Do Commissars Really Fit In The 40K Universe?

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**AldarionTelcontar**

NapoleonInSpace wrote:
If you think about it, they really are out of place.

This is a world based on something resembling the late middle ages with massive overtones of the early renaissance. The Imperial Cult is the Catholic Church. NOTE: I AM NOT TRYING TO BE INSULTING HERE. It is certainly the institution out of which the Inquisition arose, and as an organization, it did what was seen as necessary to fight the Muslims -aliens from without- and protestants -heretics from within- to preserve what was seen as the divine order so please, lets go nowhere down that road, its not the point.

Rather, the point is that all of this stuff is very medieval. In fact, 40k kinda hits you over the head with its medievalness.

Then along comes the commissariat, which is straight up Soviet Russia with big overtones of the SS.

Don't get me wrong. The commissars are a lot of fun. But do they really fit? In a way the Inquisition and the Commissariat somehow both seem to belong, but I'm not sure why I think that. They certainly are very different ages different answers to what is seen as the same problem.

And yet, somehow, I like them both, even though I raise this issue, and I wouldn't junk either one, though I'm not sure why.

Thoughts?

Commissariat makes lot more sense once you realize that it is essentially Guard-affiliated Inquisition. Sure, there is a big dose of Soviet "shoot you in the back if you try to retreat", and that too makes sense when you realize horrors the Guardsmen face regularly... but another major duty of Commissariat is to shield the Guard from Chaos infiltration.

So I'm not sure you should compare it to the Soviet Commissariat at all.