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I have yet to see anyone claim Chaos is the "good guys." However, they are a potentially appealing option for some whose other alternative is to be slowly digested by an uncaring Imperium.

 H wrote:

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.

I don't think any reasonable person would accept that a woman giving birth to a ball of tentacles and teeth rather than a healthy child is not a fallen state. I think that in life, there are rightful states (the state of order and function), and medicine is based on returning our bodies to those states where injury, disease or failure has introduced dysfunction.

The normative, natural state of man and rhythms of life (order?) are disrupted by technology to greater and lesser extents in our modern world. How we adapt to that, and how we make technology adapt to us is the story of our times. 40k accelerates this with human machine interfaces sutured into the side of your head. The setting amplifies and alters what we might see as normal to a nightmare dystopia that is intentionally jarring. The Imperium is a function of the setting (which includes chaos) just as The Batman is a function of Gotham(which includes cartoonish levels of corruption and evil)

Chaos is a psychic and spiritual concept which introduces dysfunction that even future medicine cannot fix. A human body exposed to chaos will transfer from healthy and whole to mutated beyond recognition and there is nothing that can restore the order that was. In that sense, chaos is degenerative and irreversible harm to humans and its followers consciously introduce this harm to others, knowing the effects.

 H wrote:

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.

That's abstracting things beyond their strict meaning in the setting. 40k includes magic for its own sake. A 40k story does not require Chaos or even 'chaos' as an adversary- Necron V Imperium battles pit human and alien empires of order against one another. The chaotic destructive nature of Orks serve as a dark mirror of mankinds own capacity for destruction.

 H wrote:
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."

That's not the case. 40k lays the flaws of humanity bare. It shows 'virtuous' xenos who act in self preservation and don't actively desire the genocide of all other races. It shows heroes who resist the darkness of the setting, antiheroes who form part of the darkness and base villains who further darken the setting.

Chaos exists in story to take all that humanity calls base, evil, classical vices and then make horned daemons who eat souls out of them. There is no nuance there.The material is clear that even for the gods who do not build furniture from the people killed in their name, violence is always the path forward. The HH had a ship of bohemian artists and hedonists murder each other to produce 'better art' and 'better orgies'. Violence invariably stems from greed/excess , ruthlessness , despair and (surprise) bloodlust .

The fact that these evils exist in human societies everywhere does not mean that they are part of the rightful state- they are often the product of an illness or dysfunction themselves.

"Illness" and "dysfunction" are heavily loaded normative terms.

 =Angel= wrote:
I don't think any reasonable person would accept that a woman giving birth to a ball of tentacles and teeth rather than a healthy child is not a fallen state. I think that in life, there are rightful states (the state of order and function), and medicine is based on returning our bodies to those states where injury, disease or failure has introduced dysfunction.

The normative, natural state of man and rhythms of life (order?) are disrupted by technology to greater and lesser extents in our modern world. How we adapt to that, and how we make technology adapt to us is the story of our times. 40k accelerates this with human machine interfaces sutured into the side of your head. The setting amplifies and alters what we might see as normal to a nightmare dystopia that is intentionally jarring. The Imperium is a function of the setting (which includes chaos) just as The Batman is a function of Gotham(which includes cartoonish levels of corruption and evil)

Chaos is a psychic and spiritual concept which introduces dysfunction that even future medicine cannot fix. A human body exposed to chaos will transfer from healthy and whole to mutated beyond recognition and there is nothing that can restore the order that was. In that sense, chaos is degenerative and irreversible harm to humans and its followers consciously introduce this harm to others, knowing the effects.

Well, on one hand, I agree that if you were to have a baby, one would expect it to be a normative human one. Of course, I am not "against" that. The issue, to me, is that while we can say, fairly easily, that there are "rightful" and "fallen" states, the question would always be, which is which? And, of course, this introduces something of a continuum paradox, where we would have to ask, just where does the state of "grace" move to the "fallen" state.

To me, Chaos is not "fallen" in-itself. It is not "dysfunction" in-itself. In the same way, to me, that Entropy is not "evil" in the real world. I think I would disagree that technology disrupts Order though, as well. In fact, technology is plausibly, to me, viewable as our attempt to enforce our notions of Order onto the world (and ourselves). Here, I would say that, to me, the normative, natural state of life, is to carve Order out of Chaos. That is, that we are in a sea of Chaos and we, to live, must craft the Order from it. In fact, without Chaos, in a strict sense, there would be no energy, in the sense of no entropy and all things ordered means nothing could or would be generative.

