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 the_scotsman wrote:
There is one other aspect of it, from a meta-perspective:

The imperials are the good guys. Especially space marines and custodes - these guys are very, VERY rarely portrayed in anything but a straightforwardly heroic light by games workshop, and when they are its generally either hidden in the deep lore, or pulled out when they have a story starring another faction that in that moment, youre supposed to view as the good guys.

You can say the setting has no good guys until you're blue in the face, but GW's writing is not that complicated, and generally relies on the simple expedient shortcut of look at an image, see good guy, see bad guy, based on aesthetics, tone, and basic descriptors ("the heroic defenders of humanity versus the perfidious, vile, slimy, disgusting etc etc etc")

The "changing" of the 40k setting from this brilliant satire to a straightforward hero vs villain narrative is not some new recent thing that was different recently. Its been since like. Rogue trader. Space Marines have basically never been like...the evil super hero from Megamind type 'theyre dressed like a hero but its made very clear that theyre a villian by the story' at MOST theyve been like Judge Dredd, Robocop, the main cast from Starship Troopers, whoever. The kind of sort-of-kind-of satirical characters where occasionally you laugh at them for a bit of dramatic irony and occasionally you acknowledge their society is bad but theyre individually heroic and you root for them consistently in the narrative.

I don't know that I agree with this. Ill have to look at my old Rouge Trader books, but many references to space marines were basically that they were homicidal murder machines killing anyone, soldier or civilian that got in the way. When marines have to drop on your planet...there are no innocents, everything is a potential threat. They were the Terror troops of the Emperor (based on the Sodukar from Dune). From the Office of the Imperium this makes them heros, to your average Imperial citizen caught in a warzone.....not so much. GW has certainly toned this aspect down since, as they have toned down in general, accidentally returning a library book late is no longer an automatic life sentence in the Imperial army, willfully returning a library book late is no longer a death sentence. Rogue trader was weird.

The story where the Custodes slaughter a whole requit class of Primaris simply because their chapter (which the recruits have never even seen) is suspected of Hersey is pretty grim. A lot of it comes from the view point of the writer.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Rogue trader was weird.

Yes. I never owned the books but a housemate did and I recall the original space marines who were quite thuggish in appearance.

Certainly in 2nd you can see the shift just by looking at the super-heroic Ultramarine book cover. All the other chapters that got books had something off about them, either because they were uber-Norse berserkers, space vampires or weird Anglo-Catholic poets.

The Ultras were the Roman elite, scrupulously following the rules and only occasionally committing a genocide, which was always deserved.

Getting back to the OP, though, I wish to again stress that there is no John Locke or Enlightenment concept of good government in the 40k universe. When a people rises in rebellion, it is never to established a democratic regime based on human rights, it's just about rage at the ruling class. Inevitably the tyranids show up to eat everybody, or Chaos arrives to render the populations into pleasure drugs or maybe stack their skulls to Khorne.

There was a throwaway reference in one of the 40K rulebooks from a previous edition I believe about the SM's going in to overthrow either an independent or secessionist human democratic government. No additional detail was given so we don't know whether it was truly a government with population wide voting or whether it was more like an oligarchy with restricted franchise like the Roman Republic or Greek city states.

I feel like the setting references 'normal' rebellions all the time but it is easily missed--all those mentions of 'peacekeeping forces' or 'upholding order' that are phrased almost like regular maintenance. The machine spirits need to be appeased and the unwashed masses need to be kept down, but that's just part of normal weekly proceedings so rarely demands more than a footnote.

The Imperium has a lot of practice in keeping human populations in line, while Chaos/Stealers have a *lot* of assets when it comes to co-opting existing rebellious movements for their own ends. I interpret the fluff as revolts almost universally ending as a short road to a shallow grave unless there is outside influence to even the playing field.


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 Andrew1975 wrote:
GW has certainly toned this aspect down since, as they have toned down in general, accidentally returning a library book late is no longer an automatic life sentence in the Imperial army, willfully returning a library book late is no longer a death sentence. Rogue trader was weird.

Yeah. Nowadays the fluff simply doesn't support such pleasant notions as public libraries at all, though I'm not sure if that is toning things down per say.

Iracundus wrote:
There was a throwaway reference in one of the 40K rulebooks from a previous edition I believe about the SM's going in to overthrow either an independent or secessionist human democratic government. No additional detail was given so we don't know whether it was truly a government with population wide voting or whether it was more like an oligarchy with restricted franchise like the Roman Republic or Greek city states.

