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Gadzilla666 wrote:

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.

Wasn't Monarchia a holy city in defiance of imperial law?
Didn't the Ultras evacuate civilians before blowing up what was in effect a massive unauthorised structure? Yeah I'll take my chances with the boring Primarch, thanks.

Easy answer....

When people watch Disney movies, the young girls identify with the princess. But the young boys don´t identify with the prince, nor the "good" soldiers.

Therefore almost every one of them identifies with the evil wizard...

 =Angel= wrote:
...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.

"Imperial law" derives its authority solely from a supposed religious mandate. The argument that Exterminatus isn't mass-murder presumes that "Imperial law" is somehow more legitimate than the legal mandates of any xenos, or any might-makes-right arguments Chaos uses to justify anything. Why is "my god told me to blow up a planet" all right when your god is a shiny dude in golden armour but not all right when your god is a vaguely bird-shaped fragment of divine essence from beyond time and space?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Darian Aarush wrote:

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.

Chaos isn't trying to build an organized society to survive the deathtrap of the 40k universe. "Chaos" the primordial essence of entropy is incapable of being "good" or "evil" any more than a hurricane or an earthquake, it's an extreme force that exists and isn't particularly friendly to a normal human way of life, but it also isn't capable of being anything else.

Chaos cults, on the other hand, have the capacity to make a decision and could be reasonably described as either "good" or "evil", but the problem of trying to label them as such is that they're primarily defined in opposition to the Imperium, who is perfectly happy to blow up their own citizens or lobotomize them and build computers out of them if it serves their own ends. An observer might question why sacrificing cultists in rituals to call up daemons or whatnot is really so much worse than nuking population centers because there was some fragment of "Chaos influence" somewhere on the same planet.

I say "nobody in 40k is good or evil" because everyone in the setting is using ends-justify-the-means thinking to justify committing atrocities in the name of stopping something supposedly worse. The Imperium is massacring civilians to stop Chaos. Chaos cults are massacring civilians to stop the Imperium. Why is one worse than the other?

40k is very much lodged in the "science fiction" end of things.
What differentiates itself from fantasy is that the real topic of the "story" is how the technology affects people or "warps" them to make an intentional pun.
Who are the main "gods" in 40k?
Man-made or to be more correct, brought a more complete form to them through man's echo in the warp.
Slanesh is the fluff exception BUT you could say it was just a matter of time and the Eldar pushed that to fruition.

From "Fandom":

"Though Khorne is the god of bloody slaughter, he is also the god of martial pride and honour, of those who set themselves against the most dangerous foes and earn victory against the odds."

Change, evolution, intrigue and sorcery is the realm of Tzeentch. "He is constantly building, even as his devices
unravel under their own complexity. At the same time, he is the god of knowledge and comprehension, and his devotees may be those who seek a deeper understanding of an often enigmatic universe."

"While Nurgle is the God of Death and Decay, he is also the God of Rebirth. Decay is simply one part of the cycle of life, without which no new life could grow. In the same way, Nurgle is also the God of Perseverance and Survival."

"Just as importantly, Slaanesh is also the god of perfection. The singer striving for the most beautiful song or the warrior who seeks the perfect fighting techniques, both could be devotees of Slaanesh."

Why the "sympathy" for this chaos and initial appearance of evil?
You could recognize the necessary Ying to your Yang.
These desires can provide the motivation to great works.

Plus your should join Chaos, they have excellent cookies.

 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.

Just to clarify, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth or claim that you presented the Imperium or the 30k. Imperium as the good guys :9 You are also quite right that a horrible Imperium doesn't magically turn their opposition good, or even slightly better.

I will however, point out that I think you risk blaming the opportunity and not the cause in regards to the downfall of the Horus Heresy. The Emperor's choices directly led to one of his legions turning traitor, which led to the corruption of the rest. Without Chaos these events would undoubtedly have gone differently, but we only know (mostly) what did happen, we do not know what could have happened. We do, however know that the Emperor's plan wasn't flawless, that the extremist violence wasn't only outward facing (just ask the Thunder Warriors) and that his policies bred rebellion. Also, the Galaxy is a big place, with lots of galactic terrors to turn to/ally with/make use of, and there are lots of ways to topple an empire.

