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On this? Id like to bring up Judge Dredd - Origins. A relatively recent addition to the Dredd Canon, we see the father of Justice Dept, Judge Eustace Fargo discovered to still be alive decades after he was believed dead.

As Dredd is his clone son, they have a certain bond. And he straight up tells Dredd Justice Dept was never meant to be permanent. The Judges took power due to a seriously corrupted Government as a way to preserve what could be preserved following Bad Bob Booth’s triggering of global Armageddon.

Since then, Dredd has it on his conscience. And the question is has the Totalitarian regime last for so long, and defended MC-1 against so many threats, that there’s now no way back?

This echos the Democracy storyline (amazing bit of lore), where Dredd consents to an actual democratic vote, not interfered with, to see if the Citizens want the Judges replaced with a more formal Government. The Judges win the vote by a comfortable margin, because so many citizens are just utterly apathetic.

I see The Imperium the same way. It’s horrific, and perhaps it was justified for a period post-Heresy as what could be salvaged was salvaged. But what alternative is there now? The general state of the Galaxy isn’t exactly conducive to changing its approach. Which all adds to the tragedy.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
The Imperium claims it does terrible things because there is no other option and it has to do this to protect you

I find it strangely wholesome that the Imperium makes an honest effort at explaining/excusing its behavior despite its sheer scale and supposed grimdarkness.

The Imperium is made up of people, many of whom have to personally do terrible things and not all of which are willing to think of themselves as bad people.

‘I have to do this for the benefit of everyone else, there is no other option’ is a convenient lie to tell yourself when you’re condemning millions or billions to death.

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
The Imperium claims it does terrible things because there is no other option and it has to do this to protect you

I find it strangely wholesome that the Imperium makes an honest effort at explaining/excusing its behavior despite its sheer scale and supposed grimdarkness.

The Imperium is made up of people, many of whom have to personally do terrible things and not all of which are willing to think of themselves as bad people.

‘I have to do this for the benefit of everyone else, there is no other option’ is a convenient lie to tell yourself when you’re condemning millions or billions to death.

Yeah, again, it is just nice that they actually care about this rather than... well, not care at all.

 AtoMaki wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
The Imperium claims it does terrible things because there is no other option and it has to do this to protect you

I find it strangely wholesome that the Imperium makes an honest effort at explaining/excusing its behavior despite its sheer scale and supposed grimdarkness.

The Imperium is made up of people, many of whom have to personally do terrible things and not all of which are willing to think of themselves as bad people.

‘I have to do this for the benefit of everyone else, there is no other option’ is a convenient lie to tell yourself when you’re condemning millions or billions to death.

Yeah, again, it is just nice that they actually care about this rather than... well, not care at all.

I mean it’s not like the High Lords are sat round a table thinking ‘hey, let’s come up with a comforting excuse to keep our people happy and promulgate it out’.

Individuals within the system will come up with something that helps them sleep at night, and probably impress it on their subordinates/successors if they express doubts. Particularly for those actively responsible for significant decisions or doling out official brutality. ‘It’s for the greater good’ is just a fairly convenient one, with plenty of IRL precedents. It may even have been true initially. Given some time then the whole thing becomes self-perpetuating even as the atrocities get increasingly worse.

‘They’ is not a single cabal running the Imperium, just trillions of leaders across the galaxy saying whatever they need to say to live with themselves. Arguably that’s worse, since at least an evil cabal could be theoretically defeated and overthrown.

@ AtoMaki - I do t think it does. Knowledge of chaos and Xenos is routinely suppressed and the vast majority of the untold quadrillions of humans know nothing other than it is their hereditary requirement to put that unknowable relic into the appropriate slot in this other unknowable relic. And if you sneeze at the wrong moment, then they get taken away and servitorized for incompetence. We as the outside audience get to see individuals who either lie to themselves, or just plain lie, while they happily slaughter millions for being in the wrong place at the wrong time out of expidency. Set against that are the hero types who actually seem to care and go out of their way to save imperial citizens, and their tragedy is that it is impossible most of tuetime to save everyone, so they have to satisfy themselves with saving what they can.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
‘They’ is not a single cabal running the Imperium, just trillions of leaders across the galaxy saying whatever they need to say to live with themselves.

I say this is the better. Because then it is (kind of) universal, and not just some rando guys having a constant itch of conscience. They might do brutal things but they care about doing those brutal things, and that means a lot.

Set against that are the hero types who actually seem to care and go out of their way to save imperial citizens, and their tragedy is that it is impossible most of the time to save everyone, so they have to satisfy themselves with saving what they can.

...and then this too! You don't only have people who talk the talk but also those who walk the walk! But I guess we need these guys for narrative contrast, so their presence is more by design than anything else.

You absolutely shouldn't describe anything regarding the Imperium as wholesome. It's not wholesome that the people of the Imperium justify themselves in their oppression and atrocities by saying it would be worse if they did it another way.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So in the book where Cain goes to the planet with no rotation, to fight off heretic raiders, Amberly actually displays some rather shocking racism. (For her). No one in the book is a big fan of anything other than humanity, or psykers, but for Vail to casually throw out the line: "A trumped up little mutant with a superiority complex" kinda shocked me. Yeah, I know, she's an inquisitor, but she'd never actually displayed racism before. Even with the Tau she was decidedly neutral. This leads me to believe that Vail is actually a rather arrogant and ignorant person, and not a very good inquisitor. Given her infatuation and love affair with a known liar and scoundrel we might also presume she puts pleasure ahead of duty, unlike many of her kind.

Finally, I always found it irksome as a character she is both supremely gifted, talented, equipped, and supported, but also rather consistently a damsel in distress.

Amberly mentions in one passage that she remembers as her child books with land raiders crushing heretic skulls and a friendly athromprphic promethium flame burning heretics - which gives a litlte insight into how she and "nice" imperials like Cain are still brought up to hate.

Cain/Jurgan also are repelled in a later book by a (attractive) young woman serving the Tau - in fact more so than the Tau themselves - humans serving Xenos are traitors who have turned away from the Emperor which makes them worse than the Xenos itself.