The Imperium isn't really a governmental system though. Governors are pretty much allowed free reign to rule as they want as long as they pay the tithe and follow Imperial law. There are many different ways that Governors are installed, a planet that accepts compliance could just rule itself. They could be democratic, autocratic, oligarchs, tyrants, communists even, whatever. The Empire really is just like a landlord, pay the rent, handle your buisiness and don't make me come down there, I got other crap to do, if you make me come there its going to be bad.

You can't really blame the populaces oppression on the Empire beyond the fact that the tithe might force the governor to enact some policies. Even the Arbites only go around and enforce Imperial laws, stuff the average criminal wouldn't even be breaking. I guess if the Empire wasn't so busy keeping the Empire from crumbling they might get involved with planetary minutia. There are few worlds that are directly controlled on that level by the Empire.

I suspect most uprisings go completely unnoticed by the EMPIRE until either the planetary Inquisitor or Arbites feels that the local Governor has lost control of the situation, or possibly found proof of some taint. Riot all you want, attack the Governor's mansion, thats what the PDF is for, just don't touch any Imperial property or the Arbites will then have to kick your

Governors come and go, the Empire is forever.

The Imperium's heavy taxation policies do influence IMO what planetary governments get set up or survive. Namely, only oppressive governments can reliably and regularly extract the resources necessary to meet the tithe on a consistent basis. The extractive system of the wider Imperium exerts a selection pressure on planetary governments.

A democratic or otherwise populist local government may well decide to keep its resources for itself rather than see whole generations' worth of people and manpower disappearing into space, never to be seen again for little tangible benefit to those that remain. Even if it is well meaning, in that local development may result in ability to pay the Imperium more in the longer term, the Imperium wants its pound of flesh now. So such goverments are less likely to last long.

Of course, heavily oppressed populations may also decide to try their luck with Chaos or foreign Xenos powers as a way to gain enough power to take down the Planetary Governor and resist the inevitable Imperial sanction.

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperium's heavy taxation policies do influence IMO what planetary governments get set up or survive. Namely, only oppressive governments can reliably and regularly extract the resources necessary to meet the tithe on a consistent basis. The extractive system of the wider Imperium exerts a selection pressure on planetary governments.

A democratic or otherwise populist local government may well decide to keep its resources for itself rather than see whole generations' worth of people and manpower disappearing into space, never to be seen again for little tangible benefit to those that remain. Even if it is well meaning, in that local development may result in ability to pay the Imperium more in the longer term, the Imperium wants its pound of flesh now. So such goverments are less likely to last long.

Well we don't actually know how heavy the Tithe on planets is or how it works. Look at our own solar system, If the Empire comes here, we have the resources off all the planets in the system to pay the Tithe. The Empire has little interest in tangible resources such as money, it wants raw material! We know agro worlds exist, some planets exist in a technological state similar to our dark ages, how much could you possibly tithe a society like that if you are not forcing them to modernize, My guess is that the rest of the system has plenty of raw material to pay the tithe so the habitable planet itself is relatively unaffected. In the books we have seen plenty of planets that are not oppressed or impoverished, we alos have seen many that are, I don't know what dictates those situations, is it purely the greed of the ruling class of those planets?

Earth could offer up its sizable prison and homeless population as the Tithe, eliminating a huge societal cost and being a huge net benefit, well in the eyes of the bean counters anyway . We know that sometimes Imperial planets fight among themselves with little Imperial intervention as long as the Tithe flows. These planets must therefore have enough resources to fund their own wars, if they have those resources they are not impoverished.

Its amazing to me given the time 40k was written that there aren't huge mega corporations ala Mutant Chronicles that the Empire just hands planets off to.


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 Tyran wrote:
Of course, heavily oppressed populations may also decide to try their luck with Chaos or foreign Xenos powers as a way to gain enough power to take down the Planetary Governor and resist the inevitable Imperial sanction.

Well of course.

It depends on what you mean by "good guys"

Do you equate good guys with protagonists? If so, then yeah. The Imperium as a whole is somewhat the protagonist of the setting.

Do you equate good with "the good of mankind"? If so, then also yes.

Do you equate good with what our modern morals would call good guys? Then no, nobody counts as a good guy from the faction level. Only individual people would be good guys in 40k.