Yes, we have some idea of what the galaxy might have looked like if the Emperor's plan had kept going flawlessly, my point is that his policies - the repressive and totalitarian elements in particular, played a central, if not the central role in his own downfall. That is sort of the whole dramatical/tragic element to the story

Also, quite beside the point but, again, while I would much prefer 30k. to 40k., I feel we cannot look past that the Emperor was only ever a good for man (in the 30k. timespan). All xenos encountered got the torch. That ain't exactly a paragon of virtue in any 20th. century sense of the word.

The empire of Ultramar or the confederation of the Interex are probably the only places so far encountered in lore, where you would actually want to live, without huge stipulations...

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 =Angel= wrote:
...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.

"Imperial law" derives its authority solely from a supposed religious mandate. The argument that Exterminatus isn't mass-murder presumes that "Imperial law" is somehow more legitimate than the legal mandates of any xenos, or any might-makes-right arguments Chaos uses to justify anything. Why is "my god told me to blow up a planet" all right when your god is a shiny dude in golden armour but not all right when your god is a vaguely bird-shaped fragment of divine essence from beyond time and space?

Right of conquest. That's entirely secular, and differs from Might makes Right (Chaos) in key ways. If the Imperium of Man contacted our world today, the Emperor and the Highlords would be recognised as the legitimate government of all their territories, for the same reason that the US isn't governed by native Americans.
What we would likely contest is the Imperium's right to rule us- and the necessity of paying tithes to the Imperium. That's easier solved than you'd think, through diplomacy, bribery, assassinations and strategically positioned capital ships.

As for the religious claim, the legitimacy of the Ecclesiarchy is an entirely separate issue to the right of conquest. Missionaries would find many of our religions very easy to adapt to the creed, substituting key figures and demonstrating the Emperor's beneficence. We would recognise the conceit of messaging, guardian or avenging angels in the Imperial creed.

Hissed squawking
What's that, bird-shaped fragment of psychic essence from beyond time and space? You have angels too? What are they like?
Daemonssss.
Well, I'm sure that a name isn't everything. The blue ones are called?
Horrorssss.
That's also a terrible name for an angel. What do they do?
Drive men insane with unspeakable truths and lies, then consume their soulssss
That's not... great.
The red onessss kill people.
Bad people?
Sometimessss.They spill blood and take skullssss. The rotten ones are called plaguebearerssss
Do they take plagues away?
No, the other thing. The pink ones are called Daemonettessss
Sounds progressive.
So progressssive.

The issue with Chaos is that it has no legitimacy. The Chaos marines rebelled against a secular authority with legitimate secular claim to the worlds it controlled. Chaos cults have done the same thing for 10,000 years since, and compound the issue by enforcing a violent theocracy on peaceful citizens. You personally might disagree with the state religion of the Imperium (heretic) but there's a surprising amount of leniency given in how the Emperor is worshipped, through saints and symbols, local figures and spirits. The devotion varies wildly from citizen to citizen, with some just paying lip service, some worshipping with heart and soul.

There was none of that in chaos occupied territory in the Sabbat worlds. You bow in terror before the idols of chaos or be killed.

The agents of the Emperor have the secular right and moral duty to destroy whole worlds that are tainted by warp pollution. Chaos makes the stakes that high, not the Emperor or his trillions of worshippers.

In regards to the OP, Chaos were never the good guys, but when handled well you could have sympathy for how they got there.

This quote from the Realms of Chaos: Lost and the Damned(1990) illustrate that

Realms of Chaos: Lost and the Damned wrote:
(...)A Chaos Power thus represents a particular and generally extreme aspect of the traits shown by the living. The traits which characterize the Chaos Powers are insanity, violence, ambition, greed and others of a kind which are often felt to typify the worst of human nature. But this is not wholly the case, and Chaos Powers also exist which typify fellowship, charity, law and other redeeming characteristics. Indeed, no Chaos power is wholly good or evil, and likewise neither are their shadow-selves. For example, Along with violence and bloodshed Khorne has inherited the warrior’s sense of honour and martial virtue. Nurgle may typify decay and disease, but he also embodies the human hope and energy that defies the inevitable.(...)

(...)A Champion’s motives can be many and varied: revenge for past injustices, aid for the poor, liberation for the oppressed, and so on. Any great need or want may drive a person into the arms of the Chaos Powers(...)

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Chaos cults, on the other hand, have the capacity to make a decision and could be reasonably described as either "good" or "evil", but the problem of trying to label them as such is that they're primarily defined in opposition to the Imperium, who is perfectly happy to blow up their own citizens or lobotomize them and build computers out of them if it serves their own ends. An observer might question why sacrificing cultists in rituals to call up daemons or whatnot is really so much worse than nuking population centers because there was some fragment of "Chaos influence" somewhere on the same planet.

