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Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




I wonder, what is the real difference between the Chaos Marines and the Imperium, to what extent have the legions betrayed the Imperium, to what extent had the Imperium betrayed them (Thousand Sons).
Is the emperor a god, if he is why did he prohibit his worship and dangerously humiliate the Word Bearers driving them to the brink. If he simply didn't consider himself a god, just an obscenely powerful entity, an equivalent to the forces of chaos (gods), from hence stems a more general question what in the w40k universe can be considered a deity?

Both factions are pretty horrible when treating their own scions, random mutations, spawnhood, bad deals with the demons, inner fighting, the Inquisition (enough said).
The emperor might seem like the 'good' choice because he promoted free will and prosperity and a bunch of virtues, but since his entombment, his empire had rejected most of his ideas except for xenophobic genocide (can't have 40k without that). Similarly, the chaos gods had positive aspects like honour and duty (Khorne), Birth and life (Nurgle), Invention, magic and innovation (Tzeentch). All of this was initiated by the war in heaven (old ones corrupting the warp and using it for weapons) and in my opinion due to the corruption of the warp for weapons, when the dark gods were born, they were born into a desecrated plane of existence of suffering and war experimentation of an extinct race, no wonder they are pretty f***** up just like the Ideals of the Imperium which were twisted from pure and 'good' wishes for progress and perspiration.

What are your ideas on all of this?
(I am sorry if it is hard to understand my line of thought or if you think I am overcomplicating the theological side of a fictional universe.)

"Beyond that opening are my enemies. Behind me are warriors who would happily turn their weapons on me if they thought they could get away with it. Do you really think I'm doing this to try and impress anyone? I know who I am, and I don't give a greenskin's fart what anyone thinks of me."
- Honsou

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Fixture of Dakka




The Emperor is in no way a good choice. He's a genocidal, tyrannical idiot. The Imperium never had a good wish that was corrupted it was evil from the very start.

Chaos doesn't really have a good outcome either. Your best outcome is becoming what's ultimately a slave forever as a Daemon Prince.

I don't think Chaos is messed up because they were born into the War in Heaven either. They're messed up because they're very limited beings. Nurgle is just about life through disease and rot, Slaanesh is just seeking more and more pleasure and desire. They aren't really people with a range of emotions just weird creatures with a couple of them.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





No faction in 40k is good. The closest you get are either amoral (not immoral - see Tyranids, or earthquakes), or pragmatic (Uthwe/Salamanders won't kill you because they enjoy it, they kill you because they need to).

Eldar are considered evil because they'd fairly frequently let a thousand humans die to save 1 Eldar. Both IoM and Chaos would let a thousand of their own die to kill 1 Eldar fairly frequently.

Tau are considered evil because the Greater Good is a foil of Stalin, Lennin, and Mao (among others), representing the worst those had to offer. They are working towards what they consider good, but outsiders certainly wouldn't consider good.

A "good" culture as we'd currently see it in the 40k universe would not fare well. First, if it were a democracy, it's clearly a Tzeechian plot. Second, if it were egalitarian, those few psykers who will eventually get born there will do horrible things and bring terrors to the civilization eventually. Third, if it were to come to the aid of it's neighbor, it would then come to it's attention. And that neighbor will be IoM, Chaos, Tau, or Aeldari. So that won't end well to them.

There are no good factions in 40k. There is no mechanisms for a good faction to have a reasonable chance, currently.

There are some good forces, but they are always either part of a faction that is not good, or are extremely short lived. So you'll have a good Eldar noble, or some decent Tau citizens, or an SM Chapter that is mostly good. But then that Eldar will be part of a Craftworld or Exodite world, and will do what he must for them. Those Tau will do what their Ethereal tells them too, throwing their neighbors into the incinerator "for the greater good". That SM Chapter will take part in an Exterminatus of a peaceful world when the orders get messed up, or defect and be hunted down in short order.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. In such a setting, there is no long-term plan for the good guys. Only the least bad.


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There are varying levels of 'evil'. Most are debatable, but to different degrees.

Chapters tend to extend the goodness/vileness of their primarch.

