40k reconsidered?

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.

**Desubot**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys

If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.

How would you deal with the situation then. say you became the highlords of terra, what do?

**Crimson**

We could imagine a parallel universe where the humanity has formed an enlightened Star Trek style alliance with the xenos species. People are taught about the warp and its dangers. Through positive thinking and mindfulness the Aeldari, the humanity and other psychically sensitive species work to slowly mould the Warp to be less hostile. It is just because everyone in 40K is a hateful donkey-cave they are incapable of doing this.

I want to be absolutely clear, this is not criticism of the setting, I love it for being a dystopic miserable hellhole. I just find seeing virtue in this hateful nihilism to be distasteful.

**Desubot**

Crimson wrote:
We could imagine a parallel universe where the humanity has formed an enlightened Star Trek style alliance with the xenos species. People are taught about the warp and its dangers. Through positive thinking and mindfulness the Aeldari, the humanity and other psychically sensitive species work to slowly mould the Warp to be less hostile. It is just because everyone in 40K is a hateful donkey-cave they are incapable of doing this.

I want to be absolutely clear, this is not criticism of the setting, I love it for being a dystopic miserable hellhole. I just find seeing virtue in this hateful nihilism to be distasteful.

Last time i remember the emperor tried to work with the aeldari and they got back stabbed pretty hard pretty much every time. that isnt a human issue its a space elf issue. imperial manifest destiny also doesnt work with the tau greater good so thats probably out. nids no way, ork no way, necrons no way, so pretty much all xenos are out.

imho in this hypothetical setting, the best option which was the emperors plan in the first place is taking over the webway. better less risky travel, better reinforcements and less waste of materials means better economy for all worlds and peoples. second would be to QUICKLY figure out how the pylons work to fully remove warp influence. but that would require the admech to get they heads out of their port holes. also wipe out the tau as they are worthless.

**Asmodios**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys

If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.

I must have forgotten that time where hell itself would literally come spewing out onto earth unless a thousand innocent people were sacrificed a day.... There isn't a place for peacetime morality in the Imperium you have to make the hard choice of doing something like sacrificing 1000 people a day to protect a million worlds. The math simply adds up in the Imperium's favor every time. There isnt a single thing they have done that isnt worth the entirety of humanity

**Crimson**

Desubot wrote:

Last time i remember the emperor tried to work with the aeldari and they got back stabbed pretty hard pretty much every time.

As I said everyone in 40K is a hateful donkey-cave. Goes for the pointyears too.

**Rosebuddy**

Desubot wrote:
Rosebuddy wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys

If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.

How would you deal with the situation then. say you became the highlords of terra, what do?

The problem, as I view it, is not that the Imperium itself is awful. The issue is not events within the work but how the work is presented and understood. As far as the fiction is concerned it's fine if nobody who'd want to be nice even could get into power. But what I'd want firmly put into place is the triple thing of 1) the Imperium is evil 2) by free choice and 3) this is a tragedy, possibly an irreversible one. From thereon events can unfold more or less as they have.

To actually answer your question, there's obviously going to be compromises in terms of what the Imperium even has the manpower to do and what it can accomplish in any given time span under these circumstances. Given the Big Problem that 40K faces of guiding humanity through its maturation into a psychic species, something would absolutely have to be done to establish a galactic ideology that in turn created mature individuals. If hive cities are no longer such monuments to misery and people generally lead ok lives you'll have massively fewer people tempted by demon cults. If there's no material reason to desire power to change your life then all that'll remain are the truly dedicated petty donkey-caves and a sensible authority could likely catch that sort of thing before it went out of hand.

This kind of thing probably would've had to start with the actual establishment of the Imperium for it to have real impact. But hey, it isn't like a work dealing with future inevitable destruction due to a simple unwillingness of past rulers to prevent it would be irrelevant to contemporary humans...

Asmodios wrote:

I must have forgotten that time where hell itself would literally come spewing out onto earth unless a thousand innocent people were sacrificed a day.... There isn't a place for peacetime morality in the Imperium you have to make the hard choice of doing something like sacrificing 1000 people a day to protect a million worlds. The math simply adds up in the Imperium's favor every time. There isnt a single thing they have done that isnt worth the entirety of humanity

You are taking the work at face value when my criticism of it is on a meta level. "But it's justified in the fiction!" is precisely the problem.

