Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No.
No noblebright republic in my delicious grimdark please. Unless of course said republic is a grimdark satire of present-day "democracies". That would be fun.
It has to be depressing and dystopian, otherwise it is in the wrong universe. Hopeful rebellions and freedom fighters are perfectly fine, but in the end their ideals have to become twisted and end up worse than whatever it was they were fighting against. That, or they have to meet some other kind of grisly demise because the whole thing was a gruesome plot by Chaos or Dark Eldar or something like that. Such is the way things go in the grim darkness of the far future.

Too late. You've obviously never heard of Sandy Mitchell. He makes the imperium look like a pretty decent place to live so long as the planet in question isn't ravaged by an immediate crisis such as Orks, Nids, Chaos, or Crons. Does this mean you'll be giving up WH40K, or do you simply judge his works to be non-cannon like many have done with CS Goto?

Randomrolls wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No.
No noblebright republic in my delicious grimdark please. Unless of course said republic is a grimdark satire of present-day "democracies". That would be fun.
It has to be depressing and dystopian, otherwise it is in the wrong universe. Hopeful rebellions and freedom fighters are perfectly fine, but in the end their ideals have to become twisted and end up worse than whatever it was they were fighting against. That, or they have to meet some other kind of grisly demise because the whole thing was a gruesome plot by Chaos or Dark Eldar or something like that. Such is the way things go in the grim darkness of the far future.

Too late. You've obviously never heard of Sandy Mitchell. He makes the imperium look like a pretty decent place to live so long as the planet in question isn't ravaged by an immediate crisis such as Orks, Nids, Chaos, or Crons. Does this mean you'll be giving up WH40K, or do you simply judge his works to be non-cannon like many have done with CS Goto?

"some" places no doubt are decent but they are without doubt the exception rather than the rule.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No.
No noblebright republic in my delicious grimdark please. Unless of course said republic is a grimdark satire of present-day "democracies". That would be fun.
It has to be depressing and dystopian, otherwise it is in the wrong universe. Hopeful rebellions and freedom fighters are perfectly fine, but in the end their ideals have to become twisted and end up worse than whatever it was they were fighting against. That, or they have to meet some other kind of grisly demise because the whole thing was a gruesome plot by Chaos or Dark Eldar or something like that. Such is the way things go in the grim darkness of the far future.

Couldn't agree more. Great stuff.

Randomrolls wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No.
No noblebright republic in my delicious grimdark please. Unless of course said republic is a grimdark satire of present-day "democracies". That would be fun.
It has to be depressing and dystopian, otherwise it is in the wrong universe. Hopeful rebellions and freedom fighters are perfectly fine, but in the end their ideals have to become twisted and end up worse than whatever it was they were fighting against. That, or they have to meet some other kind of grisly demise because the whole thing was a gruesome plot by Chaos or Dark Eldar or something like that. Such is the way things go in the grim darkness of the far future.

Too late. You've obviously never heard of Sandy Mitchell. He makes the imperium look like a pretty decent place to live so long as the planet in question isn't ravaged by an immediate crisis such as Orks, Nids, Chaos, or Crons. Does this mean you'll be giving up WH40K, or do you simply judge his works to be non-cannon like many have done with CS Goto?

Isn't Sandy Mitchell the author who introduced a booze drinking Sororitas? Not sure he's a good example of faithfulness to the background.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Randomrolls wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
No.
No noblebright republic in my delicious grimdark please. Unless of course said republic is a grimdark satire of present-day "democracies". That would be fun.
It has to be depressing and dystopian, otherwise it is in the wrong universe. Hopeful rebellions and freedom fighters are perfectly fine, but in the end their ideals have to become twisted and end up worse than whatever it was they were fighting against. That, or they have to meet some other kind of grisly demise because the whole thing was a gruesome plot by Chaos or Dark Eldar or something like that. Such is the way things go in the grim darkness of the far future.

Too late. You've obviously never heard of Sandy Mitchell. He makes the imperium look like a pretty decent place to live so long as the planet in question isn't ravaged by an immediate crisis such as Orks, Nids, Chaos, or Crons. Does this mean you'll be giving up WH40K, or do you simply judge his works to be non-cannon like many have done with CS Goto?

Isn't Sandy Mitchell the author who introduced a booze drinking Sororitas? Not sure he's a good example of faithfulness to the background.

You mean an actual believable character as opposed to a two-dimensional cardboard cutout? Why yes, he did introduce a few of those. He's also a fun author. You know, fun, that whole reason you read a series, otherwise it becomes simply dry battle scenes like those out of your school history textbook? Yes, he has an upbeat inquisitor. Yes, he does portray a cowardly commissar. But my suspension of disbelief does not go so far as to think that humans have stopped having individual personalities, so this is quite alright with me. What I'm hearing from a lot of the fanbase is I like repetitive characters who are exactly what they appear to be on the outside, with no deviation or sense of self. The next thing you'll be telling me is that it is impossible for a noble to have ethics, because grimdark, or that the Tau cannot ever make an alliance with the Eldar, because in the grimderp futa there is only Waaah.

