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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:


So which is it? Are the space marines heroes of righteous values or are they agents of a dark and bigoted regime that the game is satirizing?

Both, I think.
You have Salamanders and Ultramarines, which are supposed to be paragons of virtue.

-you mean the xenophobic, genociding child-killers and the Space SS?

Since when were Ultramarines space SS?

Ever since they were the militarized wing of the ruling governing party of the fascist regime, probably. I mean, the parallels are obvious.

Cronch wrote:

JWBS wrote:
Yeah I always found it kinda bizarre that the people who claim to be most stridently against hate are so often very obviously consumed by it themselves, but intense hypocrisy is ofc nothing new.

BoTh SidES aM i RiGhT?!

Both sides what? Have I touched a nerve here or something?

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:


So which is it? Are the space marines heroes of righteous values or are they agents of a dark and bigoted regime that the game is satirizing?

Both, I think.
You have Salamanders and Ultramarines, which are supposed to be paragons of virtue.

-you mean the xenophobic, genociding child-killers and the Space SS?

Since when were Ultramarines space SS?

Ever since they were the militarized wing of the ruling governing party of the fascist regime, probably. I mean, the parallels are obvious.

The Roman Legion are SS? After all, they were the military wing of the Roman Empire.
The parallels aren't obvious if the fictional government in question takes inspiration from countless sources.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:

 Londinium wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
I
The entire plot-line of Guilliman's return especially unfortunately came at the wrong RL time entirely. Here you have a blue-eyed, blonde haired, superman outsider coming into to drain the swamp and Make the Imperium Great Again. In 2016/17. Yikes.

Guilliman has been blonde haired and blue eyed since the 90s. If you think his return to the Imperium was designed as some kind of endorsement of Trumpism then you need to seriously reconsider how much you're looking into things and lighten up a bit.

Hell Trump isnt even white, he's orange.

I think the point was bad timing to bring in a character/narrative which could easily speak to a fascist aesthetic.

When would be good timing? You can't write a character out of the IP essentially because he's white and blonde and the storyline would make him look like a saviour. Guilliman was the most obvious and thematically best placed character in the IP to play the role of saving a faltering Imperium - the Lion is probably the other option but he's not the Primarch of the settings posterboys, nor does anyone in universe know where he actually is unlike Guilliman on Macragge.

GW shouldn't have to limit it's storytelling because some whackjob fringe of the internet adopts it in a wrong way. Said whackjobs on both sides of the political divide will and have latched onto all sorts of things, against the intentions of the IP creators, it's just the nature of the internet. GW is doing well by disassociating itself from them.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:


So which is it? Are the space marines heroes of righteous values or are they agents of a dark and bigoted regime that the game is satirizing?

Both, I think.
You have Salamanders and Ultramarines, which are supposed to be paragons of virtue.

-you mean the xenophobic, genociding child-killers and the Space SS?

Since when were Ultramarines space SS?

Ever since they were the militarized wing of the ruling governing party of the fascist regime, probably. I mean, the parallels are obvious.

The Roman Legion are SS? After all, they were the military wing of the Roman Empire.
The parallels aren't obvious if the fictional government in question takes inspiration from countless sources.

You know the birthplace of fascism was literally aping the Roman Empire, right? Right?

Salamanders are good in the sense that they are chill with imperial civilians.

They also like, love to genocide Eldars because they hate xenos and anything that isn't Imperial including other humans sooo....

JWBS wrote:

Cronch wrote:

JWBS wrote:
Yeah I always found it kinda bizarre that the people who claim to be most stridently against hate are so often very obviously consumed by it themselves, but intense hypocrisy is ofc nothing new.

BoTh SidES aM i RiGhT?!

Both sides what? Have I touched a nerve here or something?

Nah, i'm not surprised you think being against nazi presence in the public is being just as filled with hate as literally thinking gas chambers were a good idea. Enlightened centrism do be like that

Cronch wrote:

JWBS wrote:

Cronch wrote:

JWBS wrote:
Yeah I always found it kinda bizarre that the people who claim to be most stridently against hate are so often very obviously consumed by it themselves, but intense hypocrisy is ofc nothing new.

BoTh SidES aM i RiGhT?!

Both sides what? Have I touched a nerve here or something?

Nah, i'm not surprised you think being against nazi presence in the public is being just as filled with hate as literally thinking gas chambers were a good idea. Enlightened centrism do be like that

That's something of a reach is it not? I don't condone this Nazi glorification and I also didn't ever imply that I did. It would take an absolute dunce to mistake what I said with what you seem to think I said

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:


So which is it? Are the space marines heroes of righteous values or are they agents of a dark and bigoted regime that the game is satirizing?

