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I read none of the fluff, but I have been wondering. Is there or has there been some sort of rebel group that isn't aligned with chaos or the Imperium. Like the rebels from Star Wars?

Yes. The rebels in the BL novel Rebel Winter were rebelling against the Imperium for non-Chaos purposes.

But were they "evil" per se i.e. pirates, or more like the rebel alliance?

Rebel Alliance.

Since you say you're not familiar with the background, however, I feel obliged to point out that goody two-shoes Rebel Alliance types don't fit particularly well with Warhammer 40,000's overall tone and style. It's really not that kind of setting.

There are usually plenty of Planetary Governors who believe they no longer need to pay taxes to the Imperium and so rebel. The only reason for it is because they want to call the shots, plain and simple.

Most rebels tend to devolve to Chaos anyways, and those that dont are sentanced to exterminatus.
You can find anything you here too:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Death_Korps_of_Krieg#.TtBoFaN5mSM

Space Wolves. Soul Drinkers. Relictors.

DarknessEternal wrote:Space Wolves.

Wait, Space Wolves?

Well, Space Wolves are rebels in the sense that, while loyal to the Imperium, they basically wipe their arses with the Codex Astartes and ignore the methods and principles it puts forth.

If you read the old fluff, you'll see a vast diversity in governing styles, and how the average citizen interacts with the imperium.

You'll find planets were warp storms isolate them for generations, and they turn away from the Imperium, thinking they are forgotten, they "Rebel".
You'll have planets with crazy laws(every minor infraction punishable by death).
Then you'll have the good ol' cult of the 6 armed emperor.

To think of the Imperium in any single sense is to underestimate the vast size of the imperium.


-Matt

Deathly Angel wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:Space Wolves.

Wait, Space Wolves?

Yep. They're basically renegades who haven't been declared renegades yet out of tradition. If they hadn't been a founding legion, they would have been since they do things that no other successor chapters would have been allowed to get away with.

In Order of least rebel to most:

Tau: Boy Scouts of the Universe... For the (our) greater good!

Black Templar - Does not follow Codex Astartes, a few thousand of them out there, fleet based, do what they want with little regard for anyone else.

Imperial Guard "First Born" - Did someone's planet ignore a direct order? Not so good...

Space Wolves - "Rogue Element" is a bit soft an expression.

Imperial Guard - Death Corps - Much of population turns to Chaos, loyalists nuke the planet, trying to "make amends".

Dark Angels - Garrison force turns to chaos and now hunting down every last one of them to "make amends"... I see a theme here.

Relictors - We are good but use Chaos weapons! It was a hard habit to break.

Soul Drinkers - Chaos will not leave them alone and mutation is just not stopping.

Iron Warriors - Just really, really, angry marines. Fairly reasonable in their own way.

Jollydevil wrote:Most rebels tend to devolve to Chaos anyways, and those that dont are sentanced to exterminatus.
You can find anything you here too:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Death_Korps_of_Krieg#.TtBoFaN5mSM

No they don't. They get conquered. The DKoK aren't an example one can use seeing as what happened to their planet was something they did to themselves.

Talizvar wrote:In Order of least rebel to most:

Tau: Boy Scouts of the Universe... For the (our) greater good!

Funny, enough. The Deathwatch rpg books mentions a rebel group against Tau rule who due to their acts of mass terrorism cause even sympathetic humans to be against them. The book gives implications that the Tau don't actually mind the existence of the rebel group due to the propaganda they can use to cement their rule.

Tau renegades.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Deathly Angel wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:Space Wolves.

Wait, Space Wolves?

Yep. They're basically renegades who haven't been declared renegades yet out of tradition. If they hadn't been a founding legion, they would have been since they do things that no other successor chapters would have been allowed to get away with.

The Space Wolves are not renegades.

There's a Gaunt's Ghosts novel that features Gaunt (before the Ghosts) fighting rebels. I can't remember the setting, but it was in winter/was really cold.
IIRC they even tried to make the rebels surrender so they wouldn't have to kill them.

Joey wrote:There's a Gaunt's Ghosts novel that features Gaunt (before the Ghosts) fighting rebels. I can't remember the setting, but it was in winter/was really cold.
IIRC they even tried to make the rebels surrender so they wouldn't have to kill them.

Yep it was back when Guant was a cadet. And they wernt chaos rebels.