Do you equate good with subjective morals based on the setting? Then everybody counts as a good guy from their point of view.


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 Andrew1975 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperium's heavy taxation policies do influence IMO what planetary governments get set up or survive. Namely, only oppressive governments can reliably and regularly extract the resources necessary to meet the tithe on a consistent basis. The extractive system of the wider Imperium exerts a selection pressure on planetary governments.

A democratic or otherwise populist local government may well decide to keep its resources for itself rather than see whole generations' worth of people and manpower disappearing into space, never to be seen again for little tangible benefit to those that remain. Even if it is well meaning, in that local development may result in ability to pay the Imperium more in the longer term, the Imperium wants its pound of flesh now. So such goverments are less likely to last long.

Well we don't actually know how heavy the Tithe on planets is or how it works. Look at our own solar system, If the Empire comes here, we have the resources off all the planets in the system to pay the Tithe. The Empire has little interest in tangible resources such as money, it wants raw material! We know agro worlds exist, some planets exist in a technological state similar to our dark ages, how much could you possibly tithe a society like that if you are not forcing them to modernize, My guess is that the rest of the system has plenty of raw material to pay the tithe so the habitable planet itself is relatively unaffected. In the books we have seen plenty of planets that are not oppressed or impoverished, we alos have seen many that are, I don't know what dictates those situations, is it purely the greed of the ruling class of those planets?

Earth could offer up its sizable prison and homeless population as the Tithe, eliminating a huge societal cost and being a huge net benefit, well in the eyes of the bean counters anyway . We know that sometimes Imperial planets fight among themselves with little Imperial intervention as long as the Tithe flows. These planets must therefore have enough resources to fund their own wars, if they have those resources they are not impoverished.

Its amazing to me given the time 40k was written that there aren't huge mega corporations ala Mutant Chronicles that the Empire just hands planets off to.

I like to think that, at least on paper the Tithe is quite fair. It is assessed based on what a particular planet can actually sustain according to the Administratum's bean counters. Some planets get exempted or basically contribute nothing due to having nothing of value.

Issues of course arise if the bean counters make a mistake(Oh dear, someone added a zero where they shouldn't have or thought the mineral content of the planets crust was richer than it actually is), the tithe shipments get intercepted before being logged as received, or any number of other things. And of course the Tithe is ruthlessly enforced and you of course must pay interest on delinquent tithe years. And suggesting that the assessment of the holy Administratum made a mistake regarding the tithe level would of course be heretical, so you can't exactly say they made a mistake once its done. It also bears remembering that mistakes can happen the other way around too, you could have a planet get horribly under-tithed but again that doesn't make for good storytelling.

Mega-corp equivalents do exist. Rogue traders are basically mega-corps, and there probably are actual corporate entities as well.

So while there is fluff about honestly aggrieved people overthrowing a tyrant (a relative term, no? Can anyone list all the participatory democracies of the Imperium?) the fact is that expelling/overthrowing the Imperial garrison creates a gap for all sorts of even worse people to come in.

Which is the underpinning issue. 40k becomes Nobledark when you make it absolutely clear that without Imperium humanity is doomed, and all the persecution, genocide and terror is in fact Doing Good Things and needed. Inquisitors dooming whole worlds to exterminatus for seeing a chaos invasion? Good thing, necessary evil, not overreach of a dogmatic fanatics.

Which tbh has been the vibe for a while but became patently clear with Indomitus Crusade. The Imperium is fundamentally good, it was only corrupted by good-intentioned men in the time between Emps kicking the bucket and Roboute waking up from his nap. Imperium deserves to win, because they are humanitys only hope.

The Indomitus Crusade is just the Imperium reaserting itself over lost territories.
There's nothing noble about taking a planet enslaved by Chaos and then enslaving it to the Imperial war machine.

GW still needs to do far better in making it clear the Imperium is absolutely evil even if its hard to do that when the poster faction is brightly coloured toy soldiers.

 Gert wrote:
The Indomitus Crusade is just the Imperium reaserting itself over lost territories.
There's nothing noble about taking a planet enslaved by Chaos and then enslaving it to the Imperial war machine.

GW still needs to do far better in making it clear the Imperium is absolutely evil even if its hard to do that when the poster faction is brightly coloured toy soldiers.