**Sgt. Cortez**

Asmodios wrote:
Rosebuddy wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys

If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.

I must have forgotten that time where hell itself would literally come spewing out onto earth unless a thousand innocent people were sacrificed a day.... There isn't a place for peacetime morality in the Imperium you have to make the hard choice of doing something like sacrificing 1000 people a day to protect a million worlds. The math simply adds up in the Imperium's favor every time. There isnt a single thing they have done that isnt worth the entirety of humanity

Well, even Guilliman sees that the Imperium did crappy work in the last 8000 years or so. So there are hints that the Imperium doesn't have to be as bad as it is in the 41st millenium. (The emperor was a dictator as well, just not as totalitarian and dogmatic as his successors in the high lords of terra).

**Pleasestop**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Desubot wrote:
Rosebuddy wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys

If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.

How would you deal with the situation then. say you became the highlords of terra, what do?

The problem, as I view it, is not that the Imperium itself is awful. The issue is not events within the work but how the work is presented and understood. As far as the fiction is concerned it's fine if nobody who'd want to be nice even could get into power. But what I'd want firmly put into place is the triple thing of 1) the Imperium is evil 2) by free choice and 3) this is a tragedy, possibly an irreversible one. From thereon events can unfold more or less as they have.

To actually answer your question, there's obviously going to be compromises in terms of what the Imperium even has the manpower to do and what it can accomplish in any given time span under these circumstances. Given the Big Problem that 40K faces of guiding humanity through its maturation into a psychic species, something would absolutely have to be done to establish a galactic ideology that in turn created mature individuals. If hive cities are no longer such monuments to misery and people generally lead ok lives you'll have massively fewer people tempted by demon cults. If there's no material reason to desire power to change your life then all that'll remain are the truly dedicated petty donkey-caves and a sensible authority could likely catch that sort of thing before it went out of hand.

This kind of thing probably would've had to start with the actual establishment of the Imperium for it to have real impact. But hey, it isn't like a work dealing with future inevitable destruction due to a simple unwillingness of past rulers to prevent it would be irrelevant to contemporary humans...

The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.

The Imperium appears evil due to its massive scale, but really it works to ensure the maximum good:
Individual People's rights are slimmed, to prevent lose thoughts and actions that can lead to entire planets being snuffed into chaos. This is overall Good.

Those suspected of heresy are executed, because heresy can spread, and lead to planets being snuffed out. Therefore executing heretics is trading one life for billions, this is good.

10,000 souls are fed directly to the Emporer every day. This would be evil, except it's the only way for travel to work properly, and the travelers can spread medical supplies, food, and other aid to billions of people. Sacrificing thousands to help countless billions, comes out to good.

See, the imperium is only evil if you believe in Moral Absolutism as opposed to a system of Morals based on the situation. Is lying always wrong, or is lying sometimes justified? Can killing in self defense br justified, or is it always verboten?

Whether or not the imperium is evil or good is pointless -- it's a dark mirror to our own society, though which we should reevaluate our own belief system, like own would with any allegory.

**Desubot**

Rosebuddy wrote:
The problem, as I view it, is not that the Imperium itself is awful. The issue is not events within the work but how the work is presented and understood. As far as the fiction is concerned it's fine if nobody who'd want to be nice even could get into power. But what I'd want firmly put into place is the triple thing of 1) the Imperium is evil 2) by free choice and 3) this is a tragedy, possibly an irreversible one. From thereon events can unfold more or less as they have.

1) but it already sort of is. the point is that good guy bad guy evil good is all left intentionally vauge with nothing but "heros" on all sides. its for players to pick. 2) it pretty much already is besides 2)because of the circumstances and events that had took place which shaped the imperiums choices to begin with. life would probably have been 2000% better if we still had AIs and STCS doing all the work for people to lounge around and get "educated" but it didnt because the hubris of man created the men of iron which wrecked gak. it was the "free will" of magnus that ruined everything when he broke the emperors psychic barrier that ruined man kinds access to the web way. free choice doesnt exist in a universe where a blue troll controls fate it self.

**Asmodios**

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
Rosebuddy wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys

If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.

