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Stumbled across this article over on RockPaperShotgun that is ostensibly about how the developers of Space Marine 2 went about trying to make their protagonist(s) more empathetic and relatable, then asks whether that’s somewhat missing the point. What follows is a (imo) interesting and cogent deepdive into where space marines came from and where they are now. You may not agree completely with all the author’s conclusions but I recommend giving it a read:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/why-play-a-fascist-unpacking-the-hideousness-of-the-space-marine

TBH, I'm not sure the author is certain what their conclusions actually are. That sounds like criticism, but I think its somewhat the point. 40k's setting has become so big that it can't really be one thing.

As for the loss of satire.... I think its impossible to expect a joke to survive for decades. Comedians need new material almost daily to stay relevant. Expecting satire to survive endlessly is naive at best.

In general, I think that's the thing that we've got to come to grips with as we keep trying to hold on to these eternal fandoms. The world of 40 years ago is more or less completely gone. The amount of change we've seen in that time is absolutely staggering and expecting our fictional settings to evolve along with that, but not actually change, is pretty impossible.

As for what to do about it? Honestly, part of me feels like the Imperium needs to change. The return of the Primarchs is as good of an excuse as any, and honestly I like the idea of the marines themselves becoming more aspirational as the Imperium becomes more deplorable, but its definitely a tricky situation. I don't think the satire bit can really hold though. It's much like the empty threat of the Tyranids or the flippant use of Exterminatus. The world changes too much for our ongoing fiction to remain so utterly stagnant.

I’d echo that the world of 40 or so years ago, the world which influenced the creators of 40K, just doesn’t exist anymore.

I think back to my life experiences in the early to mid 90’s, and I don’t think kids of today would readily believe me. Even pop culture has changed, from the topics covered, the music pushed etc.

Early 40K had a very Punk vibe, a satire on rapid, uneven and flawed social change. For instance, the Tower Blocks and Brutalist architecture of post War, post Empire and Post Industrial Britain are being pulled down, not put up. The social issues they caused are now better understood and theoretically, better managed.

The modern satire of 40K is that whilst the things the Imperium preaches and rails against do exist, and are very much an existential threat. But, it goes about its existence in a way which proves a fertile ground for those very things. Its oppressive nature drives citizens to fall to Chaos.

And there’s the tragedy that it’s now so far gone? There may be no righting the ship. The modern Imperium isn’t the Imperium of the Emperor’s vision. And even his sons are pretty much powerless to enact change.

For all its size, power and potential? Its foes are too numerous and too widespread to be effectively countered. It can run around putting out the various fires, but it has little ability and arguably interest in stopping them being lit in the first place.

That’s the joke. That The Imperium was once meant to be the salvation of mankind, that by wiping out every other species, mankind could live in peace and plenty, unbothered by The Other. That, in theory, the brutality was short term. A means to an end. That now? The Imperium does all these horrific, awful, evil things simply to maintain its own existence. It doesn’t improve anything. It doesn’t serve to enrich mankind and improve lives. It just….is. And everyday is a battle to just maintain that rather tawdry status quo.

As for the computer game? Yeah. You do need relatable protagonists. And so you do need to dial it back, presenting the Astartes are they’re presented to the wider Imperium. That of noble saviours, and not surgically altered, brainwashed child soldiers used as a relatively blunt implement in a life of unrelenting slaughter. A force that can and will annihilate worlds to Stop The Bad Guy, and aren’t minded to hold an evacuation first.

Stunning and Brave from a former Kotaku writer.

Virtue signalling to the echo chamber for the sake of it.

Another aspect to consider is that people engage with different bits of the game lore. There are fans for decades who have never read anything that isn't a codex or big rulebook.

There are fans who have only read the Horus Heresy

There are fans who have never read a single Space Marine Codex

This is before we hit video games and 3rd party material, RPG material and more.


Furthermore within each element there are things that are well explained and those that are little more than a sentence. Even something detailed can create a different impression in different people. Very short comments can be even wider in how people interpret them.

That's before we add the layer of different narrators. From global ones through to specific characters and groups who might in turn have adjusted different things they say based on their world view.


This allows something like a Marine to be a literal Angel sent to save a world from demonic infestation. Glorious heroes fighting the good fight - all the way to genocidal maniacs with no care for anything save their own objectives and who will crush anything in their path.


