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I ve read the fluff and I dont even play the guys, heck I hate them on the table, but the defult Necrons are pure evil stuff dosnt seem that well based, yeah they do some messed up stuff, but choas beats that. Worse thing Necrons do you is skin ya and then eat your soul, worst thing choas can do to ya is a lot worse, if slaanesh is involed egad!!!

So how does the star child fit in with the warp? Has he been fighting chaos all along, coexisting with reality and not existing at the same time? as Nurglitch described Slaanesh? I'm not sure the star child mythos is considered canon, but If it was to be mentioned in a new codex, what does that mean? Is is a plot inconsistancy or does it work in sommehow?

I wouldnt call the necrons evil, since they seem to have no free will anymore and have just become tools of the C'tan. the C'tan however, I'd call them evil.

Also, is there anyone older than the old ones?

The C'tan do not consume souls - they consume physical essences, presumably electro-chemical energy or some such. I imagine the whole terror and torture part is just like roasting marshmellows so they're gooey and tasty.

The Star Child was a bad piece of fluff that's been wisely abandoned in post-RT background.

i dont posess a huge amout of knowledge on Necron fluff, but from what i can tell, they're more somthing to be pittied.

What are peoples opinion of the Tyranids in comparrison to the Chaos gods?

chaos is only "evil" because it goes against "normal" human tastes. If you blame chaos for the Imperium's behavior you need to take a look at our own world. Humans can be as monstrous as they as their impulses. Yes the Gods embody some of these but they only embrace what is already there. Ok and saying nurglitch's quoting from the book is genius is a bit of a stretch. Though I applaud someone for using fact for an debate(I believe should be standard).

i agree largley with Warmaster Scott.
the very fact that the conformists belive themselves the good guys is a bit hipocritical im my opinion, as the good guys are usually the ones out there doing somthing original. OKay, obviously, there are exceptions in the many faciast leaders out there, who we often regard as evil. Then, is the Emporer not a fascist leader? doesnt that make the emporer evil?

Nurglitch wrote:

The Star Child was a bad piece of fluff that's been wisely abandoned in post-RT background.

I disagree with you but of course that's just my opinion.

The Chaos gods aren't "all" bad. Tzeentch embodies hope, Khorne embodies martial pride, Slaanesh encourages you to enjoy what you do, Nurgle encourages health. Of course, there are also their bad sides. But they are more complex than "Rwaarr orgy" or "lololol skulls blood awerawetawerrarrrrrr"

This, of course, has also been "not so wisely" abandoned post RT. Now it's for the kiddies who can't understand individuals with complex personalities.

Except that the Chaos Gods aren't individuals with complex personalities. Also, I think that Codeces Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons make them out to be rather complex.

Nurglitch wrote:Except that the Chaos Gods aren't individuals with complex personalities. Also, I think that Codeces Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons make them out to be rather complex.

But they're unique enough to give names. If they're not beings, then are you describing them more as metaphysical enemy ideals? Giving a name to enemy behavior and catergorizing(sp) them then like saying someone is bipolar. So then are they entities of singular purpose or another name to describe particular styles and acts of cruelty? I mean the game is very careful to never really describe the gods except to the most devote(which could be a madman's dream). For me they're as complex as you feel to make them. I like the more obvious enemy then so chuthlu wanna be or shadow figure. For now I'll buy into the codexes complex view because GW made the game so I go with the current fluff. To debate the gods in detail is to debate philosophy .

Bascilica wrote:i dont posess a huge amout of knowledge on Necron fluff, but from what i can tell, they're more somthing to be pittied.

What are peoples opinion of the Tyranids in comparrison to the Chaos gods?

Nids are a monsterous threat from outside the galaxy. i havent heard much about the hive mind to deduce if it is malicious or not. though that is semi beside the point(if somthing's trying to eat you, you probibly don't care if it's evil or not )

Well, firstly, they're the Chaos Gods - consistency and reason isn't something that applies to them. That's not philosophy, that's the background of the game. Likewise, as I keep pointing out, predicates like "being" and "existing" don't apply either, except as metaphors. "Entities" doesn't really work either since that again presumes a frame of reference in which entities can be distinguished from non-entities like locations, states, feelings, etc.

That's leaving aside all the problems of ontology as they relate to actual science.

On a side note, Cthulhu isn't a diety: It's the High Priest of the Star-Spawn in Lovecraft's Cthulhu cycle of stories, and possibly the High Priest in Yellow Silk in "The Dream Quest to Unknown Kadath". It's just another alien from beyond time and space, rather than both from beyond time and space, and constitutive of time and space.

