.

Because they get tirred of life

Boss_Bakbreaka wrote:Because, as others have noted, the Imperium to the average citizen is a really abstract concept. Few, if any, ever travel to the stars and vanishingly few of those ever return to their homeworld. Even if they do, it might have been centuries due to warp travel time dilation. So any world is isolated to its own system, and they have little contact with the Imperium on average. The Black Ships arrive to take the psyker cull, the Administratum demands its tithes and the Munitorum conscripts Guardsmen, and the Ecclesiarchy extol zealotry and piety. Even the Arbites rarely actually prosecute anyone unless they committ a crime against an Imperial institution or engage in rebellion. So the Imperium becomes a distant figure, gradually becoming more incomprehensible and irrelevant to your life. The only parts you ever interact with are the sharp end of the stick; ruinous tax rates, friends and family conscripted for Guard regiments or Naval pressgangs, bigoted offworlder clerics who denounce everything about your culture, Arbites suppression sweeps. Your world doesn't have much to do with any other world not in their own system (or perhaps subsector when it comes to breadbasket/forge/hive world cliques that depend on each other).

You don't see the Imperium DO anything for you and your people. They just take and take and take. Tell you to shut up and work harder, tell you to be afraid of xenos, of psykers, of heretics. You've never seen a xenos, so how do you know they're real? Or really all a threat like the Imperium tells you they are? Or psykers? They say Wilhelm was just lucky at cards, but they dragged him off to the Black Ships. If he really is a psyker, then he was never a threat to anyone, just a card shark. And heretics? You can't even understand what the preacher means by heresy each week at the Templum; what's heretical in this week's sermon sounds a lot like what was extolled as virtuous last week. They tell you the Imperium is besieged everywhere, and the Emperor needs your sacrifice, unto death, to fulfill humanity's destiny. But the Emperor is dead, or close enough to it. He never hears our prayers. Our lives are spent in brutal toil and oppression in the service of those who claim to speak in His name.

They say every drop of sweat and blood fuels the might war machine of the Imperium, that protects us from innumerable threats. You never see this war machine; just fat Adeptus bureaucrats, corrupt Ecclesiarch bishops, brutal Arbites officers. The Imperium bleeds your world bit by bit, to protect us from phantoms and boogies. You might still believe in the God Emperor and mankind's manifest destiny to the galaxy, but the Imperium has exposed it's corruption and illegitimacy to you. You'll join the work stoppage, the crowds tarring and feathering indulgence-selling clerics, the mob who break out caches of weapons when the Arbites sweep through. If you are an inheritor of the galaxy, blessed with the perfect form of Man, then it's time to show those corrupt Imperium rats just what Men are made of!

And in a dimension of emotion and madness and energy, a horror of man and bird, twisting the skeins of fate, chuckles to itself.

"All according to plan..."

This

Incidentally, Tzeentch, himself, doesn't look like a Lord of Change. He's depicted as a massive, headless humanoid form with a face in its chest and, rising from what would be its neck, two long, tentacle-like appendages with an additional face/mouth thing on their tips. These mouths constantly repeat anything Tzeentch says, although they change the inflection and manner of speaking, so that, in listening to Tzeentch, one is never, ever really quite sure sure what it is that Tzeentch said.

That aside, yeah, what Boss-Bakbreaka said is how people get up the courage to rebel against the Imperium. It's inconceivably vast, and very, very distant. Often for centuries or millennia at a time. A world could rebel, cast down the Planetary Governor, the Administratum, the Arbites and kill the local representatives of the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition and then... never again hear from the Imperium for a thousand years, until the Tithe ships return.

CalgarsPimpHand; Feel free!

Also, I never said it was Tzeentch's plan, he has servant Lords of Change. Plus, he's the Lord of Change! He can make himself look like anything, even one of his own minions.

Also according to plan...

I have read a Horus Heresy book where Horus tries (and succeeds) in converting Fulgrim (the Emperor's Children Primarch) by convincing him that the Emperor turned his back onn the Space Marines, leaving the Great Crusade to go to Terra to be worshipped as a God. Or, you realise that the Emperor isn't getting any better (mainly because he's a skeleton) and that the gods of Chaos can grant you immortality, and other cool abilities, like breathing fire and hurling lightning.

Boss_Bakbreaka wrote:Because, as others have noted, the Imperium to the average citizen is a really abstract concept. Few, if any, ever travel to the stars and vanishingly few of those ever return to their homeworld. Even if they do, it might have been centuries due to warp travel time dilation. So any world is isolated to its own system, and they have little contact with the Imperium on average. The Black Ships arrive to take the psyker cull, the Administratum demands its tithes and the Munitorum conscripts Guardsmen, and the Ecclesiarchy extol zealotry and piety. Even the Arbites rarely actually prosecute anyone unless they committ a crime against an Imperial institution or engage in rebellion. So the Imperium becomes a distant figure, gradually becoming more incomprehensible and irrelevant to your life. The only parts you ever interact with are the sharp end of the stick; ruinous tax rates, friends and family conscripted for Guard regiments or Naval pressgangs, bigoted offworlder clerics who denounce everything about your culture, Arbites suppression sweeps. Your world doesn't have much to do with any other world not in their own system (or perhaps subsector when it comes to breadbasket/forge/hive world cliques that depend on each other).