In a way, one could even see how the Imperium is, possibly, in a way, literally crafted from Chaos. In fact, this idea could be used to explain why the Imperium spurned a rise in the expression of Chaos. The Emperor siphons "power" from Chaos, forges Order, and in reactive form, Chaos siphons power back, from the derivatives of that Order.

The "pastiche" of 40K Chaos is, for narrative purposes, framed as "the baddies" and a fount of degeneration and harm. To me, that is a massive disservice to the whole notion. This is why I am not, really at any time, discussing 40K Chaos as a matter of facts. Rather, I am discussing my notion of 40K Chaos as a matter of my personal interpretation of what is could, or should be, to me.

 =Angel= wrote:
That's not the case. 40k lays the flaws of humanity bare. It shows 'virtuous' xenos who act in self preservation and don't actively desire the genocide of all other races. It shows heroes who resist the darkness of the setting, antiheroes who form part of the darkness and base villains who further darken the setting.

Chaos exists in story to take all that humanity calls base, evil, classical vices and then make horned daemons who eat souls out of them. There is no nuance there.The material is clear that even for the gods who do not build furniture from the people killed in their name, violence is always the path forward. The HH had a ship of bohemian artists and hedonists murder each other to produce 'better art' and 'better orgies'. Violence invariably stems from greed/excess , ruthlessness , despair and (surprise) bloodlust .

The fact that these evils exist in human societies everywhere does not mean that they are part of the rightful state- they are often the product of an illness or dysfunction themselves.

Well, again, I am not terribly interested in a clear manichaeism. If that's what canonical 40K lore is, then that is a clear indication of why I do not prefer it. I am also not interested in "fantastic" moral clarity. Your injection against nuance is exactly what makes me heavily disinterested in a notion of "accepting" canonical lore. I don't just want nuance, it's a need. Moral clarity utterly boring to me, pretty much always.

If you are in to it, that's good. Go for it. Again, I am not making a case that my interpretation is the "matter of fact" "correct" one. In fact, just the opposite. My view is a "matter of interpretation" subjective preference. I am not making any sort of case as to what 40 is. I only present what 40K would, could or should be, to me.

The question at hand was, essentially, how could one have sympathy for Chaos? My answer is/was, that I don't "buy" 40K as manichean, as a place of moral clarity, or a place without nuance. If that doesn't fit the lore, then yes, I reject the canonical lore.

 =Angel= wrote:

Chaos exists in story to take all that humanity calls base, evil, classical vices and then make horned daemons who eat souls out of them. There is no nuance there.The material is clear that even for the gods who do not build furniture from the people killed in their name, violence is always the path forward. The HH had a ship of bohemian artists and hedonists murder each other to produce 'better art' and 'better orgies'. Violence invariably stems from greed/excess , ruthlessness , despair and (surprise) bloodlust .

The fact that these evils exist in human societies everywhere does not mean that they are part of the rightful state- they are often the product of an illness or dysfunction themselves.

You are right in regards to chaos representing classical vices, but I think you are missing the mark, at least to some degree.

Yes, these are deamons made of classical vices. But as with classical vices, there is nuance, as the danger comes more from the extremity of an act than from the act itself. To say they are wholly evil and dysfunctional is too reductive. What makes the chaos gods interesting (and frightening), and what makes the setting so captivating, is that they do hold nuance. Khorne is the blood god, but by being the blood god he is also the god of the base self preserving aggression needed to be an evolved (in the darwinian sense) species. He is also the god of the honor bond aggression needed to stand in defense of those for whom you have a duty of care. Those are not classical evils, yet they feed him just the same.

What makes chaos "evil" in a modern/christian, binary sense, is their need for extremity. To beget themselves with more of what feeds them. Whether or not this is a conscious act of deities with human like cognition or just warpstorms feeding of emotions while simultaneously leading to more of the same emotion. In this regard the Imperium of man stands in a reciprocal relation to the gods of chaos. You might say that this reciprocal relation makes the Imperium justified, and thus good in comparison to the evil of chaos, but I think that it missing the mark much more. Without Chaos, the Imperium might not (with emphasis on might) be as oppressive and violent, but without the Imperium, Chaos wouldn't be as strong. I find it hard to divide that up into rightful order versus chaotic evil. Especially when we remember that in this chicken and egg situation, man got here first.