Finally the timescales and geographic size of the setting also mean that multiple states can be true at the same time even if they differ greatly.




So yeah its hard to sometimes pin things down because there's so much rich variety going on.

Thanks for sharing. Can't say I agree with all of it, but was an interesting read. I don't really think you can argue against the idea there has been a slow but persistent trend in generifying and/or toning down the darker aspects of the marine lore and generally presenting them in a much more unambiguously positive light.

The satirical elements and the grimdark are still kind of there in the way the Doc has put it, I acknowledge that, but it is largely shunted out of sight, with the focus kept on the space marines instead as largely unironic heroic figures in the 40k-verse.

I think some of that has definitely a result of deliberate decisions taken to widen the (assumed) appeal of the universe and 'mainsteam' it to an extent, but I think there are probably some unintentional causes as well - the Heresy series has helped humanise marines, even though the idea was that the pre-Heresy era is "different" I think in practice there has been a lot of bleed across from that. And the general shift to a more "professional" art/layout design 4th ed onwards and the demand for more fluff in the form of pages of "hero x beats up monster y" has indirectly influenced this too I think - maybe my rose tinted glasses but the presentation of the Imperium and marines in the 3rd ed rulebook (for instance) through the in-universe stories/reports and quotes, along with the gothic art, made it pretty clear to me that the Imperium was a crazy forked up mess - whilst in theory none of that has changed from a lore perspective I think the presentation of it now gives a very different impression of what it is about, particularly when it comes to the marines.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

That’s the joke. That The Imperium was once meant to be the salvation of mankind, that by wiping out every other species, mankind could live in peace and plenty, unbothered by The Other. That, in theory, the brutality was short term. A means to an end. That now? The Imperium does all these horrific, awful, evil things simply to maintain its own existence. It doesn’t improve anything. It doesn’t serve to enrich mankind and improve lives. It just….is. And everyday is a battle to just maintain that rather tawdry status quo.

While I think that's very much the intent, I think the problem is there's no real way to express that with the Imperium as the main point of view for the setting. Instead of being shown how ignorant and backward it is, the canon is defined by the Imperial rationalizations. You have to accept the rules of a setting as they are presented to you and it's really hard to show the presenters as consistently wrong without the stories being simply frustrating.

One thing I do think SM2 does exceptionally well is get across how silly the Mechanicus is. The grandeur of performing rites to awaken the machine spirit prior to you pressing the red button or pulling a lever is a good joke that's done well, but its really hard not to get numb to it after a while. I think stuff like that can be fun and silly, but its a lot harder to do that with Marines when there are very much giant bug monsters ripping tiny humans apart.

Big picture irony can be interesting to ponder, but hard to make fun. The culture that made 80's ultraviolence rebellious fun just isn't quite there anymore so its just really hard to justify marines as satire while also being the focus of stories worth reading.

'The post-Gamergate alt-right movement that helped elevate Trump into a "God Emperor" excel at making bigotry seem harmless by presenting it as edgy humour - or even better, as purposeful tastelessness, as cringe. Their basic debating gambit is to lambast their opponents for taking things too seriously.'

HA!

 LunarSol wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

That’s the joke. That The Imperium was once meant to be the salvation of mankind, that by wiping out every other species, mankind could live in peace and plenty, unbothered by The Other. That, in theory, the brutality was short term. A means to an end. That now? The Imperium does all these horrific, awful, evil things simply to maintain its own existence. It doesn’t improve anything. It doesn’t serve to enrich mankind and improve lives. It just….is. And everyday is a battle to just maintain that rather tawdry status quo.

While I think that's very much the intent, I think the problem is there's no real way to express that with the Imperium as the main point of view for the setting. Instead of being shown how ignorant and backward it is, the canon is defined by the Imperial rationalizations. You have to accept the rules of a setting as they are presented to you and it's really hard to show the presenters as consistently wrong without the stories being simply frustrating.

One thing I do think SM2 does exceptionally well is get across how silly the Mechanicus is. The grandeur of performing rites to awaken the machine spirit prior to you pressing the red button or pulling a lever is a good joke that's done well, but its really hard not to get numb to it after a while. I think stuff like that can be fun and silly, but its a lot harder to do that with Marines when there are very much giant bug monsters ripping tiny humans apart.