I say "nobody in 40k is good or evil" because everyone in the setting is using ends-justify-the-means thinking to justify committing atrocities in the name of stopping something supposedly worse. The Imperium is massacring civilians to stop Chaos. Chaos cults are massacring civilians to stop the Imperium. Why is one worse than the other?

Chaos is destructive and the Imperium is constructive.
Chaos is the worst of us distilled to psychic essence and run through hell. The Imperium is the best and worst of us in terrible material grandeur.
Chaos energies twist humans and matter into degenerate forms incapable of furthering the species. The Imperium enhances select humans as living weapons, incapable of furthering the species -for the purpose of defending it.
Chaos uses humans as raw materials for their rituals, consuming the very soul of the victim to bargain with devils. The Imperium uses humans as raw materials and labour to build massive space-cathedrals, marches armies into them and blasts off into the unknown, discovering lost branches of mankind and shielding them from the horrific aliens that would prey on them.

Where possible, Inquisitors do not murder entire planets. Where possible, Chaos will.

Its not about the ends justifying the means, its about the means being the only way to achieve the ends. For the Imperium, this end is mankind's continued survival, untainted by hell. For Chaos, this is the galaxy burning while the dark gods laugh it up.

 =Angel= wrote:


Right of conquest. That's entirely secular, and differs from Might makes Right (Chaos) in key ways. If the Imperium of Man contacted our world today, the Emperor and the Highlords would be recognised as the legitimate government of all their territories, for the same reason that the US isn't governed by native Americans.
What we would likely contest is the Imperium's right to rule us- and the necessity of paying tithes to the Imperium. That's easier solved than you'd think, through diplomacy, bribery, assassinations and strategically positioned capital ships.

But right of conquest is obviously, indisputably simply the stagnant form of might makes right.. As, per the example given, one would never question the right to rule of the original inhabitants of an area so long as they held the bigger gun.

The agents of the Emperor have the secular right and moral duty to destroy whole worlds that are tainted by warp pollution. Chaos makes the stakes that high, not the Emperor or his trillions of worshippers.

Oh, but you reveal the conundrum of the Imperium, battling the forces of the warp by means of extremism and oppression. As whether the citizens are saved by bolter, chainsword, forced labour or even exterminatus, the whirlstorms of chaos swirls ever fiercer. Khorne, to put it poetically, cares not from whence the blood flows.

 =Angel= wrote:

Right of conquest. That's entirely secular, and differs from Might makes Right (Chaos) in key ways. If the Imperium of Man contacted our world today, the Emperor and the Highlords would be recognised as the legitimate government of all their territories, for the same reason that the US isn't governed by native Americans.

Didn't they teach in the school you went to about what it took to perform the ethnic cleansing of the Americas, to get to the point where the native Americans were reduced to isolated territories? Or was that all framed for you as expansion into territories that nations of people weren't already occupying?

"Yep, we're just going to expand into these territories occupied by these nomadic, or semi-nomadic people, and then feel completely justified in wiping them out when the inevitable conflict occurs. But this is all right of conquest stuff, not 'might makes right'" -- History, written by the victors.

Whilst Chaos as a force obviously is destructive and corrupting, I can easily imagine many Chaos worshippers having good intentions, at least initially. The Imperium is utterly horrible and oppressive totalitarian state and opposing that is a noble goal. Chaos can offer hope to the hopeless and power to the powerless. Good people can rationalise accepting the offers of Chaos so that they can have a fighting chance against the tyranny of the Imperium, Sure, it won't end well even if they win, but they probably do not realise it.

1) Horus Heresy is written in a very sympathetic way for traitors;
2) Chaos is right;
3) Chaos speaks to survival of the fittest crowd;
4) Chaos stands for ultimate freedom;
5) There is inner demons in each of us;

Due to these reasons Chaos gets its popularity. I will expand on it a little bit later.


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Emperor had built his Imperium out of a lie. He based his rule of rampant militarism where disobedient were tortured, murdered and brainwashed. Just remember at how kindly our protagonists were treated by the Emperor and his angels for foiling assassination attempt against his life. Torture and then brainwipe. There is a lot of propaganda going on and people never ask obvious questions. Like for example: what the feth Night Lords were doing in Emperor's Imperium? It is like me raiding with Dark Eldar and saying, that no, I'm actually a good guy! People, Arch Warhammer is a great example, ignore everything contrary and create their version of W40k and just cherry pick whatever parts they wish. Lets take practical example in Descent of Angels and typical handling of a planet by Emperor and Imperial authorities.

