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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Because the alternative is that we take all the neo-fascist burn-the-heretic stuff seriously and get really creeped out.

That's ludicrous.

It's fiction. You can take it seriously without buying into it.

You can take 40k seriously, although I think that can hurt the ability to enjoy (or even tolerate) the over the top nonsense and awfulness that permeates the setting.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Because the alternative is that we take all the neo-fascist burn-the-heretic stuff seriously and get really creeped out.

That's ludicrous.

It's fiction. You can take it seriously without buying into it.

Well, yeah. Your creeped out bar is clearly different from mine, but if I don't assume that 40k is on some level satirical then it's too depressing and I can't make myself care about any of it.

There's gotta be some level of skepticism levied at these big strong men telling themselves that there was no other way as they commit worse atrocities to deal with the consequences of the atrocity that came before it. Any other interpretation just makes me really sad.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Well, yeah. Your creeped out bar is clearly different from mine, but if I don't assume that 40k is on some level satirical then it's too depressing and I can't make myself care about any of it.

Only thing in 40k that creeps me out are Cherubim, and even then because they're flying clone cyber-babies.

Nothing else creeps me out because it's not real.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
There's gotta be some level of skepticism levied at these big strong men telling themselves that there was no other way as they commit worse atrocities to deal with the consequences of the atrocity that came before it. Any other interpretation just makes me really sad.

But in setting non of the factions members think that the stuff they do is an atrocity. It would be like a farmer getting sad that he killed a boar in real life. Each of the factions thinks that the others are out to get them and they are right about it. Making them 100% sure that they have to do what ever it takes to destroy the other side. It is not no more and no less sad, then stuff that happens in the real world on a daily basis. Only difference is that some factions don't considering stuff that happens to them as an attrocity, but mostly because something like orks or tyranids don't have the mind set to do it, and demons are extremly hard to kill and they don't care at all about the fate of their own kind, in fact they are fully willing to sabotage the bring on the banishment or destruction of their kin just to rise in power. A bit like modern day politics in any work place.

I like both extremes of 40k.

And for me thats represented by Sturm speech at the end of DaW Winter Assault campaing.

"Thats what we do best. We die standing"

and the over the top nonsense of
"Drive me closer, I want to it them with my sword!"

 AnomanderRake wrote:


Because the alternative is that we take all the neo-fascist burn-the-heretic stuff seriously and get really creeped out.

Why is it even called that. There are no unions that gather both employers and employees in the same organisation, there are no state nationalised branches of industry, no cult of big family, no party organisation for adults and youths. Only thing it has in common with some forms of fasism is the leader cult, but that is hardly a fasist specific thing. Plus the way the church functions in the imperium makes no sense from a fasist view point. It is idependent and not separated from the state. That is like the two core tenents of dealing with churchs by those movment. Calling the setting fasist, makes as much sense as calling Tau communists, because one of them is running around in a red suit.

But then again I know only the european fasist movments, we don't really cover the south and north america and asia stuff all that well at school. So maybe it is different there.

For many people "fascism" just means "authoritarian" and not the specific political descriptor of actual italian fascism.

So less fascism and more feudal.

Well there are a ton of other fasisms too, the spanish one, the polish 1926-39 one, all the different balkan ones. But okey, I am rather stupid when it comes to finding out the hidden meaning in what people say. I assume that is someone means fasism, they mean it and something else. It does confuse me a lot. But yeah the w40k is authoriatarian as hell, only tyranids aren't that and they are animals running on instincts.

I don't know maybe it is the closeness to places where bad stuff happened not so long ago or where it is happening right now. So I could be partially desensitized to stuff. 30 min listening to Bielsat or an Ukrainian Radio , and suddenly the w40k as a setting doesn't seem so surreal. But that doesn't mean people can't or shouldn't like the way w40k is right now. Of course anyone can wish for themselfs what ever they like, and dislike what ever they find bad.


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Tygre wrote:
So less fascism and more feudal.