Big picture irony can be interesting to ponder, but hard to make fun. The culture that made 80's ultraviolence rebellious fun just isn't quite there anymore so its just really hard to justify marines as satire while also being the focus of stories worth reading.

I’d argue the Imperium’s surety in the justness of its actions only adds to the satire. It’s the Monkeys in the Cage dilemma, where things are now done entirely by rote, because that’s the way it’s been done for 10,000 years and we’re still here, so whilst we don’t really know or probably care why we do things this way, we do things this way because it’s worked for 10,000 years.

That is also Guilliman’s tragedy. A Demi-god from a mostly forgotten age of myth returned. Seemingly the greatest Statesman the galaxy has ever know, and all he can really do is join in hitting stuff until stuff isn’t a threat anymore.

It’s kinda like the Digga’s of Gorka Morka, using sophisticated tools as clubs, because they don’t know what they’re actually for. Guilliman is an advanced scientific tool that, for now, can only serve as a blunt instrument to bash in the brains of the next foe in line.

The Lion however might be having a better time of it, given he’s doing what he has always done best - seeking out and clobbering the monsters, making things safer for the humans, one hunt at a time. That he too could be put to much better use is again part of the perversity of the new setting.

Primarchs have returned, but they can’t fulfil their true destiny, because mankind has mucked everything up so very, very badly in the preceding 10,000 years. To use a very crude analogy, it’s akin to legendary Samurai being hurled into the future, and all their followers are Weebs who’s sole exposure to Japanese culture of any kind is anime.

wow. that was a lot of words.

Are we really, in the year of our lord 2024, still doing the "40k is a satire of facism thing?" Rogue trader had some jokes, and had some satirical elements, but it was a method for telling stories in the world. It wasn't for taking the piss or commenting on the patriarchy. It was always about being a space marine and shooting space orks. Look at the box of second edition 40k, 1993. there's nothing satirical about that. It's about glorifying space marines. if you want to complain about space marines being made less ambiguous heroes, go back in time 3 decades.

Are there some people with ugly politics in this hobby? 100%. I do not think it's because the main faction is fascism coded. There's a nazi wing of the My Little Pony fan club, for Christ sakes.

 Polonius wrote:
I do not think it's because the main faction is fascism coded.

It's fun that the reference provided for 40K being 'ur-fascist' uses Eco's definition, by which the author himself could easily be described as fascist, since almost every -thing/-one fits into Eco's definition.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I’d argue the Imperium’s surety in the justness of its actions only adds to the satire. It’s the Monkeys in the Cage dilemma, where things are now done entirely by rote, because that’s the way it’s been done for 10,000 years and we’re still here, so whilst we don’t really know or probably care why we do things this way, we do things this way because it’s worked for 10,000 years.

That is also Guilliman’s tragedy. A Demi-god from a mostly forgotten age of myth returned. Seemingly the greatest Statesman the galaxy has ever know, and all he can really do is join in hitting stuff until stuff isn’t a threat anymore.

It’s kinda like the Digga’s of Gorka Morka, using sophisticated tools as clubs, because they don’t know what they’re actually for. Guilliman is an advanced scientific tool that, for now, can only serve as a blunt instrument to bash in the brains of the next foe in line.

The Lion however might be having a better time of it, given he’s doing what he has always done best - seeking out and clobbering the monsters, making things safer for the humans, one hunt at a time. That he too could be put to much better use is again part of the perversity of the new setting.

Primarchs have returned, but they can’t fulfil their true destiny, because mankind has mucked everything up so very, very badly in the preceding 10,000 years. To use a very crude analogy, it’s akin to legendary Samurai being hurled into the future, and all their followers are Weebs who’s sole exposure to Japanese culture of any kind is anime.

I don't disagree at all, my point is just that you have to go pretty far down the well to have a chance of start appreciating all that. It's not really the text of the story and rarely even the subtext, but only something you can kind of see if you're looking to frame it that way. It's far easier to read it all as a noble celebration of all the things we keep insisting are supposed to be a joke. There's a fine line between the subtext going over your head and inventing it for yourself that has started to get very hard to find.