Roboute and Vulkan are probably the most noble/"good" of the primarchs. Dorn and Lion also seem decent to good. There is some dissent about about definitions and how upbringing factors in, but it's generally accepted that those guys are more "good" than Perterbo and Horus.

The least-evil Heresy Primarch is probably Magnus. At least through the Heresy, I'd say Magnus is more "good" than at least Russ. He's always making pragmatic (if stupid) decisions based on what he knows. It goes bad, because of Tzeech. But each step is the "right" decision. He didn't actually betray the Imperium - he merely fought back when SW came to exerminate him and his legion. He didn't embrace the Warp until he had no other option to save his people.

Russ, on the other hand, has no problem exterminating entire legions. He is the dog of the emperor. Even if the emperor were "good", I wouldn't consider such a thoughtless obedience to be anything but evil.

Overall, the CSM are certainly more evil than Loyalists. Loyalists partake in genocide to preserve what they can of mankind. CSM partake in genocide either becasue it's fun or to destroy what they can of mankind. There are exceptions, but at a high level, Chaos is clearly more evil than IoM.

Renegades are a completely different category, though. Renegades, pre-Warp bargains (so no demons/possesed in their lists) may well be renegades because they refuse to do some great evil. Or simply because of a paperwork snafu. The most good "chapters" are actually likely to *become* renegades. But once they start sliding to Chaos (*if* they do), they start doing evil for the Chaos powers they are chasing. And if they don't slide to Chaos, they don't last long.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/24 15:19:43


 
   
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Battleship Captain




Lorgar has quite a vent at his father on Monarchia, which basically boils down to "you meet any practical definition of 'a god' your subjects are capable of comprehending, including your expectation of slavish obedience without explanation. You don't get to disregard this just because you don't like the word."

Saying the emperor promoted free will is....questionable. Imperial occupation wasn't called 'compliance' for nothing.


Termagants expended for the Hive Mind: ~2835
 
   
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Veteran Inquisitorial Tyranid Xenokiller





Watch Fortress Excalibris

Freedom is an illusion. The choice is whether you enslave yourself to the survival of your own species, or to your own selfish appetites.

The Emperor made himself humanity's ultimate tyrant so that nobody else could take that spot. Because any other human with that sort of power would eventually have been corrupted and enslaved by the Chaos Powers.

A little bit of righteous anger now and then is good, actually. Don't trust a person who never gets angry. 
   
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Tough Traitorous Guardsman





Liverpool Hive

I've always wanted a story focusing on members of a minor race navigating this gak storm of galactic powers. I still remember the Loxatl from the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. They fought alongside the Blood Pact less through any Chaos allegience than as mercenaries with a hate-on for the Imperium.

Who knows how many countless races there are where the God-Emperor and his servants are the devil incarnate. The cadaver on the Golden Throne has the blood of billions, possibly trillions on his hands. You might make a coldly pragmatic decision that he is doing it for some cosmic higher goal but a sizeable chunk of the dead did not die as Chaos cultists or in defence of Terra but were xenos of no threat and often importance to the Imperium. Plain old genocide, on a galactic scale.

The end goal of Chaos makes them the worst option but in terms of body count I think the Imperium would take first place.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/24 23:24:54


Oh What a Lovely War. 
   
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Rough Rider with Boomstick






In regards to the Emperor prohibiting worship, one user on this forum (don't remember who) brought up an interesting point:

By prohibiting religion, the Emperor could potentially over time weaken warp entities to the point in which they'd no longer be a problem (since warp entities are more or less powered by believe/directed emotion.) How effective this would have been had the Emperor been more successful is a separate discussion.

On a random note, I do miss the older depictions of the Chaos gods. They were far more appealing. (Khorne: Marshal glory, honor. Slannesh: perfection, mastery, etc.)

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The thing is it's any emotion that empowers Chaos. Life is good and you want to keep it that way? That's Nurgle. Want to change things to make a better life for your children? That's Tzeentch. Want that nice car? That's Slaanesh. Punch someone in self defence? That's Khorne.