Well it is a bit like the Eastern Roman Empire from around 650-900 , from the times it had its endless wars with the Umajjads. And imperial priests blessed the use of greek fire to burn the heretical fleets that attack Byzantium and the eastern emperors started hiring Wareg fleets to fight the Berber pirates.
At the same time the old protectors of the eastern empire, the knight families in small asia were slowly being destroyed by the burrocracy of the imperial seat, which would later end with them joing the turkish invaders en mass, because even the special heavy non beliver turkish taxs were lower then the imperial taxs. Well at least to me it feels like this. Constant wars with bulgars, slavs, hungarians, crusaders sacking stuff, ton of civil wars, great warrior emperors and weak willed bad politicians, all present religion and a heterodoxy war, common population worshiping icons against the what the high church and some emperors wanted. A very much "there is only war" setting. Which at the same time is wonderful art wise, thinks that the old ways were better, old science being used with the church being against any improvments. They even had an inqusition like organisation in the form of a secret police.

The IOM is a militaristic and dogmatic teocracy... With many pseudo feudal elements in place.

There arent many explicitly fascistic lore elements in the IOM, but alas the aesthetic is in many ways reminiscent of fascism (originally in a satirical way).

Nevertheless, nowadays people are going to get "fascist vibes" comming from the setting and the IOM in particular... Which makes sense since extreme right movements are on the rise on more or less globally.

An important reason not to present the IOM and SM as the good guys.

Fascism is a bit of a muddy term when applied to a setting like 40k since fascism is a conservative reaction to a rise in left-wing thought and the Imperium never had any left-wing thought to react to (Emprah put a stop to that in his conquest of Earth I'm sure). It's kind of the same deal as how the Roman Empire obviously isn't fascist by any useful meaning of the term but if someone's talking about the Roman Empire like it was a better, stronger time then you Have A Right To Be Concerned.

Granted saying this has just reminded me that the entire premise of the Imperium and the split between 30k and 40k is that We Were Strong Once, Before We Were Brought Low By Our Enemies. Which is ur-fascism at its core.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Why does it have to be a dark comedy?

Why does it have to be satirical?

That's how it was to begin with, wasn't it? It's product of 80s British humour, and it would be a pity to see that lost out of some corporate attempt to "modernize it"


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Vatsetis wrote:
The IOM is a militaristic and dogmatic teocracy... With many pseudo feudal elements in place.

There arent many explicitly fascistic lore elements in the IOM, but alas the aesthetic is in many ways reminiscent of fascism (originally in a satirical way).

Nevertheless, nowadays people are going to get "fascist vibes" comming from the setting and the IOM in particular... Which makes sense since extreme right movements are on the rise on more or less globally.

An important reason not to present the IOM and SM as the good guys.

I disagree, to me the aesthetic is mostly medieval with a heavy hit of industrialism. The aesthetic takes inspiration from many places, not just Fascist Italy and Germany.

This isn't a political post, sure it uses political words but its just looking at the history of 40k and the people who created and developed the setting. I think it's extremely difficult to remove the two when they are indelible. That's how people create stories and build universes.

The Imperium of man is just a natural progression of the politics of the 80s, particularly in the UK. And I think a lot of people now in the hobby seem to really struggle with that.
I think that is particularly the case with a global audience, particularly those who hold conservative views. And I think that is why people love to argue against the fascist elements of the imperium. They are really obviously there. They are there deliberately to remind you the imperium aren't the good guys. There is absolutely no reason to argue the toss about the semantics of fascism unless you aren't comfortable with the word and what it really means. If you can't read between the lines a little, then I don't think you'll ever properly understand that. Are people expecting the Emperor to just eventually wake up, crack a bleary eye after millenia on the throne and hoarsely croak "are we the baddies?".

Is that modern education and a lack of critical thinking at fault? Or is it just people never told how to read a source and work out what is really being said? Remember the arts and humanities are important kids.

Of course everyone living in the current decade where there are a *lot* of similarities to the 1980s and so now you have people saying "oh I see where they got that from" when they interact with the hobby. The trouble is you shouldn't have to live through something to be able to understand the point behind it.

Private greedy corporations sucking planetary resources dry. Earth itself a post apocalyptic wasteland after nuclear destruction. An ignorant wasteful humanity living among the stars with ordinary people toiling in unending drudgery until their short lives are eradicated. Those that have wealth living off that toil and growing as fat and corpulent as the government that keeps them in power. Endless billions sent to war while entire planets are ripped apart and mined to provide arms and armour for their pitiful struggle against an unending tide of darkness.

That's the tone of 40k, this 'grimdark' meme is made up by people who, at its core, just don't understand the lore and the universe. It's a cold hard look at a future that as we seem determined to relive the 1980s seem to be sliding ever close to.

The tone of 40k is bleak. The hopelessness of life in a galaxy of war and fear. And because that's so damn miserable, you need a lot of comic relief.