Both, I think.
You have Salamanders and Ultramarines, which are supposed to be paragons of virtue.

-you mean the xenophobic, genociding child-killers and the Space SS?

Since when were Ultramarines space SS?

Ever since they were the militarized wing of the ruling governing party of the fascist regime, probably. I mean, the parallels are obvious.

The Roman Legion are SS? After all, they were the military wing of the Roman Empire.
The parallels aren't obvious if the fictional government in question takes inspiration from countless sources.

You know the birthplace of fascism was literally aping the Roman Empire, right? Right?

You do know the Roman Empire itself wasn't fascist, right? Fascism was a 20th century ideology spawned as a reaction to communism and the collapse of the state.
I have not once read of the Roman Empire being described as fascist, especially not by historians.
The Fascist Salute isn't even Roman ffs, it comes from a 18th century French painting.

Let's be real: They've failed to meaningfully lean in on the satirical elements since third edition, and as pointed out already, they've recently been writing Gulliman as a heroic and noble new Emperor in all but name with no particularly visible evil to his private army of Ultramarines. His progress is slow, sure, but he's an unambiguous good guy because the people writing him are too full of fanboy juice to give him real flaws, even though as a clear copy of Julius Caesar who conspicuously takes actions a power-hungry man would take, it's not exactly hard to see the gaps where his flaws should be.

Frankly, I think 40k should have good guys, because you need someone for the grimdark to happen in. You need characters who illustrate just how bad the backdrop they're set against are... And they should be in multiple factions, and the best existing example I can think of is Ciaphas Cain.

Cain can't change anything. He has flaws and he'd be the first to tell you about them at length. But he's a sane man in an insane galaxy. A morale officer who actually focuses on his troops morale instead of shooting them in the face until they arrange an "accident" for him. He seeks personal safety, but that's hardly irrational when a Carnifex is bearing down on you and he's consistently managed to do good when backed into a corner. A Cain book, whilst the series as a whole is kinda repetitive, shows you very clearly how awful the galaxy is from the perspective of a semi-decent guy. And there's no reason there couldn't be a similar sane Tau, or Eldar, or even Necron.

And indeed, is the average agri-world worker evil? Of course not, they're farmers. They might have a few indoctrinated bigotries from the Imperial church, but they'll ultimately just be an average joe trynna live their life.

There's no good factions in 40k, or at least written competently, their shouldn't be. Plenty of good individuals for the horrible crushing grimdarkness to happen to though.

JWBS wrote:
Yeah I always found it kinda bizarre that the people who claim to be most stridently against hate are so often very obviously consumed by it themselves, but intense hypocrisy is ofc nothing new.

There is a great recent Daily Mail article talking about the reduction and death of punctuation. The typical chorus of outrage ensued in the comments about kids these days and standards of education. Nearly all of it awfully punctuated...

Still like the bit in Yes Minister where Hacker bemoans the state of education and Sir Humphrey replies in Latin, then points out what was the point of learning it if he can't even use it to talk to the Prime Minister of the country.

Guilliman is mostly portrayed as heroic if somewhat tragic figure and his return as a good thing. That's the guy de facto in charge of Imperium.

This really is not good satire.

The article is very clear in its message. However GW's representation of the IoM however has been diluted down a lot over the decades. GW are in a bit of a tricky situation as they are selling a product that has genocidal, xenophobic, psychopathic super warriors who serve a brutal authoritarian religious regime to kids, and even going as far as doing kid friendly comics about them now. It does erode the satire somewhat.

Satire isn't for everyone, it usually has a very focused appeal. GW are trying to maximise their appeal as they are first and foremost a sales driven company.

The way things are going, I think they need to change the setting, to be a clearly good guys vs clearly bad guys. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years we see Warhammer 50,000 and things are completely different. The IoM has redeemed itself, and it along with the noble Eldar and Tau fight against the evil forces of Chaos, Death, and Destruction. The Age of Sigmar setting worked as it allowed clear cut motives and there was no room for ambiguity to let neo-nazi scum hide in.

In closing... feth Nazi/facisim.

Hahaha that is hilarious, I have been seeing a lot of people making fun of this "statement" from GW which is as it should be.

in before "nooo my violent extremists are ok cos they are my ones not yours that are evil and bad"

Do not care, jog on Coomies, NatSocs and Fasbois.

There's still plenty of satire in the fiction. It's sad to me but not surprising that many people just don't see it or understand it though. But that's always been the nature of satire.