The only way to not power Chaos is dedicating your emotions to another god like Khaine or Gork and Mork. Stopping all warp entities is just impossible unless you remove all forms of emotion and desire.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Or prop up a race with negligible warp presence and send them on a path that eventually leads to galactic dominance. That'd weaken the Chaos Gods. If only something were able to produce such an 'Incorruptible Swarm'...

Are y'all familiar with "You're a slave to anyone you're not strong enough to overthrow"? Another universe, but the concept of the "good" guys really being a bunch of repressives who kidnap children, indoctrinate them, deny them all emotion, and force them to fight was a really fun discussion/consideration when I was younger.

Consider real-world situations. The Confederate south (American civil war) was fairly easily the 'bad guys' of that war (most wars don't really have a solid good guy/bad guy dichotomy). But there were certainly some southerners who fought for what they believed was right. Some, I'm sure, even fought for things we'd believe was right (most fought for slavery, which was clearly wrong, and the declarations of war make it clear that that was their cause). Some fought to protect themselves and those around them from a government they believed had no right to boss them around.

I'd love to see more about aspects of the Big Four that aren't entirely negative. Currently, though, 40k has Chaos have the same problem with emotion as The Force has - namely, if you're interacting with the Force/Warp, any passion will twist and corrupt you.

In both settings, I feel like this is a cop out that preempts much more interesting stories. Stories about how the nature or extremism of the passion is what corrupts the individual, instead of some ephemeral evil-ness to it.

If GW retconned the Warp to work that way - not inherently evil, and doesn't drive people to evil, but peoples' natures, unrestrained, often lead to evil - it'd be one retcon I'd enjoy.
   
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Fixture of Dakka




Then you end up being the little oppressed guy which nobody wants.

That's much better Chaos. I tried doing that with my Chaos Lord in Fantasy. What started as desire to avenge his family turns into full scale craziness.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
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Sneaky Lictor






The Emperor ultimately was another tyrant, who was genocidal and the Imperial Truth was essentially a very big cult. There is a excellent quite from Sindermann early in the Heresy where Lokien is asking him why is the Imperial Truth right, why does it give them the clearance to claim worlds and force them into the imperial truth, or kill them.

Sindermann responds with "if you see a person drowning do you try to save them, or do you let them drown" the ethos of the Imperial truth was always it was right, because its right.

The emperor enables genocides larger then the galaxy had ever seen before in his vision of the galaxy. He was naive, trying to with hold the very knowledge the cause the heresy in the first place.


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Bloodbowl - Lizardmen.
Horus Heresy - World Eaters.
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Lesser Daemon of Chaos





West Yorkshire

You see, this thread brings to mind a quote I've heard before that "everyone is the hero of their own story", this must also mean that nobody see's themselves necessarily as a villain. I'd like to take part of the Quote from the Night lords books to mind here, where during an opening monologue the Night Lords refer to their destruction of the Imperium as just because it was their efforts that raised it up and they believe they have a right to destroy their own handiwork. From the perspective of the people within the imperium, they are evil because they destroy their way of life. So the Night Lords may not see themselves as heroes (And most certainly are not) But they do not consider themselves as villains as an artist cannot be a criminal to destroy his own handiwork, he is a criminal to those who made the artwork significant.

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Lake County, Illinois

Well, here's something to consider. Obviously the chaos gods have certain, more positive aspects. And obviously they are fueled by human thought and emotion. So perhaps the reason they present as completely evil in the 41st millennium is because the galaxy and the people in it are so awful. Perhaps without the horrible galactic Imperium the Emperor created, chaos would be a more neutral force.
   
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Fixture of Dakka





Well, I think that ship sailed back in the War in Heaven.

Besides, the Imperium was founded right after the Fall - which was the Eldar psyche producing one of the Big Four in terrible form.

It's quite possible the Warp wasn't so bad pre-Fall, though.
   
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 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Well, here's something to consider. Obviously the chaos gods have certain, more positive aspects. And obviously they are fueled by human thought and emotion. So perhaps the reason they present as completely evil in the 41st millennium is because the galaxy and the people in it are so awful. Perhaps without the horrible galactic Imperium the Emperor created, chaos would be a more neutral force.