One of the neat things about the background for 40k is that it touches on some interesting theological and philosophical ground concerning the nature of gods and their relationship to humanity, and similar ground to that which Lovecraft touched on: the notion of gods as both beyond mortal comprehension and essentially indifferent to humanity.

However, to quote the character of Davros from Terry Nation's "Genesis of the Daleks", when speaking about the Doctor's claims of being a time traveler (roughly): "This may be beyond my comprehension, but it is not beyond my imagination!"

One of the interesting ways in which people have been imagining things beyond space-time, beyond the usual four dimensions used in science, is through mathematics or well-organized imagination. Most of mathematics is what we can call "well-founded", meaning it exists as a tidy 'tree' of statements derive from some foundational axioms. This body of knowledge, however, is only a fragment of what can be termed "non-well-founded". Non-well-founded mathematics expands beyond the usual boundaries and values in place to make mathematics easily comprehensible, such as absolute consistency, non-circularity, truth, and so on.

Why am I blathering on about these things? Well, my point is that GW's depiction of the Chaos Gods' transcendent is remarkably consistent with both theological views of transcendent beings, philosophical notions of transcendantalism, and mathematical models of dimensionally transcendent objects: they're consistent in their inconsistency.

It's this 'meta' or philosophical turn that makes the Chaos Gods' inconsistency interesting and imaginative, making them both alien and essence to humanity in the manner of God, and making them comprehensible in more than 'mere' metaphors (there's an interesting paper out there solving what's called "the problem of bearerless names" whereby the author points out that language is metaphors all the way down, but let's distinguish between 'mere' or 'live' metaphors, and literal meanings or 'dead' metaphors).

Back to Doctor Who for a moment: An interesting notion that's cropped up in that series consistently is the notion of there being an interaction between communication systems and the phenomena of mind. This is a pretty old philosophical idea that crops up, the notion that phenomena is a combination of both the world and the mind, with the mind having the curious property of going 'beyond the world' (Kant's transcendential a priori, Heidegger's gripping hand, Plato's world of the forms, etc). So there's this notion of the world being composed of form and structure on one hand, and matter on the other hand, and being combined by the mind as the gripping hand.

The Chaos Gods are purely 'mind', all the things that are 'real' to us but can't be touched, measured, or weighed. Take happiness, for example. There's no quanta of happiness, it doesn't have a weight, although it does tend to have a duration. Some might say that it's an emergent property of a person under such-and-such a circumstance, but that's equally remarkable for being a 'level' of reality that's transcending the underlying phenomena.

Conversely the phenomena of happiness makes no sense if we try to consider it apart from its consistituent phenomena, without people or reasons. The Realm of Chaos is such a disconnected or disembodied phenomena like that, making no sense because it seems disconnected from the underlying matter.

Not entirely disconnected though, because although we are told that the Realm of Chaos is pure emotion unencumbered by matter, it is parallel to a material world of both matter and emotion, supervening, you could say, though 'subvening' is possibly the more accurate term. I like to think of it as intermixed with reality, as the spaces between atoms and atomic nuclei.

So in an interesting reversal the material world is what gives form and structure to the Realm of Chaos, with people existing like little glow-in-the-dark plankton. The ocean doesn't consume said plankton, but if they die of old age then their bodies do sink into it and dissolve. But that's getting back into metaphor.

Basically the notion I'm trying to express here is that the Chaos Gods are complex precisely because they reflect very complicated notions in philosophy, theology, and mathematics. Philosophically you have issues of their ontology (or lack thereof), the cosmology of how they relate to reality and each other, and how ethical values can be ascribed to them. Theologically you have the issues of how humanity relates to them, being both indifferent and essential to humanity (sort of a converse to the traditional problem of evil: why would the Chaos Gods allow there to be good?). Mathematically, existing beyond space and time, and being inconsistent, self-referential, and having various other strange properties makes statements about them interesting to prove.

Grey Templar wrote:

Bascilica wrote:i dont posess a huge amout of knowledge on Necron fluff, but from what i can tell, they're more somthing to be pittied.

What are peoples opinion of the Tyranids in comparrison to the Chaos gods?

Nids are a monsterous threat from outside the galaxy. i havent heard much about the hive mind to deduce if it is malicious or not. though that is semi beside the point(if somthing's trying to eat you, you probibly don't care if it's evil or not )

The Hive Mind isn't evil, just hungry. It's actually probably one of the nicer enemies of the Imperium in that it actually bears no ill will against you and will not torture you or eat you soul. I personally felt no malice towards the cow that made up the cheeseburger I just ate, I was just hungry and it was food. The Hive Mind is the same way.