In that regard, the most frightening thing I can imagine in this setting, would be a fifth big, genuine chaos god of order. Managed order and not the stagnant order of Nurgle. That would be truly, utterly terrifying. Not because order is inherently evil, but because the extremity of managed order would be utterly (grim)dark. Right now, as the setting stands, that is pretty much the role the Imperium occupies, with some wiggle room for doubters and characters you can actually feel a sympathetic relation towards.

 Aestas wrote:



Yes, these are deamons made of classical vices. But as with classical vices, there is nuance, as the danger comes more from the extremity of an act than from the act itself. To say they are wholly evil and dysfunctional is too reductive. What makes the chaos gods interesting (and frightening), and what makes the setting so captivating, is that they do hold nuance. Khorne is the blood god, but by being the blood god he is also the god of the base self preserving aggression needed to be an evolved (in the darwinian sense) species. He is also the god of the honor bond aggression needed to stand in defense of those for whom you have a duty of care. Those are not classical evils, yet they feed him just the same.

Even the simple idea of "fighting for your principles" is essentially Khornate in nature.

The fact that "taking otherwise decent things too far" is what drives the 'evil' of Chaos is also what makes Slaanesh so dangerous and resented by the other powers, because Slaanesh has excess itself within their purview.

On Chaos world, mother giving birth to a mutant or a boy/girl becoming a mutant is seen as a great honor and a blessing from their Gods. All of you forget that if your family was blessed with a mutant, he is likely to be made for great things. Such as slaughtering men by dozens, chasing down cars, punching through walls, all of such good things. And in the galaxy where half of the beings want to enslave you and other half to eat you, you would be truly insane to see this anything less than a great boon and blessing.

On tabletop, such mutants man handles space marines and space marines in primaris power armor. If that is not a great blessing from your Gods, I do not know what is.

 Aestas wrote:

You are right in regards to chaos representing classical vices, but I think you are missing the mark, at least to some degree.

Yes, these are deamons made of classical vices. But as with classical vices, there is nuance, as the danger comes more from the extremity of an act than from the act itself. To say they are wholly evil and dysfunctional is too reductive. What makes the chaos gods interesting (and frightening), and what makes the setting so captivating, is that they do hold nuance. Khorne is the blood god, but by being the blood god he is also the god of the base self preserving aggression needed to be an evolved (in the darwinian sense) species. He is also the god of the honor bond aggression needed to stand in defense of those for whom you have a duty of care. Those are not classical evils, yet they feed him just the same. .

I mean, that idea exists? That by standing between a berzerker and a hive full of civilians, shooting the berzerker in the face until he is dead, you are somehow empowering Khorne? I just don't think its borne out in any of the material.
Even if all human aggression feeds Khorne- and there will always be a background radiation of human aggression- Khorne is empowered by massive senseless wars and horrible acts of ultraviolence. Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows is a limited statement, intended to convey that there must be conflict- not that he has zero stake in who wins. In the example above, the guardsman who fires his plasmagun from a trenchline before the hive has contributed 1(one) berzerker to the skull throne's coffers, whereas the berzerker would have gladly murdered all the inhabitants of a city for Khorne, if he were unopposed.

Just as Slaanesh wasn't born from normal eldar/human/eldar-human desire and obsession but from massive racewide automated space hedonism, the chaos gods are not fuelled by ordinary, baseline self preservation, thinking/improvement, dismantling or desire/pleasure.The gods of chaos have 'corresponding virtues' to their vices only because they embody corruption of those virtues- a courageous and honourable warrior transforming into a wrath filled berzerker as he embraces violence is an easy way to portray this corruption. Each god of chaos occupies a spectrum opposite to a virtue- and to move further to craven wrath is to move away from self preservation and honour. There are no 'honourable, knightly' champions of Khorne for the same reason there are no objective, reasonable drug addicts. Khorne is not the god of self defence.

The puzzle of Chaos is how humanity can fight its dark mirror without becoming it.
The more you fight, the more violent and base you can become and the closer to Khorne you will stray. War strips away at your moral fabric and sense of right and wrong until you are a degenerate hound, baying for blood.
The more you are forced to use guile, deceit, the loftier your ambition and the more you are willing to sacrifice, the more you leave yourself vulnerable to the grand architect.
The more you allow your passions to guide your reason and your obessions become you, you allow the dark prince into your heart.
The more you give in to despair and fear, the more hold the Lord of Decay has over you.

