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pm713 wrote:
Weirdly the Imperium very much gives an inch most of the time. Planets can do whatever they like as long as their tithes and loyalty stay.

Planets can do what they want as long as the obey Imperial law, stay loyal and pay their taxes. Given that the Imperium's most common foe is other humans I'd say the Imperium is not as easy going as you would think. As I said, they don't give an inch, any breach of Imperial law can have far reaching consequences. Unless you have examples of planets breaking Imperial law and not get punished?

Biggest handicap is that its against the law to take apart your toaster to find out how it works with out being called a heretic and killed.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Weirdly the Imperium very much gives an inch most of the time. Planets can do whatever they like as long as their tithes and loyalty stay.

Planets can do what they want as long as the obey Imperial law, stay loyal and pay their taxes. Given that the Imperium's most common foe is other humans I'd say the Imperium is not as easy going as you would think. As I said, they don't give an inch, any breach of Imperial law can have far reaching consequences. Unless you have examples of planets breaking Imperial law and not get punished?

That's my point. The Imperial Law that's universal isn't very detailed. It requires loyalty and taxes etc but on a planet to planet basis the governors can do what laws they want. Festival with children killing each other? Fine. Have farmers get all their metal from a weird hill? Fine. Make an alliance with the Tau? That's when the law comes down on you. A law called war.

pm713 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Weirdly the Imperium very much gives an inch most of the time. Planets can do whatever they like as long as their tithes and loyalty stay.

Planets can do what they want as long as the obey Imperial law, stay loyal and pay their taxes. Given that the Imperium's most common foe is other humans I'd say the Imperium is not as easy going as you would think. As I said, they don't give an inch, any breach of Imperial law can have far reaching consequences. Unless you have examples of planets breaking Imperial law and not get punished?

That's my point. The Imperial Law that's universal isn't very detailed. It requires loyalty and taxes etc but on a planet to planet basis the governors can do what laws they want. Festival with children killing each other? Fine. Have farmers get all their metal from a weird hill? Fine. Make an alliance with the Tau? That's when the law comes down on you. A law called war.

But then they don't give an inch, you just have a lot of freedom as long as you remain in said confines. That's not a compromise.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Weirdly the Imperium very much gives an inch most of the time. Planets can do whatever they like as long as their tithes and loyalty stay.

Planets can do what they want as long as the obey Imperial law, stay loyal and pay their taxes. Given that the Imperium's most common foe is other humans I'd say the Imperium is not as easy going as you would think. As I said, they don't give an inch, any breach of Imperial law can have far reaching consequences. Unless you have examples of planets breaking Imperial law and not get punished?

That's my point. The Imperial Law that's universal isn't very detailed. It requires loyalty and taxes etc but on a planet to planet basis the governors can do what laws they want. Festival with children killing each other? Fine. Have farmers get all their metal from a weird hill? Fine. Make an alliance with the Tau? That's when the law comes down on you. A law called war.

But then they don't give an inch, you just have a lot of freedom as long as you remain in said confines. That's not a compromise.

If they were as strict as you're making out then every planet would have the same laws, societies, government plans and resource management. But they don't because they have a lot of leeway.

pm713 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Weirdly the Imperium very much gives an inch most of the time. Planets can do whatever they like as long as their tithes and loyalty stay.

Planets can do what they want as long as the obey Imperial law, stay loyal and pay their taxes. Given that the Imperium's most common foe is other humans I'd say the Imperium is not as easy going as you would think. As I said, they don't give an inch, any breach of Imperial law can have far reaching consequences. Unless you have examples of planets breaking Imperial law and not get punished?

That's my point. The Imperial Law that's universal isn't very detailed. It requires loyalty and taxes etc but on a planet to planet basis the governors can do what laws they want. Festival with children killing each other? Fine. Have farmers get all their metal from a weird hill? Fine. Make an alliance with the Tau? That's when the law comes down on you. A law called war.

But then they don't give an inch, you just have a lot of freedom as long as you remain in said confines. That's not a compromise.

If they were as strict as you're making out then every planet would have the same laws, societies, government plans and resource management. But they don't because they have a lot of leeway.

