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When reading the Horus Heresy novels there definitely appears to be 2 camps in the traitor legions. Those who genuinely want to liberate the galaxy from the emperor (Argel Tal, Little Horus), and those who fight solely for the glory of chaos (Typhon, Kaisoran, Erebus)

Does these separate motives still exist in 40k or are all chaos space marines solely fighting for the glory of chaos now with no interest in nobly liberating the galaxy?

Thanks

They vary as much as anyone else.

It has been 10,000 years. Most of the original traitors, especially the ones that fled to the Eye of Terror, have become corrupted by Chaos. They may still fight to 'liberate' the Imperium, but they do so in the name of Chaos.

There are however also more recent renegades who may not (yet) be corrupted by Chaos and who fight against the Imperium's leaders purely because of ideological reasons.

I think that Chaos Characters find it difficult to stay 'pure' in their motivations.
The whole slide to chaos is about making small steps on the road to hell.

I think Ahriman and Abaddon are examples of people on a path that has an end goal, the goal they began with. ADB seems to think that Abaddon staying pure in his dedication to the long war rather than getting suckered into the machinations of the gods is one of the reasons he has become so powerful.

Chaos Champions that don't have an end goal are on a path where the path itself is the goal. Kharn willingly threw himself down one of these paths. Slaughter is the goal, there are no military objectives beyond that.

Similarly, Tzeentchian champions who instead of using intrigue to achieve their goals use intrigue for the sake of it are lost. Fighting Nurgle because their god demands it rather than it serves their ends.

There can be elements of nobility in a Chaos Marine's goals but remember how they achieve their goals.

There are a real and a false way to say something is noble. For example, the first post mentions Aximand as being less chaotic, and the above post mentions Abaddon as less chaotic. On the one hand, Abaddon is still dedicated to the long war and the political temporal goals he started out with. On the other hand, Aximand himself seems to suspect that Abaddon might be a crazy person who thinks mostly in terms of power and blood.

I think about half of chaos marines, or more, are dedicated to their own idea of fighting to liberate the galaxy. I so think that even thinking about that is evil.

Some of them would be the heroes in every starwars movie. Others would be vile scum or a lot worse, but lets focus on the heroes..

pelicaniforce wrote:


I think about half of chaos marines, or more, are dedicated to their own idea of fighting to liberate the galaxy. I so think that even thinking about that is evil.

"Even thinking for yourself is evil."

Loyalists.

It seems to me that the good guy CSM don't last long, because they aren't "evil" in that they are evil moustache twirling bond villians who are evil for the sake of evil. Argel Tal for example, had some sort of religious epiphany and rather than being evil, he looked at and experienced the facts himself and he now follows a path. Imagine a die-hard Christian having an Angel land in front of him and explain that the Church is actually an anti-deity organisation that is controlling the people and supressing Heaven. It would leave that person shaken to their core. If that same angel then told that person that the only way to destroy the evil church was to kill everyone and send them to Heaven, and by joining forces with demons of Hell, it would be the same as Argel Tal. He is fighting with the Church/Imperium, using Daemonic powers, not to be evil, but to save the people from an evil tyrant who is lying and enslaving their mind.


Erebus and the likes are the opposite ends, they believe what they are doing is true, but they don't do it because they want to liberate the Imperium, they are doing it because its true and they are evil.



Simplier explanation;

Argel Tal believes that the Emperor is tyranical, and feels its his moral duty to fight against him, even if that means working with the Dark Powers.
Erebus believes the Emperor is tyranical, and that the Chaos Gods are Gods, and so he must serve them for no other reason.

Traitors. Loyalists. They are all gits in the eyes of the Orks

 Vankraken wrote:
Traitors. Loyalists. They are all gits in the eyes of the Orks

The universe sure is a lot easier to understand when viewed through the eyes of an Ork...or Tyranid for that matter.

 Deadshot wrote:

Argel Tal believes that the Emperor is tyranical, and feels its his moral duty to fight against him, even if that means working with the Dark Powers.
Erebus believes the Emperor is tyranical, and that the Chaos Gods are Gods, and so he must serve them for no other reason.

You get this kind of split with the more "secular" Chaos Space Marines too (the ones who use Chaos as a means to an end, rather than seeing worship as its own reward).