Most people in the Imperium are just people. They aren't more evil than people now.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
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The Chaos Gods spawned from and are empowered by powerful human emotions. Khorne is Hate, Slaanesh is Desire, Nurgle is Fear, and Tzeentch is Hope. This is where their opposing nature comes from. Khorne and Slaanesh are opposites; Khorne is the desire to be rid of something that you do not want and Slaanesh is the desire to be with something that you do want. Tzeentch is hope, which its aspect of change is from and Nurgle is Fear and/or Despair. Nurgle is a little more complicated than the rest because He and His servants are immune to His touch, but He embodies the hopelessness of both fear and despair. This is why they are constantly at odds and why when one's power wanes the other's waxes. Khorne and Slaanesh cannot be empowered by the same mind at the same time because they are opposite energies by nature.

They do have positive aspects, which GW has neglected over the evolution of its game. The anger and wrath of Khorne bestows strength and courage. Hope, by its nature, implies change and is inherently neutral. Tzeentch, as an entity of constant flux, is naturally innovative.

What makes them deities is the fact that they respond to prayer and worship. They are supernatural, non-material beings which are in many ways immortal and possessing of unlimited finite power. They bless their followers and are made stronger through their servant's worship, through thought, word, and deed.

To praise the Dark Gods is to praise human nature because they are the immaterial manifestation of human nature. The Chaos Gods are infinite, but we are accustom to the 4 that are presented in the rules and in the lore. The essence of Chaos Undivided is all of Chaos unified into a single entity and is often neglected as a thing in its own right, likely largely because as an undivided chaos power it is even more formless than Tzeentch and even more difficult to grasp intellectually.

The power of Chaos is selfish, unreliable, and unruly, yet it is superior to the Imperium, which is a 40th millennium Dark Age of Man. The Emperor, on the other hand, was perhaps once benevolent. I don't know enough about him and the imperium before the influence of Chaos, but as the Imperium stands in the current age of Warhammer 40k, it's as evil as the rest of the factions. The Imperium is just mankind clinging to its own existence. As humans ourselves, it's easy to put them on the side of good, but if you view all of the factions from an outside perspective, none are good, and only a few are more evil than the rest (Necron and Tyranid, for sure).

The only way to truly overcome the powers of Chaos is to stop fueling them, which I suppose was the Emperor's original tactic. It's largely impossible at this point. The Imperium empowers the Chaos Gods all the time. When they revel in battle against the xenos or against the heretic, they are empower either Khorne or Slaanesh (depending on their mental state). When they are fleeing in terror (looking at you, Guardsmen), they are serving Nurgle, and when they are sitting in an empty fortress hoping that they will stay safe, or hoping that they will see some action soon, they are empowering Tzeentch. This is why it is said that there is no escape from chaos, it marks us all. Despite being a quote from the fantasy game, it's clear that the Chaos Gods are ever-present, and I'd wager that it's more than the mere cool-factor.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/04/25 20:44:09


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Regular Dakkanaut





The idea that the chaos gods are powered by the emotions of humans and other races has the potential to create a really interesting anti-hero story line. Imagine that a faction in the inquisition realises that it is emotion that fuels chaos. There are only two races that are immune to this: tyrannids and necrons. I can imagine the inquisitor coming to the same conclusion as the AI in so many post-apocalyptic sci-fi stories: the only way to save humanity is to destroy it.

I can imagine an inquisitor consumed by guilt whenever he saves a human from chaos and also whenever he lets one die.

Another interesting avenue would be Grey Knights realising this and planting daemonic artifacts on hive worlds, waiting for Chaos to take hold, then showing up just a little “too late” to save the day.

Or even faking a daemonic struggle that redirects the imperium’s resources so that the hive fleet encounters just a little less resistance.

Just something with the inquisition being not quite chaos, not quite heretic, but definitely renegade under the idea that the only way to win the battle with chaos is to lose.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/26 19:30:35


 
   
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Fixture of Dakka





One of my Farseers has started a cult that believes the only way to prevent Slanesh from eventaully devouring all Eldar souls is to let the Nids devour the galaxy.

And it's not even a genestealer-influenced cult! I swear!
   