You don't see the Imperium DO anything for you and your people. They just take and take and take. Tell you to shut up and work harder, tell you to be afraid of xenos, of psykers, of heretics. You've never seen a xenos, so how do you know they're real? Or really all a threat like the Imperium tells you they are? Or psykers? They say Wilhelm was just lucky at cards, but they dragged him off to the Black Ships. If he really is a psyker, then he was never a threat to anyone, just a card shark. And heretics? You can't even understand what the preacher means by heresy each week at the Templum; what's heretical in this week's sermon sounds a lot like what was extolled as virtuous last week. They tell you the Imperium is besieged everywhere, and the Emperor needs your sacrifice, unto death, to fulfill humanity's destiny. But the Emperor is dead, or close enough to it. He never hears our prayers. Our lives are spent in brutal toil and oppression in the service of those who claim to speak in His name.

They say every drop of sweat and blood fuels the might war machine of the Imperium, that protects us from innumerable threats. You never see this war machine; just fat Adeptus bureaucrats, corrupt Ecclesiarch bishops, brutal Arbites officers. The Imperium bleeds your world bit by bit, to protect us from phantoms and boogies. You might still believe in the God Emperor and mankind's manifest destiny to the galaxy, but the Imperium has exposed it's corruption and illegitimacy to you. You'll join the work stoppage, the crowds tarring and feathering indulgence-selling clerics, the mob who break out caches of weapons when the Arbites sweep through. If you are an inheritor of the galaxy, blessed with the perfect form of Man, then it's time to show those corrupt Imperium rats just what Men are made of!

And in a dimension of emotion and madness and energy, a horror of man and bird, twisting the skeins of fate, chuckles to itself.

"All according to plan..."

All except the last bit. It diminishes the meaning for everything to always be a Chaos plot. The reasons above are sufficient enough for people to rebel, often with the best of intentions for their local world. The Imperium might call people heretics or Chaos followers, but the truth may be actually different.

Rebellions might reach for Chaos, using the logic of "The enemy of my enemy must be a friend", for the resources to fight off the Imperium. But then there are rebellions that are purely secular.

Boss_Bakbreaka wrote:
You don't see the Imperium DO anything for you and your people.

The whole thing is brilliant, a great explanation of how a rebellion could start. The best part is the man thinking all this could be living on a planet where a few worlds over the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard are fighting a desperate battle to keep esoteric-malevolent-killer-thing-of-the-week from advancing deeper into the IoM and to his planet.

Oh the irony...

Alexzandvar wrote:Really? It just seems so futile considering the amount of forces one system nay a single planet can bring to bear, VS the largest cohesive fighting force in the Galaxy. Could you imagine as a rebel trooper siting on your planet watching as the Universe it'self rips open in a warp portal as Battleships and Cruisers larger than cities, and moons come out of it?

The never ending waves of tanks and men? The practically demigods of the Astartes? The fleets so vast as to me immeasurable?

First off, how is the Imperium of man cohesive? They have more infighting than any other non-ork non-chaos faction in the galaxy!

Secondly, they don't hope to topple the imperium, they usually hope to secede.

Thirdly, even just spreading ideas can have an impact larger than any military campaign (for example, the tau water caste capturing entire worlds).

And finally, you seem to drastically overestimate the Imperium's strength. They have ~30,000-50,000 ships. Massive imperial guard campaigns have a few million men, planets have billions. Only starforts are as large cities. Cruisers aren't even close to cities if battleships aren't. Their ships aren't as large as moons. The Phalanx (more or less the largest ship in the Imperium) is the size of a city. Astartes usefulness is eclipsed by their scarcity. 100 men (company is usually the force attached to an offensive) cannot, no matter how impressive they are, conquer a world. Maybe if they were all epistolaries, maybe.

Iracundus wrote:All except the last bit. It diminishes the meaning for everything to always be a Chaos plot. The reasons above are sufficient enough for people to rebel, often with the best of intentions for their local world. The Imperium might call people heretics or Chaos followers, but the truth may be actually different.

Rebellions might reach for Chaos, using the logic of "The enemy of my enemy must be a friend", for the resources to fight off the Imperium. But then there are rebellions that are purely secular.