In real life republics are garbage, I expect grimdark republics would be worse still...

 SolarCross wrote:
I real life republics are garbage, I expect grimdark republics would be worse still...

Real life government is garbage.

Randomrolls wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:
I real life republics are garbage, I expect grimdark republics would be worse still...

Real life government is garbage.

Yes but republics are objectively more garbage than monarchies.

 SolarCross wrote:

Randomrolls wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:
I real life republics are garbage, I expect grimdark republics would be worse still...

Real life government is garbage.

Yes but republics are objectively more garbage than monarchies.

Now you've got me curious as to how you've come to that conclusion. Not angry, mind, merely curious.

Randomrolls wrote:

Now you've got me curious as to how you've come to that conclusion. Not angry, mind, merely curious.

Currently only about 25% of countries are monarchies and only about 5 countries are absolute monarchies. Of the top 10 countries only 2 are republics: switzerland and the US. The bottom 150 are all republics. Pick any metric you want: civil liberties, wealth, health, education, culture... monarchies rank higher than republics. Really the only republic that is actually good on all fronts is Switzerland. The US is passable but mixed. The rest are all garbage.

As an anarcho-capitalist, I actually find myself agreeing with you. An individual monarch doesn't pass quite so many laws merely by virtue of the fact that the monarchy would have to deploy forces to bother to keep said laws. As the Monarchy really doesn't give so much of a damn so long as it maintains power, this actually nets more freedom for the individual.

Randomrolls wrote:
As an anarcho-capitalist, I actually find myself agreeing with you. An individual monarch doesn't pass quite so many laws merely by virtue of the fact that the monarchy would have to deploy forces to bother to keep said laws. As the Monarchy really doesn't give so much of a damn so long as it maintains power, this actually nets more freedom for the individual.

Yeah, that is pretty much how it works, especially absolute monarchies though constitutional monarchies not so much as the plebs are partially invited in to pass laws for their own benefit at the expense of everyone else.

You read any Hans Herman Hoppe? He came to much the same conclusion.

Monarchies are real government because government is a business operating in the field of security which is all a monarch really cares about. Republics extend the scope of the role of government beyond war and peace and into a mass mutual shakedown operation where everybody must compete to shakedown someone else to mitigate for all the times they get shakendown in return.

 SolarCross wrote:

Randomrolls wrote:
As an anarcho-capitalist, I actually find myself agreeing with you. An individual monarch doesn't pass quite so many laws merely by virtue of the fact that the monarchy would have to deploy forces to bother to keep said laws. As the Monarchy really doesn't give so much of a damn so long as it maintains power, this actually nets more freedom for the individual.

Yeah, that is pretty much how it works, especially absolute monarchies though constitutional monarchies not so much as the plebs are partially invited in to pass laws for their own benefit at the expense of everyone else.

You read any Hans Herman Hoppe? He came to much the same conclusion.

Monarchies are real government because government is a business operating in the field of security which is all a monarch really cares about. Republics extend the scope of the role of government beyond war and peace and into a mass mutual shakedown operation where everybody must compete to shakedown someone else to mitigate for all the times they get shakendown in return.

I could not have said it better myself. I am halfway through Atlas Shrugged, though I have heard of Hoppe. He'll have to be next on my reading list.

 SolarCross wrote:

Randomrolls wrote:

Now you've got me curious as to how you've come to that conclusion. Not angry, mind, merely curious.

Currently only about 25% of countries are monarchies and only about 5 countries are absolute monarchies. Of the top 10 countries only 2 are republics: switzerland and the US. The bottom 150 are all republics. Pick any metric you want: civil liberties, wealth, health, education, culture... monarchies rank higher than republics. Really the only republic that is actually good on all fronts is Switzerland. The US is passable but mixed. The rest are all garbage.

Source? Top ten is a bit vague.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

Randomrolls wrote:

Now you've got me curious as to how you've come to that conclusion. Not angry, mind, merely curious.

Currently only about 25% of countries are monarchies and only about 5 countries are absolute monarchies. Of the top 10 countries only 2 are republics: switzerland and the US. The bottom 150 are all republics. Pick any metric you want: civil liberties, wealth, health, education, culture... monarchies rank higher than republics. Really the only republic that is actually good on all fronts is Switzerland. The US is passable but mixed. The rest are all garbage.

Source? Top ten is a bit vague.

