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4M2A wrote:
In the future our culture will change and so will our morals, does that make our ideas wrong? Does it mean that in the future everyone will be evil? Our morals aren't any better than any other cultures, the only thing we have to judge by are personal views which are by their nature biased.

Burning and torturing people for the sheer pleasure it can provide you was never considered good by any culture ever in our long history. Even our worst dictatorships never promoted such ideas. To take the example of Nazi Germany again, Nazis persecuted Jewish people because they thought they were "bettering" humanity by slaughtering the "sub-humans". Not because they took any particular pleasure in doing so.

This is not the case for Chaos (I mean daemons and the like), who will definitely seek pleasure by inflicting as much pain as possible on the mortals. This is unquestionably evil, no matter the point of view. I am pretty sure most Chaos entities are conscious that their actions are evil, and that they find much pleasure in that fact, because it means that they do something that their preys are unable of achieving (hence the feeling of power and pleasure).

Chaos isn't an example of subjective morality. Daemons aren't "misunderstood." Chaos taints, mutates, maddens, and ultimately destroys those touched by it. This isn't a case of "we have different ideals" it's "worshiping Chaos counts as Too Dumb to Live."


Dark Eldar are an example of subjective morality. They do many of the horrible things chaos worshipers do, with one crucial difference: they hate daemons and the warp just as much as the most pious Inquisitor does, if not more so. Probably something to do with the whole "constantly feeling the claws of Slaanesh draining away their souls" thing.

So when the Dark Eldar get together and have a giant orgy consisting of slaves getting skinned alive by wyches (while jumping from floating platform to floating platform above the crowd), everyone just has a fun time. When Chaos worshipers do this, daemons explode from nowhere and eat everyone.

So, to sum up: Daemons are why Chaos is objectively bad. "Bad" as in "extremely stupid," not "bad" as in "evil."

There are culture who regularly inflicted large amounts of pain to people, sacrificed other humans and thought it was the normal thing to do. Many cultures have regularly raided others and have built their lives around it.

Again all thse judgements are coming from your personal opinion. Chaos worships be as sure they are right as you believe they are wrong. As there is no proof saying any morals are better than others (more prodcutive to society yes but chaos doesn't need this) it's just one opinion against another.

The daemons seek pleasure in hurting people, yes thats true. However may of us get pleasure from eating a burger. I'm sure to a cow that makes us monsters but the majority of us see it as perfectly normal- we just don't care. It may not be as extreme but we are still unneccessarily harming animals ( we have suitable alternatives to meat that we can survive on) for our own benefit.

Daemons do the same thing. We regularly put our intrests above those of others, chaos worshipers put their intrests above ours. Chaos has the same view of superiority that current humans do over animals, and that imperial humans do over xenos.

It's impossible to argue about a daemons morals becuase we don't even know how much free thought they are capable of. They are created in the image of their god which is the embodiment of an emotion. A lot of information suggests they have as much control over there nature as nids do.

As for being stupid, its a matter of balancing up the risks and rewards. If you follow the emperor you get an safe life (if your lucky), an you may be able to advance your position if life but in most cases you can only go a small distance before you reach as high as you can. If your unlucky the imperium will force into a dangerous job or you may get sacrificed for the good of the imperium. You can be zealous and the perfect imperial citizen but chances are no one will notice. Once you die thing's don't really get better. You may go to the emperor or you may get eaten by daemons, no one really has any solid proof either way. Sre you may become a imperial saint but the chances are almost nothing.

Chaos on the other have a lot more to offer but you have to risk everything. If you are willing to risk yourself and work hard for chaos there are much higher rewards. The gods show there apreciation, a tentacle might not seem very useful but many chaos worshiper like it just because they can see the gods actually care. In the end there are 2 options for chaos:
Death- not much a worse ending than for an imperial worshiper. You go to the warp. If you get eaten by a daemon thats it, humans aren't pschic enough to feel it so they just end at death. For a zealous chaos worshiper going to their gods realm is good. You get to do whatever you did in life for ever.

Imortality- your imortal, you become a daemopn prince and do what ever you like. Seems like a good advance from being a normal human. You can carry on killing imperials if you want to gain power of just sit back on your personal world inside the eye of terror and do what ever you want.

Chaos just have different values and priorities to us they see different traits as good. In it's most extreme form they believe in authority going to the strongest and that the only rights you have are those you cangive yourself. This isn't too different to many past human cultures.

If you read some of the WHFB (granted it's not 40k but it still shows chaos worshipers characters and chaos is the same in both games) chaos fluff. There is a lot more about what the normal chaos human thinks.