 =Angel= wrote:
The puzzle of Chaos is how humanity can fight its dark mirror without becoming it.
The more you fight, the more violent and base you can become and the closer to Khorne you will stray. War strips away at your moral fabric and sense of right and wrong until you are a degenerate hound, baying for blood.
The more you are forced to use guile, deceit, the loftier your ambition and the more you are willing to sacrifice, the more you leave yourself vulnerable to the grand architect.
The more you allow your passions to guide your reason and your obessions become you, you allow the dark prince into your heart.
The more you give in to despair and fear, the more hold the Lord of Decay has over you.

To me (again, not canonical Warhammer), this is exactly the "cost" of Pragmatism or Utilitarianism. Again, to me (not 40k canonical lore) Chaos is not a thing to be "defeated" but rather, a phenomenological reality of existence (of Being, more specifically of Dasein) that must be grappled with, harnessed, not extinguished. It is, in a manner of speaking, like gravity. You can best it for a time, for long periods of time, but it is never "defeated" and is always latently "ready-at-hand" at all times.

The issue (again, to me, not 40k canon lore) is that, as you point out, the notion of Order "defeating" Chaos creates in it the pragmatic "fueling" of Chaos. The pragmatic calculus of "war," of escalating violence, of excess, despair and fear motivating and fueling an impetus of "total war" in search of "total victory" sow in it the very seeds that portent the futility and achievableness of that very "total victory." The utilitarian notion that "best" for the "most" also fosters in it the notion that it can "conquer" Chaos and deliver a notional "victory" to the majority only sows the seeds in the "oppressed," "disenfranchised" or "repressed" minority the same failure to deliver the promised "total victory." In this utilitarian paradigm though, the cost is ever escalating, since you need to devote more and more to hold the enfranchised (Order) portion apart the disenfranchised (Chaos) portion.

The path (to me, not 40k lore) to walk is more akin to that of "Eastern philosophy" illustrated partly by the notion of Yin and Yang. It is not for one to "defeat the other" they are sort of dialectical, where each is just the necessary opposition to the totalizing of the other. And each contains within it the "seeds" of the other. The same is "true" for Order and Chaos in 40K to a certain extent. For example, Chaos is not "full Chaos" since it would then be totally incomprehensible. Without some Order, Chaos would be something like Meillasoux's notion of "hyper-Chaos" where they is only contingency, no necessity of any kind. If that were the case, you'd say, shoot a gun and sometimes the bullet would come out and travel in it's parabolic path. Or sometimes nothing would happen. Or, maybe the gun stays put, you come out the barrel and the bullet stays put. Or, the bullet turns into a star, you turn into a rabbit, and the gun ends up not existing. No, we don't have that at all. Even (from what little I've seen) even the Warp itself is at least partly "Ordered" for the most part. And the Chaos gods are highly ordered, otherwise sometimes Slaanesh would be the Lord of Pestilence and sometimes Khorne would be.

To me (again, only me) this is the "key." Order too, contains within it, notional Chaos. This is not a flaw to be rooted out. And that rooting is the source of the "problem." Seen as something of a "flaw" to be bested via pragmatic or utilitarian means could never win. Imagine hating night so much that you elaborately fashion a device to hold the Earth still and tidally lock it. One, the effort would be huge, taking tons of energy but also even "absolute victory" would only lock one side of the Earth in perpetual night and the other in the day. Did you "defeat" night? No, it's still there, just "pushed away" to a place you think it does not need to be reckoned with.

That is (again, to me, personally) the dialectical "nature" of Chaos. The notion of "victory" is a joke, as are the schematized "methods" of that so called "win." To me, the "true path" is one of notional balance, of a dialectical process of mediation and synthesis. That is, of process, which is not the effecualizing, pragmatic or utilitarian one, but one more deontological, where you realize that the shortest path might be the quickest or easiest one, but not the best suited one. Where you realize that the ideal, utopian notion of total victory is not achievable or desirable, and you can live in a place of relative (not perfect) harmony, a constantly mediated process of rises, falls, ever onwards toward coexistence.

But, as I keep saying, that is how it seems to me (not 40k canon lore).

There's also a very, very literal, unsubtle sense in which the Imperium can never defeat Chaos, and the effort to do so is destroying them:

The Imperium inherently relies upon warp travel and astropaths in order to maintain an Imperium.