But the Imperium is strict on the things they care about, which also concerns aliens, that's my point. If they all had the same laws that wouldn't be strict, just a different form of government. The Imperium is practically speaking a federation, but being a federation doesn't mean the federal government can't be strict. Strict has nothing to do with the level of autonomy they allow.

pm713 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Weirdly the Imperium very much gives an inch most of the time. Planets can do whatever they like as long as their tithes and loyalty stay.

Planets can do what they want as long as the obey Imperial law, stay loyal and pay their taxes. Given that the Imperium's most common foe is other humans I'd say the Imperium is not as easy going as you would think. As I said, they don't give an inch, any breach of Imperial law can have far reaching consequences. Unless you have examples of planets breaking Imperial law and not get punished?

That's my point. The Imperial Law that's universal isn't very detailed. It requires loyalty and taxes etc but on a planet to planet basis the governors can do what laws they want. Festival with children killing each other? Fine. Have farmers get all their metal from a weird hill? Fine. Make an alliance with the Tau? That's when the law comes down on you. A law called war.

Necromunda has a special spire on Palatine hive where abhuman and alien merchants can sell their goods. On the subject of Tau, The second Tau codex mentions that the first Tau ship recorded by Imperium got blown up spesifically because it failed to stop at designated checkpoints when entering an imperial system.

I forgot about Necromunda having that, but it has quite a few pieces of conflicting lore now, as it was written in 1995. Squats being in there in one of the more obvious ones, as well as Tau not existing back then.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I forgot about Necromunda having that, but it has quite a few pieces of conflicting lore now, as it was written in 1995. Squats being in there in one of the more obvious ones, as well as Tau not existing back then.

Its from the 2017 release, namely from Necromunda: Underhive page 16.

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I forgot about Necromunda having that, but it has quite a few pieces of conflicting lore now, as it was written in 1995. Squats being in there in one of the more obvious ones, as well as Tau not existing back then.

Its from the 2017 release, namely from Necromunda: Underhive page 16.

Wow they kept that in, I wonder what other whacky stuff they kept from the old book.

(I'm interested in the book, but did they actually redo the background or is it mostly a copy paste job?)

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I forgot about Necromunda having that, but it has quite a few pieces of conflicting lore now, as it was written in 1995. Squats being in there in one of the more obvious ones, as well as Tau not existing back then.

Its from the 2017 release, namely from Necromunda: Underhive page 16.

Wow they kept that in, I wonder what other whacky stuff they kept from the old book.

(I'm interested in the book, but did they actually redo the background or is it mostly a copy paste job?)

It's tweaked and expanded with a lot of changes that are adding up. For example, Cawdor are now also scavengers and recyclers, scouring the hives for relics and considering the act of recycling to be a miracle, or Goliaths now use stims and chems to push their bodies to unnatural limits, with the individuals dependancy on those drugs being a powerful leash for the House, with some finding ways around it through alien drugs, cannibalism or shady remedies.

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I forgot about Necromunda having that, but it has quite a few pieces of conflicting lore now, as it was written in 1995. Squats being in there in one of the more obvious ones, as well as Tau not existing back then.

Its from the 2017 release, namely from Necromunda: Underhive page 16.

Wow they kept that in, I wonder what other whacky stuff they kept from the old book.

(I'm interested in the book, but did they actually redo the background or is it mostly a copy paste job?)

It's tweaked and expanded with a lot of changes that are adding up. For example, Cawdor are now also scavengers and recyclers, scouring the hives for relics and considering the act of recycling to be a miracle, or Goliaths now use stims and chems to push their bodies to unnatural limits, with the individuals dependancy on those drugs being a powerful leash for the House, with some finding ways around it through alien drugs, cannibalism or shady remedies.

Cool now I might pick it up for the background even if I never end up getting to play it.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
I forgot about Necromunda having that, but it has quite a few pieces of conflicting lore now, as it was written in 1995. Squats being in there in one of the more obvious ones, as well as Tau not existing back then.

Its from the 2017 release, namely from Necromunda: Underhive page 16.

Wow they kept that in, I wonder what other whacky stuff they kept from the old book.

(I'm interested in the book, but did they actually redo the background or is it mostly a copy paste job?)

