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I honestly think what we're talking about from the Arch contingent and similar is more racism than pro-fascism. It's just that it looks like pro-fascism because a lot of them interpret the Imperium as a white society/institution; remember the kerfluffle over the black Ultramarine?

In the Infinity community, the same kind of people who unironically think the Imperium is laudable tend to gravitate towards PanOceania (and, to a certain extent, Ariadna), with its space Catholicism and knights, "Deus Vult" and all that. Nevermind the fact that they're explicitly corporatist, pro-freedom of speech, etc, they're coded as primarily white and Christian. Of course, it's been noted that right wing people tend to support capitalism as long as they see it maintaining the proper social hierarchy - this progression from monarchism has been chronicled in worrying detail. The authoritarian, dystopian faction in Infinity (at least the most overtly) is Yu Jing, but that doesn't receive the support of those types because it's culturally Chinese. It also explains a lot of the antipathy towards the Tau from a lot of the Warhammer community, since they've been coded as Asian/nonwhite, and not as morally deplorable as the Imperium.

Fundamentally this is a bit of a problem of GW's own making, since they've steered hard into a heroic Imperium for a long time now. So it's not that the racists are seeing something that isn't there - there's notes they're picking up on. But it's not turning anyone racist (or fascist), those tendencies are already there.

For me, it's just a matter of understanding it as something that should be approached critically (which is a fancy word for "don't assume the Imperium, or any other faction, is justified in what it does"). I don't know about introducing kids to it - I don't have any of my own, and I started playing 40k when I was eight, and I turned out ok, but I was a bit precocious with understanding when something isn't meant to be taken seriously.

 Da Boss wrote:
Aye, I just want to introduce more of those human societies into the setting so that they exist as examples and it is not as hopless to go against the IoM. But OT for this thread, just an example of what you can do as a gamer if you don't like this stuff.

Don't associate with those people and don't encourage them. Also, when you get the chance, call GW out on how they're steering too hard into a heroic IoM.

Tiberias wrote:


I disagree. I think this has been established in this discussion already, GW is under no obligation to make the imperium more or less heroic since it's fiction and they have no political agenda.
Also, portraying the imperium as heroic does not take away the awful stuff they do. It's not just one or the other. Heroic deeds of characters within a faction does not mean that the faction is suddenly good or right.
Sororitas can be heroic and selfless, they are however still utterly bonkers religious zealots. A dark incubus can do heroic deeds in combat and uphold some form of martial honor, that does not make him less of a torturing sadist.

Depends on your definition of heroism i.e. "great" vs. "good."

That the Imperium is "great" is fine, that the Imperium is "good" is obviously in question and portraying them as unironically good oftentimes comes off as a right wing wet dream.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I disagree with this notion that 40k has some weird fascistic craw though. The only superiority elements are that of humanity over any other races. There is no real racism in as much as the imperium doesn't care what race you are, as long as you do your duty. In that it's more totalitarian if anything.

If you look at it in depth you're right, but many of these types have their own headcanon that the Imperium is overwhelmingly white, and the iconography is uses is heavily grounded in Euro-Christian inspirations (taken to extremes). The Tau are called "communists" because people think they're supposed to be Chinese. And I've of course seen people who think that Orks or Tyranids are supposed to be an analogy for blacks or immigrants.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Why? People naturally want to see people being heroes and reading about heroic characters kicking the ass of evil or threats to other humans. It's a key part of the genre/setting, and one of the big draws of a lot of fiction. Nobody watches lord of the rings and complains that the good guys were too rough on Sauron.

The difference is that Sauron was the one committing mass murder and with the brutal industrial war machine. The Imperium is unapologetically genocidal and xenophobic; there's issues with portraying them as heroic that don't come into play when we're talking about the men, elves, dwarves, or hobbits of Middle-Earth. Unironically, at least; the Imperium makes for great heroes if you have a sense of irony.

 Da Boss wrote:
The IoM is all about genetic purity and so on as well, which people can absolutely twist around to fit their ideology.

It isn't racist, as such, but it does use those ideas to show how crappy the Imperium is.

They also commit mass murder of children born with physical deformities, which mirrors the way the Nazis treated people with certain conditions.

