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I don't think I've ever met a Chaos player who legitimately argues that Chaos are the good guys. Usually they make these claims to piss off Loyalist Marine players (in a jovial light-hearted way, of course)
I haven't met Chaos players who actually think they're the good guys. Personally, as a Chaos fan, I find Chaos interesting as a mirror to the imperium. They show how aweful the Imperium actually is, when people rather sign pacts with daemons than live one more day in that hellhole called Imperium of Men.
What I find more discomforting are people who actually think the Imperium were somehow "good guys" and believe the in-universe propaganda of "that universe is so bad, fascism is the only way to save humanity". No, it's not. The fascism of the Imperium is the reason so many people become renegades. Fascism might be the consequence of a hopeless universe like the 40K galaxy is, but it's still the worst government the Imperium could have.
That's also what I like about the 40K background on the whole and I hope Guilliman doesn't actually get the power to turn the Imperium singlehandedly into some Star Trek utopia, because that would mean Chaos really comes down to being the one.dimensional cartoon-villains they're already depicted as in some SM-centric novels.
Chaos represents freedom in the far future in which there is only war.
No it doesn't. Chaos is just slavery to a different power. You don't have any freedom under Chaos' thumb. You do the Chaos Gods' bidding, or you will be disposed of in whatever way pleases them the most. Displease them? They'll send another champion after you to kill you. Or maybe they'll just turn you in to a Chaos Spawn at a whim. Or give you a mutation that turns you in to a gibbering horror. Or feed you to their daemons. There's no freedom in Chaos except for the Chaos Gods themselves. And even they are prisoners to their own natures.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/12/12 15:52:25
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
The delusion of freedom, sure. For some of them, anyway.
For most people within the rule of a Chaos-controlled planet, there's no such illusion. You suffer at the whims of whatever tin-pot tyrant rules at any given moment. You could be gathered up to be sacrificed for the whims of whatever champion wanders around. Or they could just kill you because they haven't killed anyone in a while. Or they give you a plague that makes you suffer, rot, and die in misery and agony because they think the bacteria and viruses deserve to live more than you do. Or they use you as a playtoy, experimenting on just how much pain they can cause you without destroying your mind, over and over again... assuming they care whether or not you have your sanity still.
The dregs and slaves of Chaos are treated even lowlier than the dregs and slaves of the Imperium. And the Imperium treats their lowest classes pretty damn badly.
But then again, the Imperium actually cares about mankind's survival. Chaos does not. The ultimate goal of the Chaos Gods is to merge reality and the Warp, creating a galaxy completely inimical to human life. The entire human species is utterly expendable to them.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2019/12/12 16:03:26
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
I collect a Slaanesh 'soup' for reasons that are deeply personal and would likely earn me a permaban if I were to share them fully. The R&H portion of my soup is heavily influenced by Soviet history and culture, also for personal reasons.
No part of those reasons is that Slaanesh is a "good guy" in the setting. I am not in any way advocating for Slaanesh in the real world, or trying to bring about the sort of world Slaanesh would approve of. I'm putting my personal spin on an existing IP.
It's not about being "sympathetic" to Chaos. Not for me at least.
Excommunicatus wrote: I collect a Slaanesh 'soup' for reasons that are deeply personal and would likely earn me a permaban if I were to share them fully. The R&H portion of my soup is heavily influenced by Soviet history and culture, also for personal reasons.
No part of those reasons is that Slaanesh is a "good guy" in the setting. I am not in any way advocating for Slaanesh in the real world, or trying to bring about the sort of world Slaanesh would approve of. I'm putting my personal spin on an existing IP.
It's not about being "sympathetic" to Chaos. Not for me at least.