I do personally lament the toning down of marines from "feral Mad Max weirdos" of RT era to the Holiest Of Holies Saviours Of Mankind we have today. It just feels so..bland. Even the covert homosexual undertones of certain Marine fiction (Dark Angels and their terrible "secrets" committed at the Rock anyone? Brits get this more than others AFAIK) has been completely erased from the lore in time. Marines have been dehumanized, made into bland "Angels" of the Bible, where they used to be more like Hells Angels before.. But it is what it is. Little Timmy needs his heroes and clear cut battle of ggod and evil. Doesnt this happen to pretty much every piece of alt culture once it breaks into the mainstream? Like, all those cheeky remarks and lil inside larks get erased one by one, until only a shiny, "relatable" homogenous piece of consumable entertainment remains.. A certain form of "Marvelization", if you will..

I do applaud that GW still keeps one aspect of the 40K setting "real" - Necromunda. I think that is the nook and cranny that will retain the original spirit of the setting alive for the longest. Altho I must admit not being hip to the modern Necromunda lore..

I'll never root for Imperial Space Marines. While I enjoyed the game immensely, I felt physically sick the whole time. I'm allergic to fascists.

I'd rather have played as Jarulek the Dark Apostle from Anthony Reynold's Word Bearer's trilogy or Talos from ADB's Night Lords trilogy, or even Honsou from Graham Mcneil's Iron Warrior books. They are trying to tear down the fascist empire, not keep it alive. Wouldn't have been nearly as problematic as making the Ultramarine's the protagonists.

 nels1031 wrote:
I'll never root for Imperial Space Marines. While I enjoyed the game immensely, I felt physically sick the whole time. I'm allergic to fascists.

I'd rather have played as Jarulek the Dark Apostle from Anthony Reynold's Word Bearer's trilogy or Talos from ADB's Night Lords trilogy, or even Honsou from Graham Mcneil's Iron Warrior books. They are trying to tear down the fascist empire, not keep it alive. Wouldn't have been nearly as problematic as making the Ultramarine's the protagonists.

Well, that's some Poe's Law.

Good show ...I hope...

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
I do not think it's because the main faction is fascism coded.

It's fun that the reference provided for 40K being 'ur-fascist' uses Eco's definition, by which the author himself could easily be described as fascist, since almost every -thing/-one fits into Eco's definition.

I think under a fair reading of Eco the Imperium would check all of those boxes. Arguing about if the Imperium is fascist is silly. It's ruled either by a literal god, or perhaps by a council of unelected insiders. The Imperium is ruthlessly pro human, anti-xenos, anti-chaos, and extremely leery of change. On the other hand, there are at least four major powers actively trying to rip the Imperium apart (Chaos, necrons, nids, orks) with more taking potshots when they can. So there really is an existential threat. there are enemies within and without. It's clearly meant to feel authoritarian, and uses the language of fascism at times, but the imperium is something far different.

I do think that the author is confusing a question of taste with a question of morals. 40k allows a player to sort of dress up as the authoritarian zealot, while not being an explicitly bad guy. We do this all the time. GTA allows you to be a gangster, but the good guy. Skyrim lets you be an assassin, werewolf, vampire, etc. as a good guy. I think the author thinks that toys connected to the idea of space fascism are bad, because they lead to real fascism. I don't think that's true, and I think he's making his taste a moral issue.

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
Stunning and Brave from a former Kotaku writer.

Virtue signalling to the echo chamber for the sake of it.

Genuine question - Did you actually read the article? Because I’m not clear how this weird combination of ad-hominem and alt-right buzzwords actually relates to what the author wrote.

Roll Three Dice wrote:
Stumbled across this article over on RockPaperShotgun that is ostensibly about how the developers of Space Marine 2 went about trying to make their protagonist(s) more empathetic and relatable, then asks whether that’s somewhat missing the point. What follows is a (imo) interesting and cogent deepdive into where space marines came from and where they are now. You may not agree completely with all the author’s conclusions but I recommend giving it a read:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/why-play-a-fascist-unpacking-the-hideousness-of-the-space-marine

I honestly think that the simplicity of the old days (not that I played or bought anything warhammer related back then mind you, I was more into GI joe and such) that didn't try to overexplain every single facet of characters nor try to make buyers "identify" with the purchase .. was so much better, I mean.. the buyer gets a canvas they can fill in themselves rather than the product literally imposing and therein limiting who the audience is .. it's such a strange strategy..