First of all, they had landed and with shock and awe had assumed supreme command of a world. Bloodshed is not necessary as they pretend to uplift society by giving people medicine and healthcare to live longer while in reality, those things are only there to make better slaves. When Imperium touches a planet with their influence, they soon start massive campaign of ecological devastation. Within a generation a world ecosystem gets destroyed and planet gets sucked dry out of any resource of worth. Any major forest gets cleaned. Land leveled. Mountains sucked dry. World experiences extreme level of industrialization with smog, destruction of environment and bleak living conditions. Though, bleak is understatement. Imperial authorities are utterly negligent of the needs of its civilians. Their Hive World from the start fails to account for proper amount of people. They show humans like animals into those cramped buildings with no essential life support. No plumping, no electricity, no water. People are dying in roves and there is no place to bury them. There are literal death pits in the city where people just throw their dead. Imperial authorities are dismissive of any such claims and if someone resist, they are more than happy to destroy civilian infrastructure to "teach the scum a lesson of a cost resisting Imperial authority'.

All of this was happening under DIRECT Emperor's supervision. This is one of the exemplary worlds where Imperium wanted to make an impression and highest ruling authorities were present, because it was a homeworld of one of the Primarchs. That makes this world as one of most important planets in the Imperium and this is why Imperium did not shun away from investing mind boggling amounts of resources. This is why Emperor directly took interest to this world and his judgement of this world was- slavery. Barely better than being ruled by Orks and a lot better than being ruled by Dark Eldar. Worse than being ruled by Tau though. We should also remember that this was w30k when Imperium was at its zenith. Since then all of this got a lot worse. Now imagine such things happening on countless worlds across the galaxy. I think it was Horus who had said that tithes enacted upon conquered worlds were far too high and they were not given enough time to recover. Why you are even surprised that Horus could call about half of the Imperium to rebel against the Emperor? Rebellion was a moral prerogative of any virtuous and moral person. The only right thing was to fight against this golden tyrant.


Now consider all this in W40k. Chaos suddenly doesn't seem half as bad, does it? Chaos to my knowledge was never fairly portrayed. It is all about being Chaotic evil and nonsensical. Bad writers of which majority are making warhammer literature basically portray chaos as saturday morning cartoons. Yet, did you ever asked yourself at how Crusade era human civilizations often took Imperial authorities by surprise? For example, in a very same novel our Lion goes into his first mission with an Imperium. His legion arrives at a compliant planet monitored by White Scars. They hand over this duty to Dark Angles and goes their own merry way. Yet, despite years of monitoring and contact, Imperial authorities were utterly taken by surprise when planetary ruler said that they are religious (worshipping Chaos). Did any of you thought how Chaos world can appear as civilized as any other if Chaos is all about being ridiculously evil for no purpose? In truth, Chaos is what people wants it to be. Nurgle is an aspect of nature and life. Worshipping Nurgle can mean ecology and turning your industrial wasteland into primeval forests. It is just that we want it to be a rotting swamp by desiring immortality and hence Nurgle focuses on an aspect WE desire. Same was an with that world. Their society was even more orderly than that of the Imperium's despite that all of them had sold their souls to Chaos. They had made pact with demons for their protection and they had received EXACTLY WHAT THEY HAD BARGAINED FOR. Demons kept them safe during Dark Age of Technology and they upkept their end of bargain to the end, even manifesting their leaders so strong that they had man handled Lion like a child.

 Crimson wrote:
Whilst Chaos as a force obviously is destructive and corrupting, I can easily imagine many Chaos worshippers having good intentions, at least initially. The Imperium is utterly horrible and oppressive totalitarian state and opposing that is a noble goal. Chaos can offer hope to the hopeless and power to the powerless. Good people can rationalise accepting the offers of Chaos so that they can have a fighting chance against the tyranny of the Imperium, Sure, it won't end well even if they win, but they probably do not realise it.

Pretty fair point.


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1) Horus Heresy is written in a very sympathetic way for traitors;
2) Chaos is right;
3) Chaos speaks to survival of the fittest crowd;
4) Chaos stands for ultimate freedom;
5) There is inner demons in each of us;

These aren't the self-evident truths they are being presented as. How is Chaos right? What's it right about? How does slavery to dark gods and their desires equate to ultimate freedom?