I must have forgotten that time where hell itself would literally come spewing out onto earth unless a thousand innocent people were sacrificed a day.... There isn't a place for peacetime morality in the Imperium you have to make the hard choice of doing something like sacrificing 1000 people a day to protect a million worlds. The math simply adds up in the Imperium's favor every time. There isnt a single thing they have done that isnt worth the entirety of humanity

Well, even Guilliman sees that the Imperium did crappy work in the last 8000 years or so. So there are hints that the Imperium doesn't have to be as bad as it is in the 41st millenium. (The emperor was a dictator as well, just not as totalitarian and dogmatic as his successors in the high lords of terra).

Guilliman has the viewpoint of the Imperium at its absolute peak vs 10 thousand years of decay after fighting enemies on all sides.... and even he is still fighting for the Imperium vs the alternative

**Haighus**

The Imperium is unquestionably an evil empire. It was created as a satire to all manner of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Part of that satire is the idea that to come even half-way close to justifying authoritarianism, you have to have literal daemons, genocidal aliens, and the ever-present chance of a human being born that later nukes an entire planet out of the blue. It is not supposed to be saying that authoritarianism is a good thing, it is supposed to be saying that you have to paint it into a ridiculous setting to even come close. It is basically a reductio-ad-absurdum argument where you have to go to such extreme lengths to make authoritarianism look like a good idea, and that even those are not enough (there are many ways the Imperium could potentially do better). "Authoritarianism cannot be good, because you would need to have literally planet-killing human bombs being born in every generation to come close to justifying absolute population control."

As an aside, the Imperium as a whole and individual worlds don't directly tally. The Imperium is a sort of centralised, authoritarian, ultra-conservative, theocratic, oligarchy which is forced to oversee a feudal empire (the closest parallel would be a regime like Franco's ultraconservative Spain combined with one of the bad feudal states like high-medieval France). As such, so long as individual worlds conform to certain Imperial requirements (giving up untrained psykers; not tolerating sentient aliens, AI, mutants, or Chaos; paying their tithes), they can actually be pretty egalitarian and democratic etc. Of course, it still sucks if you are born a psyker/mutant, but it is possible for an individual world to be as pleasant as current existence for the most part. The Imperium only has any kind of central control at all because they have a near monopoly on interstellar void travel.

**Rosebuddy**

Desubot wrote:

1) but it already sort of is. the point is that good guy bad guy evil good is all left intentionally vauge with nothing but "heros" on all sides. its for players to pick. 2) it pretty much already is besides 2)because of the circumstances and events that had took place which shaped the imperiums choices to begin with. life would probably have been 2000% better if we still had AIs and STCS doing all the work for people to lounge around and get "educated" but it didnt because the hubris of man created the men of iron which wrecked gak. it was the "free will" of magnus that ruined everything when he broke the emperors psychic barrier that ruined man kinds access to the web way. free choice doesnt exist in a universe where a blue troll controls fate it self.

Yes, the Imperium is widely thought of as awful, but the other two points are clearly not universally held. "They did the best they could" is not as tragic as "they chose to do this when they didn't need to". Emphasis on the Imperium as being restricted from kind acts by the existence of their eternal, endlessly vile enemies is what makes 40K fascist propaganda. Having the Imperium understood explicitly as unecessary doesn't take away from the grimness, the darkness, the grim darkness or the madness and horror of the setting. Frankly it increases it because now there is no justification.

Pleasestop wrote:

The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.

Extremely weak utilitarian standards, I'd say. Any utilitarian argument made for any given policy is pretty heftily outweighed by the additional misery caused by the thoughtless implementation of it. What do you think that the Imperium's brutal policy on mutants means for people born with Down's syndrome?

**Haighus**

Rosebuddy wrote:

The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.

Extremely weak utilitarian standards, I'd say. Any utilitarian argument made for any given policy is pretty heftily outweighed by the additional misery caused by the thoughtless implementation of it. What do you think that the Imperium's brutal policy on mutants means for people born with Down's syndrome?

Actually, as a predictable genetic mutation with no warp-related influence, they would probably be fine with chromosomal disorders and the like on most Imperial worlds. Many may even be able to repair such conditions in-utero. Some worlds will likely treat such people as sub-humans, but still humans.