Dude, we should grab a beer sometime
Skinflint Games- war gaming in the age of austerity
Chaos has sympathy because we are the fuel to fire up the forges. We must blame ourselves for we are the cause, while Chaos itself is the effect. We must also look at Chaos being dualistic, in that, while people may tend to think they are wholly "evil", Nurgle can represent life/rebirth, Tzeentch can represent hope, Khorne can represent honor, Slaanesh can represent love.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2019/12/13 04:31:07
the_scotsman wrote: The emperor already destroyed all hope that humanity could achieve progress and enlightenment - he essentially considered himself and his creations to be above humanity, and was fully just using humanity as a tool to achieve his own goals.
The Horus Heresy series seems to contradict this quite a bit. While Its true individuals were disposable to the Emperor, the Emperors way forward for humanity -real humanity, not the made-to-be-terminated space marines is pretty clear.
There is absolutely an illusion of normalcy on chaos worlds. For the Norsca and nations of the wastes in the Old World there are rules and a brutal rhythm to life in worships the gods. The people of Bleeding Kansas or the homesteaders and rangers who massacred their way across North America didn’t acknowledge that they were damning themselves. No, for them and many people today it’s simply that nature is red in tooth and claw, and if your neighbor who is also a settler dies of hunger or dysentery that simply means you can take his tools and if you slaughter a family that’s fine because they followed the wrong gods. If you yourself are killed, it’s because you didn’t try hard enough and didn’t have the favor of the Almighty.
Any chaos world is subject to what’s called pure ideology, where their perceptions of cause and effect, right and wrong are so entrenched that they can’t even conceive of it as being up for debate.
An army of possessed Fallen, an Alpha Legion warband with a history of intervening on the behalf of the Imperium, and a group of techpriests who dared to invent new stuff that is led by Cypher, Be'lakor, and a reborn Sigismund; the true heroes who will save the galaxy.
Excommunicatus wrote:I collect a Slaanesh 'soup' for reasons that are deeply personal and would likely earn me a permaban if I were to share them fully. The R&H portion of my soup is heavily influenced by Soviet history and culture, also for personal reasons.
No part of those reasons is that Slaanesh is a "good guy" in the setting. I am not in any way advocating for Slaanesh in the real world, or trying to bring about the sort of world Slaanesh would approve of. I'm putting my personal spin on an existing IP.
It's not about being "sympathetic" to Chaos. Not for me at least.
I'd actually like to hear it if you were comfortable putting it in PM.
I disagree. But I can fully understand the position of those who would think this way.
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Melissia wrote: The delusion of freedom, sure. For some of them, anyway.
For most people within the rule of a Chaos-controlled planet, there's no such illusion. You suffer at the whims of whatever tin-pot tyrant rules at any given moment. You could be gathered up to be sacrificed for the whims of whatever champion wanders around. Or they could just kill you because they haven't killed anyone in a while. Or they give you a plague that makes you suffer, rot, and die in misery and agony because they think the bacteria and viruses deserve to live more than you do. Or they use you as a playtoy, experimenting on just how much pain they can cause you without destroying your mind, over and over again... assuming they care whether or not you have your sanity still.
The dregs and slaves of Chaos are treated even lowlier than the dregs and slaves of the Imperium. And the Imperium treats their lowest classes pretty damn badly.
But then again, the Imperium actually cares about mankind's survival. Chaos does not. The ultimate goal of the Chaos Gods is to merge reality and the Warp, creating a galaxy completely inimical to human life. The entire human species is utterly expendable to them.
This ^^^
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/13 07:28:43
I can only speak for myself, but I don't sympathize with Chaos as a concept, or as the Warp gods are, but rather with the characters. They're flawed and in well written stories have sort of a Greek tragedy feel to them - being superhuman but also having pride and despair and all the stuff that makes them vulnerable.
I felt a lot more for Argel Tal than whoever the heck the pretty boy of the Ultramarines series is.
As other said though Chaos as a whole is just as bad as any other group - that's the point of 40k and it's foolish to lose sight of that. There's no winners, no good guys at all.
I prefer to buy from miniature manufacturers that *don't* support the overthrow of democracy.