There are tons of perfectly mundane reasons to launch a rebellion against an empire that's much vaster than yourself - look at the Balkan revolts against the Ottoman Empire for good examples. The Greeks and Serbs took up arms against the empire because they thought it would be too hard for the Turks to gather the resources to crush them, without taking away from their stability or power in other areas, and they were right.

Same thing for the Imperium - there's no guarantee that the High Lords can spare a battlefleet to blast your puny world, when there's an Arch-Arsonist of Charadon to crush, and the Tyranids getting more numerous every day.

In the Battlefleet Gothic campaign rules, it states that the Imperial and Chaos players each only control one system at the start, even though most of the planets are technically loyal to the Imperium - the Planetary Governors will only respond to their tithe requirements once there's a battle fleet in orbit, and not a moment sooner - and that's with the whole of Abaddon's warfleet bearing down on them!

First, you put 2 stupid people together and that triples the amount of stupidity between them. then you put another stupid person and that make the amount of stupid up to 7 times that of a single stupid person.

after that the stupidity builds and builds until someone gets the "bright" idea to say " Hey lets rebel against the imperium, not like they are gonna send a massive armada of space ships and zillions of troops and tanks and super soldiers after us. its not liek they need (insert resource here) anyways. plus that dude over there covered in funny symbols said we gonna get something out of it!"

Without the sarcasm: like has been said The Imperium is a far off and vauge concept. Way back when during medeval times Kings and kingdoms were the exact same way. You hear of the king/kingdom (the Imperium in this case) but have no idea why you have allegince to him/it or what he/the country has done for you, you only know of the rule of the local Lords (local planetary government) who you know very well as you deal with them regularly, with taxes and other things, and question "Why is this king and kingdom im supposedly a part of need so many taxes (or other resources) but do nothing for me, no less make their presence known?" so eventually people get fed up with the taxes by a body of power they only know vaugely of and rebel, often the spark can be chaos influenced, but not always.

But still. While the people may not hear of the other rebellions being stomped out with extreame force under the boot of the IG/SM/Navy, you would asume some people would think there would be ramafications to rebellion such as a retaliation via the aforementioned millitary powers under the Imperiums command (even if it takes a while).

Engine of War wrote:First, you put 2 stupid people together and that triples the amount of stupidity between them. then you put another stupid person and that make the amount of stupid up to 7 times that of a single stupid person.

after that the stupidity builds and builds until someone gets the "bright" idea to say " Hey lets rebel against the imperium, not like they are gonna send a massive armada of space ships and zillions of troops and tanks and super soldiers after us. its not liek they need (insert resource here) anyways. plus that dude over there covered in funny symbols said we gonna get something out of it!"

Without the sarcasm: like has been said The Imperium is a far off and vauge concept. Way back when during medeval times Kings and kingdoms were the exact same way. You hear of the king/kingdom (the Imperium in this case) but have no idea why you have allegince to him/it or what he/the country has done for you, you only know of the rule of the local Lords (local planetary government) who you know very well as you deal with them regularly, with taxes and other things, and question "Why is this king and kingdom im supposedly a part of need so many taxes (or other resources) but do nothing for me, no less make their presence known?" so eventually people get fed up with the taxes by a body of power they only know vaugely of and rebel, often the spark can be chaos influenced, but not always.

But still. While the people may not hear of the other rebellions being stomped out with extreame force under the boot of the IG/SM/Navy, you would asume some people would think there would be ramafications to rebellion such as a retaliation via the aforementioned millitary powers under the Imperiums command (even if it takes a while).

Very narrow view, in my honest opinion.

You think taxes are the only reason that men would want to disassociate with the IoM? Or even a big one? It is more the horrible oppressions, unspeakable crimes against humanity, suppression of local religion etc. that would push individuals to secede.

There are far more reasons yes. Taxes was just an example.

purplefood wrote:

LunaHound wrote:They rebel like all rebellions.

To be alive while being oppressed for the rest of their lives,

or make a final stand for change.

They pretty much get self rule provided they do a few things in return.
Taxes.
Psyker control/turn over to black ships.
Worship Emperor.
I'd say most planets rebel against the current leaders which just so happen to either pretend to/be the face of the Imperium on the planet or the leaders have token support from the Imperium and the populace sees it as complete backing so they rebel against the Imperium as well.
As for why a planetary leader would rebel/turn... probably chaos/xenos... the usual.

This isn't self-rule. The Imperium is backing a puppet regime to exploit them, and will accept that regime no matter how awful it is as long as obeys its rules.