The term "mutant" generally refers to unpredictable changes with no pattern, usually related to warp-taint or extreme pollution, although it is also used for psykers (which should more properly be considered abhumans to be honest). That is why mutants are not tolerated- they are dangerous in what they represent. If there is a predictable pattern of mutation, they are considered abhumans at worst, like beastmen (the most deviant form of abhuman, but a predictable genetic strain of human nonetheless and tolerated on most Imperial worlds). The poor treatment of abhumans is a side effect of mutants being dangerous, which spills over into a general Imperial distaste for non-standard forms of human. This only extends so far though- Catachans are essentially a form of abhuman that still basically looks like a normal human (but with extreme physical strength for a normal human), yet they are tolerated fine because they are phenotypically human in appearance.

Note that mutant can still be used as a perjorative by many Imperials for types of abhuman.

**Pleasestop**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Desubot wrote:

1) but it already sort of is. the point is that good guy bad guy evil good is all left intentionally vauge with nothing but "heros" on all sides. its for players to pick. 2) it pretty much already is besides 2)because of the circumstances and events that had took place which shaped the imperiums choices to begin with. life would probably have been 2000% better if we still had AIs and STCS doing all the work for people to lounge around and get "educated" but it didnt because the hubris of man created the men of iron which wrecked gak. it was the "free will" of magnus that ruined everything when he broke the emperors psychic barrier that ruined man kinds access to the web way. free choice doesnt exist in a universe where a blue troll controls fate it self.

Yes, the Imperium is widely thought of as awful, but the other two points are clearly not universally held. "They did the best they could" is not as tragic as "they chose to do this when they didn't need to". Emphasis on the Imperium as being restricted from kind acts by the existence of their eternal, endlessly vile enemies is what makes 40K fascist propaganda. Having the Imperium understood explicitly as unecessary doesn't take away from the grimness, the darkness, the grim darkness or the madness and horror of the setting. Frankly it increases it because now there is no justification.

Pleasestop wrote:

The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.

Extremely weak utilitarian standards, I'd say. Any utilitarian argument made for any given policy is pretty heftily outweighed by the additional misery caused by the thoughtless implementation of it. What do you think that the Imperium's brutal policy on mutants means for people born with Down's syndrome?

They are fine with Orgryns, Ratlings and worst of all, Felinids/Furries, so I doubt they would care about Downs.

**Desubot**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Desubot wrote:

1) but it already sort of is. the point is that good guy bad guy evil good is all left intentionally vauge with nothing but "heros" on all sides. its for players to pick. 2) it pretty much already is besides 2)because of the circumstances and events that had took place which shaped the imperiums choices to begin with. life would probably have been 2000% better if we still had AIs and STCS doing all the work for people to lounge around and get "educated" but it didnt because the hubris of man created the men of iron which wrecked gak. it was the "free will" of magnus that ruined everything when he broke the emperors psychic barrier that ruined man kinds access to the web way. free choice doesnt exist in a universe where a blue troll controls fate it self.

Yes, the Imperium is widely thought of as awful, but the other two points are clearly not universally held. "They did the best they could" is not as tragic as "they chose to do this when they didn't need to". Emphasis on the Imperium as being restricted from kind acts by the existence of their eternal, endlessly vile enemies is what makes 40K fascist propaganda. Having the Imperium understood explicitly as unecessary doesn't take away from the grimness, the darkness, the grim darkness or the madness and horror of the setting. Frankly it increases it because now there is no justification.

Pleasestop wrote:

The problem is the Imperium isn't evil, they are morally good by Utilitarian Standards.

Extremely weak utilitarian standards, I'd say. Any utilitarian argument made for any given policy is pretty heftily outweighed by the additional misery caused by the thoughtless implementation of it. What do you think that the Imperium's brutal policy on mutants means for people born with Down's syndrome?

Hang on. outside of something like 2 major events (chaos baby nabbing and subsequent man children corruption) most of what the imperium did to them selves was their choice and is what lead them to the gak pile they run now. Technological regression caused the men of iron which was caused by humanities choice to go down the AI rabbit hole which is slowly becoming relevant. The massive crusades caused by humanities choice to manifest destiny the entire galaxy in the first place, the religion of the god emperor of man kind entirely logars fault but also set up by the man emperor of man kind from his heavy social engineering.

but anyway you spin it. pretty much every faction keeps everything inherently grey so that people come to their own conclusions.