 Londinium wrote:
When would be good timing? You can't write a character out of the IP essentially because he's white and blonde and the storyline would make him look like a saviour. Guilliman was the most obvious and thematically best placed character in the IP to play the role of saving a faltering Imperium - the Lion is probably the other option but he's not the Primarch of the settings posterboys, nor does anyone in universe know where he actually is unlike Guilliman on Macragge.

GW shouldn't have to limit it's storytelling because some whackjob fringe of the internet adopts it in a wrong way. Said whackjobs on both sides of the political divide will and have latched onto all sorts of things, against the intentions of the IP creators, it's just the nature of the internet. GW is doing well by disassociating itself from them.

Maybe there's no good timing for the crumbling dystopian empire to be saved by a heroic white guy from the past and rewritten as maybe not so dystopian and a bit more epic, but during a surge in violent nationalism maybe was particularly bad timing.

There also may just be some storylines that are kinda dated and not good anymore, period. Take pretty much any 19th century adventure stories that involve going into the heart of uncivilized lands as a civilized white dude with a gun and gumption: they probably wouldn't be received very well now. They might even be something of a liability, because they look backward and support views now associated with people with attitudes that don't look very nice in this millennium. The same way what's generally acceptable (both what's become accepted and what's no longer accepted) in portraying/discussing gender, race, etc. has changed radically over the last half-century.

 Londinium wrote:
.When would be good timing? You can't write a character out of the IP essentially because he's white and blonde and the storyline would make him look like a saviour. Guilliman was the most obvious and thematically best placed character in the IP to play the role of saving a faltering Imperium - the Lion is probably the other option but he's not the Primarch of the settings posterboys, nor does anyone in universe know where he actually is unlike Guilliman on Macragge.

GW shouldn't have to limit it's storytelling because some whackjob fringe of the internet adopts it in a wrong way. Said whackjobs on both sides of the political divide will and have latched onto all sorts of things, against the intentions of the IP creators, it's just the nature of the internet. GW is doing well by disassociating itself from them.

Why on earth did they need a character to save a faltering imperium in the first place? The imperium have been on a slow death spiral for ten thousand years, they coulda kept circling the drain just fine for a while longer if the people in charge of the IP hadn't performed the staggeringly stupid-sounding writing feat of having a guy they'd decided to center as a "main villain" cut an entire galaxy in half with his amazing genius masterplan.

We didn't actually need a singular predominant villain nor a singular predominant hero to rise against him. God, I know the writing staff has some abaddon fanboys on it, but "Most prominent chaos lord" is a perfectly respectable and impressive position as-is without making him the ultra-high priority overriding threat in a galaxy with multiple setting-wide-extinction-event capable factions.

The all-consuming bugs? The mad robot men? No no, the real threat is the scattered remnants of a failed rebellion who went ten thousand years hiding in a space rift, unable to hold realspace territory, scavenging for resources. Clearly.

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:


So which is it? Are the space marines heroes of righteous values or are they agents of a dark and bigoted regime that the game is satirizing?

I'd suggest these are not mutually exclusive, since righteous values are relative. Large parts of the Imperium likely consider them to be the angelic heroes they are generally portrayed as, other parties will consider them the enforcers of a fascist regime. They are also tragic figures in many ways, having sacrificed large parts of their humanity, both in spirit and in flesh, by the necessities of a galaxy spanning struggle for survival and domination. To use an extreme example: whether an exterminatus is ethically justified is a matter of context. In the Baal novel, they kill off a planet only to slightly weaken and delay the Tyranid Hive fleet, which goes to illustrate how desperate and skewed measures have become in setting. Space Marines may seem bland on the surface, but there is a whole lot of nuance and substance to be explored when you delve deeper into the matter.

changemod wrote:

 Londinium wrote:
.When would be good timing? You can't write a character out of the IP essentially because he's white and blonde and the storyline would make him look like a saviour. Guilliman was the most obvious and thematically best placed character in the IP to play the role of saving a faltering Imperium - the Lion is probably the other option but he's not the Primarch of the settings posterboys, nor does anyone in universe know where he actually is unlike Guilliman on Macragge.

GW shouldn't have to limit it's storytelling because some whackjob fringe of the internet adopts it in a wrong way. Said whackjobs on both sides of the political divide will and have latched onto all sorts of things, against the intentions of the IP creators, it's just the nature of the internet. GW is doing well by disassociating itself from them.

Why on earth did they need a character to save a faltering imperium in the first place? The imperium have been on a slow death spiral for ten thousand years, they coulda kept circling the drain just fine for a while longer if the people in charge of the IP hadn't performed the staggeringly stupid-sounding writing feat of having a guy they'd decided to center as a "main villain" cut an entire galaxy in half with his amazing genius masterplan.

