Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

BlaxicanX wrote:The problem with canon is that it's as impossible to say that it doesn't exist as it is to say that it does. Human beings have a natural tendency to "sort things out" so that it all flows together. Thus, the notion that "everything is canon and nothing is" is simply anathema to how we think.

I think it was just a gakky and apologetic way to explain things - and various GW designers and novel authors have been much more clear on the subject. I agree that there exists a tendency or even a "need" amongst people to merge stuff together. This in itself is not so bad; I'm doing the same. It only becomes awkward when some people attempt to enforce their personal and preference-based interpretation of the setting upon others by argueing with "canon" and presenting it like some sort of singular truth.

BlaxicanX wrote:Furthermore, the actual idea of "canon" is, by nature, relative. There is no such thing as "official canon", even in the Star Wars universe.

This I don't really understand. Star Wars is pretty organised in its background, and it does have an official canon in that the people in charge have established a firm hierarchy of which source is overriding what. You can't really argue about stuff like "Jar Jar Binks doesn't exist". Of course people can still ignore it, but that's like saying there is no official law just because you still have citizens violating the speed limit.

Ignoring the existence of Jar Jar Binks is totally justified...

I prefer the idea of ''Jar Jar gets violently elbow'd by a stormtrooper'', there's an awesome picture detailing that around the web.

I do like how the canon conflicts with itself. I remember one story from the Imperial Guard codex about Bastonne saving a soldier from some daemons, only to have to execute him later, and how he never forgets anything, including that incident, and then... ...the Grey Knight codex.

If it'll help you sleep any better, I'd recommend disregarding the fluff from Ward's Grey Knights codex entirely.

 Harriticus wrote:
They know about "heretics" who worship forbidden and dark powers. That's about it.

Not all Guardsmen who fight Chaos are automatically purged either, it's a bit of a case-by-case basis and usually purges happen from major Daemonic incursions.

That's about how I think of it. The fact that there are BL books (usually by Dan Abnett) where Guardsmen see warp creatures and don't get executed or mind-wiped makes me think that either the Imperium is just too big for this practice to be reliably carried out everywhere (again, that cop-out but nevertheless true excuse of "it depends on the planet/regiment") or that some leeway is allowed if the soldiers don't know exactly what they've seen. There's nothing to stop the commissars from telling the troops that what they saw was just a new type of xeno or an illusion caused by enemy psykers. Maybe the local Inquisition gets the final say?

The biggest problem with the whole kill everyone who has witnessed Demons is planets like Cadia - unless they repopulate it after every single major battle in the system which goes against the Codex.

 Mr Morden wrote:
The biggest problem with the whole kill everyone who has witnessed Demons is planets like Cadia - unless they repopulate it after every single major battle in the system which goes against the Codex.

Well typically they'd wait until the war is over, which, on Cadia at least, it isn't.

Problme with that is that Cadian Regiments apparently serve all over the galaxy and as they all know about Daemons and Chaos - so much for secrecy

Do they know? Says who?

The 13th Black Crusade had not yet started when those regiments were raised. In fact, with how the new timeline looks like, Abbadon is just in the process of beginning his attack.

Of course, Cadia's vicinity to the Eye of Terror means a certain level of awareness, yet I would not put it past the Segmentum Command to only tell its troops in the Cadian Gate zone to be on the lookout for traitor/heretic warbands and rogue Marine Chapters rather than demons. I would not expect daemonic incursions to be everyday business even on Cadia.

And even if some of them would somehow attain this knowledge ... the line in the 6E rulebook seems to suggest that they'd probably be "dealt with", even if just by sending them into a campaign they won't survive. Grimdark.

I understand the confusion, I think. My DM says the same things as the person att the GW store told PresofAsia. But I think its confusion over the Gray Knights. The Gray Knights are so secretive that Imperial Guard forced serving with the Knights will be executed and buried with full honors, and the Gray Knights fight Chaos.... so... I think that's where the idea comes from that IG are slain after battles with Chaos.

There is, unfortunately, a considerable amount of conflict between the various BL authors, codexes, and rulebooks on the knowledge of chaos throughout the imperium.

In some, like eisenhorn, things like Horus Heresy (HH) are well known to him (though you can always pass that off because he was an inquisitor) but in other texts the HH is quite literally written out of history and even the upper echelons don't quite know whether it was an actual event or merely myth and hyperbole.

As for demons, the current grey knight codex indicates that knowledge is strictly forbidden and even space marines will be mind wiped after facing them and normal humans will be sterilized and put in work camps or even just outright executed. However, BL novels like the uriel ventrus books indicate the ultramarnies have faced deamons without being mind wiped and people like Tigirus have even faced them multiple times, Same goes for the Blood Angels.

As for normal chaos (traitors and traitor marines) I swear I read some bit of fluff where any contact of any kind is enough to warrant sterilization or potentially death after battle as the effects of chaos taint may not show themselves for even many decades and cannot be risked. Conversely, planetary problems like Cadia and Vraks are seemingly undressed where many billions of soldiers seem to be un-effected from their normal retinue by the inquisiton.

Maybe perhaps Dan Abnett is a good writer and knows how to write a good story which is why the Tanith first and only are not killed after seeing daemons

Yeah, obviously there's a lot of conflict, but I'd say no, guardsmen aren't executed when they learn about chaos, generally speaking.

On the one hand, executing guardsmen is a really stupid waste of resources. They're really going to kill everyone on Cadia for knowing about demons? Not likely. There would be no one left to defend the gate, and killing off your most seasoned veterans who have already been successfully fighting this particular enemy makes no damn sense at all. The Imperium may be cruel and needlessly secretive, but it's not stupid.

On the other hand, not only is information about chaos going to be impossible to supress, but you would actually WANT a little information to get leaked out now and again. The more that the Imperium can scare its citizens about how they're all just one short breath away from total annihilation, the more power the Imperium has over its citizens, and the more that your regular everyday person is going to be willing to make sacrifices.

The message "everything's fine, no need to worry, just keep working hard for the emperor" isn't nearly as persuasive as "there is a dark force that is going to engulf your planet and kill all your children if you don't work your absolute hardest to fight them off while they're still next door at the neighbor's planet."

The imperial navy have reporting names for traitor ships, some dating back to the heresy. They kind of have to, or they'd be sitting ducks for renegade ships. They probably know a fair bit, at least at command level.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, obviously there's a lot of conflict, but I'd say no, guardsmen aren't executed when they learn about chaos, generally speaking.

On the one hand, executing guardsmen is a really stupid waste of resources. They're really going to kill everyone on Cadia for knowing about demons? Not likely. There would be no one left to defend the gate, and killing off your most seasoned veterans who have already been successfully fighting this particular enemy makes no damn sense at all. The Imperium may be cruel and needlessly secretive, but it's not stupid.

On the other hand, not only is information about chaos going to be impossible to supress, but you would actually WANT a little information to get leaked out now and again. The more that the Imperium can scare its citizens about how they're all just one short breath away from total annihilation, the more power the Imperium has over its citizens, and the more that your regular everyday person is going to be willing to make sacrifices.

The message "everything's fine, no need to worry, just keep working hard for the emperor" isn't nearly as persuasive as "there is a dark force that is going to engulf your planet and kill all your children if you don't work your absolute hardest to fight them off while they're still next door at the neighbor's planet."

Exactly, I always found that statement in the GK codex about executions fething slowed. I know the Imperium isnt the smartest but there is a difference between doing something that isnt very efficient and doing something that does more harm then good.

So I simply ignore that line from the GK codex