Well, one of the big problems with 40k is that the satire has slipped away as the setting becomes an increasingly corporate product. GW, despite their statements to the contrary, makes no lore efforts to support 40k as satire and is instead actively undermining the satirical nature by increasingly making the Imperial actions justified within the internal logic of the setting. The move to blind faith and dogmatism being good, actually, in recent lore is the clearest example. In the past, this was strictly a burden upon the Imperium, now we have Guilliman acknowledging it as a useful tool against Chaos and blind faith having confirmed anti-Chaos miracle powers etc. Burning heretics at the stake has gone from "look at those ignorant idiots getting in their own way" to "smart move, can't let Chaos get a foothold".

Increasingly marginalising mentions of there being actual alternatives to the IoM or Chaos or death by xenos undermines the satire of the authoritarian Imperium. Yet, canonically we know alternatives can exist through polities like the Interex (and somewhat the Tau empire pre-4th sphere expansion lore).

Humanity isn't doomed without the IoM, humanity is simply doomed, IoM or not IoM.

Both GW and BL have been very blatant that it is the End of Times, humanity is not meant to survive. Humanity is mean to struggle against the darkness, fight until the last drop of human blood, and it will do so and it will still die anyway.

Its just GW being GW and fladerising their own lore IMHO. Aint no logical reason why many kinds of civil wars couldn't be fought in the 41st millennium wihout even a hint of Chaos or xenos.. but GW always like to make the setting feel smaller than it is, with super rare custodes fighting every other battle and Abaddon cackling behind the curtain of war.. sigh

Just as an example, there could be a remote world, far from the authorities of IoM, who once suffered some sort of large scale calamity (meteor impact, climate change, planetwide pandemic, etc), but who received outside help which saved them, from some entity the IoM considers as either "heretical" or xenos.. and after the helpers left the planet, getting back to the "status quo" before things went pearshaped no longer feels just to the populace, creating malcontent, ultimately resulting in a civil war uprising? Just off the top of my head. I'm sure anyone can think of more examples

there are no prominent non-chaos/xenos influenced rebellions in the setting for precisely the same reason why when a space marine is depicted stomping on the chest cavity of a small unarmed child, four daemons, one genestealer, a necron mind control scarab and fifteen concealed plasma pistols pop out of them like a pinata.

 Gert wrote:
The Indomitus Crusade is just the Imperium reaserting itself over lost territories.
There's nothing noble about taking a planet enslaved by Chaos and then enslaving it to the Imperial war machine.

GW still needs to do far better in making it clear the Imperium is absolutely evil even if its hard to do that when the poster faction is brightly coloured toy soldiers.

How do you define evil? I don't see the Empire as evil, Its size and history make it overcautious and callous NO DOUBT, Its so busy fighting for humanities survival that it cant afford to care about what happens to them when they are alive CERTAINLY, but I think its a stretch to call it evil on the same scale as Chaos. There is a lot of evil in the Empire for sure, the Ecclesiarchy could certainly be seen a evil, even usurpers of the true Empire. The Empire was never meant to be a religious cult, quite the opposite.

40k Exists in a strange place where we never really know how much knowledge we get of it is true or propaganda, how much is priveledged information and how much certain groups actually know. Remember your average Imperial citizen has little to no knowledge of chaos, tyranids, probably most Zenos even, has NEVER seen a Space Marine, all they know is that every so often soldiers get recruited and taken away and might get (highly propogandized versions of) reports on military actions that affect the Empire as a whole. In general their interactions with the EMPIRE are extremally limited. They mostly deal with empire (no capitals) level governors who are on the grand scheme of things little more than independent store managers.

How much the EMPIRE affects the daily life of most Imperial citizens is relatively unknown, beyond the fact that realistically they are alive because the Imperium exists. Now sure there are plenty that are dead because the Imperium exists, but would they ever have been alive if it didnt?

Now is the Empire evil from the point of view of other races? There are only three races that I think are even worth considering in that argument. Eldar, LOV, and Tau which all have their own crosses to carry. The other races don't count, Chaos is truly evils, Morality plays no part in Tyranids, they are just hungry invaders, Orks are just in it for the LOLS of fighting, Necrons are soulless robot things.

I think its easy to say that there are no good races in 40k because they are all selfishly fighting for survival, But there are clearly Evil factions and I don't see the Empire as one of them. There are clearly factions that just want it all to burn down.

There's nothing noble about taking a planet enslaved by Chaos and then enslaving it to the Imperial war machine.