Honestly I get the impression that non-Chaos rebellions are the most common kind of war the Imperium fights. Holding together a million worlds with such a decentralized form of rule over such a vast distance makes constant rebellion inevitable. An ambitious governor secedes, a government refuses to pay its tithes, workers revolt and overthrow the planetary regime: these come off as the most common causes for war in the Imperium to me. Things like Chaos and Xenos are likely more sparse when you consider the size of the Imperium and how it manages things.

The closest to a "rebel alliance" you get are pirate groups, which like the rebels in Star Wars fight Imperial authority, can operate powerful fleets, and control territory spanning multiple worlds. Pirate fleets are a constant thorn in the side of the Imperium and in conflicts like the Gothic War represented a major problem. However unlike the Rebel Alliance these guys are cuthroats and out for booty/plunder, not idealistic notions of freedom.

The Age of Apostasy. Not exactly a rebelion, but a civil war/internal power struggle/war of faith. AFAIK, Ecclesiarch Goge Vandire acted on his own personal and political interests and never claimed alignment with Chaos.

Then there's this Nova Terra Interregnum I mentioned on another thread. A whole imperial sector seceded in protest against the growing power of the Ecclesiarchy. Not that there's too much information on this but, with what little we've got so far (just a couple of lines in the BRB) I'd say Chaos wasn't involved either.

So, rebellions without Chaos intervention are possible and (more or less) supported by existing fluff. However, one must bear in mind what English Assassin said up there: This is the grimdark 41st millenium. The ideologies, the priorities, the very ways of thinking in this setting are wildly different from what we're used to. I seriously doubt anyone in this universe remembers what 'democracy' or 'freedom' mean anymore.

Oh, and an afterthought: Whatever the cause or underlying raison d'être of the rebel forces, they are going to be labelled as 'heretics' by the opposing loyalists anyways. Politics and religion run on the same track here...

Agent_Tremolo wrote:
So, rebellions without Chaos intervention are possible and (more or less) supported by existing fluff. However, one must bear in mind what English Assassin said up there: This is the grimdark 41st millenium. The ideologies, the priorities, the very ways of thinking in this setting are wildly different from what we're used to. I seriously doubt anyone in this universe remembers what 'democracy' or 'freedom' mean anymore.

No government in 40k gives one crap about democracy or the sanctity of life. Even the Eldar who care for their citizens and this is only due to the fact that they are already a dieing species and each Eldar death speeds them closer to extinction so its not sentimentality beyond the family.

We have this example of what can be thought of as a rebelion against the ideals of the Imperium:

The Occlusiad of 555.M37 started when the northwestern fringe of the galaxy was ravaged by the heretics known as the Apostles of the Blind King, rogueTech-priests who viewed humanity as an utter affront to the Machine God. The Apostles had uncovered wondrous artefacts from the Dark Age of Technology that made possible the transformation of ordinary stars into supernovae. The constellations of the galaxy were changed forever when the Apostles purged the outer Segmentum Obscurus of human life using these weapons.

War raged for a decade until the Navigator Joyre Macran discovered the palace-warship of the Blind King hidden in a fold of the Warp. Escaping with this crucial intelligence, Macran guided the Imperial Navy's Emperor-class battleship Dominus Astra to the palace's location. The Blind King was killed and the genocide ended when the Dominus Astra's lance batteries pierced the palace-warship's hull and without his leadership the Apostles were swiftly overcome and their weapons hidden away in the vaults of Mars.

The whole Krieg is a nice a example, the Autarch secceded, only to be nuked for a few days by some loyalist troops who re-took the planet 500 years later.

Bobthehero wrote:The whole Krieg is a nice a example, the Autarch secceded, only to be nuked for a few days by some loyalist troops who re-took the planet 500 years later.

Yes, but the loyal troops did that themselves. No one ordered them to fire the nukes.