Sometimes I get drunk and go for joy rides in my car. Sure, people get killed occasionally when I run them over, but I don't mean to, and it doesn't make me a bad person... Wait, what?

Let me think...... EVIL!!

evil and good is just something invented by man.
Why would other races think like we do?

Because ethics are universal.

Just to point out, people in this thread have been condemning the facist and totalitarian rule of the Imperium, but I have to ask you, in a harsh/grimdark universe such as 40k what is the other option?

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. (Where is that from?)
I'm just saying that in 40k, democracy would = Fail.

As for the harsh measures that the Space Puppehz take with thier recruits, I would think such trials to be perfectly withing the warrior code of the people of Fenris.

Sure, and shoving Jews into ovens is okay with Nazis. That doesn't mean it's actually okay. It means that the Nazis are evil.

Do the jews WANT to be shoved into the gas chambers? No.

Do the warriors of Fenris WANT to face the trials? Yes.

Some people want to be suicide-bombers.

Likewise Khorne Berzerkers want to give their souls to Khorne along with as many people they can kill as possible.

Wanting or choosing to do something that may be self-harmful doesn't make doing so good.

Nurglitch wrote:Sometimes I get drunk and go for joy rides in my car. Sure, people get killed occasionally when I run them over, but I don't mean to, and it doesn't make me a bad person... Wait, what?

haha
that an important point. Is there a difference between Negligence and Instinct?

To Emporers Faithful, through out the trials, Ragnar was terrified, and i solumly belive that if he'd known every terrible thing that'd happened in those trials, he wouldn't have wanted to go, and nor would the others.

Where does it describe the trials? All I've heard of is that they never mention it.

Besides, a terrorist bomber kills OTHERS, as does a Khorne zerker. This is cuasing pain and suffering on others who are not so inclined.

The men of fenris CHOSE to go THEMSELVES along with these trials, and it was thier choice. Their choice entirely which did not negatviely affect anyone else. (Like, I suppose, jumping off a brigde. Not an ideal situation, but it's thier choice)

the trials are throughout the whole first book of Space Wolf by William King.
and they dont choose, they're chosen and told that if they dont suceed by going thruogh the trials they will die.

I once saw Khorne Rick-Roll a homeless man, now that's proper grade-A evil!

Nurglitch wrote:Except that the Chaos Gods aren't individuals with complex personalities. Also, I think that Codeces Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons make them out to be rather complex.

You're right, they're more like entities and ideas.

And how do these 2 codices make them to be rather complex?

The CSM codex talking about Khorne is "He loves killing stuff." Which is true. But that is only one side.

The only individual that is really shown as complex is Tzeentch, but that's his "physical" description if you will.

I don't have the abortion of the codex known as Daemons so I wouldn't know about how it presents the gods.

@nurglitch
When I brought up philosophy it was because it determining the definition of good and evil on human terms. Ethics are not universal. It's another human construct to keep the order humans so crave.

Nids are not evil they're just a bigger predator that humans can't cope with because of they're need to stay on top of the food chain. The need of the tyranids to eat and reproduce is a natural reflex of most organisms. The Imperium have always been harsh. From the get go they wanted to eliminate anyone who had different thoughts(nazi, stalin, saddam, etc) or wasn't human. The human race has developed an entitlement and arrogance complex.

But Chaos is much better?
I fail to see your argument in justifying the 'goodieness' of Chaos.

Either there is no good or evil, or Chaos are the EPITOME of evil. (With DE not far behind)

I'd say:

Chaos daemons are made from evil. Which isn't necessarily the same as being evil.

The mortal servants of Chaos are usually evil in the traditional sense, though.

No one is knowledgeable enough about the Tyranids to say whether they're evil or not. (Except maybe Tiggerius. Or whatever his name is.)

They're all bad..especially khore, and he can't be justified just because the emperor is similar. First of all they both have different goals the emperor had a bunch that i don't feel like naming and khore just kills for pleasure.

i think yo'll find that the DE are much more cruel, in my opinion, than chaos, even Slaanesh. Even then, i still dont see them as Evil. And is Killing for pleasure just the same hedonistic additude as spending lots of money on chocolates? either way your still causing somone else pain and/or death (under-paid workers pick cocoa for cadbury).
Is anyone who buys a chocolate as evil as Khorne, or is Khorne as innocent as anyone buying a chocolate?