"If the path to salvation leads through the halls of purgatory, then so be it." -Ahzek Ahriman

"If a man dedicates his life to good deeds and the welfare of others, he will die unthanked and unremembered. If he exercises his genius bringing misery and death to billions, his name will echo through the millennia for a hundred lifetimes. Infamy is always more preferable to ignominy."- Fabius Bile

Ahriman does terrible things because he wants to change the galaxy for the better.
Bile does terrible things because haterz make him famous.

None of them are what I would call "noble" in the 41st Millenium.


Those that don't serve the Ruinous Powers specifically are still out for themselves.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:


None of them are what I would call "noble" in the 41st Millenium.


Those that don't serve the Ruinous Powers specifically are still out for themselves.

Ehhh, not all of them. I wouldn't say the rogue word bearer from Daemonworld is out for himself

The moment they saw humans as lesser beings and an end to a means they stopped being noble, those who turned to chaos have only one thing in mind, getting chaos to notice them and scale the ladder to ascension or fail trying, only recent defectors may have still have some empathy to consider they can be noble.

I hate to go cross universe, but check out the D&D alignment grid.
Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil
True Good, True Neutral, True Evel
Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil
(sorry for the Freudian slip )

Chaos is unpredictable, not good or evil. The primary reason why the 40k universe may consider them to be irredeemably 'other' is that you cannot reliably use them as allies. One day they may help you, the next, they cut your throat and turn your planet to cinders. Chaotic is chaotic.

Would you work with the Joker (DC Universe)? same thing. He may let you make bank, or he may give you a thousand papercuts and spray you with orange juice.

If I had a dollar for everyone of these threads I would be rich, rich enough to rival those that had a dollar for ever thread that said "the emperor was an idiot"

But despite my new found wealth no one can rival those who had a dollar for every thread of Tau players complaining...

Reavas wrote:
If I had a dollar for everyone of these threads I would be rich, rich enough to rival those that had a dollar for ever thread that said "the emperor was an idiot"

But despite my new found wealth no one can rival those who had a dollar for every thread of Tau players complaining...

If I had a penny for every thread about the missing primarchs I'd be able to become majority shareholder in your company and become CEO of GW

I think there can be a nobility to the Traitors, especially if you lump in the renegades with the Heretics.

The Badab War is a great example of this, Lugft Huron seems to genuinely believe that his secession will be beneficial to both his Chapter and his planet's population than remaining within the Imperium, and he's willing to fight one of the bloodiest wars since the Heresy to prove it. Yes, he's preyed on by Chaos later, but his initial intentions are if not benign then at least somewhat understandable. Likewise, you have the Executioners, branded traitors only because they're honouring the debt they owed the Astral Claws, and who ultimately return to the Imperial fold willingly once that debt is fulfilled, and during the war, they are active in preventing 'war crimes' (for want of a better word) such as the destruction of the Salamanders' gene-seed and thus Chapter.

Then you can go back and look at the Thousand Sons in the Heresy; Magnus in pursuing his study of the Warp and sorcery is only acting out of loyalty and love for his father, he tries to warn him of what his present path will unleash and for that is chastised. Then, the attack on Prospero that actually causes them to take up arms against the Imperium is engineered by Horus with the aim of taking either the Wolves or Sons out of the fight, and guarantee the Sons' loyalty should they survive. £vents conspire to make them the enemy, they become traitors only by being repeatedly betrayed.

Going back to some older fluff, Khorne is about more than just blood and guts; martial honour was also something Khornate worshippers prided themselves on; they would kill on the battlefield and be rewarded, but the execution of prisoners or surrendering troops would not be rewarded.

There's also the role of the individual; every traitor has their reasons. For some, it's the power and a willingness to open themseves to Chaos, but for others, it's a genuine realisation (and a correct one) that the Imperium is far from the flawless society they're led to believe, but a corrupt, hypocritical twisted and shattered image of what it should have been...


On the other hand, some loyal Chapters and individuals are straight up bastards, with no honour or principles. So to answer the original question, CSM are as evil or as noble as you want them to be, as are any other characters in the setting. Which doesn't help much, but 40k is a setting where almost anything can be justified from the right point of view.

 carldooley wrote:
I hate to go cross universe, but check out the D&D alignment grid.
Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil
True Good, True Neutral, True Evel
Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil
(sorry for the Freudian slip )

Chaos is unpredictable, not good or evil. The primary reason why the 40k universe may consider them to be irredeemably 'other' is that you cannot reliably use them as allies. One day they may help you, the next, they cut your throat and turn your planet to cinders. Chaotic is chaotic.