It's tweaked and expanded with a lot of changes that are adding up. For example, Cawdor are now also scavengers and recyclers, scouring the hives for relics and considering the act of recycling to be a miracle, or Goliaths now use stims and chems to push their bodies to unnatural limits, with the individuals dependancy on those drugs being a powerful leash for the House, with some finding ways around it through alien drugs, cannibalism or shady remedies.

Cool now I might pick it up for the background even if I never end up getting to play it.

Hold your horses, since GeeDubs in it's endless GeeDubsiness has turned Necromunda into a DLC factory(yeah, for a tabletop game ), so Necromunda: Underhive has the main rules and some general fluff on the planet, with the actual gangs and their fluff & rules, with some additional rules spread out over Gangwar 1, 2 and 3, with atleast 2 more to go. So I advice to be careful with what you buy. It's a mess.

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:
Hold your horses, since GeeDubs in it's endless GeeDubsiness has turned Necromunda into a DLC factory(yeah, for a tabletop game ), so Necromunda: Underhive has the main rules and some general fluff on the planet, with the actual gangs and their fluff & rules, with some additional rules spread out over Gangwar 1, 2 and 3, with atleast 2 more to go. So I advice to be careful with what you buy. It's a mess.

Thanks for the advice, I'll lurk around a bit and see where GW takes it.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Galactic cooperation? You mean when the aliens tried to cooperate in wiping out humanity? This isn't Star Trek, the Eldar only care about cooperating to save their own ass and wouldn't bat an eyelid to nuke a planet full of us monkeys if it means saving one of their own. And that's the most helpful of the aliens.

The 'evil' ideology is fully based on pragmatism in a cold and uncaring galaxy, it might not make sense to us, but look at where the friendly humans ended up., either playthings of daemons or butchered by xenos.

The Eldar dooming themselves through their arrogance does not mean that anyone else should follow that example. It isn't at all pragmatic to foster fear and paranoia when faced with a cold and uncaring universe, it's short-sighted and counterproductive. I know this because we live in one and nothing good as come from turning people against each other. Believing that you must wage wars of extermination against everything not exactly like you for the sake of your survival is nazism, which can never be correct.


Never mind that daemons etc exist because the galaxy is filled with suffering which causes anguish and rage to be the greatest influences on the shared subconscious of all living things, and then comes bubbling up when people crack under the pressures of the society they've built. Chaos is literally our own inner daemons and they can't be fought by spreading hatred. They can only be tackled by emotional maturity, which the Imperium is institutionally incapable of fostering.

So, yes, it's the Imperium's own ideology that is its greatest threat.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Galactic cooperation? You mean when the aliens tried to cooperate in wiping out humanity? This isn't Star Trek, the Eldar only care about cooperating to save their own ass and wouldn't bat an eyelid to nuke a planet full of us monkeys if it means saving one of their own. And that's the most helpful of the aliens.

The 'evil' ideology is fully based on pragmatism in a cold and uncaring galaxy, it might not make sense to us, but look at where the friendly humans ended up., either playthings of daemons or butchered by xenos.

The Eldar dooming themselves through their arrogance does not mean that anyone else should follow that example. It isn't at all pragmatic to foster fear and paranoia when faced with a cold and uncaring universe, it's short-sighted and counterproductive. I know this because we live in one and nothing good as come from turning people against each other. Believing that you must wage wars of extermination against everything not exactly like you for the sake of your survival is nazism, which can never be correct.


Never mind that daemons etc exist because the galaxy is filled with suffering which causes anguish and rage to be the greatest influences on the shared subconscious of all living things, and then comes bubbling up when people crack under the pressures of the society they've built. Chaos is literally our own inner daemons and they can't be fought by spreading hatred. They can only be tackled by emotional maturity, which the Imperium is institutionally incapable of fostering.

So, yes, it's the Imperium's own ideology that is its greatest threat.

I mean beyond the statement that our reality could be better the rest of this is gibberish. Our reality has no comparison to one where you have Egyptian terminators and fungoid monsters who grow from fighting, people who can mush brains with the snap of a finger and Daemons that can condemn your soul to eternal torture. You're trying to transpose our reality and morality on a universe that is incomprehensible from our viewpoint, where entities from another dimension can literally posses you like a flesh puppet. Our notions of correct or incorrect are formed by entirely different standards and far more mild history than that of the Imperium.