**Rosebuddy**

Haighus wrote:
The Imperium is unquestionably an evil empire. It was created as a satire to all manner of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Part of that satire is the idea that to come even half-way close to justifying authoritarianism, you have to have literal daemons, genocidal aliens, and the ever-present chance of a human being born that later nukes an entire planet out of the blue. It is not supposed to be saying that authoritarianism is a good thing, it is supposed to be saying that you have to paint it into a ridiculous setting to even come close. It is basically a reductio-ad-absurdum argument where you have to go to such extreme lengths to make authoritarianism look like a good idea, and that even those are not enough (there are many ways the Imperium could potentially do better). "Authoritarianism cannot be good, because you would need to have literally planet-killing human bombs being born in every generation to come close to justifying absolute population control."

The hickup in parodying fascism by depicting the only kind of world wherein it could be justified is that you are depicting fascism as justified. Saying that unthinking hostility towards strangers is only reasonable if all strangers are orks runs into the problem that nazis view black people as orks already. So portraying a world wherein nazi policy based on such mad notions is in fact correct just nets you nazi propaganda.

Haighus wrote:

Actually, as a predictable genetic mutation with no warp-related influence, they would probably be fine with chromosomal disorders and the like on most Imperial worlds. Many may even be able to repair such conditions in-utero. Some worlds will likely treat such people as sub-humans, but still humans.

The Imperium wouldn't bother with teaching people that there is a difference. Ogryn and ratlings are only tolerated for their military utility. If they had none they'd at best be enslaved for labour. The Imperium makes a concerted effort to foster xenophobia and framing anything that deviates from the preferred Imperial norm as an impure mutant is a positive as far as they are concerned. People will mental and developmental disabilities are treated horribly on this planet that actually exists without a galactic murderchurch telling everyone constantly to hate the weird.

**ServiceGames**

There is no good guy in 40K... none of them.

SG

**Pleasestop**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Haighus wrote:
The Imperium is unquestionably an evil empire. It was created as a satire to all manner of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Part of that satire is the idea that to come even half-way close to justifying authoritarianism, you have to have literal daemons, genocidal aliens, and the ever-present chance of a human being born that later nukes an entire planet out of the blue. It is not supposed to be saying that authoritarianism is a good thing, it is supposed to be saying that you have to paint it into a ridiculous setting to even come close. It is basically a reductio-ad-absurdum argument where you have to go to such extreme lengths to make authoritarianism look like a good idea, and that even those are not enough (there are many ways the Imperium could potentially do better). "Authoritarianism cannot be good, because you would need to have literally planet-killing human bombs being born in every generation to come close to justifying absolute population control."

The hickup in parodying fascism by depicting the only kind of world wherein it could be justified is that you are depicting fascism as justified. Saying that unthinking hostility towards strangers is only reasonable if all strangers are orks runs into the problem that nazis view black people as orks already. So portraying a world wherein nazi policy based on such mad notions is in fact correct just nets you nazi propaganda.

Haighus wrote:

Actually, as a predictable genetic mutation with no warp-related influence, they would probably be fine with chromosomal disorders and the like on most Imperial worlds. Many may even be able to repair such conditions in-utero. Some worlds will likely treat such people as sub-humans, but still humans.

The Imperium wouldn't bother with teaching people that there is a difference. Ogryn and ratlings are only tolerated for their military utility. If they had none they'd at best be enslaved for labour. The Imperium makes a concerted effort to foster xenophobia and framing anything that deviates from the preferred Imperial norm as an impure mutant is a positive as far as they are concerned. People will mental and developmental disabilities are treated horribly on this planet that actually exists without a galactic murderchurch telling everyone constantly to hate the weird.

Your assuming that they wouldn't see utility in someone with below average cognitive abilities? There are plenty of jobs in the imperium where you don't need to be smart, and it pays not to ask questions.

**Haighus**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Haighus wrote:
The Imperium is unquestionably an evil empire. It was created as a satire to all manner of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. Part of that satire is the idea that to come even half-way close to justifying authoritarianism, you have to have literal daemons, genocidal aliens, and the ever-present chance of a human being born that later nukes an entire planet out of the blue. It is not supposed to be saying that authoritarianism is a good thing, it is supposed to be saying that you have to paint it into a ridiculous setting to even come close. It is basically a reductio-ad-absurdum argument where you have to go to such extreme lengths to make authoritarianism look like a good idea, and that even those are not enough (there are many ways the Imperium could potentially do better). "Authoritarianism cannot be good, because you would need to have literally planet-killing human bombs being born in every generation to come close to justifying absolute population control."