We didn't actually need a singular predominant villain nor a singular predominant hero to rise against him. God, I know the writing staff has some abaddon fanboys on it, but "Most prominent chaos lord" is a perfectly respectable and impressive position as-is without making him the ultra-high priority overriding threat in a galaxy with multiple setting-wide-extinction-event capable factions.

The all-consuming bugs? The mad robot men? No no, the real threat is the scattered remnants of a failed rebellion who went ten thousand years hiding in a space rift, unable to hold realspace territory, scavenging for resources. Clearly.

Oh I agree. It was done to get Primaris into the setting (amongst other stuff) and I think all the Primaris lore is nonsense but once they decided to persue the Fall of Cadia storyline, Guilliman was the obvious saviour unless GW wanted to go down a really dark route of having the Imperium openly shatter into hundreds of pieces. In which case the setting would have been nothing other than post-apocalyptic survival and the slow but inevitable death of humanity. Hell in that scenario you'd barely be able to sustain the logistical ability to deploy Space Marines, which would remove the posterboys of the setting. Regardless of what some 40k neckbeards on the internet insist upon, there has always been a glimmer of hope in the Imperium and the 40k setting, it needs to have that hope or else it'd be relentlessly grindingly dull.

changemod wrote:

Frankly, I think 40k should have good guys, because you need someone for the grimdark to happen in. You need characters who illustrate just how bad the backdrop they're set against are... And they should be in multiple factions, and the best existing example I can think of is Ciaphas Cain.

Cain can't change anything. He has flaws and he'd be the first to tell you about them at length. But he's a sane man in an insane galaxy. A morale officer who actually focuses on his troops morale instead of shooting them in the face until they arrange an "accident" for him. He seeks personal safety, but that's hardly irrational when a Carnifex is bearing down on you and he's consistently managed to do good when backed into a corner. A Cain book, whilst the series as a whole is kinda repetitive, shows you very clearly how awful the galaxy is from the perspective of a semi-decent guy. And there's no reason there couldn't be a similar sane Tau, or Eldar, or even Necron.

And indeed, is the average agri-world worker evil? Of course not, they're farmers. They might have a few indoctrinated bigotries from the Imperial church, but they'll ultimately just be an average joe trynna live their life.

Yeah. You just can't put such good guy in charge of an evil faction with heavy fascist vibes. That's sending some serious mixed messages.

They say people will be asked to leave if they're wearing symbols of real-world hate groups.

Isn't that illegal in the US? I have a vague recollection about a case where people were denied service because they wore Nazi iconography, and the people wearing the swastikas took it to court and won.

You can of course eject people for behaving poorly regardless of what symbols they are wearing, but I thought it wasn't allowed to deny service to someone based on iconography they might wear. At least in the US I thought, because what you call a hate symbol may be a political symbol to someone else.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 Nurglitch wrote:
Don't look under your bed, corporations are hiding there to steal your teeth.

You say that in a time where you pretty much own nothing, because everything is rented from corporations, you are bombarded with ads every step of the way and you have 0 privacy because all your data is constantly being peddled around by corporations to each other.

Your teeth might be all that you truly own soon.

I can imagine implants coming with a compulsory lifetime service contract that results in repossession if not met...

So, Repo: The Genetic Opera?

Imagine a world with no unironic Marine fanboys.

The beauty of it.

Yeah elements of the Imperium are quite regularly portrayed as noble good guys in the setting tbh - the extremes they go to are all arguably justified by the extreme nature of the threats they face. GW should do a lot more to make the "satire" obvious. I don't think the satire defence really holds up for the modern 40k setting, it's more of a straightforward masculine power fantasy

Ok so, a few years ago i was part of a fandom, Nazis started to infiltrate into the fandom and because alot of it was about being loving and tolerating, they where allowed to stay. It lead to riots and racial slurs happening at conventions, including the harassments of a Jewish writer. It pretty much destroyed a good part of the fandom and forced me out. This fandom, just like 40k and much of wargaming, had young disaffected(Mostly white) men that made it a prime recruitment ground for Nazis(Young men in general tend to make a god recruitment for extremist groupts)
I get there is this idea that freedom of speech means everyone gets a voice. But freedom of speech must itself be hostile to speech that threatens it.
This isnt political, peoples lives are not politics, politics is taxes, not whether someone who believes I should be dead is allowed to speak

 Las wrote:
Was the Spanish tournament where that happened an official Games Workshop event?