As other said though Chaos as a whole is just as bad as any other group - that's the point of 40k and it's foolish to lose sight of that. There's no winners, no good guys at all.
This can't ever be said enough times. There are no good guys. No Imperium Secundus. No boys in blue or gold. No Tau communism. No Eldar enlightenment. It's all grimdark, everyone dies. It's a fictional universe where everything sucks.
There's quite logically no reason that Chaos players can't just enjoy the universe that's been created and choose whatever fluff works for them. Whether it's the everyman workers revolt doomed to crushing by the Imperium or worse, or if they want to play mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon villains. Or something else entirely. It's all fine and dandy in the 42nd millennium.
Proud supporter of
It is human nature to seek culpability in a time of tragedy. It is a sign of strength to cry out against fate, rather than to bow one's head and succumb.
-Gabriel Angelos
ScarletRose wrote: I can only speak for myself, but I don't sympathize with Chaos as a concept, or as the Warp gods are, but rather with the characters. They're flawed and in well written stories have sort of a Greek tragedy feel to them - being superhuman but also having pride and despair and all the stuff that makes them vulnerable.
I felt a lot more for Argel Tal than whoever the heck the pretty boy of the Ultramarines series is.
As other said though Chaos as a whole is just as bad as any other group - that's the point of 40k and it's foolish to lose sight of that. There's no winners, no good guys at all.
Here's the thing: what if Chaos is right?
That the material world is an illusion of time and space, the twisted environment of the Warp is the natural state of reality, and this abominable universe of the Imperium is torture for all things that lie within. The Dark Gods offense with the Materium is righteous, their servants are apostles of the truth of all creation.
Would CSMs and Daemons still be bad, or are they simply enlightened?
We know all other factions are bad. They have nothing to fall back to. But Chaos knows something lies beyond the material, they deny the lie of existence.
Of all the factions, they are the only one who might be able to honestly say they are the good guys.
You're asking how someone could look at the Imperium,
*which rounds up psykers onto the Black Ships, sends them off back to Terra, and sacrifices them to maintain a navigational beacon;
*which uses inconsistent religious zealots like the Inquisition, Sisters of Battle, and the various Space Marine chapters to maintain order;
*which tolerates any number of excesses and abuses by planetary leadership as long as the tithes and loyalty oaths are kept;
and side with the crazy rebel cultists.
It's just a mystery, I guess.
"And over here are my Lapsed Imperial Cultists..."
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/12/14 16:18:27
"The Imperium is a literal hellhole of supression, suffering, sacrifice and exploitation!"
Yes.
And it is because Chaos exists.
The Imperium as per 30k was mostly a good place to live in. Not an utopia, but way better than the abominable state it is in now.
You cant use the Imperium to make Chaos the "good guys" because Chaos made the Imperium what it is today.
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Thairne wrote: "The Imperium is a literal hellhole of supression, suffering, sacrifice and exploitation!"
Yes.
And it is because Chaos exists.
The Imperium as per 30k was mostly a good place to live in. Not an utopia, but way better than the abominable state it is in now.
You cant use the Imperium to make Chaos the "good guys" because Chaos made the Imperium what it is today.
Correct.
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Thairne wrote: "The Imperium is a literal hellhole of supression, suffering, sacrifice and exploitation!"
Yes.
And it is because Chaos exists.
The Imperium as per 30k was mostly a good place to live in. Not an utopia, but way better than the abominable state it is in now.
You cant use the Imperium to make Chaos the "good guys" because Chaos made the Imperium what it is today.
The Imperium being bad doesn't make Chaos good.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/16 08:51:48
You're asking how someone could look at the Imperium,
*which rounds up psykers onto the Black Ships, sends them off back to Terra, and sacrifices them to maintain a navigational beacon;
*which uses inconsistent religious zealots like the Inquisition, Sisters of Battle, and the various Space Marine chapters to maintain order;
*which tolerates any number of excesses and abuses by planetary leadership as long as the tithes and loyalty oaths are kept;
and side with the crazy rebel cultists.