The hickup in parodying fascism by depicting the only kind of world wherein it could be justified is that you are depicting fascism as justified. Saying that unthinking hostility towards strangers is only reasonable if all strangers are orks runs into the problem that nazis view black people as orks already. So portraying a world wherein nazi policy based on such mad notions is in fact correct just nets you nazi propaganda.

I think you missed the bit where I said it still isn't enough to justify it. That even random nuke people being born everywhere isn't enough to justify it. The idea is to paint "functional, justified" authoritarianism as absurd...

As it happens, if psykers existed in the way they do in 40k, some kind of control mechanism would be justified. It doesn't mean an authoritarian regime is justified, but societies already routinely quarantine dangerous individuals. Egalitarian society is a balance between the needs of the collective and of the individual- neither wins out (you can view this very effectively under the "4 ethical pillars" framework- justice and autonomy are frequently in opposition to each other to some extent).

Also- the IoM isn't fascist/nazi. It is much more aligned with an authoritarian ultraconservative ideology than fascism, what with the strong theocracy, monarchism, and adherence to tradition. This only applies to the central state, with planets being under a loose feudal control and able to organise themselves how they like. Some of those may be something like a fascist state.

Haighus wrote:

Actually, as a predictable genetic mutation with no warp-related influence, they would probably be fine with chromosomal disorders and the like on most Imperial worlds. Many may even be able to repair such conditions in-utero. Some worlds will likely treat such people as sub-humans, but still humans.

The Imperium wouldn't bother with teaching people that there is a difference. Ogryn and ratlings are only tolerated for their military utility. If they had none they'd at best be enslaved for labour. The Imperium makes a concerted effort to foster xenophobia and framing anything that deviates from the preferred Imperial norm as an impure mutant is a positive as far as they are concerned. People will mental and developmental disabilities are treated horribly on this planet that actually exists without a galactic murderchurch telling everyone constantly to hate the weird.

I mean, I never said they would be treated well universally. As you say, even in the present day people with conditions like Down's are not. In fact, most cases in the developed world are terminated before they are even born nowadays.

The point I was making is that the Imperium draws a clear distinction between acceptable, predictable mutations that follow a pattern, and random, tainted mutations. The latter cannot be tolerated in anything greater than a subhuman slave caste which can never achieve rights approaching a normal human, however nice the individual planet is. They are expressly marked out by Imperial law. The former can, and are well tolerated in many contexts and worlds. Also, individual planets frequently treat their populations as slave labour, or little better, so it isn't really substantially different for abhumans. They just get additional xenophobia as a side-effect of the mutant hate (as I expressly mentioned).

Basically, I don't expect people with trisomy 21 or similar to be treated significantly different to other Imperial citizens or abhumans in many cases, if they make it as far as being born. Certainly there is no Imperial law that would discriminate against them, it would be on a planet-by-planet basis.

**Saturmorn Carvilli**

Asmodios wrote:
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys

I will convert this into what my Black Legion warband thinks:

At the end of the day the Black Legion does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race from the end times. Sometimes, you have to put a population to death to make sure the Imperial Truth and the Inquisition don't exterminatus an entire sector. Sometimes you have to press gang men and women in the Cult of Chaos just to have the tools you need to fight the Emperor and the threat he and the Imperium of Man pose. Once the Warmaster is topples the IoM, only then can humanity truly be free and capable to fend off the xeno threats.

Now I know that my warband is completely deluded, corrupt and wholly evil. That doesn't mean they don't think what they are doing is not for the betterment of humanity. They think what they are doing is the only way for humanity to survive. Same goes for the IoM. Even in the 42nd millennium, pockets of humanity are discovered surviving outside the Emperor's light. If they can survive without the IoM for 12000 years, anyone can. That's the point. The IoM thinks what they are doing is the only way. It really isn't and probably in many ways actually counter productive to the survival of humanity. But that is grimdark for you.

**Headlss**

EffervescentAvocado wrote:
There is an ancient race, a technological supremacy, who mastered the power that eluded the Emperor. They are cursed to a fate worth than death, an eternity of horror at the hands of a great force of dire malevolence at the heart of a realm of chaos and madness. To elude this fate, their dark burden is to enact these cruel horrors on other beings, to rejuvenate themselves. The Dark Eldar are hardly evil per se, but cursed.