Daemons exist because of a lot of things, Chaos are not our inner Daemons, they are a reflection of the emotions of every psychically sentient race. They existed when humanity was friendlier (and even before humans existed seeing as Chaos wasn't born because of humanity) than it is now and they are capable of manipulating what happens in real-space. They literally aren't our inner Daemons, they just literally are Daemons. They existed before the Imperium and they will exist regardless of any reform the Imperium engages in, because being friendly with the few alien races that would allow an Imperial team up is still going to leave vast amounts of suffering to feed the Chaos Gods regardless. Tackled by emotional maturity is a plan on the level of the Cabal plot to 'defeat' Chaos. We have human Daemon Princes who long predate the Imperium and we have a few Daemon Princes who even predate humanity in the fluff, but aas the fluff is very Imperium-centric you hear little about the other races worshipping Chaos, but Be'lakor is a clear example.

Humanity did the tolerance thing during the Dark Age of Technology, it not working is exactly why the Emperor went for the slash and burn approach.

To be fair the tolerance thing worked very well. The homicidal AI and a certain race making a Chaos God ruined things.

pm713 wrote:
To be fair the tolerance thing worked very well. The homicidal AI and a certain race making a Chaos God ruined things.

except likely in the aftermath of that a lotta the "friendly" xenos, turned on mankind. Also the senior most levels of the IoM Can and Do work with Xenos when needed. what they don't want is people trading in xeno artifacts because that can lead to trouble (such as the Tau using it to get a foothold)

Remember that there is no "Canon" in 40k, just biased in-universe interpretations. Where's the truth in all of it, is there even a real "Truth"?

Gw tends to use this as a cheeky way to explain why appearances change over the years, with "better pictures" and "new eyewitness reports". Less cheeky in writing in new stuff like Centurions with a "It was allways there"

Emps and the Imperium likes to say that his way of doing things is the only chance humanity has, maybe he's right and maybe he isn't, totalitarian dictators tend to favor such rhetorics. Even more rational chaos worshippers, like Word Beares have similar rhetorics of their own.

Was humanity just nice and peaceful in DAoT, maybe or maybe not, the few stories, like "Perpetual" and the short story "Fate of Alpha Shalis", which mention those times don't paint a very tolerant picture of humanity, what with star killing warmachines and genociding of hapless natives. Maybe they're just misinformation, but the age old wisdom is that hate creates hate, and many aliens do hate humans in 40k.

Stagnation will lead to destruction, it may be slow, but it will be inevitable, and when you fall and can't get up on your own anymore, it sure is nice to have someone to help you up, instead just kicking you in the head.

Sure and GW could handwave away the xenophobic totalitarian aspects of the Imperium or the nature of Chaos tomorrow. But as it stands now we know that humanity had unrestricted technological development, had psykers run around freely and not have such an opressive government. Especially the Chaos Gods argument ism't as much interpretation as it is plain wrong with what we know about groups like the Lear and Be'Lakor.

Humanity wasn't peaceful, its mentioned they fought the Eldar and Orks in the DAoT. But no other alien enemies are known from back then, just that there are a lot of unfamiliar names of ones no longer around, no other from the DAoT are known to exist during 30-40K. So either they all went extinct or they weren't on the hostile alien list yet. And if the DAoT humans went all genocidal and it didn't work then you have to wonder why one of the only remaining survivors thought it would be a good idea to continue that. The Emperor is basically trying to do the opposite of what the DAoT humans did, restrictions on the Cult of Mars (which is why Kelbor-Hal and part of the AM went traitor), the psyker culls, the wipe them all out approach.

Stagnation will lead to destruction if there is anyone left to kick you in the head too. So by the same argument I could say isn't it nice that there is nobody to kick you in the head when you fall down so you can get back up? The stagnation argument is also kind of obsolete now that GW pulled Cawl and Guilleman out of their hidey place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
To be fair the tolerance thing worked very well. The homicidal AI and a certain race making a Chaos God ruined things.