Sadly, this is a valid question. I shouldn't go so far as to accept it as fact without first checking the source. If only there were a Cthuluspy who was tolerated on pages such as "The Other 98%" without being instabanned. However, I do wonder if we are wondering a bit too far afield. We might want to begin another thread for the purposes of this debate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
New thread started for the purposes of this discussion. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/693336.page

 Limeblossom wrote:
This idea is routinely coming back in my list of fanwishes for 40K.

I really want to see an human army opposing the Imperium and toning down the grimdark (like the Tau did in it's first appearance).

Both the Galactic Republic and the American revolution are the the sources of inspiration for me; A group of human inhabited planets decided to rebel against the Imperium with the help of "certain species".

What do you think?

It's a big galaxy, with plenty of room to play in.


It isn't impossible that technologically and socially advanced Human cultures still exist off the Imperium's radar.


Whether or not they are strong enough to resist Imperial "compliance" (i.e. a Crusade) is a whole other matter.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:


Source? Top ten is a bit vague.

There are a few for starters though it may be a bit off-topic to say so here.

Wiki has three different rankings of GDP per capita made by three different sources: IMF, World Bank and CIA.
According to the IMF there are only two republics in the top 10, the rest are monarchies with 3 being absolute monarchies.
According to the World Bank there are only two republics also, with the rest being monarchies (3 being absolute monarchies).
According to the CIA (ironically) there are no republics in the top ten at all!

GDP per capita is a reasonable estimate of wealth which in turn tends to support the other things like health, education and culture.

If you don't like narrow rankings by wealth then perhaps the HDI (human development index) will suit you better and indeed republics look a little better there as 4 out 10 of the top 10 by HDI are republics though that still leaves 6 monarchies...

Please note that monarchies constitute less than 25% of government types currently and only 5 out of 196 countries are absolute monarchies. Assuming republics were just as good then they should have 7 to 8 spots out of the top ten and absolute monarchies should not be in there at all.

As a final food for thought consider this brief article in the business insider: 11 really good reasons why your country should have a monarchy.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The imperium doesn't sell their species to a bunch of xeno sadists though.

The imperium isn't a nice place, but its probably the only good place for humanity.

Ekhm, what about the Tau Empire?

 Xathrodox86 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The imperium doesn't sell their species to a bunch of xeno sadists though.

The imperium isn't a nice place, but its probably the only good place for humanity.

Ekhm, what about the Tau Empire?

If you like being a slave to weird blue cow extremists with a crazy ideology, then sure.

Mudrat wrote:
Personally I don't know how you'd manage to get a couple planets (however many the OP was thinking) to form a nice and stable republic. Look at earth to see how hard it is for a smallish world mostly covered in water. In in star wars, given that it was listed as an example, most of the senate is corrupt and most of the power resides in the core worlds.

As history has shown, however, people have adapted to rule over massive areas of land. Humanity has grown from a family unit to a village, tribes, city-states, tribal collectives, countries, empires, and now large countries with alliances that last decades. Why can't humanity continue this trend?

 Flanker wrote:

Mudrat wrote:
Personally I don't know how you'd manage to get a couple planets (however many the OP was thinking) to form a nice and stable republic. Look at earth to see how hard it is for a smallish world mostly covered in water. In in star wars, given that it was listed as an example, most of the senate is corrupt and most of the power resides in the core worlds.

As history has shown, however, people have adapted to rule over massive areas of land. Humanity has grown from a family unit to a village, tribes, city-states, tribal collectives, countries, empires, and now large countries with alliances that last decades. Why can't humanity continue this trend?

This is true. As we look over history though, people got more and more corrupt (not posting examples, too much risk of derailment), and the world as it is today still has distinct segregation in regards to living standards between powers (1st/3rd world, etc.)

I'm not saying that a republic couldn't work in 40k (I can of am, but I digress). What I'm saying is that any republic that covered even one planet, let alone several, would realistically be so corrupt that the average citizen probably can't tell much difference between the Imperium at large and their 'democratic' governors.

Also, just a note on the countries having alliances that last decades: they have grudges that do the exact same thing. Imagine if we were still being ruled by people from the 40ies thanks to Juvenat tech, or even back at the early 1900's. Even if the rulers changed, there's no guarantee the grudges will just go away (again, not wanting to venture into the minefield of real-life examples)

Grimdark democracy could be Tyranny of the majority on extreme or only pseudo democracy.

Nova Terra anyone? That didn't end too well did it?

No, but it did last nearly a thousand years and hold sway over a quarter of imperial space, so it's no 'flash in the pan'!

I'll be interested to see the details on that if they ever publish them.

Isn't Sandy Mitchell the author who introduced a booze drinking Sororitas? Not sure he's a good example of faithfulness to the background.

Actually, he's pretty good on a lot of things. And the one soroitas character mentioned is, pointedly, a rather war-battered veteran who is doing that behind everyone's back because she's fully aware she isn't supposed to. There are far worse secret habits to have in the 41st millennium....