 Olthannon wrote:


I think that is particularly the case with a global audience, particularly those who hold conservative views. And I think that is why people love to argue against the fascist elements of the imperium. They are really obviously there. They are there deliberately to remind you the imperium aren't the good guys. There is absolutely no reason to argue the toss about the semantics of fascism unless you aren't comfortable with the word and what it really means. If you can't read between the lines a little, then I don't think you'll ever properly understand that. Are people expecting the Emperor to just eventually wake up, crack a bleary eye after millenia on the throne and hoarsely croak "are we the baddies?".

Is that modern education and a lack of critical thinking at fault? Or is it just people never told how to read a source and work out what is really being said? Remember the arts and humanities are important kids.

They're only obviously there if you conflate fascism with authoritarianism, whilst remaining blissfully ignorant of regimes such as the Soviet Union, North Korea and arguably Robespierre's France.
I find amusing how you accuse people questioning if the Imperium is fascist of lacking critical thinking whilst at the same time telling them to just accept your interpretation.
Also, implying that those arguing for more accurate terminology with respect to history as being secretly fascist, classy.

But yeah, those traits are there to remind you that the Imperium isn't a good place to live, just as you wouldn't want to live in North Korea or during the Reign of Terror.


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 Arachnofiend wrote:


Granted saying this has just reminded me that the entire premise of the Imperium and the split between 30k and 40k is that We Were Strong Once, Before We Were Brought Low By Our Enemies. Which is ur-fascism at its core.

Is that ur-fascism though? Can't that be said of most civilizations?


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Tygre wrote:
So less fascism and more feudal.

Yep, just industrialized space feudalism, with an unhealthy dose of contemporary tyrannical regimes.

The Imperium is a mix of all the worst stuff from history, which is why along with fascist race purity genocide it throws in a bunch of soviet themed evil as well. The writers were trying to make the worst regime imaginable after all. It's always been a satire to some extent and when I see it moving away from that I kinda understand how people who feel the game would be ruined if aspects of the background were changed must feel. To me that satirical edge is pretty critical to my enjoyment. I can still take the ideas and themes from a satire seriously though - it's not like they need Horus to take a cream pie to the face to let me know it's a joke.

One thing that really does confuse me is why people are so dedicated to arguing the toss about the Imperium being fascist. They're Catholic Space Commie Nazis from the Holy Roman Space Empire. Using the word fascist to describe them is fine.

The Imperium hits 9/10 of Umberto Eco's properties of fascism with the force of exterminatus. The only one it doesn't is "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class" and this is because in the Imperium there is no middle class. There is the ruling class and then there is everyone else who are just cogs in the military-industrial machine.

The Imperium is fascist.

Not to blast this into the moon by going dead off topic here, but are you saying you can have non-authoritarian fascism? Merely fascist-lite?
Is that less carby than full fat fascism?

Hardly blissfully ignorant of the Soviet Union, NK or Robespierre, but thanks for playing the game of whatabouttery! Love that about being online. You did fall hook, line and sinker for it though eh?

I'm not telling people to accept my interpretation, that's up to different people to interact with 40k in their own way. I'm just putting it forward, I'd like to think with some degree of experience in the lore of 40k.

Everyone has a different world view and experience made up of their own interactions with life. So surely people will appreciate certain elements of 40k in different ways.

Can't force you into my interpretation I'm afraid, dead against that! I'm just saying if everyone listened to me and played by my rules, life would be better for everyone.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:


Also, implying that those arguing for more accurate terminology with respect to history as being secretly fascist, classy.

I would never! I mean who loves accurate terminology and the minutiae of rules more than fascists right?

Man cthulu is on a roll today.

From what I've heard Fascism is everything belonging to the State, for it and nothing outside of it. The fact you try to say right wingers want this is absurd given we like companies not to be owned by the government or taken under control after a point by the government. Meanwhile China does this quite a lot.

As for the Imperium if I heard correctly the really want to be authoritarian but it's not easy to run an interstellar empire spanning a whole galaxy so instead they mostly self rule. Also something about the rogue traders but my knowledge on the lore is iffy. If I recall they're allowed wiggle room to do things.

Your definition of fascism is wrong flaming. The Nazis are fascist and they hated communism (state ownership of all assets). They killed communists in concentration camps. Large companies like Siemens and so on worked closely with the Nazis and benefited from slave labour but were not state owned.