It's just a mystery, I guess.
"And over here are my Lapsed Imperial Cultists..."
Thairne wrote: "The Imperium is a literal hellhole of supression, suffering, sacrifice and exploitation!"
Yes.
And it is because Chaos exists.
The Imperium as per 30k was mostly a good place to live in. Not an utopia, but way better than the abominable state it is in now.
You cant use the Imperium to make Chaos the "good guys" because Chaos made the Imperium what it is today.
Incompetence made the Imperium what it is.
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
You're asking how someone could look at the Imperium,
*which rounds up psykers onto the Black Ships, sends them off back to Terra, and sacrifices them to maintain a navigational beacon;
*which uses inconsistent religious zealots like the Inquisition, Sisters of Battle, and the various Space Marine chapters to maintain order;
*which tolerates any number of excesses and abuses by planetary leadership as long as the tithes and loyalty oaths are kept;
and side with the crazy rebel cultists.
It's just a mystery, I guess.
"And over here are my Lapsed Imperial Cultists..."
The great satan won't even let you fly on a plane if you bring potentially explosive devices. Such oppression! Join our terrorist group!
Chaos is, allegorically at least, emotion. The idea of the Warhammer 40k setting is that if you want to build a galaxy-spanning civilization you have to be able to account for the fact that the people running it are people and not automata. Desire, anger, ambition, fear of mortality, all these are things that might cause someone to make bad decisions and send the whole house of cards toppling down.
Most of the civilizations in Warhammer represent ways people have attempted to deal with the problem. The Tau haven't been forced to make a choice yet, they're too new/small as a civlization and haven't been forced to face down the kind of crises everyone else has to deal with. The Orks never had a choice, they're programmed and incapable of deviating from their design. The Tyranids represent just how alien a species would have to be to not have to face up to the problems the Warp represents. The Eldar buried their heads in the sand and tried to pretend that Chaos wasn't a problem, and their empire exploded as a result, so what's left are shattered remnants hiding in the far corners of the galaxy. The Necrons purged themselves of any vulnerability to Chaos, and while their civilization isn't wracked by the kind of strife brought on by this pesky "individuality" it's also not a particularly pleasant place to exist as an individual, you're a drone in a machine with no capacity to do anything other than what you're told or understand why you're doing what you're doing. The Imperium is trying to repress itself, it thinks it can clamp down on the threat of Chaos by using its tools in a controlled way and keeping a gun to the head of everyone telling them not to step out of line, and it kind of works but it also means they need to nuke their own planets occasionally. Chaos Cults are the people who have decided that they might as well embrace their whole nature, if civilization is essentially doomed by the basic nature of reality they might as well give up and have some fun while the galaxy burns around them.
Everything in the setting represents some kind of extreme response to the existence of Chaos. Chaos itself is not good or evil, it merely exists; its absence (as the Necrons demonstrate) isn't particularly desirable.
A reason someone might look at Chaos and say "hey, those look like the good guys" is that modern liberal humanist culture places a great deal of value on the individual and believes that the individual can be better/do more when not squashed/constrained by a broader society, and Chaos Cults are the only faction in Warhammer that has even the philosophical basis for recognizing and appreciating the value of individuals rather than trying to turn everyone into well-oiled cogs in a perfectly cooperative machine that shoots you in the head if you're a quarter-inch out of alignment with where you're supposed to be. Everyone in Warhammer is perfectly happy to commit mass murder if it's going to get them a bit ahead, but Chaos is the only faction (among the 'civilized' folks capable of speech, anyway) that isn't going to give you a sanctimonious speech about why it's for your own good before doing it.
Nobody in Warhammer is good. Nobody in Warhammer is evil. Everyone in Warhammer has been screwed over because the basic nature of reality is out to get you, and everyone is trying frantically to build some manner of organized society that can exist in spite of all the reasons the universe is out to get them.