Just because we all have our daemons doesn't mean the right course of action is to give in to them.

I feel like a lot of these issues or misunderstandings come from people trying to read 40k in the way they're accustomed to reading science fiction and fantasy, which generally has an underlying moral principle of some kind, that intertwines with the core conflict.

But… the thing is, 40k isn't exactly sci-fi / fantasy. It certainly has all the outer trappings thereof - space travel, aliens, magic, daemons, etc. But the core of it, the mentality, the way it's constructed, is really more in line with horror and satire. Which is important for understanding the moral aspects of it.

Good guys and bad guys is irrelevant to 40k. That's not what it's about. It's an exploration, and satire, of the horrors of war, fascism, theocracy, autocracy, imperialism, genocide, stagnation, xenophobia, dogma, bureaucracy, addiction, mortality, idealizing violence, the uncaring vastness of the universe, the amoral brutality of nature, etc etc etc etc

If there's good guys in a game where you play endless war, then it's not really about the horror and futility of war anymore, is it? It would instead become just yet another piece of sci-fi media that treats war as glamorous and noble, and that acts like you can win the moral argument by shooting the other guy; it would become exactly the kind of thing 40k's creators set out to satirize and deconstruct..

Chaos aren't morally defensible, no, but they're not necessarily any worse than anyone else. Even the ruinous powers themselves aren't doing what they do out of malice, they're just doing it because it's their nature, and each of them embodies positive qualities amidst all the horrific stuff… Tzeentch has hope and change, Slaanesh has love and pleasure, Khorne has honour and justice and standing up for your principles, Nurgle has the natural cycles of death and rebirth. Etc. And heck, if Nurgle simply understood and respected the concept of consent, he'd probably be the most benevolent entity in the whole setting.

Chaos is nothing, but a reflection of a living world. Ask yourselves, how the feth warp managed to get so fethed up, especially in a new lore? The answer is that people living in that universe are absolutely terrible. You can't be a jerk in warhammer world without karma biting you back. Though, often this karma comes back as a literal demon generations later. If Imperial authorities would had created human civilization which was not based on wide spread human misery and dicking each other around, but instead of being nice to each other, warp and Gods will also now would be a lot nicer. Khorne might even call you up to congratulate you with your birthday instead of being this raging donkey-cave as he is now!

Even the ruinous powers themselves aren't doing what they do out of malice,

The thing is, from virtually every piece of fluffy and Black Library novel I've ever read, that's precisely what they're doing.

 Darian Aarush wrote:

Even the ruinous powers themselves aren't doing what they do out of malice,

The thing is, from virtually every piece of fluffy and Black Library novel I've ever read, that's precisely what they're doing.

How so? I mean, if you literally can't do otherwise, you're not really acting out of malice, right? Like… I don't have any malice towards the animals and plants I eat. It's just what I have to do, by nature.

And everything I've read depicts Nurgle, at least, as genuinely acting out of a warped sense of compassion. He really does think of what he does as "blessings" and "gifts". It's not genuine compassion because, again, he can't actually do otherwise, it's just his nature, but it's certainly not malice.

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Darian Aarush wrote:

Even the ruinous powers themselves aren't doing what they do out of malice,

The thing is, from virtually every piece of fluffy and Black Library novel I've ever read, that's precisely what they're doing.

How so? I mean, if you literally can't do otherwise, you're not really acting out of malice, right? Like… I don't have any malice towards the animals and plants I eat. It's just what I have to do, by nature.

And everything I've read depicts Nurgle, at least, as genuinely acting out of a warped sense of compassion. He really does think of what he does as "blessings" and "gifts". It's not genuine compassion because, again, he can't actually do otherwise, it's just his nature, but it's certainly not malice.

Imagine the giant whirlstorm of Khorne one day getting up and loudly proclaiming: "F this, I'm going vegan."

 Aestas wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Darian Aarush wrote:

Even the ruinous powers themselves aren't doing what they do out of malice,

The thing is, from virtually every piece of fluffy and Black Library novel I've ever read, that's precisely what they're doing.

How so? I mean, if you literally can't do otherwise, you're not really acting out of malice, right? Like… I don't have any malice towards the animals and plants I eat. It's just what I have to do, by nature.

And everything I've read depicts Nurgle, at least, as genuinely acting out of a warped sense of compassion. He really does think of what he does as "blessings" and "gifts". It's not genuine compassion because, again, he can't actually do otherwise, it's just his nature, but it's certainly not malice.