The only way Chaos could ever be brought back down to manageable levels is to give up on the idea of a galaxy-wide Imperium, and the absolute dominance of humanity. Shut down the warp travel, shut down the astronomicon, turn off the golden throne, ditch the psykers.

Fascism and Imperialism and Total War breed their own bogeymen, and are doomed by the contradictions and impossibilities of their own ideologies.

That's one of the core ideas around which the whole setting has been designed.

For all of its thrashing around and its massive war machine and the unimaginable sacrifices constantly fed into the meat grinder, all the Imperium can do is kick the can a little further down the road, so they can linger on in stagnation and misery for another century.

That's not a million miles from the philosophy Lorgar espouses - he and Argel Tal try to explain it quite a bit in betrayer and the first heretic, and it comes up in the (40k) word bearer trilogy.

Basically it boils down as follows.

1) The gods are real, and are gods by any definition you care to apply. Denying them won't make them go away.

2) Respecting them, fearing them, and understanding the impact they have on the universe does not mandate 'worshipping' them or choosing tentacled mutations over the human race. It's much more like the Greek pantheon, who were something to fear and placate, rather than the more monotheistic view of worship associated with the Abrahamic religions.

3) Submitting to chaos unthinkingly is just as destructive as ignoring it. Chaos spawn are a case in point.

4) Mastering chaos indefinitely is impossible but then living for half a millenia without the touch of the warp is nigh impossible too, and in both cases the individuals involved are remarkable ones.

5) Lorgar advocated a sort of symbiosis - albeit a tense and potentially destructive one. The Dark Mechanicum is a case in point as to what's possible for science combined with damonology.

6) No one is suggesting a chaotic society is nice. It's generally one driven unapologetically by the rule of the strong, where human life is sacrificed on an industrial scale, and basically zero value is placed on dignity or sanity. BUT, for all that, it IS a viable society, albeit a horrible one. Many chaos worlds have, in their own ways, societies as structured as imperial hive worlds.

7) There are chaotic cultures as old as the imperium - indeed, given the time distortions in the Eye, the Screaming Vortex and elsewhere, some are older. Which, ultimately, gives the lie to the emperor's claim that his vision represents the only viable way for humanity.

People hate on the IoM for many reasons. They cant beat Imperial soup at their flgs, Primaris marines are going to replace their old marines, etc. I believe the most powerful and venomous hate comes from the familiarity with oppressive governments versus the familiarity with Evil Demon Gods.

The style and culture of the IoM is a purposeful copy of the "coolest" parts of Hitlers 3rd Reich and Stalin's Soviet Union. It also has it's most terrible aspects too. "Nazis riding dinosaurs!" I've honestly seen DKOK modeled on Cold Ones. People see the symbols of those evil empires and Freak the Frack out. Now, demons? Haha Haha. Those aren't real. Soviets and Nazis? Very real.

So whether the IoM is the champion of humanity or not, people are incapable of looking past the IoM's iconography. Flaming demon skulls? "Awesome! I want that on my backpack!" I blame marketing.

 Red Marine wrote:
The style and culture of the IoM is a purposeful copy of the "coolest" parts of Hitlers 3rd Reich and Stalin's Soviet Union. It also has it's most terrible aspects too. "Nazis riding dinosaurs!" I've honestly seen DKOK modeled on Cold Ones. People see the symbols of those evil empires and Freak the Frack out. Now, demons? Haha Haha. Those aren't real. Soviets and Nazis? Very real.

Were the Cold Ones holding shovels?

Was just thinking, regarding the idea of chaos always being a one way trip…

Isn't Luther a bit of an exception?

He didn't exactly redeem himself and purge himself of corruption in a Darth Vader kind of way, but he definitely halted his decline, denied the Chaos Gods, and felt genuine remorse, right?

I think that the severity of difficulty is such that in the fluff, you have a *NAME* if you overcome the seduction of Chaos.

Much like how Mephiston is *the* Blood Angel to overcome the Black Rage. If we estimate 10 BA per year succumb to the BR, then Mephiston would be the 1 / 100 000 that breaks the rule. He has the mental fortitude of a Marine Librarian. And he didn’t have literal Gods and Daemons whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

Now... shmucks in the GrimDark. Being shown tangible signs of divine power. The thought of resisting the corruption probably doesn’t even occur to 1 / 100 000 people, much less one that would have the mental fortitude to be *capable* of putting themselves on a path of “redemption”. Nothing is impossible, but I’d say the odds of Daemonic ascension are greater than the odds of “redemption”.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I think that the severity of difficulty is such that in the fluff, you have a *NAME* if you overcome the seduction of Chaos.