(Postscript: But the writers are dead-set on needing a 'villain' so Chaos-aligned folks get black spiky armour and glowy red eyes and speeches about how everything is doomed and they need to blow everything up while they do battle with square-jawed white dudes in shiny armour who are loaded down with half-assed excuses as to how they're actually secretly not as into mass-murder as the wider Imperium, yeah.)
Nobody in Warhammer is good. Nobody in Warhammer is evil. Everyone in Warhammer has been screwed over because the basic nature of reality is out to get you, and everyone is trying frantically to build some manner of organized society that can exist in spite of all the reasons the universe is out to get them.
I disagree. I think Chaos is clearly evil, and that was my point in starting this thread. I don't believe at all that Chaos is trying to build an organised society to survive the deathtrap that is the 40k universe. I believe Chaos is a big part of the reason it's a deathtrap in the first place.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/17 08:38:23
The chaos gods are no more evil than a hurricane or a wildfire. Yes they are destructive and inimical to life but that is merely their nature and they do what they do even though it's against their own self interest. If they were to ever succeed in eliminating all sentient life in the galaxy then they would cease to be because nothing would be left to fuel them with emotions.
The followers of the chaos gods? Misguided and capable of heinous acts yes but no more so than the inquisitor that commits exterminatous, the commissar that executes a frightened soldier, or a Dark Angel who would raze a city from orbit for merely the possibility that a member of the Fallen could have been there.
There is no black and white in 40k. That's part of the appeal.
Thairne wrote: "The Imperium is a literal hellhole of supression, suffering, sacrifice and exploitation!"
Yes.
And it is because Chaos exists.
The Imperium as per 30k was mostly a good place to live in. Not an utopia, but way better than the abominable state it is in now.
You cant use the Imperium to make Chaos the "good guys" because Chaos made the Imperium what it is today.
Both yes and no right?
If forced to choose between living in the Emperor's newly minted 30k. empire and the Imperium of 40k. I would definitely choose the Emperor's 30k. regime... but to say that it was chaos who corrupted and led it down the path it is on today is just a little reductive. Chaos, while obviously something anyone who want to make any claim to being "the good guys" need to oppose and combat, is more or less a force of nature in the 40k. universe. And even without the Chaos Gods, Big E made lots of errors. Just compare how he treated Angron compared to any of the Primarchs who stayed loyal, or look at the full roll out of extremism and totalitarian repression he smacked down on Lorgar and the Wordbearers (and the innocent civilians who got to constitute the deathly example just for show). Also, while it might be a less repressive military regime in 30k., with slightly more venues for upwards mobility than in 40k., it was still very much a warmongering, all out war-faring, xeno- and genocidal, imperialistic, very repressive and very violent regime. Stuff like that bleeds rebellion.
To compare that to 40k. and the subject of chaos being "good guys". While that is just ludicrous, I don't think there is anything weird in sympathizing with (fictional) people who chooses to rebel against a regime that (at least for many/most parts of the galaxy) makes any true historical tyrants look like kindergarteners. Now, 40k. being über grimdark, your choice of rebellious causes are rather limited, with the Imperium being utterly too strong to ever topple, and almost all other paths leading right into the arms of the chaos gods... In other words. Good, no, most definitely not, worthy of some sympathy... maybe?
(Postscript: But the writers are dead-set on needing a 'villain' so Chaos-aligned folks get black spiky armour and glowy red eyes and speeches about how everything is doomed and they need to blow everything up while they do battle with square-jawed white dudes in shiny armour who are loaded down with half-assed excuses as to how they're actually secretly not as into mass-murder as the wider Imperium, yeah.)
Well, Chaos is also a broad swathe of religious groups, and religious people like to preach. Not a lot of libertarian, social Darwinism in the Word Bearers legion. When the chaos sorcerer is crucifying you into his daemon engine I'm sure you'll be happy to know that Chaos 'recognizes and appreciates the value of individuals'.