Imagine the giant whirlstorm of Khorne one day getting up and loudly proclaiming: "F this, I'm going vegan."

"SOY FOR THE SOY GOD, SPROUTS FOR THE SPROUT THRONE"

nataliereed1984 wrote:

"SOY FOR THE SOY GOD, SPROUTS FOR THE SPROUT THRONE"

This made me smile!

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Darian Aarush wrote:

Even the ruinous powers themselves aren't doing what they do out of malice,

The thing is, from virtually every piece of fluffy and Black Library novel I've ever read, that's precisely what they're doing.

How so? I mean, if you literally can't do otherwise, you're not really acting out of malice, right? Like… I don't have any malice towards the animals and plants I eat. It's just what I have to do, by nature.

And everything I've read depicts Nurgle, at least, as genuinely acting out of a warped sense of compassion. He really does think of what he does as "blessings" and "gifts". It's not genuine compassion because, again, he can't actually do otherwise, it's just his nature, but it's certainly not malice.

Trying out all his new poxes on Isha...yeah, really compassionate.

So the Chaos gods aren't sentient beings? They make no choices?

To Nurgle it is compassionate in a sense, as he is sharing all his gifts first with Isha. As was mentioned earlier, it is only Nurgle's lack of understanding/respecting consent that keeps him from being truly benevolent.

pm713 wrote:

 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.

Well, there is something of bi-directionality there though, right? Chaos "made" the Imperum what it is today, but the Imperium is what "made" Chaos what it is today.

Part of the issue, of course, is that we want to see causality. But Chaos vs. Order is really more a dailetic. While it is not a great example, the "simplest" way to put it is akin to how, while night follows day, day does not "cause" night, nor night "causing" day. They are simply portions of a relational "whole."

It's the same with Chaos, or so it seems it should be to me. The Imperium's "extreme Order "fueled" Chaos, even as Chaos "fueled" the move toward extreme Order. Really, the "extreme" nature of both is a sort of direct "answer" (a reaction formation) to the other. Which came first? That isn't a real question, because they both have always existed. Which slid toward the extreme first? Also, largely something irrelevant to ask, since both are/were/will be prone to extremes, if one hadn't, the other would have instead.

I'm also pretty dead set against the notion of the Chaos gods being "intrinsically" evil in themselves and in the same way, I am again the IoM being regarded as "intrinsically" evil.

On the notion of freedom, well, you are never "free" even just in the paradigm of Order vs. Chaos. While one might lament being a "slave" to a Chaos god, what is one in the IoM?

I think the idea that the Imperium would have been a happy, nice, lovely place if Chaos hadn't interfered with the great crusade is seriously missing the point of the whole story. Chaos was just the breeze that knocked over the house of cards, but it could have just as easily been anything else, even plain old human nature.

Just posted this in the Magnus thread:

Something I think a lot of people miss about the Horus Heresy in general is that the whole thing is a tragedy in the Classical sense. Like, not just that bad things happened, but that bad things inevitably happened, and it never really could have gone any other way. Emps tried to create a nice, happy, secular, united, democratic future for humanity, but the horrific means by which He tried to achieve it - war, genocide, autocracy, lies, forcefully imposed lies, creating superhuman children and then using them like nothing but tools, etc etc etc - fundamentally and irreparably undermined His goals from the very start. Or, put more simply: His goals were good, but His methods were awful, and the latter doomed the former. The way he treats Magnus is a perfect example of how a happy utopian future under Emp's rule wasn't an option anyway.

 Darian Aarush wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

 Darian Aarush wrote:

Even the ruinous powers themselves aren't doing what they do out of malice,

The thing is, from virtually every piece of fluffy and Black Library novel I've ever read, that's precisely what they're doing.

How so? I mean, if you literally can't do otherwise, you're not really acting out of malice, right? Like… I don't have any malice towards the animals and plants I eat. It's just what I have to do, by nature.

And everything I've read depicts Nurgle, at least, as genuinely acting out of a warped sense of compassion. He really does think of what he does as "blessings" and "gifts". It's not genuine compassion because, again, he can't actually do otherwise, it's just his nature, but it's certainly not malice.

Trying out all his new poxes on Isha...yeah, really compassionate.

So the Chaos gods aren't sentient beings? They make no choices?

But it is. He's giving her a constant stream of gifts purely out of love. Nurgle genuinely believes he's being nice.