Chaos offers only an illusory glimmer of hope for those who are already powerful. A peasant in the Imperium will be a tortured slave under Chaos. A planetary governor may enjoy more power than under the Imperium, until someone above him decides his skin would look absolutely fabulous made into a cape. Only the very most cunning and criminally insane find power in Chaos, for everyone else there's only torture and death.

Daemons are insane beings that want nothing more than to despoil, torture, and ultimately obliterate everything they can get their hands on. You are not a Daemon, ergo looking at things from the Daemon's point of view is pointless. Going over to the service of Daemons is insane, and contradicts every driving force behind the human mind, from instinct to reason. They bring untold torment to everything within their grasp, with the very worst saved for those who serve them.

Brother Heinrich wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:The Imperium is slavery and death. Its lies are seductive, promising Salvation. Instead it leads to chains on an alter and an agonizing death in sacrifice to The Emperor. It gives power to only the smallest percent of its followers, those who advance the agenda of this or that Lord of Terra, in the name of service to The Emperor who couldn't care less about the mortal realms, and even the greatest follower of The Emperor is a slave to a more powerful being.

See how that works both ways?

And as far the Eye of Terror/ Maelstrom not containing stable populations and there being no room for an ordered society ruled by chaos, I cite two sources, the book 'Demon World' by Ben Counter, and the book 'Traitor General' by Dan Abnett. both give an in depth look into a chaos held planet and show that for the most part Chaos planets can be much the same as Imperial ones.

Or check the book from the Ultramarines series , Dead Sky, Black Sun, where a planet ruled over by the Iron Warriors is a desolate wasteland which could easily serve as hell on earth to the slaves who inhabit it.

The imperial worlds aren't so great either. They have their own worlds were the entire planet is so focused on production all the population do is work. They may not be called slaves but they are treated like them.

Most things that chaos do the imperium do, they just aren't so honest about it.

As far as I know, the Imperium never tried trap its people's souls for all eternity.

Chaos does it every day. It is even the most basic thing they do.

Saying that the IoM does the same things as Chaos is failing to see the situation in the 41st millenium as a whole. Humanity is besieged on all sides. It is constantly raided by Chaos worhsipers, eldar and DE pirates. Its borders are constantly attacked by renegade or Xenos empires. Entire sectors are being devoured by swarms of Tyranids. The IoM is a harsh, uncaring, unfair and totalitarian regime. It sends billions of guardsmen to death everyday. Uncountable millions of imperial citizens work in hellish conditions to feed the war effort. But the IoM is mankind's only hope of survival. It is not a good regime. But its sole aim is to ensure that mankind survives and defeats its countless enemies.

If you think the IoM is evil, or at least as evil as Chaos, try to imagine a galaxy ruled by Chaos, and you will really understand what hell on Earth means.

Laodamia wrote:As far as I know, the Imperium never tried trap its people's souls for all eternity.

Bwa HA HA. Wrong. The IoM sacrifices more people on a weekly basis than Chaos does. It's called the golden throne.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Laodamia wrote:As far as I know, the Imperium never tried trap its people's souls for all eternity.

Bwa HA HA. Wrong. The IoM sacrifices more people on a weekly basis than Chaos does. It's called the golden throne.

Nope, it is not wrong. The IoM does sacrifice psykers to fuel the Astronomican and the Golden Throne, but IIRC, they souls are not slaved to the Golden Toilet or the Holy Flashlight forever. They simply fade and die while fueling these two artifacts. Big E doesn't play with their souls for all eternity just because he is bored. Chaos Daemons, on the other hand...

Hmmm I think its pretty plain in all the multitude of books and portrayals of Chaos, that they are pretty much fully and totally corrupt and debased and evil beyond all human comprehension, and that we would be mere pawns..or slaves to darkness should they triumph, humans matter about as much to the gods of Chaos as the grains of sand beneath your feet when you walk along the beach matter to a schoolgirl in Edo who has just lost her favorite hair clip...I.E. not at all.

Humans may sacrifice, and abuse and commit all forms of seemingly evil acts but in the final resolution we would seem like choirboys compared to what Chaos will/would do if it fully held sway, and no chaos does not want to merely feed off mankind for all eternity, that would imply stasis, and chaos is about change and mutation, they want everything to fall into ruin so the next may rise...and that fall as well, thats why the gods of chaos are such busy little beavers in advancing their aggendas.....gotta fill quotas

I am reminded of a saying " The greatest victory the Devil has won, is convincing us all he does not exist."
I think Chaos worshippers would advance this whole "chaos is no more evil than your current regime" thing to death merely to mask the true torment they have waiting for you.