Now, I no longer do nextgen gaming, while owning (very recently yet) a switch lite' so I cannot say anything about spacemarine 2, I haven't nor ever will play, and whatever is going on in that enviroment (the entire gamesbiz) is an eh.. well 'modern' approach that obviously lines up its traintracks down the cliff's edge, going by that same -strange strategy- of minimizing the target just for the sake of activism. (while to my understanding, hobbys exist as -escapism- from' and not as -amplification- of one's "identity" but perhaps I am OOOOld')

Well here is the problem, this industry wants to impose the idea that you as a player -have to identify- with what you play as, and considering spacemarines indeed are the dictionary hit on the word fascists and radical egocentrists, the industry' unable to fathom the concept of the imaginary and deathly afraid that their product may be linked to the inspiration of real world violence' acts to change the personality into the bland "its all grey".

I suppose when one conditions oneself with onscreen violence it does have an effect (the amount of controllers i've broken is pretty high), but I have never seen onscreen ideology manifest, especially because onscreen ideology is merely part of that onscreen worldbuild which rarely applies to real life enviroments. Does even anyone on earth hold canon spacemarine ideas? I don't see anyone making appointments with neuralink to get a bionic eye and exoskeleton to raze all heretics to the ground.

On the early days of 40K?

Waaargh! The Orks was essentially Orks Are Ded Cool Propaganda. Not a single rule within its hallowed pages. Just background.

And whilst there are now many, many fine books alongside it? For my money, it’s never been bested.

Indeed one of my bugbears about the earliest days is that we never got an Eldar equivalent. And do mean never.

I think it's interesting that the article notes a few situations where the developers ignored setting feedback from GW. Unlike things like the Rogue Trader games where the developers are enthusiastic about presenting the setting, even if that means making people come across as a bit unhinged.

I do think part of the problem with the satire defense is that its a little hard to say your Imperium is comically evil, when the humans who are not a part of it are wildly over the top hilariously evil. Not that I'd want to see them try to justify Chaos. It's Saturday morning supervillainy at its finest. It's just hard not to paint anything else as good by comparison.

 solkan wrote:
I think it's interesting that the article notes a few situations where the developers ignored setting feedback from GW. Unlike things like the Rogue Trader games where the developers are enthusiastic about presenting the setting, even if that means making people come across as a bit unhinged.

It’s the different disciplines.

TTWG or TTRPG? As Judge Dread once sang? It’s all in the mind. The miniatures and rules only portray so much, the rest is our own imaginations filling in the unavoidable blanks.

Novels? There you can describe stuff in great detail, and it’s still for the reader to envisage or imagine to their level of comfort.

Computer Games other animated/live action media? Say hi to the censors, because the level of detail you put on-screen is going to be judged. And typically, without exterior context of a giving setting, but with an awful lot of societal scapegoating (why blame the parents for a maladjusted lunatic child, when you can point to the kid seeing *insert media of choice here*)

Consider Dredd. Yes, it is a very violent film. Yes, Dredd is a shoot first, ask questions maybe later type. And to see that in a film, with no previous knowledge of the setting? It can seem heavy handed. But in context? That’s just Mega City Judges. It’s meant to be fascistic, because Justice Department absolutely is a fascist, totalitarian, unelected government. As a committed Dredd Fan, I could bore anyone to tears on the finer details and defining moments of the setting. But a film has 90-120 minutes. A computer game is there primarily to provide a fun gaming experience, and its lore secondary to that.

As such some suggestions perhaps should be ignored, because they’d impact the flow of the gameplay, or are interesting details it’s hard or impossible to properly reflect within the scope of the game.

There were waaaay too many words in that all to try and sound smart.

Felt like the author was patting themselves on the back because they googled "How to define fascism" and used the stuff they found on Wikipedia, then said "You made the Space Marines too nice".

This feels like they saw that meme about the three heights of people either being Space Marines (tall people), Helldivers (people in the middle), or the Dwarves from Deep Rock Galactic and didn't get that it was a joke.

 Polonius wrote:
Look at the box of second edition 40k, 1993. there's nothing satirical about that.