Fascism is a form of extreme right wing politics in the same way totalitarian communism is a form of extreme left wing politics. To argue otherwise is to render language kinda meaningless.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Man cthulu is on a roll today.

From what I've heard Fascism is everything belonging to the State, for it and nothing outside of it. The fact you try to say right wingers want this is absurd given we like companies not to be owned by the government or taken under control after a point by the government. Meanwhile China does this quite a lot.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism


Here you go mate, start with the basics and work your way up from there!

That's the thing. I heard in time those companies would've been dissolved too and made to go for the State. Thing is we fought a world war before it could really happen so it didn't get to that phase. I could be wrong. Just what I've heard.

It's Wikipedia. I'd prefer a dictionary which isn't constantly editedbased on an editor's leanings.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Why does it have to be a dark comedy?

Why does it have to be satirical?

Because that's what it was originally meant to be, because it's fun and most importantly because otherwise it is just glorification of some really vile stuff.

 Da Boss wrote:
Your definition of fascism is wrong flaming. The Nazis are fascist and they hated communism (state ownership of all assets). They killed communists in concentration camps. Large companies like Siemens and so on worked closely with the Nazis and benefited from slave labour but were not state owned.

Not entirely true. Whilst they weren't owned by the state per se, corporate heads were members of the Nazi party. In fact I'm pretty sure you had to be a member of the Nazi party and work with them in order to function.
So the corporate heads were arguably also part of the state.
It is true though that fascism is against the Free Market (like communism) but is fine with Crony Capitalism (not like Communism)

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Man cthulu is on a roll today.

From what I've heard Fascism is everything belonging to the State, for it and nothing outside of it. The fact you try to say right wingers want this is absurd given we like companies not to be owned by the government or taken under control after a point by the government. Meanwhile China does this quite a lot.

What you heard is so wrong that you should stop listening to whoever said that.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
That's the thing. I heard in time those companies would've been dissolved too and made to go for the State. Thing is we fought a world war before it could really happen so it didn't get to that phase. I could be wrong. Just what I've heard.

It's Wikipedia. I'd prefer a dictionary which isn't constantly editedbased on an editor's leanings.

Love that for you mate but that's not how Wikipedia works. If you like you can go out and buy a pop up book about Fascism if that would help?

It's just what you wrote in your post is fundamentally wrong so looking at the basics of fascism to actually understand the concept is the best place to start.

Really going to underline this point, not being condescending at all but I really think you should look up what fascism actually is and not just a dictionary definition of the word. I'm afraid life requires context as well. This is what I mean about arguing the semantics. It's not just the word "fascism" it's everything which surrounds that as well.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The Imperium hits 9/10 of Umberto Eco's properties of fascism with the force of exterminatus. The only one it doesn't is "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class" and this is because in the Imperium there is pretty much no middle class. There is the ruling class and then there is everyone else.

The Imperium is fascist.

Which is one definition of fascism. Historians just can't agree on what it actually is. As Ian Kershaw once wrote "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall".
Pretty sure Eco also said that his list isn't to be used to identity fascism, but to identity what fascism may "coagulate around".
He also said you only need one of them, which is a bit of loose requirement but ok.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Your definition of fascism is wrong flaming. The Nazis are fascist and they hated communism (state ownership of all assets). They killed communists in concentration camps. Large companies like Siemens and so on worked closely with the Nazis and benefited from slave labour but were not state owned.

Not entirely true. Whilst they weren't owned by the state per se, corporate heads were members of the Nazi party. In fact I'm pretty sure you had to be a member of the Nazi party and work with them in order to function.
So the corporate heads were arguably also part of the state.
It is true though that fascism is against the Free Market (like communism) but is fine with Crony Capitalism (not like Communism)

Membership of the party =/= the means of production being owned by the state. It also does not mean you are part of the state in the sense of being involved in the running of the state.

Did the Nazi party receive all of the profits made by Schindler's factories?

Or is Walmart owned by the Republican party as the Walton family are no doubt republican party members.

 Olthannon wrote:
Not to blast this into the moon by going dead off topic here, but are you saying you can have non-authoritarian fascism? Merely fascist-lite?
Is that less carby than full fat fascism?

No, I'm not. I'm saying that not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. Those regimes I listed weren't an attempt at "whatabouttery" but examples.

I would never! I mean who loves accurate terminology and the minutiae of rules more than fascists right?

Or you know, scholars, scientists, engineers, bureaucrats...ok I'll give you that last one.