Tolerance worked great right up until humanity showed weakness. Its like being in the water with a shark and saying you can live together very well because the shark hasn't harmed you, but then one day you get a small cut and the shark bites your arm off. But to be fair, it worked very well right up until the point you lost your arm. That's the whole underlying idea in 40K, that you can't trust aliens, because they are always working their own angles, even the friendlier one like Tau and Eldar.

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
To be fair the tolerance thing worked very well. The homicidal AI and a certain race making a Chaos God ruined things.

except likely in the aftermath of that a lotta the "friendly" xenos, turned on mankind. Also the senior most levels of the IoM Can and Do work with Xenos when needed. what they don't want is people trading in xeno artifacts because that can lead to trouble (such as the Tau using it to get a foothold)

A lot of them also formed alliances too. 5% of the aliens making nice alliances with you is much better than all existing and future aliens needing to war with you.

I'm surprised that more of the Xenos black market idea isn't explored. You could easily pass a lot of it off as battle trophies.

pm713 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
To be fair the tolerance thing worked very well. The homicidal AI and a certain race making a Chaos God ruined things.

except likely in the aftermath of that a lotta the "friendly" xenos, turned on mankind. Also the senior most levels of the IoM Can and Do work with Xenos when needed. what they don't want is people trading in xeno artifacts because that can lead to trouble (such as the Tau using it to get a foothold)

A lot of them also formed alliances too. 5% of the aliens making nice alliances with you is much better than all existing and future aliens needing to war with you.

I'm surprised that more of the Xenos black market idea isn't explored. You could easily pass a lot of it off as battle trophies.

well thats because the "non battle field" stuff isn't fleshed out in much detail. I imagine a large chunk of the Ordos Xenos work is hunting down Xenos black markets.

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
To be fair the tolerance thing worked very well. The homicidal AI and a certain race making a Chaos God ruined things.

except likely in the aftermath of that a lotta the "friendly" xenos, turned on mankind. Also the senior most levels of the IoM Can and Do work with Xenos when needed. what they don't want is people trading in xeno artifacts because that can lead to trouble (such as the Tau using it to get a foothold)

A lot of them also formed alliances too. 5% of the aliens making nice alliances with you is much better than all existing and future aliens needing to war with you.

I'm surprised that more of the Xenos black market idea isn't explored. You could easily pass a lot of it off as battle trophies.

well thats because the "non battle field" stuff isn't fleshed out in much detail. I imagine a large chunk of the Ordos Xenos work is hunting down Xenos black markets.

That's true. I'd think the Ordo Xenos would like them as you can either make them into informants or use them to supply useful xenotech for the Ordo. Unless the market members want to get shot at least.

pm713 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
To be fair the tolerance thing worked very well. The homicidal AI and a certain race making a Chaos God ruined things.

except likely in the aftermath of that a lotta the "friendly" xenos, turned on mankind. Also the senior most levels of the IoM Can and Do work with Xenos when needed. what they don't want is people trading in xeno artifacts because that can lead to trouble (such as the Tau using it to get a foothold)

A lot of them also formed alliances too. 5% of the aliens making nice alliances with you is much better than all existing and future aliens needing to war with you.

I'm surprised that more of the Xenos black market idea isn't explored. You could easily pass a lot of it off as battle trophies.

well thats because the "non battle field" stuff isn't fleshed out in much detail. I imagine a large chunk of the Ordos Xenos work is hunting down Xenos black markets.

That's true. I'd think the Ordo Xenos would like them as you can either make them into informants or use them to supply useful xenotech for the Ordo. Unless the market members want to get shot at least.

some I'm sure are turned into assists but in other cases it may not be all that useful;it depends whats being traded obviously. It doesn't have to be weapons or anything partiuclar, there are LOTS of examples of Tau subversion of an Imperial planet beginning with seemingly innocent trade. I'm sure Inqusitors on occasion have gotten involved in rooting it out on worlds before the Tau can get a foothold. but a lotta that trade could be I dunno.. Tau Toasters. apparently scavanaged xenostech from ruins etc is also pretty common, and thats really dangerous as a lot of the times the understanding of what it does is.... incomplete

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:
To be fair the tolerance thing worked very well. The homicidal AI and a certain race making a Chaos God ruined things.

except likely in the aftermath of that a lotta the "friendly" xenos, turned on mankind. Also the senior most levels of the IoM Can and Do work with Xenos when needed. what they don't want is people trading in xeno artifacts because that can lead to trouble (such as the Tau using it to get a foothold)

A lot of them also formed alliances too. 5% of the aliens making nice alliances with you is much better than all existing and future aliens needing to war with you.