Tiberias wrote:
Fair enough, but are they portrayed as unironically good as a faction in its entirety? I mean if they write about the brave selfless cadian soldier who sacrifices himself for his homeworld that could be considered heroic and maybe even "good", depending on your definition, but you can be sure that on the same time on some ecclesiarchy planet there are some heretics strapped on penitent engines for no reason. And my point is that they don't have to necessarily show both those things within one black library novel that deals with the heroic cadian soldier for example.

My point is that they don't show the penitent engines often enough, and what's more they don't really go into the fact that the Cadian soldier would gladly give his life to murder innocent Tau or Eldar children, or just human children who were born with physical deformities. These aren't good people.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Maybe, but as has already been said, that's not the problem of the setting or its creators really. It's bad enough that those things are taken seriously and then pearl clutchers in the media run with them as ways to attack the setting or people who enjoy it.

It's not the problem of the creators, but it *is* the problem of the people who shifted things to portray the full-on genocidal Imperium in an unironically positive way. They made a choice, and that choice had consequences, and I don't think it was the best choice.

 Da Boss wrote:
I think they didn't even realise they were making that choice. I bet no one sat down and planned it, it is more of a creative drift by people who didn't really get it in my view.

Very possible! But an uninformed choice is still a choice.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Not so much Warhammer, but I've seen things in national newspapers trying to make out like Tolkien was portraying non white people when he wrote the orcs (absurd in my opinion, as they don't come from foreign lands, have their own origin myths, and other foreign humans exist in harad and umbar) it snacks more of hysteria really.

Well, Tolkien did describe orcs as looking somewhat Asian at one point. But I don't think he meant for them to be a stand-in for a race. There was a recent brouhaha that focused on Dungeons & Dragons about orcs being code for black people, which was a Twitter shitstorm that Hasbro seemed to take seriously for all the wrong reasons.

Tiberias wrote:


True, absolutely true, but I've said this time and time again, this is the sort of thing that poses an uncomfortable question to the reader.

GW never treats it that way, though - it's not something that's examined, because if it was the Imperium would come off as too evil.

Tiberias wrote:
These children can in the worst case condemn an entire planet to damnation if their psychic potential goes unchecked.

I'm not talking about psykers, I'm talking about kids born with harelips or whatever, who are almost always killed at birth in the Imperium.

Tiberias wrote:
They can pose an actual threat to an entire population. The comparison to the nazis is fair, but they murdered people they deemed unworthy to live and exaggerated that through propaganda, those poor people never posed a threat to anyone. And the uncomfortable question that 40k poses imo is this: if those threats were real like in 40k, would we also devolve into such cruelty that easily, when we have done it for less in our real life history?

Someone born with a harelip doesn't pose a threat to the Imperium, either.

 catbarf wrote:
Don't think of it so literally; it's metaphor. Sci-fi has a long (and clumsy) history of using species as stand-in for nations and/or race, particularly when they all speak English and are two-dimensional caricatures of Earth cultures. It is very easy to read the Imperial 'human supremacist' state as an analogue for an ethnostate IRL.

Give The Iron Dream a read, or at least just read through the Wikipedia page. It's a satirical piece intended to demonstrate just how easily common sci-fi tropes match to problematic real-world ideologies.

You know, it's funny, when I was a kid and wasn't aware of the greater 40k community I liked the fact that the aliens in 40k *weren't* particularly human-like and weren't standins for other races. Orks don't reproduce sexually, so no libido, and have an incredible love for violence; that's a very alien mindset. Eldar *look* very similar to humans, but its clear that their psychology deviates immensely from humans - or at least it should be. And forget Necrons and Tyranids.

Then, later, I encounter people online or at conventions who are like "DAE orks n******?" and I get that some people just take the setting a very different way. I'd prefer my aliens in 40k *alien,* even if you could sit down and have a conversation with them.

Tiberias wrote:


GW doesn't have to treat it that way because it is plainly obvious. Some people don't see that as has been discussed or plainly ignore it to pander to their own ideology, but as I've also already said, you can only try to positively engage these people and try to educate them or avoid them.

And my point is that in 40k these potential threats of unchecked psykers and mutants are in fact real, not that they don't needlessly murder people even if they just examine harmless forms of mutation. That does not mean the imperium is right in what it does. It just poses the question that if those existential threats were real would we also just as easily not differentiate between individual cases and cull parts of the population just to be safe?