Laodamia wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Laodamia wrote:As far as I know, the Imperium never tried trap its people's souls for all eternity.

Bwa HA HA. Wrong. The IoM sacrifices more people on a weekly basis than Chaos does. It's called the golden throne.

Nope, it is not wrong. The IoM does sacrifice psykers to fuel the Astronomican and the Golden Throne, but IIRC, they souls are not slaved to the Golden Toilet or the Holy Flashlight forever. They simply fade and die while fueling these two artifacts. Big E doesn't play with their souls for all eternity just because he is bored. Chaos Daemons, on the other hand...

Ok, once again they don't sacrifice psykers for The Astronomicon. As a matter a fact its considered an honour to serve. You are right they don't slave souls to the throne just kidnap you in the night and destroy your soul permanently for how you were born. I guess that is slightly better.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Laodamia wrote:As far as I know, the Imperium never tried trap its people's souls for all eternity.

Bwa HA HA. Wrong. The IoM sacrifices more people on a weekly basis than Chaos does. It's called the golden throne.

Less than one billionth of a percent of the Imperial population is sacrificed to it on a daily basis, going by the largest, most insane figures provided (10,000 a day), and all from the weakest, most unstable psykers, who would meet far more horrific ends if left to their own devices. And despite outnumbering Chaos cultists billions to one, I dare guess that the cultists still manage to beat those numbers, at least when averaged over time, and certainly sacrifice a much, much larger percent of their followers, and not solely taken from people who tend to have daemons burst out of their heads anyways (although that's frequently a side effect of the sacrificial process...).

I don't understand why some try to put WH40K factions into black and white dichotomies... when what you only have are shades of dark grey.

Put it this way... what would be the difference between your world being invaded by World Eaters, and "saved" from said World Eaters by Flesh Tearers, or Blood Angels before their retcon/beatification?

Oh, and I would argue that Tyranids are probably the only force I'd consider "good". Why? They represent the best chance of wiping the galaxy clean and giving it a needed reboot. Maybe if the Chaos powers and the Emperor are taken out of the equation, the Milky Way can finally implode on itself and a new galaxy can emerge that is significantly less screwed sideways.

Now you're thinking the imperial way

KamikazeCanuck wrote: You are right they don't slave souls to the throne just kidnap you in the night and destroy your soul permanently for how you were born. I guess that is slightly better.

I don't think it destroys the soul. The body is wasted into nothing, yes, but the souls aren't obliterated or enslaved for eternity.

Human souls are already obliterated on death, unless the individual in question is extremely strong willed or a more powerful being intervenes. Well, the identity of the soul, anyways; some flayed shred of the energy that comprised it might remain, but it couldn't really be said to be its former owner's soul at that point.

thebaroness wrote:
Oh, and I would argue that Tyranids are probably the only force I'd consider "good". Why? They represent the best chance of wiping the galaxy clean and giving it a needed reboot. Maybe if the Chaos powers and the Emperor are taken out of the equation, the Milky Way can finally implode on itself and a new galaxy can emerge that is significantly less screwed sideways.

Reboot? yeah, sure if they left at least one planet ALIVE!!!
They are the worst race to fight with, not because it is difficult to defeat them - but because they don't left anything after them. If they win in 40k, there will be no planets to sustain any kind of life in the galaxy. Just like the Necrons, difference is they left planet to live, Tyranids don't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

4M2A wrote:The imperial worlds aren't so great either. They have their own worlds were the entire planet is so focused on production all the population do is work. They may not be called slaves but they are treated like them.

Most things that chaos do the imperium do, they just aren't so honest about it.

Yeah, sure. And our parents and friends and we are slaves to have a job and work third of the day.
What do Imperial citizens do is WORK, it's essential thing to one's survival. And they are not forced to, they only work double shifts when they world face attack. And there are indeed "slaves" in Imperial industry, these are hard criminals who instead to be put in Penal Legions are put in Imperial war factories to produce munition and gear for the Guard.

Not true, those 10.000 psykers that sacrifice for the golden throne are doing so freely. And why not? Terra alone has trillions of citizens, if few thousand must be sacrificed for the grater good - so be it. You are only saying Imperials are not the good guys because their treatment to their citizens, they are treating them like our government are treating us. Difference is that our world is not in constant danger to be destroyed, and we are not in constant danger to be consumed by daemons. And you call them the bad guys because they are tend to kill millions sometimes - that thing is justified. Like Vulkans said in Star Trek: "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." If one world must be sacrificed to stop Tyranid invasion of Chaos plague, so be it.