I'm surprised that more of the Xenos black market idea isn't explored. You could easily pass a lot of it off as battle trophies.

well thats because the "non battle field" stuff isn't fleshed out in much detail. I imagine a large chunk of the Ordos Xenos work is hunting down Xenos black markets.

That's true. I'd think the Ordo Xenos would like them as you can either make them into informants or use them to supply useful xenotech for the Ordo. Unless the market members want to get shot at least.

some I'm sure are turned into assists but in other cases it may not be all that useful;it depends whats being traded obviously. It doesn't have to be weapons or anything partiuclar, there are LOTS of examples of Tau subversion of an Imperial planet beginning with seemingly innocent trade. I'm sure Inqusitors on occasion have gotten involved in rooting it out on worlds before the Tau can get a foothold. but a lotta that trade could be I dunno.. Tau Toasters. apparently scavanaged xenostech from ruins etc is also pretty common, and thats really dangerous as a lot of the times the understanding of what it does is.... incomplete

The Ordo Xenos, defending you from exploding toasters made by evil aliens....

I'd love a story about scavenging ancient xenotech. It would be interesting to see how many are doomsday devices vs ancient hair dryers.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

have you read the Tau novels? The Kroot eat people - only genetic and cultral reconditioning makes them viable for tau commanders to order around. Most of the Tau client races are modified for a more 'Tau-like' (and compliant) fit. The Greater Good is always the Tau greater good and no one elses. I know the codex always paints things all rosy, but it's supposed to encourage players to believe in their faction - not present all the grimdark truth.

There are really only two kinds of alien in the Grimdark - those that want you as a minion and those that want you as a food source.

Sure, Kroot eat people. So? Humans can eat people, and space marines all definitely eat people, given they have a special power based off cannibalizing brains to gain information. We know Kroot work peacefully as mercenaries for the right price. While eating people is distasteful, it doesn't make them any less of an ally than if they smelled bad.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Galactic cooperation? You mean when the aliens tried to cooperate in wiping out humanity? This isn't Star Trek, the Eldar only care about cooperating to save their own ass and wouldn't bat an eyelid to nuke a planet full of us monkeys if it means saving one of their own. And that's the most helpful of the aliens.

The 'evil' ideology is fully based on pragmatism in a cold and uncaring galaxy, it might not make sense to us, but look at where the friendly humans ended up., either playthings of daemons or butchered by xenos.

The Eldar dooming themselves through their arrogance does not mean that anyone else should follow that example. It isn't at all pragmatic to foster fear and paranoia when faced with a cold and uncaring universe, it's short-sighted and counterproductive. I know this because we live in one and nothing good as come from turning people against each other. Believing that you must wage wars of extermination against everything not exactly like you for the sake of your survival is nazism, which can never be correct.


Never mind that daemons etc exist because the galaxy is filled with suffering which causes anguish and rage to be the greatest influences on the shared subconscious of all living things, and then comes bubbling up when people crack under the pressures of the society they've built. Chaos is literally our own inner daemons and they can't be fought by spreading hatred. They can only be tackled by emotional maturity, which the Imperium is institutionally incapable of fostering.

So, yes, it's the Imperium's own ideology that is its greatest threat.

I mean beyond the statement that our reality could be better the rest of this is gibberish. Our reality has no comparison to one where you have Egyptian terminators and fungoid monsters who grow from fighting, people who can mush brains with the snap of a finger and Daemons that can condemn your soul to eternal torture. You're trying to transpose our reality and morality on a universe that is incomprehensible from our viewpoint, where entities from another dimension can literally posses you like a flesh puppet. Our notions of correct or incorrect are formed by entirely different standards and far more mild history than that of the Imperium.