In the manufactorum you were also a part of a machine in a sense, but you had two rights- the right to Live for the Emperor and the right to Die for the Emperor. You forfeited these by breaking imperial laws or not meeting quotas, but your superiors had a responsibility and duty of care to you. If they neglected you such that you couldn't work, they deprived you of the right to live for the Emperor and could be punished for their negligence. If you died (not in the service of the Emperor) they had a responsibility to punish those responsible, or they could be punished for their negligence.
Mass murder is exclusively the work of traitor and xenos agents. Murder is unlawful killing, and the word of the Emperor is law in all the galaxy. Servants of the golden throne obey Imperial law when they execute compliance on a lawless populace, bringing law and justice to the benighted regions of space.
I mean yes, when the Great Crusade was happening it is entirely true what you say.
I also never claimed that the "old" Imperium were the "good" guys, at least not as we understand the term today. In 40k terms, 30k Imperium was one, if not the best, places to live. The only thing better that basically did exist at any scale was the realm of Ultramar.
There were no psyker hunts. There was no Inqusition, there was no supreme suppression that we know of. It was a militaristic regime alright, but that aggression was outward facing. I mean a lot of planets were just outright nuked, but also a lot of planets were brought into compliance with minimal or no bloodshed even - depending on who found you. Pray it was Roboute or Vulkan and not Curze....
Eventually, with the end of the Great Crusade, the militarism would've subsided. That's what the entire "emps wanted to purge the astartes thing" comes about. A significant reduction in militarism since there would've been no threat on a scale anymore that required that level of military. Warp travel would've been replaced with webway travel and the Imperium would've essentially more and more turn into a galaxy wide Ultramar. And at that point, if you were human, you'd be in a freakin' good place, living a good life under the rule of (one of) the best statesmen to ever exist.
All of this did not happen because Horus got corrupted, which was the single figure able to engineer the Heresy by bringing enough Legions on his side. The seeds were there, but without Chaos, no full scale rebellion could have happened. Single primarchs rebelling would get snuffed out quickly, no threat to the great plan at all.
So I stand by that Chaos made the galaxy the shithole it is today and therefore cannot use "The imperium is gak" as a defense.
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Thairne wrote: I mean yes, when the Great Crusade was happening it is entirely true what you say.
I also never claimed that the "old" Imperium were the "good" guys, at least not as we understand the term today. In 40k terms, 30k Imperium was one, if not the best, places to live. The only thing better that basically did exist at any scale was the realm of Ultramar.
There were no psyker hunts. There was no Inqusition, there was no supreme suppression that we know of. It was a militaristic regime alright, but that aggression was outward facing. I mean a lot of planets were just outright nuked, but also a lot of planets were brought into compliance with minimal or no bloodshed even - depending on who found you. Pray it was Roboute or Vulkan and not Curze....
Eventually, with the end of the Great Crusade, the militarism would've subsided. That's what the entire "emps wanted to purge the astartes thing" comes about. A significant reduction in militarism since there would've been no threat on a scale anymore that required that level of military. Warp travel would've been replaced with webway travel and the Imperium would've essentially more and more turn into a galaxy wide Ultramar. And at that point, if you were human, you'd be in a freakin' good place, living a good life under the rule of (one of) the best statesmen to ever exist.
All of this did not happen because Horus got corrupted, which was the single figure able to engineer the Heresy by bringing enough Legions on his side. The seeds were there, but without Chaos, no full scale rebellion could have happened. Single primarchs rebelling would get snuffed out quickly, no threat to the great plan at all.
So I stand by that Chaos made the galaxy the shithole it is today and therefore cannot use "The imperium is gak" as a defense.
Yes pray Gulliman found you instead of Curze. Just ask the citizens of Monarchia about the benevolence of the Ultramarines.
At least Curze didn't pretend his hands were clean.
For the Emperor and Sanguinius! 