The books are funny, and there are a few things which don't mesh with backgrounds (the description of the Schola Progenii isn't quite as grim as the old Sisters of battle codex but then that in turn is nowhere like the descriptions of ridiculous over-the-top brutality of the Militarum Tempestus codex), but the characters are interesting.

Cain isn't a coward. Not really. He's someone who ends up doing the right thing because he's scared of not doing, and he finds himself doing heroic things by reflex despite his best instincts.


One other reference comes in 'black crusade' - there's a quote from a 'Captain Alicia Benoit' of the Free Systems Alliance.

But note that that's in the Chaos RPG book. Which itself is an interesting read. There are plenty of chaos worlds in the eye that - whilst sanity warping and run on sorcery - are not, inherently, any worse a place to live than your average imperial world. Arguably better.

Could a 'noble' place exist? Yes. The Imperium started out as one. The problem is that it only lasts as long as it's capable of meeting the threats it's exposed to out of its own resources.

That's the key thing to get with the whole grimdark is that the Imperium isn't being brutal and oppressive just because it's fun. In order to stop Orks and Tyranids and what have you, it desperately needs those thousands of ships and billions of troops and guns....and to supply them, it needs to exploit the hell out of every world it controls, and grab any undefended resource it doesn't. It doesn't have time to get organised properly because if it lets up, for a moment, someone's coming through the barricades.


Individual systems can be a nice enough place to live if they're a long way from any potential danger. There are sectors which are crowded and mis-managed but aren't actively at war, and with competent leadership might because actually pleasant and efficient. Unfortunetly, that tends to happen just in time for either (a) the next Waaaggh! to come careening over the horizon, or (b) for someone to say "life is fine, why do we need the Imperium anyway?" and plunge the sector into a civil war....


A tau empire-esque human state of a world or two could easily exist, nestled away outside the imperium, either unknown to it or only accessed by the odd rogue trader. If it does, it's in its own interest not to draw attention to itself.

 Flanker wrote:

Mudrat wrote:
Personally I don't know how you'd manage to get a couple planets (however many the OP was thinking) to form a nice and stable republic. Look at earth to see how hard it is for a smallish world mostly covered in water. In in star wars, given that it was listed as an example, most of the senate is corrupt and most of the power resides in the core worlds.

As history has shown, however, people have adapted to rule over massive areas of land. Humanity has grown from a family unit to a village, tribes, city-states, tribal collectives, countries, empires, and now large countries with alliances that last decades. Why can't humanity continue this trend?

Actually, the trend has reversed as all large empires have collapsed. Arguably, stable rule is limited to people of the same culture, language and religion as the ruler. Try ruling people of a different culture, language and religion and there is going to be lots of trouble. This is a clear limit and it is why our planet will never be united.

At times areas of the Imperium have been cut off from the Imperium at large and have had to fend for themselves against the horrors of the galaxy. Warpstorms, warp tides and xenos blockades/crusades can separate a colony, system or sector from Imperial support/rule.

In these situations, neighboring worlds can support each other until contact is restored with Terra.
Sometimes chapters step in and assume control, using their mobility to fend off threats.

Such a coalition of worlds after a few decades may decide they have stronger ties to each other than the Imperium.

Other situations like human civilizations cut off from before the GC tend to be invoked when people want +1 lasguns and Startrek, but they're just as likely to find planet Mad max, Simmeria or Battletech.

 Limeblossom wrote:
This idea is routinely coming back in my list of fanwishes for 40K.

I really want to see an human army opposing the Imperium and toning down the grimdark (like the Tau did in it's first appearance).

Both the Galactic Republic and the American revolution are the the sources of inspiration for me; A group of human inhabited planets decided to rebel against the Imperium with the help of "certain species".

What do you think?

Farsight Enclaves is a democracy.

 Gamgee wrote:

 Limeblossom wrote:
This idea is routinely coming back in my list of fanwishes for 40K.

I really want to see an human army opposing the Imperium and toning down the grimdark (like the Tau did in it's first appearance).

Both the Galactic Republic and the American revolution are the the sources of inspiration for me; A group of human inhabited planets decided to rebel against the Imperium with the help of "certain species".

What do you think?

Farsight Enclaves is a democracy.

Which has been ruled by the same guy for like 200 years now (and through his lifestealing he will likely rule indefinitely). Very democratic.

It is a democracy. They just keep voting him in. Like Tandi in Fallout

The galaxy is a big place. Non-Imperial states show up in FFG.

Heck, even in the Imperium itself you probably have at least some planets that operate as republics or democracies at a local level. IIRC, going off the novels, Pavonis and Tanith had their Planetary Governors be elected officials. As long as a planet pays it's tithes on time, the Imperium is largely content to ignore local affairs.