I always took the tag line "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war" as being somewhat satirical. Maybe it's a British/US Cultural thing, but old GW was very clearly satirical, with Orks based on football hooligans and a warboss based on Margaret Thatcher. But without being aware of England in the 80's and 90's a lot of the references and accents would be missed.

At some point during my hiatus about 4th->6th Editions, it seemed to go from satire to serious and then it just felt a bit silly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

Well here is the problem, this industry wants to impose the idea that you as a player -have to identify- with what you play as, and considering spacemarines indeed are the dictionary hit on the word fascists and radical egocentrists, the industry' unable to fathom the concept of the imaginary and deathly afraid that their product may be linked to the inspiration of real world violence' acts to change the personality into the bland "its all grey".

If you want to appeal to a wide audience base for a character-first game, then you need your players to feel some connection to the characters. Otherwise it's just bland. Thats why in most of FPS and RPG type games you play a named character; Duke Nukem, Master Chief, Link, etc.
That's probably why so many of them get upset with woke characters.

To appeal to anyone other than wannabe fascists, you need to present Space Marines as something more than fascists.

Herzlos wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
Look at the box of second edition 40k, 1993. there's nothing satirical about that.

I always took the tag line "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war" as being somewhat satirical. Maybe it's a British/US Cultural thing, but old GW was very clearly satirical, with Orks based on football hooligans and a warboss based on Margaret Thatcher. But without being aware of England in the 80's and 90's a lot of the references and accents would be missed.

At some point during my hiatus about 4th->6th Editions, it seemed to go from satire to serious and then it just felt a bit silly.

Rogue trade era 40k was influenced by literally everything the designers saw or heard. Sci-fi, fantasy, pop culture, politics, whatever. It had satircal elements, which really kind of boil down to the same handful of jokes: orks as hooligans, thatcher as a warobss, inquisitor obiwan sherlock cousteau, etc. It wasn't a satire in the sense of, say, "A modest Proposal" or even Borat. It was taking the piss, to use a british term.

By second edition, I think any even attempts at satire had long gone, but there was at least a sense of ironic hyperboe, perhaps. The second edition box art wasn't a satire, but maybe it was self aware enough to know that it's over the top? I don't know. Second edition lore was presented out of universe, in third person omnisecent voice. We were told directly about the imperium and it's enemies from above.

Third edition Is when the tone shifted completely away from "air brushed on the side of a van" style amazing to gritty grim dark amazing. The lore was heavily in universe, often first person, occasioanlyy unreliable, and provided glimpses and vibes more than an encyclopedic view. There were still jokes, necrons reanimation protocols were originally called "we'll be back," which was unfortutnate there was still a sense of irony, for example in the third edition Space Marine codex there was a break down of the typcial day for a space marine while in the chapter fortress, and it incudes 15 minutes of "free time." with an asterix and the explanation that while free time is debated among space marine captains and chapter masters, the codex astartes encourages the brothers to reflect on their duty in their free time, sot hey are given time to do so. That's just bleak but also darkly kidn of funny, right?

I think that what people mean when they say "satire" is the idea of self awareness that the work of 40k is ridiculous and over the top. Even as late as I think 5th edition, int he IG codex there was a little story of an artillery regiment shelling a city into rubble for a decade, which was two years after the last signs of live and five years after they surrendered. This is a truly bonkers society.

I'll be honest, I don't read a ton of modern lore, but what I have read in the last ten years has been pretty much "these are the awesome dudes, they're awesome because they do awesome stuff." It's all played very straight.

To appeal to anyone other than wannabe fascists, you need to present Space Marines as something more than fascists.

I don't think that's necessarily true. People can adopt all kinds of roles. I'm a soyboy lib all day long, and I have zero problem playing a fascist in a video game because, hey, it's a video game. I do think that humanizing space marines makes them appealing. They're trans human brainwashed speical forces warrior monks. that's a lot to try to relate to, so giving them something to empathize with probably helps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:
I do think part of the problem with the satire defense is that its a little hard to say your Imperium is comically evil, when the humans who are not a part of it are wildly over the top hilariously evil. Not that I'd want to see them try to justify Chaos. It's Saturday morning supervillainy at its finest. It's just hard not to paint anything else as good by comparison.

You see some of it with the humans who join the tau, I guess.