Much like how Mephiston is *the* Blood Angel to overcome the Black Rage. If we estimate 10 BA per year succumb to the BR, then Mephiston would be the 1 / 100 000 that breaks the rule. He has the mental fortitude of a Marine Librarian. And he didn’t have literal Gods and Daemons whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

Now... shmucks in the GrimDark. Being shown tangible signs of divine power. The thought of resisting the corruption probably doesn’t even occur to 1 / 100 000 people, much less one that would have the mental fortitude to be *capable* of putting themselves on a path of “redemption”. Nothing is impossible, but I’d say the odds of Daemonic ascension are greater than the odds of “redemption”.

So what would that make Talos? He basically told all four gods AND Abaddon to take it and stick it.

Which I would argue is sticking with the Night Lords and Curze's personality. Yes they are definitely VERY bad men. But servants of chaos? Only in a few notable exceptions. Mostly they do their own thing. Remember they were the one legion absent from the old Eye of Terror campaign.

Talos has a *Name* although I don’t know it. I’m not a big fluff reader. I believe we were talking about redemption, not rejection.

Without knowing the details of his story... did Talos at one time worship / venerate the powers of Chaos, and then choose to rescind? Or has he, like many Imperial Characters, refused the initial temptation of Chaos? They would be two different scenarios.

Also, to clarify, when I say Schmucks I mean people that have already chosen to follow Chaos. To worship / venerate it and *then* choose to turn their backs on it and instead choose to worship / venerate Order.

 =Angel= wrote:


I mean, that idea exists? That by standing between a berzerker and a hive full of civilians, shooting the berzerker in the face until he is dead, you are somehow empowering Khorne? I just don't think its borne out in any of the material.
Even if all human aggression feeds Khorne- and there will always be a background radiation of human aggression- Khorne is empowered by massive senseless wars and horrible acts of ultraviolence. Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows is a limited statement, intended to convey that there must be conflict- not that he has zero stake in who wins. In the example above, the guardsman who fires his plasmagun from a trenchline before the hive has contributed 1(one) berzerker to the skull throne's coffers, whereas the berzerker would have gladly murdered all the inhabitants of a city for Khorne, if he were unopposed.

I really hate to refute your points with something so simple, but, well... Yes. It is a central point of the Chaos gods that they feed off all emotions linked to them, not just the extremities. I'm on holiday over Christmas, so sources will have to wait, but Khorne very much does feed off the background aggression of the universe (only requirement being a warp presence, I would guess). He is the god of killing and aggression, not only the god of extreme aggression and total war, and while, rightly, he is not the god of self-defense, he is very much the god of the aggression needed and displayed for self defense. That soldier standing his ground to the bezerker very much does feed Khorne.

To make things clear. That does not make it a zero sum game, it doesn't mean all violence is equal ,and it doesn't mean that Khorne, in as much as he truly has vested interests, doesn't have an interest in the outcome or that he feeds as much either way. But it does underline that this is not just a binary situation of good vs. evil or order vs. chaos. Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows - all conflict feeds him. This qualitative element of aggression is also visible in his worshippers and champions, as well as in their works. The top dogs and the most famous are mostly blood crazed maniacs: "Break their backs", "Skulls for the skull throne", "kill. maim. burn." and all that. They are (favored) extremists, just as the chaos gods pulls towards extremity in order to beget themselves. That doesn't mean all Khorne worshippers are like that. For example, we find mention of several tribes and societies living on deamon worlds within the eye of terror. Violent, mostly primitive societies, but functional, generational societies non the less, that worship Khorne in some form or another. We also know that Khorne enjoys a battle between equals and the sacrifices of worthy warriors more than the blood of the weak. To underline the point about this not being a clear cut dichotomy between the good empire and and evil chaos. Khorne would probably enjoy the work of the guardsman, for being such a bad ass that he took down one of his (unworthy) champions. He might even hold him in his favor and reward him for it ;-)

This is not some school boy Catholicism, where vices and virtues stands opposed to each other on a spectrum. In this universe, the devil eats from much much more than just the fallen.