Daemons exist because of a lot of things, Chaos are not our inner Daemons, they are a reflection of the emotions of every psychically sentient race. They existed when humanity was friendlier (and even before humans existed seeing as Chaos wasn't born because of humanity) than it is now and they are capable of manipulating what happens in real-space. They literally aren't our inner Daemons, they just literally are Daemons. They existed before the Imperium and they will exist regardless of any reform the Imperium engages in, because being friendly with the few alien races that would allow an Imperial team up is still going to leave vast amounts of suffering to feed the Chaos Gods regardless. Tackled by emotional maturity is a plan on the level of the Cabal plot to 'defeat' Chaos. We have human Daemon Princes who long predate the Imperium and we have a few Daemon Princes who even predate humanity in the fluff, but aas the fluff is very Imperium-centric you hear little about the other races worshipping Chaos, but Be'lakor is a clear example.

Humanity did the tolerance thing during the Dark Age of Technology, it not working is exactly why the Emperor went for the slash and burn approach.

Simple laws of how unity works don't fall down because it's in a sci-fi/fantasy universe. It seems fairly simple that when people combine, they grow stronger. That's why a government is better than everyone doing their own thing. There's no evidence that the tolerance thing is what brought mankind low, in fact, the opposite seems to be true. Sure, when mankind became weak, many of its allies turned on it. But to say every single ally actively attacked it would be ridiculous, and clearly didn't happen. However, if mankind with its current "DEATH TO THE XENOS!" ideology faltered, then nothing changes. Mankind is still tore apart by aliens, but now even more, because what few aliens don't want to destroy us now have an active reason to. So yeah, not making new enemies seems to be a fair decision.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Chaos are not our inner Daemons, they are a reflection of the emotions of every psychically sentient race.

Yes, they are created by the emotional life of sapient life and are given shape by beliefs about demons. They don't have objective existence apart from mortals. There must be mortals to cause turmoil in the Sea of Souls for Chaos to be possible. That's why they're our collective inner demons. They are uncontrolled reflections of mortal impulses and emotions. They aren't the Christian version of demons. Mortals have raged, despaired, plotted and obsessed during their psychic awakenings, which is why the forces of Chaos exist. The point of Chaos is to be a hell of our own making! Otherwise they're just some random Metzenian Corrupting Force with no real hook to tie them to mortal failings. There's no tragedy, no possibility of redemption that goes ignored.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Tackled by emotional maturity is a plan on the level of the Cabal plot to 'defeat' Chaos. We have human Daemon Princes who long predate the Imperium and we have a few Daemon Princes who even predate humanity in the fluff, but aas the fluff is very Imperium-centric you hear little about the other races worshipping Chaos, but Be'lakor is a clear example.

And those happened long before humanity began to seriously awaken as a psychic species.


You are missing the entire tragic point of the Imperium, which is that it chooses to not fulfill its own potential. It chooses to be cruel, to stunt its society, to turn away from facing the truth of the universe in favour of the officially sanctioned version of events carefully tailored to sustain the unsustainable. An Imperium that is justified in doing this is unacceptable because then all 40K would be is fascist propaganda. There would be no black humour, no trace of the countercultural spirit left. There'd just be boring fashy nonsense.

I wouldn't say they choose it. You'd need a group of a lot of people with a lot of power and for all their opponents to be dealt with to get any change done so they're essentially locked in to their current lifestyle.

I'd describe one of the tragic points as being that humanities supposed saviour who everyone is taught protects and guides them is in fact one of the largest causes of their nightmarish situation. But he's still seen as the saviour.

 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:


Simple laws of how unity works don't fall down because it's in a sci-fi/fantasy universe. It seems fairly simple that when people combine, they grow stronger. That's why a government is better than everyone doing their own thing. There's no evidence that the tolerance thing is what brought mankind low, in fact, the opposite seems to be true. Sure, when mankind became weak, many of its allies turned on it. But to say every single ally actively attacked it would be ridiculous, and clearly didn't happen. However, if mankind with its current "DEATH TO THE XENOS!" ideology faltered, then nothing changes. Mankind is still tore apart by aliens, but now even more, because what few aliens don't want to destroy us now have an active reason to. So yeah, not making new enemies seems to be a fair decision.