Those threats actually aren't. Non-psyker mutants aren't a particular problem, the Imperium just likes genocide. Races like the Eldar and Kroot deal with their psykers in a way that doesn't involve atrocities. The only question that's posed is why does the setting not examine the fact that characters like Celestine and Gaunt and Caine are all pro-genocide?

Tiberias wrote:


Sorry but that is just false.

No, it's true. Non-psyker mutants aren't really a problem; they're caused by Chaos, but it's not like they have an innate ideological alignment *with* Chaos. There's nowhere in the fluff that agrees with you and not me.

Tiberias wrote:

These threats are real within 40k because they don't know which mutant or psyker poses an actual threat and they don't care to find out. They just cull them to eliminate any potential threat of a planet turning into a literal hellscape because they missed one untrained psyker. Is that evil? Yeah of course but that wasn't the point.

No, it being evil is exactly the point. Other races in the setting can manage the dangers that go along with psychic potential without resorting to genocide; if the Imperium has to, it's because they don't spend the effort to get good enough to tell the difference. Either way, the Imperium is morally at fault for killing all of the people with physical deformities that they do. Someone with a harelip isn't going to destroy their society, but they murder them anyway because they love killing people who look different.

Tiberias wrote:
Your comparison with other races also falls flat because humans, eldar and kroot just don't compare. They have completely different psykic potentials and their souls resonate differently on the warp, with the humans arguably having rapidly evolved the biggest psykic potential compared to their short lifespans.
If we're gonna talk about this we have to talk accurately about the lore I believe.

I'm talking more accurately about the lore than you. Your comments about "different psykic[sic] potentials" is just pure speculation; you're working with the circular logic that the Imperium is justified and then making up explanations that support that. The evidence points the other way, the Imperium is *not* justified in what it does.

Moral reasoning applies equally to all creatures; humans born with physical deformities don't have less of a right to life than those without, and nonhumans don't have less of a right to life, either. Believing otherwise is morally bankrupt, but that's the Imperium for you.

Voss wrote:
Bigoted youtubers are a problem. But its a problem with the specific youtubers and the supporters they gather, not with the game or setting.
There are similar ones who are fans of various ancient cultures, and even one who originally seemed to be a rationalist defender of science and evolution before he descended into all out madness. It doesn't mean ancient history or evolution are pro-fascist ideologies.

You're making a mess of cause and effect. Mass social media like youtube makes it easy for Cult of Personality folks to gather followers to a central hub, especially when everything about it is online. You want to get rid of this guy? Appeal to youtube to de-platform him, don't berate GW or (even worse) gamers in general. You might as well complain to clothing manufacturers that they're supporting some guy who dares to dress himself in the morning.

Well, in the end the bigoted youtuber is in a small part aided by the way GW handles the setting, with portraying the genocide-happy Imperium as unironic heroes.


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Stalked21 wrote:
This thread should probably be called “does this thread encourage hatred” cause really who’s this opinionated they take this wierd stand for a game....... don’t like the lore don’t read the books or make your own lore or just shut up and play I played with a group for 6 years we NEVER talked about any of this dumb stuff what is wrong with people!?

Some of us liked the lore in 2e/3e and then felt it veered too much towards fascism apologia.

Tiberias wrote:


I think you entirely missed my point. At no point in any post in this thread or other threads you and I have spoken about this have I argued that the imperium is in any way justified or right in what they are doing to mutants, untrained psykers etc.
Also my point about other races was not about how they are worth less then humans within the lore, but how they work differently both their anatomy and psykic resonance in the warp and that is just a fact within the lore.

You said that the Imperium was taking the expedient path in protecting itself from psykers and mutants, which is not true. So no, I didn't miss your point, I just don't agree with it.

Tiberias wrote:
I am not quite sure anymore what your point is. You say GW should focus more on the ugly sides of the imperium. If they write about the heroic cadian solider to pick up the example from before, do they have to spell out in that same novel that the imperium is evil and a total crapstate? Is it about the ratio between the number of novels and shortstories where they write about the heroic cadian soldier as compared to stories about cadian soldiers killing innocent mutants for no reason?