Anyone bringing this up is veering dangerously into "akshuuaallllly" territory. You know just like all computer games are Nintendo, all pro wrestling is WWE to the uninitiated all wargames and minis are Warhammer (GW even leaned into this- why do you think they changed the names of their stores, as people refer to it as "the Warhammer store".). What kind of bad press do you think GW would have to deal with from loads and loads of random parents etc. particularly in the run up to Christmas if they'd have said nothing and this story got out to the mainstream press?

I'm one of the last people to praise GW for stuff, but credit where credit is due- They've gone and grown a pair and shown their "Warhammer is for everyone" statement is more than just hollow words and good on them for it.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 Nurglitch wrote:
Don't look under your bed, corporations are hiding there to steal your teeth.

You say that in a time where you pretty much own nothing, because everything is rented from corporations, you are bombarded with ads every step of the way and you have 0 privacy because all your data is constantly being peddled around by corporations to each other.

Your teeth might be all that you truly own soon.

You write that as if it was a bad thing.

But seriously, life is not that bad. Especially when you live in a western style democracy. You have more agency for your life than you pretend here. But it’s interesting to see which three examples you picked, of which I would only really accept the (potential) lack of opportunity to build wealth as a major one. The other two aren’t really, if you live in the EU that is and take a little care of what you share on the internet.

Also on the "in a time" reference: today might be bad, but when has it been better?

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Imagine a world with no unironic Marine fanboys.

The beauty of it.

Imagine a world where GW can issue a statement explaining their stance on their setting, whilst telling people that any socially unacceptable behaviour or imagery isn't welcome, but we don't have to have a multi page unironic thread about how they're an evil corporate entity catering to the masses who would happily mug your nan.

Sometimes they're allowed to say the right thing. Sometimes they're allowed to have their fans backs and sometimes they don't need a sideswipe at their good intent.

 Londinium wrote:

changemod wrote:

 Londinium wrote:
.When would be good timing? You can't write a character out of the IP essentially because he's white and blonde and the storyline would make him look like a saviour. Guilliman was the most obvious and thematically best placed character in the IP to play the role of saving a faltering Imperium - the Lion is probably the other option but he's not the Primarch of the settings posterboys, nor does anyone in universe know where he actually is unlike Guilliman on Macragge.

GW shouldn't have to limit it's storytelling because some whackjob fringe of the internet adopts it in a wrong way. Said whackjobs on both sides of the political divide will and have latched onto all sorts of things, against the intentions of the IP creators, it's just the nature of the internet. GW is doing well by disassociating itself from them.

Why on earth did they need a character to save a faltering imperium in the first place? The imperium have been on a slow death spiral for ten thousand years, they coulda kept circling the drain just fine for a while longer if the people in charge of the IP hadn't performed the staggeringly stupid-sounding writing feat of having a guy they'd decided to center as a "main villain" cut an entire galaxy in half with his amazing genius masterplan.

We didn't actually need a singular predominant villain nor a singular predominant hero to rise against him. God, I know the writing staff has some abaddon fanboys on it, but "Most prominent chaos lord" is a perfectly respectable and impressive position as-is without making him the ultra-high priority overriding threat in a galaxy with multiple setting-wide-extinction-event capable factions.

The all-consuming bugs? The mad robot men? No no, the real threat is the scattered remnants of a failed rebellion who went ten thousand years hiding in a space rift, unable to hold realspace territory, scavenging for resources. Clearly.

Oh I agree. It was done to get Primaris into the setting (amongst other stuff) and I think all the Primaris lore is nonsense but once they decided to persue the Fall of Cadia storyline, Guilliman was the obvious saviour unless GW wanted to go down a really dark route of having the Imperium openly shatter into hundreds of pieces. In which case the setting would have been nothing other than post-apocalyptic survival and the slow but inevitable death of humanity. Hell in that scenario you'd barely be able to sustain the logistical ability to deploy Space Marines, which would remove the posterboys of the setting. Regardless of what some 40k neckbeards on the internet insist upon, there has always been a glimmer of hope in the Imperium and the 40k setting, it needs to have that hope or else it'd be relentlessly grindingly dull.

Officially that glimmer of hope is Tzeentch changing the reels.

Dudeface wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Imagine a world with no unironic Marine fanboys.

The beauty of it.

Imagine a world where GW can issue a statement explaining their stance on their setting, whilst telling people that any socially unacceptable behaviour or imagery isn't welcome, but we don't have to have a multi page unironic thread about how they're an evil corporate entity catering to the masses who would happily mug your nan.

Sometimes they're allowed to say the right thing. Sometimes they're allowed to have their fans backs and sometimes they don't need a sideswipe at their good intent.

By God man, they're a multi-billion dollar corporation.
The average fan matters less to them as an individual than a speck of dust.