Define sentient. They can percieve and feel things but they're also made purely of a very limited set of emotions and concepts. For example Tzeentch is so fixated on schemes, secrets, change and manipulation that he literally cannot achieve an overarching goal because then he'd need to stop changing.

 H wrote:

I'm also pretty dead set against the notion of the Chaos gods being "intrinsically" evil in themselves and in the same way, I am again the IoM being regarded as "intrinsically" evil.

On the notion of freedom, well, you are never "free" even just in the paradigm of Order vs. Chaos. While one might lament being a "slave" to a Chaos god, what is one in the IoM?

You don't hear about slaves to darkness repenting and becoming servants of mankind, but you do hear about noble servants of the Imperium falling to chaos. That's because Chaos is a one way trip. When you have bargained your soul to an alien psychic intelligence, you are objectively less free than a man serving a brutal regime, willingly or unwillingly.

Gaunt, Creed and Macharius were men surely aware of the Imperium's bureaucratic and Machiavellian flaws but they fought willingly for mankind, as did the men under their respective commands.

The Imperium does awful things because if it didn't, mankind would have no way to survive. It uses servitors and cogitators because AI and computers inevitably rebel. If there was a fix for this, the Admech would use it.
Chaos does awful things because that's what it is. If Khorne was offered a peaceful annex or a violent blood drenched conquest, its would go for the one that involved more axes and skulls.

That's what is meant by evil. Its not like a tiger mauling a man because tigers have instincts- a tiger is more than the death of a man. Chaos is only that violent instinct. Any good that comes out of Chaos is accidental, like if they attack a xenos faction that was planning an attack on an Imperial population centre.

nataliereed1984 wrote:


"SOY FOR THE SOY GOD, SPROUTS FOR THE SPROUT THRONE"

I want that on a t-shirt

Trying out all his new poxes on Isha...yeah, really compassionate.

So the Chaos gods aren't sentient beings? They make no choices?

Well, they are clearly shown to have some kind of sentience in the lore, but we are talking about gods... gods made of the gathered flow of emotions in the warp no less. I think projecting too much of human cognition unto them is: 1. something that makes them less interesting (even tho GW recently has taken to portraying them as more or less slightly stupid humans), 2. A general flaw in how modern people try to understand religion/ancient understandings of the world.

But let us take a step back. Do you really want the warp gods to be able to make choices as you and I do? Do you want Nurgle to be able to choose not to be Nurgle? I don't.

This might not be a perfect allegory in any way, but to try and give an example of how one might conceive the workings of a warp gods sentience... In pagan Scandinavia, did Thor cause thunder when he rode across the sky, or did he ride across the sky because you heard thunder? In 40k. I think the answer would be both, simultaneously, dialectically.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nataliereed1984 wrote:
I think the idea that the Imperium would have been a happy, nice, lovely place if Chaos hadn't interfered with the great crusade is seriously missing the point of the whole story. Chaos was just the breeze that knocked over the house of cards, but it could have just as easily been anything else, even plain old human nature.

Just posted this in the Magnus thread:

Something I think a lot of people miss about the Horus Heresy in general is that the whole thing is a tragedy in the Classical sense. Like, not just that bad things happened, but that bad things inevitably happened, and it never really could have gone any other way. Emps tried to create a nice, happy, secular, united, democratic future for humanity, but the horrific means by which He tried to achieve it - war, genocide, autocracy, lies, forcefully imposed lies, creating superhuman children and then using them like nothing but tools, etc etc etc - fundamentally and irreparably undermined His goals from the very start. Or, put more simply: His goals were good, but His methods were awful, and the latter doomed the former. The way he treats Magnus is a perfect example of how a happy utopian future under Emp's rule wasn't an option anyway.

Yes.

 =Angel= wrote:
You don't hear about slaves to darkness repenting and becoming servants of mankind, but you do hear about noble servants of the Imperium falling to chaos. That's because Chaos is a one way trip. When you have bargained your soul to an alien psychic intelligence, you are objectively less free than a man serving a brutal regime, willingly or unwillingly.

Gaunt, Creed and Macharius were men surely aware of the Imperium's bureaucratic and Machiavellian flaws but they fought willingly for mankind, as did the men under their respective commands.

The Imperium does awful things because if it didn't, mankind would have no way to survive. It uses servitors and cogitators because AI and computers inevitably rebel. If there was a fix for this, the Admech would use it.
Chaos does awful things because that's what it is. If Khorne was offered a peaceful annex or a violent blood drenched conquest, its would go for the one that involved more axes and skulls.