When the Imperium is invariably portrayed as the heroes of stories but on the other hand they're in favor of murderous eugenics, ethnic cleansing, and other stuff, and factions like the Eldar and Kroot aren't, but are portrayed more villainously more often, there's a problem. The ratio is important for the purposes of presentation, yes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RegularGuy wrote:
My God, it's like growing up in the 80s with Satanic Panic all over again.. No, playing a wizard will not make your child a devil worshiper. No, playing warhammer will not make your child or anyone else into a Nazi. No, censorship and a crusade to rid the world of all wrongthink is not the answer.

On the other hand, supporting the IoM as justified or laudable is morally wrongheaded too.

 tauist wrote:
Didn't read through the whole thread but some of this stuff sounds pretty depressing.

Tony Cottrell should apologise for his remark to that gentleman. Piss poor coming from someone like him.
And this Arch dude has something against Saamelaiset? He is on my naughty list now. Saamedikki FTW!

GW needs to reintroduce Rainbow Warriors back as a canonized SM Chapter, needs to write some BL books about female inquisitors exterminating overly zealous SM factions, and as a cherry on top, Lion El Johnson needs to come out of the closet. Dark Angels chapter's history is pretty queer, it needs to be highlighted more.

In hindsight, the RT lore was a bit smarter in how it dealt with the setting. Bring back more of it!

I think they should play against type and have the Rainbow Warriors be like... blood sacrifice Aztecs who fell to Khorne. Don't need to make them queer.

The Lion, OTOH, just needs to come out of the closet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiberias wrote:


Careful there now. I said that they do that, but at no point did I say they take the expedient path by doing that. I said it poses an interesting and uncomfortable quetion to the reader. Don't put words in my mouth, I really don't like that.

I'm not putting words in your mouth. You were saying that the physically deformed (or "mutants") posed an existential threat to the Imperium, which is just flat out untrue. Even psykers can be dealt with without genocide, as every species except for the humans in the IoM does. The point is this - they are only dangerous to the Imperium because the Imperium stubbornly refuses to employ non-genocidal means of dealing with them. So it's not really an uncomfortable question posed to the reader, unless you take the latter-day GW fluff as canon and go "Oh, all the good people are into genocide, why aren't I?"

Tiberias wrote:
@Hecaton

Yes, yes you are.

Nope.

Tiberias wrote:

I said they pose a threat and they do.

You're just blatantly wrong here. How are non-psychic mutants inherently a threat to the Imperium?

Tiberias wrote:

I said the Imperium doesn't differentiate the individual case, because they don't care.

If that's the case, then given what I said above, it paints the Imperium as morally bankrupt, no uncomfortable questions asked. If, as you say, it's asking unconfortable questions of the reader because it's so effective, or, in other words, expedient, then I'm right about what you said.

Tiberias wrote:

Human unchecked psykers pose a threat to open a gateway for demons since human minds are more susceptible towards the whispers of demons and that is established lore.

Human psykers aren't any more or less vulnerable to demons than other races' psykers. The Imperium just refuses to deal with the problem in an intelligent way and would rather tyrannize and murder. This is emphatically *not* established lore.

Tiberias wrote:

Genestealer cults also exist for example so mutants can pose a threat to a human populated planet, that is also established lore.

Genestealers don't create mutants, they create human/alien hybrida. Moreover, killing kids with harelips doesn't stop genestealer infestations, it just makes the problem worse because your population will start looking elsewhere for succour. But the Imperium is full speed ahead on the kid-murdering.

Tiberias wrote:

I did NOT say that how the imperium deals with it was expedient, but rather how brutally they don't care todifferentiate the individual case poses and interesting question to the reader and I've explained this multiple times now. Stop playing gotcha with me, I was really trying to have a conversation in good faith with you and engage with the points you had made, but I'm almost done trying to do that when you continue to try to color me like I support something like that. [b]

You didn't use that word, but you implied it when you said that the Imperium's treatment of those born with physical deformities should posit uncomfortable questions. Put simply, the Imperiums's treatment of such people is both needlessly cruel and absolutely ineffective at protecting itself. It's actually counterproductive, because if your kid is born with a harelip, or his limbs didn't develop properly because of the toxic chemicals in the factory you're forced to work in 15 hours a day mutating your sperm cells, why would you stay loyal to the Imperium? Your local Chaos cult thinks your kid's abnormalities are blessings from the gods, and is willing to help you hide them from the authorities.

You're continuing to work on circular logic that justifies the Imperium's atrocities from an out-of-universe perspective, and of course I'm going to call that out, because that's fethed UK p.