To give an example to back up my point, just pulled from the back of my mind. The Cabal during the Horus Heresy. They actively wanted Horus to win, because they foresaw that a victorious Horus would lead to the utter destruction of the human race. They wanted this, and even presumably convinced some fairly high ranking humans of the necessity of it, because a wiped out human race would mean the death of the chaos gods. It was better (to the Cabal) to let humanity burn bright in the warp for some time before the whole race collapsed in on itself, leading to the total erasure of the human emotions whirling up the warp. (This was a possibility because humanity was the all domineering warp present species at the time).

Now, I'm not saying this makes the Cabal "good", or that they shouldn't too be vehemently opposed (as bad guys). But I think it does back up my point. Also, the worst thing the Cabal foresaw was what we got: A stagnant Imperium, with a corpse emperor, slowly, undyingly feeding chaos as it grinds the wheels of empire ever onward.

The puzzle of Chaos is how humanity can fight its dark mirror without becoming it.
The more you fight, the more violent and base you can become and the closer to Khorne you will stray. War strips away at your moral fabric and sense of right and wrong until you are a degenerate hound, baying for blood.
The more you are forced to use guile, deceit, the loftier your ambition and the more you are willing to sacrifice, the more you leave yourself vulnerable to the grand architect.
The more you allow your passions to guide your reason and your obessions become you, you allow the dark prince into your heart.
The more you give in to despair and fear, the more hold the Lord of Decay has over you.

Well, on this we can very much agree, and please bear in mind that this is possible even if Chaos feeds from all. Very well put too. The problem is, as you say, how.

Here I think Natalie and Locarno just made some good points, and I think it is central to the setting that the Imperium (and before that the Emperor) is fighting with tools that can never, ever lead to victory. They might be tragically forced to use those same tools. but it is helpless, endless reciprocity just the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Red Marine wrote:
People hate on the IoM for many reasons. They cant beat Imperial soup at their flgs, Primaris marines are going to replace their old marines, etc. I believe the most powerful and venomous hate comes from the familiarity with oppressive governments versus the familiarity with Evil Demon Gods.

The style and culture of the IoM is a purposeful copy of the "coolest" parts of Hitlers 3rd Reich and Stalin's Soviet Union. It also has it's most terrible aspects too. "Nazis riding dinosaurs!" I've honestly seen DKOK modeled on Cold Ones. People see the symbols of those evil empires and Freak the Frack out. Now, demons? Haha Haha. Those aren't real. Soviets and Nazis? Very real.

So whether the IoM is the champion of humanity or not, people are incapable of looking past the IoM's iconography. Flaming demon skulls? "Awesome! I want that on my backpack!" I blame marketing.

While I think you are pretty much right in the money, I do also see the polar opposite occur. Here's an exaggerated example just because it is Christmas: "Those are bad guys, just look at those flaming skulls, that snarling face and those guts coming out of that gut. Clearly bad guys. Now, these guys all up in uniform with that golden Aquila on their breasts. Those bearing it all over just MUST be good guys, just look at how golden and regal it is".

(you can blame marketing for that one too)

Btw. Merry Yuletide everyone!

 Aestas wrote:


This is not some school boy Catholicism

Yeah! It's artsy moody geeky metalhead schoolboy rebellion against Catholicism!

(Happy Sanguinala to you, too)

 Darian Aarush wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:



this is not the issue I have. My issue is with players (outside of the lore/universe) arguing that servants of Chaos are 'good'.

The most important factor here is to be able to distinguish between "Chaos" and "Chaos Legions". I've very rarely see people justify chaos itself and the daemons it spawns, but more the Heretic Astartes Legions. As others have said, it's less of a who is "Good Vs. Evil" kind of deal but who is more "Right Vs. Wrong" scenario. Was The Emperor right to make the decisions he made? If so then why did half of the Legions fall? There is a process that is considered why people fall to the darker elements, the Primarchs are such figureheads for that discussion.

Magnus was stabbed in the back by both sides.

Curze literally did nothing wrong, and yet, still got chastised for his actions.

Logar was Emperors experiment to teach Gulliman that one size does not fit all in a wide spinning Galaxy.

Fulgrim was forced.He didn't get much of a say in the matter. Same with Horus.