I think it's a big universe that focuses on cataclysmic battles. The humans that live quietly and happily, outside or inside the imperium, aren't very interesting stories.

Aren't some of the Ultramar planets basically like the star trek federation in terms of quality of life?

I've been talking more with people about this ever since there were rumours of 40k movies/series, and how difficult it would be to make them about something that just didn't feel more like a movie about a sub-section of the 40k universe whose themes were lifted from somewhere else.

The satire is long dead, yes. It its wake it is just over the top-ness, which is self-aware.....sometimes. It's kind of interesting to see where it all will go as the marketing machine marches on.

 Polonius wrote:

Aren't some of the Ultramar planets basically like the star trek federation in terms of quality of life?

No, because that would require them to have rights such as freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of the press, legal rights such as to a fair trial and effective legal representation, abolishment of capital and corporal punishment etc.

Nowhere in the Imperium is free, or anywhere close to it, because there is always the threat of an Inquisitor thinking you walk funny and shooting you for it.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, the main theme of the 40k universe has always been that violence is pretty neat.

I think there's a really interesting theme in modern 40k, which is this: the imperium is brutal and awful, but it is the only thing preventing humanity from being swallowed by chaos. Except, maybe it isn't? but nobody can take the chance.

The Imperium of man is basically just holding on as long as it can, becuase if they fall, it might be the end of humanity. But holding on might also be delaying the rebirth of humanity as well.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

Aren't some of the Ultramar planets basically like the star trek federation in terms of quality of life?

No, because that would require them to have rights such as freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of the press, legal rights such as to a fair trial and effective legal representation, abolishment of capital and corporal punishment etc.

Nowhere in the Imperium is free, or anywhere close to it, because there is always the threat of an Inquisitor thinking you walk funny and shooting you for it.

To be fair Startrek has its own spies and underlayer. Section 32 extremists, but there have also been constant elements of the story that the upper ranks of Starfleet don't live in the Paradise that is often shown. We see it here and there even way back in the Original series and early films. DS9 shows us Sisko go straight through the change from optimistic innocent to being willing to lie, cheat, murder and conspire. Picard series also highlights the underbelly and darker elements much more so.

So in contrast yes there probably are worlds in the Imperium that are close too the similar levels of quality of life. Not exactly the same no, but there are worlds that are peaceful; where the average person can live a long life in relative comfort with a stable job and raise a family. Indeed the Imperium has pretty strong gender rights and they don't seem to care who you sleep with (so long as you don't do it to excess in a cult). Legal aspects, freedom of the press and such vary a LOT world to world. Some are going to be more controlled, other worlds are clearly more open.
The difficulty with the setting is that basically any world you can imagine happens somewhere. The seting just tends to focus a LOT on the worlds that are the most harsh and brutal. Those on the front lines that are locked in war; or which create the most powerful warriors*

*40K has the same element of Dune in that harsh worlds breed hard people; so in a setting focused on war its no surprise that they focus on harsh worlds since they are producing the most notable warriors.

Polonius wrote:Let's not get ahead of ourselves, the main theme of the 40k universe has always been that violence is pretty neat.

I think there's a really interesting theme in modern 40k, which is this: the imperium is brutal and awful, but it is the only thing preventing humanity from being swallowed by chaos. Except, maybe it isn't? but nobody can take the chance.

The Imperium of man is basically just holding on as long as it can, becuase if they fall, it might be the end of humanity. But holding on might also be delaying the rebirth of humanity as well.

I don't think this is modern, its been there for a long time. The idea that the Imperium is this insane thing that just won't stop or change for fear, whilst at the same time you can openly see that many of their policies and attitudes contribute toward their stagnated condition. The refusal to make more marines; use AI; the insane religious approach to Science and technology to name but a few. You could even argue that their Xenophobia is clearly bonkers as well when you've the likes of Eldar who would clearly be better allies than enemies in the current state of play. Or for that matter the Tau.

The satire was diminished by 4th edition, but clearly still there. That’s when we had the Uplifting Primer and the Munitorum Manual, when codices were still full of satirical quotes along the lines of “a closed mind is a fortress” and “Your plea of innocent is guilty of wasting my time”. 5th edition seems to be when the writers lost that satirical appreciation for the setting for the most part.