The IOM is about the worst place you could live

Anything is better, or at least different


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Boss_Bakbreaka wrote:Because, as others have noted, the Imperium to the average citizen is a really abstract concept. Few, if any, ever travel to the stars and vanishingly few of those ever return to their homeworld. Even if they do, it might have been centuries due to warp travel time dilation. So any world is isolated to its own system, and they have little contact with the Imperium on average. The Black Ships arrive to take the psyker cull, the Administratum demands its tithes and the Munitorum conscripts Guardsmen, and the Ecclesiarchy extol zealotry and piety. Even the Arbites rarely actually prosecute anyone unless they committ a crime against an Imperial institution or engage in rebellion. So the Imperium becomes a distant figure, gradually becoming more incomprehensible and irrelevant to your life. The only parts you ever interact with are the sharp end of the stick; ruinous tax rates, friends and family conscripted for Guard regiments or Naval pressgangs, bigoted offworlder clerics who denounce everything about your culture, Arbites suppression sweeps. Your world doesn't have much to do with any other world not in their own system (or perhaps subsector when it comes to breadbasket/forge/hive world cliques that depend on each other).

You don't see the Imperium DO anything for you and your people. They just take and take and take. Tell you to shut up and work harder, tell you to be afraid of xenos, of psykers, of heretics. You've never seen a xenos, so how do you know they're real? Or really all a threat like the Imperium tells you they are? Or psykers? They say Wilhelm was just lucky at cards, but they dragged him off to the Black Ships. If he really is a psyker, then he was never a threat to anyone, just a card shark. And heretics? You can't even understand what the preacher means by heresy each week at the Templum; what's heretical in this week's sermon sounds a lot like what was extolled as virtuous last week. They tell you the Imperium is besieged everywhere, and the Emperor needs your sacrifice, unto death, to fulfill humanity's destiny. But the Emperor is dead, or close enough to it. He never hears our prayers. Our lives are spent in brutal toil and oppression in the service of those who claim to speak in His name.

They say every drop of sweat and blood fuels the might war machine of the Imperium, that protects us from innumerable threats. You never see this war machine; just fat Adeptus bureaucrats, corrupt Ecclesiarch bishops, brutal Arbites officers. The Imperium bleeds your world bit by bit, to protect us from phantoms and boogies. You might still believe in the God Emperor and mankind's manifest destiny to the galaxy, but the Imperium has exposed it's corruption and illegitimacy to you. You'll join the work stoppage, the crowds tarring and feathering indulgence-selling clerics, the mob who break out caches of weapons when the Arbites sweep through. If you are an inheritor of the galaxy, blessed with the perfect form of Man, then it's time to show those corrupt Imperium rats just what Men are made of!

And in a dimension of emotion and madness and energy, a horror of man and bird, twisting the skeins of fate, chuckles to itself.

"All according to plan..."

This says it better than i could

Boss_Bakbreaka had a great summary.

However, to break it down a little more: At some point, when you have lost everything and you literally have nothing left to lose then you have to either completely give yourself up to the situation or fight like hell to challenge it. Sometimes the consequences of the rebellion (such as being shot in the head) are more acceptable than a life time of hard labor.

Most people in the IoM are severely oppressed. They are tasked to give up every waking moment to the Imperium through back breaking hard labor. There is no future for themselves or their children. There is nothing to look forward too. Any education they receive is to simply make them better workers.

But every so often someone rises that thinks "hey, we can change this". Even more rarely, that same person happens to be charismatic enough to get some followers. If this is allowed to fester for long enough then the Imperial Governor will be overthrown and the planet goes into full scale rebellion. Usually it occurs because someone finds out that there might actually be a different way available.

Other times the governor himself (or herself) leads the rebellion. It might be to simply save their own skin for a period of time from the people or it might be that they genuinely think it can work. Of course, the governor would have to be pretty ignorant of the IoM at large.

Finally, there is Chaos. Constantly whispering in the ears of the people. Telling them that Change is good; that the IoM doesn't like them or can't stop them. If you have no hope and the devil itself offers it to you, then you'll probably sign up.

------------

You don't have to look too far to see this in real life. There are rebellions happening on nearly every continent. Most have no hope of succeeding without outside support; all will see lots of people dead before they are done. Sometimes the rebellions are against tyrants. Sometimes it's simply a power grab. Sometimes they are kicked off by interference from other countries telling them it could be different...

At the end of the day, all it takes is for enough people to decide that they are fed up.

Coolyo294 wrote:Read Rebel Winter. It provides some good reasons why a planet would rebel against the Imperium.

Not really when you think about it...

The reason is obvious. The Evil workings of Chaos !

Magpie wrote:The reason is obvious. The Evil workings of Chaos !

This + Governors who want more power then they already have. Greedy bastards...

If you want reasons why people would revolt against the imperium then pick up a history book. Preferably of the 19th toearly 20th centuries. Mankind throughout history has fought civil wars and began revolutions against oppression, how they are governed and ofcourse religion. The bloodiest examples are the french revolution (liberty and fraternity to the french commoners and removal of the corrupt arristocracy), the English Civil War (the fight for government and religion which split even families apart)the American Civil War (too many reasons) and the russian revolurion (same as the french just bloodier)