The opposite seems to be true? How, all the references to Old Night are about humanity under siege and lone worlds surviving the onslaught while many other didn't. So far the HH books have given us one example of humans living with aliens, no other mentions to friendly aliens surviving. The idea behind the Great Crusade was "wipe aliens out now, don't have them around when we might be weak later". This became official policy and dogma to the Imperium 10k years down the line, but they don't pursue it to the point of self harm, they leave the less hostile ones alone because they don't have the strength. Besides, friendly aliens are few and far in between. The whole death to xenos and psykers sthick is meant to prevent Old Night 2.0 but lets see where Guilleman goes with this, the unofficial Eldar alliance might get more official because you never know with GW now.

I mean from an objective point of view from where we're sitting what you say would make sense. But what does make sense in the Imperium really? From an in universe perspective its seen as the most rational approach.

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Rosebuddy wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Chaos are not our inner Daemons, they are a reflection of the emotions of every psychically sentient race.

Yes, they are created by the emotional life of sapient life and are given shape by beliefs about demons. They don't have objective existence apart from mortals. There must be mortals to cause turmoil in the Sea of Souls for Chaos to be possible. That's why they're our collective inner demons. They are uncontrolled reflections of mortal impulses and emotions. They aren't the Christian version of demons. Mortals have raged, despaired, plotted and obsessed during their psychic awakenings, which is why the forces of Chaos exist. The point of Chaos is to be a hell of our own making! Otherwise they're just some random Metzenian Corrupting Force with no real hook to tie them to mortal failings. There's no tragedy, no possibility of redemption that goes ignored.

Yet when you say that the Imperium can handwave the danger of Chaos away with some 'emotional maturity' that completely ignores the nature of Chaos and the wider situaton that feeds them. As I said the Chaos Gods have been around before humanity. Be'Lakor has been going around enslaving mortal empires since the dawn of time. A lot of what feeds the Chaos Gods is subconcious emotions such as hope, grief or waging war, unless by emotional maturity you mean emotionless automatons I don't know how this will get anywhere. Plus the part where Chaos only needs one weak psyker that can doom a planet.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Tackled by emotional maturity is a plan on the level of the Cabal plot to 'defeat' Chaos. We have human Daemon Princes who long predate the Imperium and we have a few Daemon Princes who even predate humanity in the fluff, but aas the fluff is very Imperium-centric you hear little about the other races worshipping Chaos, but Be'lakor is a clear example.

And those happened long before humanity began to seriously awaken as a psychic species.


You are missing the entire tragic point of the Imperium, which is that it chooses to not fulfill its own potential. It chooses to be cruel, to stunt its society, to turn away from facing the truth of the universe in favour of the officially sanctioned version of events carefully tailored to sustain the unsustainable. An Imperium that is justified in doing this is unacceptable because then all 40K would be is fascist propaganda. There would be no black humour, no trace of the countercultural spirit left. There'd just be boring fashy nonsense.

Exactly, which means that humanity and certainly the Imperium isn't the only force feeding Chaos. Even if you turned the Imperium into robots the Chaos Gods would still be around.

What tragic point? That was never the point of 40K. 40K was meant as satire towards religion, totalitarianism and dogma. Not some bright and unrealized future, but a harsh death in a cold and uncaring universe in a pointless struggle. And yes GW lost that counterculture because few real life jokes slip in nowadays. 40K fluff is now basically self contained from the outside world if not from stealing from other work, from the 90's onward it took itself increasingly serious. You are projecting an awful lot of what was never supposed to be there. I mean it sounds like you don't enjoy 40K at all when you call it fascistic nonsense.

That bright future for humanity is being portrayed as what the Emperor would have wanted, and in our world he would still be considered a genocidal sociopath. Its own potential still more horrible than we in our reality would put up with. That is the GW line even with Guilleman, that the Imperium has diverged from what the Emperor would have wanted. That is portrayed as the tragic point of the Imperium, not some emotionless alien team up.

 ChargerIIC wrote:


have you read the Tau novels? The Kroot eat people

So do Space Marines