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Fixture of Dakka




I'd say that's odd but my Farseers plan is to cause the Rhana Dhandra and just make sure Chaos dies in it because that makes them win.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
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Things like that, PM, are why I read the forums.
   
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My plan is just to keep calm and kill, maim, burn.

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I like that plan it doesn't over complicate.

"Beyond that opening are my enemies. Behind me are warriors who would happily turn their weapons on me if they thought they could get away with it. Do you really think I'm doing this to try and impress anyone? I know who I am, and I don't give a greenskin's fart what anyone thinks of me."
- Honsou

Iron warriors 3000pt
 
   
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Battleship Captain




 Jape wrote:
I've always wanted a story focusing on members of a minor race navigating this gak storm of galactic powers. I still remember the Loxatl from the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. They fought alongside the Blood Pact less through any Chaos allegience than as mercenaries with a hate-on for the Imperium.

Who knows how many countless races there are where the God-Emperor and his servants are the devil incarnate. The cadaver on the Golden Throne has the blood of billions, possibly trillions on his hands. You might make a coldly pragmatic decision that he is doing it for some cosmic higher goal but a sizeable chunk of the dead did not die as Chaos cultists or in defence of Terra but were xenos of no threat and often importance to the Imperium. Plain old genocide, on a galactic scale.

The end goal of Chaos makes them the worst option but in terms of body count I think the Imperium would take first place.


I remember a rather good Black Crusade 'canned campaign' that was written by someone on the FFG forums that was essentially a dark mirror of Star Wars; the Imperium cast as a rather convincing Evil Galactic Empire complete with planet-burning weapons hoving into view in the form of a brutal genocidal campaign, a rag-tag alliance of renegades and traitor mercenaries as the rebels trying to stop them, and the Warp and sorcery as the Force (albeit with a rather more actively corrupting dark side...).

Black crusade as a whole is good for seeing the imperium from the outside.

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locarno24 wrote:
Black crusade as a whole is good for seeing the imperium from the outside.


Indeed, it truly was great for that. I never was a huge fan of the whole, 'Rawr Chaos I wanna be a daemon prince and ruin everything!' so I avoided the game for a while. Then when we played it, we played as 'Heretics' who were holdovers from the Horus Heresy that were absolutely disgusted with what the Imperium had become.

Then, of course, we played again as little more than 'Chaos Jerks' and trolled the Imperium and goofed off the entire campaign, and somehow it ended up being so damned hilarious we would fall out of our chairs laughing at our stupid antics.

Mob Rule is not a rule. 
   
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Some Heresy era Marines might be like that. Ashes of Prospero has a Thousand Son whose been trapped in a prototype webway thing since the Burning of Prospero who gets very disturbed when he sees the current Thousand Sons and Magnus.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
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Dawn of War has a whole chapter of forrmer Thousand Sons that don't drink Magnus's coolaid.
   
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The Emperor (who is not a god, just an extremely powerful psyker) correctly believes that religious thinking had a large part in causing the age of strife as it feeds the Chaos gods which are Warp entities fed by specific behaviors.

If you live a violent or hateful life, you feed Khorne.

If you live a life of indulgence or pleasure seeking, you feed Slannesh.

If you live a life of apathy or willful mediocrity, you feed Nurgle.

If you live a life of selfish ambition or in desire of greatness, you feed Tzeentch

As this is the reality, there's really not many alternative conclusions The Emperor could come to other than to create a galaxy driven by logic and selfless ambition to defeat them, it is even implied that he had set in motion plans for a Marine civil war further down the road (much later than the HH) so that one day mankind could know true everlasting peace. and the Imperium during the 31st Millennium really wasn't all that bad compared to the 41st. I mean obviously Big E isn't directly responsible for what happened after he got Golden Throned...
   
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That idea falls apart a little when you consider the idea that someone who wanted peace attacks everything he sees.

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It would most certainly have been an ends justify the means situation but doing anything else would be letting chaos win eventually
   
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It really wouldn't. Chaos is winning now. A better solution would be using his incredible power to try and make a less wartorn galaxy. For example wars of genocide massively help Chaos. The Interex had a great solution in just taking away the Megarachnids space travel and leaving them on Murder.

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