CrashCanuck wrote:There are usually plenty of Planetary Governors who believe they no longer need to pay taxes to the Imperium and so rebel. The only reason for it is because they want to call the shots, plain and simple.

some governors gone rogues separatist. they have reasons (excuse) to declare indepedency.
1. The Imperium provide inadequade protection.
2. The Imperium messed up with their local culture, regardless that they don't worship Chaos at the first place, many of their cultures are not conform with Imperial creed. (i.e. Aphrodite orgy)
3. Unequal treatments. well this reason is abot sound because the Imperium spans as large as an entire Milky Way. i can't remember that how many segmenta the Imperium had been segmented for ease of governancy, but each segmentum has several hundread sectors to be a headache
4. Xeno Propaganda. This reason is viable in Eastern Fringe worlds, combined with other reasons. governors will finally renounce the Imperium and join the Xeno. usually Tau. (well if they're so ambitious to shut down the Golden Throne and assimilate the whole Imperium before the Chaos do!!)

in some case, the Governors are nothing more but a warlord, being ambitious to form their very own Empire, I'm not sure if Krieg Autarch had that plans so he went rogue against the Imperium (Death Korps of Krieg backstory)? but in Drookian Fein Guard backstory, there was an ambitious human warlord who did have an army that large enough to scare the Space Marines, and his very own Empire is spanning. the name of this warlord empire is Canis Hegemony. (very evil name indeed), the backstory suggested that how cunning they are, capable to isolate Imperial suppression troops and deny any Imperial major offensive. if not the merits of the Loyal Drookian Fein Guard http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Battle_of_Traitors_Moss#.TtHKGVbjYTA ,it will need a crusade level to put down this rogue empire.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Bobthehero wrote:The whole Krieg is a nice a example, the Autarch secceded, only to be nuked for a few days by some loyalist troops who re-took the planet 500 years later.

Yes, but the loyal troops did that themselves. No one ordered them to fire the nukes.

They were ordered to do whatever neccesary to not let the planet fall. Turns out it was neccesary to bomabrd every inch of the surface with nuclear fire.

Jollydevil wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Bobthehero wrote:The whole Krieg is a nice a example, the Autarch secceded, only to be nuked for a few days by some loyalist troops who re-took the planet 500 years later.

Yes, but the loyal troops did that themselves. No one ordered them to fire the nukes.

They were ordered to do whatever neccesary to not let the planet fall. Turns out it was neccesary to bomabrd every inch of the surface with nuclear fire.

I don't think the one giving them those orders had nuking the planet in mind when they gave that order. The Kreig did that to themselves, no one forced them to do that.

^ yep a pure civil war. and it's more like American Civil War rather than WW series.

Col. Jurten and Co. is the only faction that has nuclear missiles. the Autarch has manpower and much of the military leadership. if not because Jurten faction already has the best fortress on that planet. he too will be crushed by Autarch forces.
the fluff says that the civil war is a pure trench warfare, so the initial phase was of that the Autarch goons try to overrun a handful Loyalist only to be found out that the Loyalist already occupied the strongest fortress on the planet, and the fortress also stockpiles nuclear weapons!!! (it's sensible that Nuke silo is needed to be a fortress), the Loyalist held out so well and did an outstanding K/D ratio.
this forced the Autarch goons to dig in and do a siege warfare. so the war turned out to be a deadlock and.. yes the Loyalist has nukes. so they used it against Autarch dudes.

but that still not enough for the loyalist to win, it needs hundreads of generations (and the calculative uses of Nukes) for the loyalists to gain victory.

by the time Autarch declared the Indepedency, the Loyalist had no access to Centrial Imperial command because all of the interstellar communications connecting to this planet was severed. so the Loyalist can't coordinate the Imperial forces to aid them.

well the war lasts 500 years and no off-world Imperial forces involved. i don't know what happened to Segmentum Command? there's no remarks on Warpstorms either.

There are many mutant factions who have rebelled openly. Most of which are being currupted by chaos, but are hardly loyal to it. They mearly want to live their own lives free of the Imperium. Such factions are the very reasons The Ordos Herectus was formed, to prevent them from becoming powerful, specificaly with Rougue Psykers... If they ever become and organized faction with the full power of Chaos Forces, then either the Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, or Grey Knights show up.

Check out the fluff of the last Witch Hunters Codex t verify what I say.

Joey wrote:
There's a Gaunt's Ghosts novel that features Gaunt (before the Ghosts) fighting rebels. I can't remember the setting, but it was in winter/was really cold.
IIRC they even tried to make the rebels surrender so they wouldn't have to kill them.

There's also another ghost's novel "traitor general" where the ghost's team up with some sepratists that don't believe in the emperor, I can't remember their name. They mostly just want to be left alone but they could be considered rebels.