Would you work with the Joker (DC Universe)? same thing. He may let you make bank, or he may give you a thousand papercuts and spray you with orange juice.

I don't know if you can make the direct comparison with D&D alignments. Certainly a lot of 40k 'Chaos' factions wouldn't count as D&D Chaotic at all, e.g. the Word Bearers: they are nasty, but they are organised, hierarchical - sounds Lawful Evil to me. A might-is-right, survival-of-the-fittest style Khornate warband however, might be more D&D Chaotic. But I think 40K Chaos is definitely Evil.

If you look at most civil wars in history, you see an interesting trend among professional soldiers split apart by the war. They aren't as passionate about the "cause" as those that join later, and they primarily tend to fight because they feel a loyalty to their unit, or province, or whatever. It's not personal, it's business.

I'd imagine that most legionnaires went along with rebellion when the primarchs went, because they felt an incredible (indeed, genetic!) connection to their legion, and very little connection to the abstract Imperium. So there's no reason to think that any given CSM is inherently evil because they went along with the heresy.

However, the corrupting power of Chaos is a pretty real force. It's clear that Chaos in the 30k/40k universe is not like a Judeo-Christian Satan, with quiet temptation. the temptation of Chaos is powerful, and often focused on specific targets. The more a person is around Chaos, the more likely he is to succumb...free will isn't a powerful part of Warhammer metaphysics.

Still, the universe is a big place. Rational, noble, and righteous warriors trying to liberate the galaxy from the Emperor could certainly exist, I just think that they'd quickly fall in with Chaos, simply out of a need to supply. They could still retain independent thought and morality, just have awful allies. And many of the more pragmatic legions would have no problem working with such a warband.

In keeping with the whole Grimdark thing, Chaos Marines probably run the gamut from Regretful Fallen to Angry Liberators to Chaos Tools to Certifiably Bugnuts to Wholeheartedly Embracing Evil for it's Own Sake. Oh, and then there are Rubric Marines who are basically soulless, demi-demonic Ghosts in a Shell (with apologies to a certain Anime series).

As to whether any of them are actually Noble? Doing what they do for the good of humankind? I rather doubt it. Certainly during the Heresy there were some like that, and some are like that in every Chapter that falls. Some Chaos Marines may even delude themselves with the rhetoric of liberation and common good.

But Chaos is all about self above others, individual achievement, self-indulgence and personal ascension. It is about screwing others to advance one's own personal interest. You can't survive in such an environment without becoming self-serving, if only to ensure one's own survival.

To be noble requires placing others above self. It means willingness to take risks and make sacrifices so others can have something like a normal life. Those values and beliefs are not only alien to Chaos, they're antithetical to it.

Some would argue the Alpha Legion continues to work covertly against Chaos. If true, they would be be exception to the rule. Personally, I think the Alphas were merely seduced by the belief that their betrayal ultimately served the interests of humanity, and they have become just as corrupted and just as much the puppets of the Chaos Gods as the rest. (Well, maybe Alphas are mostly Tzeentch. They certainly favor his style.). If mere mortals could actually manipulate and defeat Chaos from within, Chaos would not be nearly as powerful or insidious as it seems to be.

Of course, that's just my headcanon. I can't definitively prove it via the fluff. You can make yours whatever you wish and it will be just as valid.

Only one thing is certain... There can be only War.

My two cents.

Also, noble people don't sprout horns and fanged tentacles...

Crispy78 wrote:
Also, noble people don't sprout horns and fanged tentacles...

Remember Vlad the Impaler? If your enemy will desert the field and refuse to fight, then you have won, without a shot being fired.

 carldooley wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
Also, noble people don't sprout horns and fanged tentacles...

Remember Vlad the Impaler?

Ehh... If he's a definition of nobility to you I'm sure no country on Earth would want you as a ruler (today, according to our Western values). Not to say other so-called noble warriors haven't had really unpleasant ideas ofc - like some Japanese taking the Samurai code and applying it to people that never subscribed to it and seeing it as a noble thing to "help" defeated enemies (and allies!) die in combat instead of being captured.

So maybe we should have some definition of evil/noble before saying who is or isn't. ;-)

 carldooley wrote:
Remember Vlad the Impaler? If your enemy will desert the field and refuse to fight, then you have won, without a shot being fired.

Only if your enemies are certain they can't win.