As for the ordinary folks of the Imperium, you have to remember that most of the time those who have fallen to Heresy, be it Chaos or Xenos, had done so out of desperation for a better life, Consider the story of The Bladed Cog in GSC. They were ruled by a tyrannical machine, and they wanted a better life, they didn't really know what they were getting into. I believe the same could have been said for the Chaos Cults on Vraks.

One of the main appeals of 40k is that no one is the good guy, it's more of who you decide is right in their actions.

I really don't have much sympathy for chaos primarchs or marines. Their daddy issues bore me.I have quite a bit of sympathy for oppressed normal little people of the Imperium, who finally decide to fight back and change things, by whatever means necessary.

 The Warp Forge wrote:

Curze literally did nothing wrong, and yet, still got chastised for his actions.

There was that unfortunate habit of peeling people. But aside from that I broadly agree with what you're saying.

locarno24 wrote:

 The Warp Forge wrote:

Curze literally did nothing wrong, and yet, still got chastised for his actions.

There was that unfortunate habit of peeling people. But aside from that I broadly agree with what you're saying.

Oh, come on now. Who amongst us HASN'T given into temptation and flayed the occasional adversary alive?

nataliereed1984 wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

 The Warp Forge wrote:

Curze literally did nothing wrong, and yet, still got chastised for his actions.

There was that unfortunate habit of peeling people. But aside from that I broadly agree with what you're saying.

Oh, come on now. Who amongst us HASN'T given into temptation and flayed the occasional adversary alive?

I don't know... I usually stop after the casual pulling of finger- and toe nails, you know, maybe a tooth or two, but then again, I was always raised to be bloody polite...

 Aestas wrote:

nataliereed1984 wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

 The Warp Forge wrote:

Curze literally did nothing wrong, and yet, still got chastised for his actions.

There was that unfortunate habit of peeling people. But aside from that I broadly agree with what you're saying.

Oh, come on now. Who amongst us HASN'T given into temptation and flayed the occasional adversary alive?

I don't know... I usually stop after the casual pulling of finger- and toe nails, you know, maybe a tooth or two, but then again, I was always raised to be bloody polite...

Typical European traditionalism... yeesh...

locarno24 wrote:

 The Warp Forge wrote:

Curze literally did nothing wrong, and yet, still got chastised for his actions.

There was that unfortunate habit of peeling people. But aside from that I broadly agree with what you're saying.

Well seeing as the Emperor created him to do just that then I would argue it's hard to say he did something wrong when he merely acted as intended.

Also the defining of Curze's actions as "evil " compared to the actions of other primarchs and the Emperor really comes down to the idiotic way humans generally view violence when scale gets involved. Someone who stabs a stranger to death in an alley is a murderer and will be hung. A general who orders a mass napalm bombing of thousands of civilians thus causing vastly greater death and suffering will most likely get a medal, political career, and maybe a road/public building named after him.

The Night Lords method of horribly killing their opponents up close in order to terrify them into submission seems horrible but it generally was said to cause less casualties than the total war waged by the rest of the Crusade forces. Would you prefer to be personally "peeled " by Curze or impersonally fire/virus bombed by one of the "nice" primarchs?

Pretty sure either option will result in a horrible death. At least the Night Lords will look you in the eye first.

Getting bombed strikes me as a far less bad way to die then slowly being skinned to death.

Yeah... the *speed* of explosive death seems like it would be preferable to being skinned alive.

People have mentioned that there seem to be a lack of reciprocal “falling” from chaos to order, but we do have at least two examples I can think of even if the nature of the Imperium and their rejection of chaos meant they wouldn’t be fully accepted back into the human fold ever.

******************SPOILERS*******************

We have the Traitor General from the Guants Ghosts novels, who essentially becomes a traitor to chaos, supplying the Imperials with information while also saying that he is essentially at the point of being a conscientious objector. Additionally there is the character from Daemon World who essentially know he is still damned due to a millennia in service to the dark gods, but decides to rebel against them and to hit them where it hurts most destroy their prize jewel of a corrupted maiden world they had been fighting over.

So I think that chaos to order traitors could happen it’s just very hard due to the nature of selling your soul, and the fact that the Order faction thinks you may be irrevocably corrupted and just shoot you on the spot instead of accept you back into the fold.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Getting bombed strikes me as a far less bad way to die then slowly being skinned to death.

If you believe that everyone killed in bombing, artillery, or chemical/biological attacks dies quickly and painlessly then you need to study some actual military history and stop watching G.I. Joe.