The 10,000 psykers sacrificed to the throne are not doing it freely. They are inquisiton prisoners. That's why inquisitors are mostly known as witchhunters.

It doesn't matter if untrained witches "want" to support Mankinds
survival, but allowing Demons to enter into the material realm
will do no good so the fate of the psykers found lacking the strength to control their "gifts" is the least evil solution and a efficent way to use ressources.

Witchhunters hunt witches, not trained psykers, would be psykerhunters otherwise....

So the debate often comes down to well the IoM may destroy 10,000 souls a day but chaos enslaves 10,001 which is more evil. And I agree. However just because the IoM is less evil than Hell doesn't make it "good." A necessary evil is still be definition evil.

But as chaos is Hell, they are the definition of evil and thus never
good. And the subject is chaos here.
If or if not the IoM is good changes nothing of the fact of chaos
beeing the evil side in any game universe.

You cannot declare someone good because someone else
is "more evil". Its always about the deeds of the subject itself.
Chaos fails there at "goodness".

They certainly do.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:So the debate often comes down to well the IoM may destroy 10,000 souls a day but chaos enslaves 10,001 which is more evil. And I agree. However just because the IoM is less evil than Hell doesn't make it "good." A necessary evil is still be definition evil.

Except it doesn't even qualify as a necessary evil: it's a humane death for those psykers who would otherwise die horrifically becoming vessels for daemons (which would also be a horrific death for everyone around them), all in the service of facilitating interstellar travel, without which hundreds of trillions would starve, and there would be no troops or warships in place to repel invasion or put down chaos uprisings. And yet we are to believe that using less than one billionth of a percent of the population to keep the beacon that facilitates all travel throughout the galaxy running, thus saving the individuals sacrificed from horrific death by daemonic possession and saving the quadrillions (conservative estimate) of other Imperial citizens from horrible deaths by starvation, xenos incursions, and daemons summoned by insane Chaos cults is "evil"?

Now, how much of the total human population is given over to Chaos worship? The Imperial Guard is somewhere around a thousandth of the population, on the outside, are there more or fewer Chaos worshipers than there are Guardsmen? If Chaos worshipers sacrificed even just one percent of their population a year, they would have to make up less than 0.00004% (four hundred thousandths of a percent, or one in every forty million) of the human population to sacrifice fewer people numerically than the golden throne claims. In other words, there would have to only be twenty five billion chaos worshipers throughout the entire galaxy. Now, do Chaos cults only sacrifice one percent of their total number per year? That seems highly unlikely to me. Are there only twenty five billion cultists throughout the galaxy? That also seems highly unlikely, considering how underhives tend to be teeming with mutated cultists and the number of daemon worlds in the Eye of Terror.

So, by both raw numbers and percents of the respective populations, Chaos cultists sacrifice far more people than the golden throne, and never for so noble a cause as saving quadrillions of lives, nor taken exclusively (or even commonly, considering the relative value of a rogue psyker to cultists) from a population that would otherwise die horrifically through their own inability to not explode in a gout of warpfire and daemons.

Brother Coa wrote:

Yeah, sure. And our parents and friends and we are slaves to have a job and work third of the day.
What do Imperial citizens do is WORK, it's essential thing to one's survival. And they are not forced to, they only work double shifts when they world face attack. And there are indeed "slaves" in Imperial industry, these are hard criminals who instead to be put in Penal Legions are put in Imperial war factories to produce munition and gear for the Guard.

The Cities of Death rulebook says otherwise;
"Every Citizen lives a life of perpetual service, slaving away at back-breaking and mind-numbing tasks for twenty hours a day, before dragging their exhausted, labor wracked bodies beneath their benches to snatch a few hours of fitful sleep... For most, the cities of the Imperium are merciless and cruel places, where all hope is lost and only mindless subservience remains."

In my view, the Imperium is actually more honest about it's slavery than Chaos. "The loyal slave learns to love the lash." As they think.

FourCartridge wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

Yeah, sure. And our parents and friends and we are slaves to have a job and work third of the day.
What do Imperial citizens do is WORK, it's essential thing to one's survival. And they are not forced to, they only work double shifts when they world face attack. And there are indeed "slaves" in Imperial industry, these are hard criminals who instead to be put in Penal Legions are put in Imperial war factories to produce munition and gear for the Guard.

The Cities of Death rulebook says otherwise;
"Every Citizen lives a life of perpetual service, slaving away at back-breaking and mind-numbing tasks for twenty hours a day, before dragging their exhausted, labor wracked bodies beneath their benches to snatch a few hours of fitful sleep... For most, the cities of the Imperium are merciless and cruel places, where all hope is lost and only mindless subservience remains."