Thinking about it from a purely utilitarian standpoint killing a person who won't suffer infinitely and eternally after death is better than letting a person who will suffer infinitely and eternally after death die, because infinity and eternity are pretty much the biggest things. So the total amount of suffering in the universe is actually decreased every time the DE abduct and torture somebody to death. (looking at this from the timeframe of eternity not just "right now")

And really, they often do the torturing and killing in arena settings so it's not even a 1-to-1 exchange. They can get a lot of years/community of DE for each year of torture victim.

I mean, when you add in the fact that you have this massive overpopulation problem in the galaxy (Hive Cities, Space Fungus, Evil Bug Swarm, etc) you can kind of see the Dark Eldar as less malevolent force but more like the big cats of the African savanna, or the wolves of the American West. They keep populations in check. With overpopulation comes starvation, comes disease, comes overburdening of the land, etc etc. You need predators like the DE to ensure that this does not happen.

When you think of it, the DE are like a force of nature in the W40K universe. And nature isn't really evil. As humans throughout history have recognized, the true power of this world is the force of nature, whether personified in God, or a lesser "gaia", or in some flow of spiritual force/forces like Dao or Chi, or recognized by the Buddah as a sort of web of existence, or many other interpretations. Can we really call this force evil?

Thinking about it with a clear head after this chain of argumentation, we can see that DE are really the "good" guys as much as you can have good guys in a morally ambiguous universe like W40K. They are a personification of a force of nature, and nature is what is "good" simply because it is not evil.

In addition, they operate daily to reduce the total amount of suffering that will happen in the lifetime of the universe. Therefore they are not simply "not evil' they are actually unambiguously good.

The torture is mostly imperial propaganda. It's new experience that keeps she who thirsts away. Any new experience and more of it. Mortals are taken to the greatest of cities to experience a life time of pleasures (and some pains )they couldn't possibly imagine. Drugs, sex and violence of course. But those are easy. The mortal visters also experience the most sublime art, and music. Poetry, dance, Love.

To be chosen to go the city is to live as honored guests to a race of indulgent immortals, your every whim will be catered to, and all you have to do is throw your whole heart and soul into your passions.

**Irbis**

JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah, the Tau are, despite being the nicest guys in 40k, horrible people.

I don't know where that meme came from. HOW they are nice people? All Imperium wants from you is taxes. You provide them, not worship chaos, roughly obey laws, great, you're left alone and can be doing whatever you want. Tau ruthlessly brainwash you, if individual is deemed non-compliant, lobotomy, if population is non-compliant, chemical castration or outright gunning down by Tau enforcers. Imperium at worst wants to control your body. Tau want to control your mind. Anyone who actually considers it for a bit should instantly know which one is (by far) much scarier.

Then you have latest Tau books where even mindless compliance isn't enough and things are actually much worse, for both Tau (fanatical caste enforcement to the point civilians will get really illegal guns to shot themselves to escape potential lobotomization for the "crime" of 'having hobbies' pretty much) and slave races (who are being gunned down for "crime" of 'having maybe possibly slightest psyker genetic potential' on the spot). How can anyone read this and think they are any better than IoM (and not, in fact, horribly and infinitely worse) I have no idea.

I also like how people who took one look at Krieg (despite them being actually based on French) go 'yup, Imperium is fascist' without ever bothering to read actual definition of fascism. Tau are actually far closer to it than Imperium is...

**YeOldSaltPotato**

Irbis wrote:
I don't know where that meme came from. HOW they are nice people? All Imperium wants from you is taxes.

And conscription, and unwavering obedience to contradictory demands, slaving to make quota for those taxes,while serving under which ever corrupt incompetent that is effectively the local god head for the entirety of your short dirty life.

Mean while the tau at least promise an egalitarian ideal.

**JNAProductions**

I never said fascism.

I also never said the Tau were good.

Again-they're brutal, horrible people. But relative to the IoM, the Eldar (especially the Dark Eldar), the Orks... They're the nicest.

**Ginjitzu**

Irbis wrote:

I don't know where that meme came from. HOW they are nice people?

I think it stems from the fact that their creed has the word, "good" in it, which I think might be the only usage of the word good in the entire 41st millennium

but I'm pretty sure that anyone into 40k that's post adolescent, already realizes it's propaganda.

That said, I really don't agree that the T'au are somehow worse than the Imperium. Maybe the same, at best.