That's what is meant by evil. Its not like a tiger mauling a man because tigers have instincts- a tiger is more than the death of a man. Chaos is only that violent instinct. Any good that comes out of Chaos is accidental, like if they attack a xenos faction that was planning an attack on an Imperial population centre.

Well, one, I think the lack of reciprocal "lapses" is a flaw in the way that Warhammer in general formulates the Order vs. Chaos paradigm. So, you are right, we "never" see that, because Order is presented as the presupposed "rightful" state, where Chaos is the "fallen" state. In my interpretation, there is no "rightful" or, if you like, "natural" state. There is no state of "grace" to fall from, so, of course, there can't be a "fallen" state at all.

To "return" to Hegel's presentation of the dialectic. Here we could see Order as the Concrete, Chaos as the Abstract and then we have the Absolute as their synthesis. (Note, Hegel never uses the triadic Thesis:Antithesis:Synthesis.) So, the "Concreteness" of Order mediates the "Abstractness" in the pursuit of the Absolute (that is, a "whole" of Being (read: Dasein, in the Heideggerian sense, of Being-in-the-world, that is, Being-for-that-which-the-question-of-Being-has-Meaning.).) The "reverse" is also true, the "Abstractness" of Chaos mediates the overwhelming "Concreteness" of Order.

I am largely against, though, the Utilitarianism of the Imperium as somehow a "good" thing. I am also against the portrayal of Chaos (either "servants" or the gods themselves) as necessarily violent. Unfortunately, because of the "frame" of the narratives we get presented, Chaos seems to often get the moustache-twirling, it's-fun-to-do-bad-things role, where the horror of an absolute Utilitarianism is glossed over, ironically, unless it's the Tau, where the notion of the "Greater Good" is (to me) "rightly" lampooned. But again, that is a function of the narrative, since "we" (the readers) are set up to excuse the action of Humans and condemn the actions of "Xenos."

I don't think the horror of the Imperium's methods of survival - like servitors, cogitators, servo-skulls, mass forced conscription, casual executions, a literal inquisition - is "glossed over", exactly. More that they amplify that horror by also showing us a vision of humanity who've become completely desensitized to it and casually accept it as a matter of course. Which is arguably the most realistic horror of the whole setting, how easy it is for people to accept brutal and nightmarish things if they're normalized, officially condoned, and they feel they depend on them for the status quo and the uninterrupted continuation of their day-to-day lives.

But I will bite my tongue on my deep and abiding problems with Hegel and dialectical philosophy in general.

Incidentally, when people say "the Imperium does awful things because otherwise they'd have no way to survive!", it's worth thinking about how that's pretty much exactly how the Aeldari (even many Drukhari) think about all the horrific things they do as well…

nataliereed1984 wrote:
I don't think the horror of the Imperium's methods of survival - like servitors, cogitators, servo-skulls, mass forced conscription, casual executions, a literal inquisition - is "glossed over", exactly. More that they amplify that horror by also showing us a vision of humanity who've become completely desensitized to it and casually accept it as a matter of course. Which is arguably the most realistic horror of the whole setting, how easy it is for people to accept brutal and nightmarish things if they're normalized, officially condoned, and they feel they depend on them for the status quo and the uninterrupted continuation of their day-to-day lives.

But I will bite my tongue on my deep and abiding problems with Hegel and dialectical philosophy in general.

Well, I would agree there, most likely. But I think the key is that what is "horrible" is, in some sense, always a normative claim right? It's interesting, in a way, to me, to "flip the script" and, like =Angel= points out, we always see those "fallen" to Chaos, but no one "rise" to Order. Note, of course, the inherent normative claim implicit in those designations. Why is it though, that we see threads like this one, asking how there could be any redeeming qualities in Chaos, but none asking how anyone could see the redeeming qualities in the Imperium?

That is, the setting already provides that normative claim that the Order of the Imperium is the normative "good," maybe?

I mean, let me be clear, I'm not actually a Hegelian and I don't think dialectics is a "key to everything" (even Hegel himself basically said "don't systematize this" but of course people did). However, I do see some value in that approach with certain things. Note, of course, I am just an idiot with a keyboard, I am not a "trained" philosopher, so I don't have any vested interest in a given position. I find myself often moving through Hegel, Heidegger, Deleuze, De Beaurevoir, Žižek and many others. Often contradictory, I don't find a problem with that, in fact, I think their contradictory natures are in fact sort of complimentary. Maybe that actually is sort of dialectical though in reality, I don't know.