In my view, the Imperium is actually more honest about it's slavery than Chaos. "The loyal slave learns to love the lash." As they think.

But MANY other pieces of fluff (uktramarines novels, Titanicus and others) picture imperial citizens having a normal life, where they work hard, get a good pay and get back home where they watch their children grow peacefully. No lash, no cruelty and no "grimdrak future" in those stories, and I think they are more credible than the cities of death or the necromunda rulebook.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:So the debate often comes down to well the IoM may destroy 10,000 souls a day but chaos enslaves 10,001 which is more evil. And I agree. However just because the IoM is less evil than Hell doesn't make it "good." A necessary evil is still be definition evil.

Except it doesn't even qualify as a necessary evil: it's a humane death for those psykers who would otherwise die horrifically becoming vessels for daemons (which would also be a horrific death for everyone around them), all in the service of facilitating interstellar travel, without which hundreds of trillions would starve, and there would be no troops or warships in place to repel invasion or put down chaos uprisings. And yet we are to believe that using less than one billionth of a percent of the population to keep the beacon that facilitates all travel throughout the galaxy running, thus saving the individuals sacrificed from horrific death by daemonic possession and saving the quadrillions (conservative estimate) of other Imperial citizens from horrible deaths by starvation, xenos incursions, and daemons summoned by insane Chaos cults is "evil"?

Yes, I think that might be the very definition of Necessary Evil.

I would say that certain Chaos Space Marines are, or at least were, the good guys. What easily comes to my mind is the Alpha Legion; they don't dally with the powers of the warp, and they aren't heartless butchers, at least in any of the books I've read. They fell solely because they "knew" they had to for the good of the imperium in the long run.

So yes, I would imagine that some, but not all, Chaos Space Marines are the good guys.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:So the debate often comes down to well the IoM may destroy 10,000 souls a day but chaos enslaves 10,001 which is more evil. And I agree. However just because the IoM is less evil than Hell doesn't make it "good." A necessary evil is still be definition evil.

Except it doesn't even qualify as a necessary evil: it's a humane death for those psykers who would otherwise die horrifically becoming vessels for daemons (which would also be a horrific death for everyone around them), all in the service of facilitating interstellar travel, without which hundreds of trillions would starve, and there would be no troops or warships in place to repel invasion or put down chaos uprisings. And yet we are to believe that using less than one billionth of a percent of the population to keep the beacon that facilitates all travel throughout the galaxy running, thus saving the individuals sacrificed from horrific death by daemonic possession and saving the quadrillions (conservative estimate) of other Imperial citizens from horrible deaths by starvation, xenos incursions, and daemons summoned by insane Chaos cults is "evil"?

Yes, I think that might be the very definition of Necessary Evil.

I contest the "evil" part. It is a kindness done to living bombs to preserve the lives of an incomprehensibly large number of people. It's kind of like putting down a single rabid dog, if rabies made daemons burst out of your head, and putting it down would cure cancer, the energy crisis, global warming, aids, and general geopolitical strife, to preserve the scale of what the golden throne does for what it takes.

Slarg232 wrote:I would say that certain Chaos Space Marines are, or at least were, the good guys. What easily comes to my mind is the Alpha Legion; they don't dally with the powers of the warp, and they aren't heartless butchers, at least in any of the books I've read. They fell solely because they "knew" they had to for the good of the imperium in the long run.

So yes, I would imagine that some, but not all, Chaos Space Marines are the good guys.

As I recall, the Alpha Legion was told by some random Xenos that if Horus won, humanity would be obliterated within decades, and Chaos would die with it, while if the Emperor won humanity would continue on for many millenia before finally dying out. So naturally they decided to wipe out humanity at the behest of Xenos, who were totally telling the truth, because it's not like "the language of the alien should be called 'lies'" or anything...

The others were all either turned by greed or desperation, or through being deceived by the lies and twisted truths of the Daemon. Horus was shown the truth of what would happen if he rebelled and failed, leaving out the part about his rebellion being the ultimate cause of it all.

The Imperium aren't all that good, e.g. the 1st Armageddon War all the soldiers who fought because they witnessed chaos at its fullest were forced to live out the rest of their lives amongst concentration camps. But, they still do more good to the galaxy than chaos. I don't think razing an entire system, obliterating everything just for a united galaxy is any good. The Imperium simply kill of the aliens or problem to regain the sector and populate it.

Imperium of Man=+1
Chaos Gods=-1264