Irbis wrote:
All Imperium wants from you is taxes. You provide them, not worship chaos, roughly obey laws, great, you're left alone and can be doing whatever you want.

Except that the taxes are people, so people are most definitely not "left alone."

Irbis wrote:Tau ruthlessly brainwash you...

Isn't that what Imperial propaganda and the Imperial creed is for?

Irbis wrote:...if individual is deemed non-compliant, lobotomy,

Servitors?

Irbis wrote:if population is non-compliant, chemical castration or outright gunning down by Tau enforcers.

And the Imperium deals with non-compliance how?

Irbis wrote:Imperium at worst wants to control your body. Tau want to control your mind. Anyone who actually considers it for a bit should instantly know which one is (by far) much scarier.

Then you have latest Tau books where even mindless compliance isn't enough and things are actually much worse, for both Tau (fanatical caste enforcement to the point civilians will get really illegal guns to shot themselves to escape potential lobotomization for the "crime" of 'having hobbies' pretty much) and slave races (who are being gunned down for "crime" of 'having maybe possibly slightest psyker genetic potential' on the spot). How can anyone read this and think they are any better than IoM (and not, in fact, horribly and infinitely worse) I have no idea.

Couldn't everything you've listed here also apply to the Imperium?

Irbis wrote:I also like how people who took one look at Krieg (despite them being actually based on French) go 'yup, Imperium is fascist' without ever bothering to read actual definition of fascism. Tau are actually far closer to it than Imperium is...

Krieg is based on the French?

**An Actual Englishman**

I thought it was obvious there are no 'good guys' in 40k. Every race thinks they're doing the 'right' thing just like war in the real world. Which is why it's such a great parody.

Imperium think they're saving humanity through their inhumane tyranny.
CSM think they're following a truth or saving humanity or freeing humanity.
Tau believe their myriad atrocities are for the 'greater good'.
Orks are built for war and don't really comprehend a life without it.
Chaos daemons are similar to Orks in that it is their nature that drives them. They don't really have a choice in the matter.
Eldar and Necrons are both doing everything they need to in order to ensure the survival of their respective race.
GSC believe they are fighting oppressive tyrants to free the downtrodden and they are absolutely correct. Its just a shame they do so for Geiger-esque aliens.
Tyranids are a hungry hive mind, but I believe there is more to it than that, personally. Like there is a sentience there. But it's survival of the fittest pushed to its limits.

Some settings are so bleak and so awful that just to survive you must make horrible choices. 40k is one such setting. There are different shades of grey and that's it.

**kastelen**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
At the end of the day the Imperium does what it has to do to secure the survival of the human race. Sometimes you have to put a population to death to make sure that space demons don't kill an entire sector. Sometimes you have to force men and women to do lives of hard slave labor to have the tools you need to fight these threats. It's grimdark and over the top the way it should be but if you are a human then the Imperium is definitely the good guys

If the Imperium is justified in its cruelty then all you've got is expensive fascist propaganda because that's exactly how fascists think.

"Hmm, this cultist knows where their leader is hiding but won't give us the information, should be torture him?"
"No, that'd be rude."
"You're right, sorry."

EDIT: when did the subject change to '40k nazis and you love them'

**Ginjitzu**

kastelen wrote:

"Hmm, this cultist knows where their leader is hiding but won't give us the information, should be torture him?"
"No, that'd be rude."
"You're right, sorry."

I don't get it. Are you defending torture

kastelen wrote:
EDIT: when did the subject change to '40k nazis and you love them'

Seemingly, the moment you posted.

**kastelen**

Ginjitzu wrote:
kastelen wrote:

"Hmm, this cultist knows where their leader is hiding but won't give us the information, should be torture him?"
"No, that'd be rude."
"You're right, sorry."

I don't get it. Are you defending torture

kastelen wrote:
EDIT: when did the subject change to '40k nazis and you love them'
Seemingly, the moment you posted.

If the ends justify the means and don't affect me, then somewhat I guess. I think Rosebud made their subject it and everyone who replied to them had their subject changed.

**Not Online!!!**

Scuse me but how on earth is the IoM Fascisct?

No serious question and i 'd like a full explanation instead of just hurr durr IOM fascisct.

BECAUSE to anyone that knows a bit about history the IOM is closer to a 30 years war HRE hybrided with the PLC but in space.