That's not what the lore and fiction shows it as. It's very clearly described as hope returning to Imperium (which is also the same as Humanity in GW lore these days basically), and as a positive change. We the audience are meant to cheer the Primaris and the reborn Primarch on. There is no nuance, Imperium is Good because Imperium is humanity and anything else than obedience to Imperium is sure to destroy you. There is no subtext, no subversion of expectations in the way GW has portrayed Imperium for at least over a decade I'd say.

The IoM (and humanity) is evil because it is a theocratic ravenous empire that spreads through the stars and one of its theocratic imperatives is to exterminate any other civilization or sapient species.

It is evil. That there are worse factions doesn't change that.

EDIT: Also the whole "you are meant to sheer" means little. If you ever read an Ork book or Necron book, you are also meant to sheer went they stomp on the humans. Hell there is even a GSC book in which you are meant to sheer when they take down the blatantly evil Admech.

A good writer* can make you sheer for anything up to including Chaos and Tyranids.

*Although admittedly BL is lacking in that respect.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
How do you define evil?

The genocide, the slavery, the xenophobia, the brutal fascist theocracy, the enforcement of state religion, the overbearing police state, the massive wealth disparities, the orphanages that indoctrinate children into being fanatics, the super soldiers that mutilate and brainwash children to turn them into killing machines, the mass conscriptions into the armed forces, the intense corruption at almost every level of government, the secret police that can and will kill billions with no real challenge to their authority, the manifest destiny belief that humanity alone should rule the stars which in turn feeds into the aforementioned xenophobia, the brutal industrial sector that brutalises and kills its workers just to get one more bullet off the line, the repression of knowledge and learning leading to a stagnant society doomed to never learn from its errors.

Stuff like that.

Angronsrosycheeks wrote:
That's not what the lore and fiction shows it as. It's very clearly described as hope returning to Imperium (which is also the same as Humanity in GW lore these days basically), and as a positive change. We the audience are meant to cheer the Primaris and the reborn Primarch on. There is no nuance, Imperium is Good because Imperium is humanity and anything else than obedience to Imperium is sure to destroy you. There is no subtext, no subversion of expectations in the way GW has portrayed Imperium for at least over a decade I'd say.

Funnily enough in the rest of the post you clipped up I very specifically address that.

 Tyran wrote:
The IoM (and humanity) is evil because it is a theocratic ravenous empire that spreads through the stars and one of its theocratic imperatives is to exterminate any other civilization or sapient species.

It is evil. That there are worse factions doesn't change that.

But that's literally every faction in 40k. Every faction would subdue every other faction if they could. The Empire of man is not expanding but is struggling to hold onto what it can. Survival isn't evil. Its why I don't see the tyrranids as evil, they are hungry, morality plays no role in their ethos. While they can be interpreted as an evil based on a human point of view, they are not Evil, they are not willfully going out eating things to destroy, they just have to destroy to eat. The lion isn't evil because it eats the lamb, its just his way.

The Empire is the savior of mankind. Done. Its not out to save the universe or save the Zenos, it can't even save itself. It will save humanity if it costs every human to do it. Without the Empire humanity is lost.....or so goes the propaganda. We have seen glimpses of other empires that existed, they basically ignored chaos and oddly enough chaos ignored them. Tyranids are a new threat that I don't know if those empires would have survived. Many were technologically better. Is it possible that by destroying those empires The Empire doomed humanity? Is the Empires continued fear of Technology its doom, very likely. The Empire is surely stupid and ignorant and could most likely be better in many ways, but that doesn't make it Evil.

Chaos is really the only Evil in the 40k Universe. Chaos eats the lamb not because its hungry, but because it hates it, turned it into a 3 headed goat, still hates it and wanted to taste its blood, forgot to eat it and burned it to the ground and is now looking for more lambs because f lambs, f everything it all need to burn.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

But that's literally every faction in 40k. Every faction would subdue every other faction if they could.

And thus every other faction is also evil.

The Empire of man is not expanding but is struggling to hold onto what it can.

And what it has it got with war, conquest and genocide. The IoM was evil from its very inception, it was evil even while it enjoyed relatively unchallenged hegemony in the millennia after the Heresy.

The Empire is the savior of mankind. Done. Its not out to save the universe or save the Zenos, it can't even save itself.

The IoM's inevitable failure makes all these genocides, oppression and crimes particularly funny. It is like a cosmic joke really.
And IMHO it also makes it worse, it makes all of it meaningless and petty.

 Tyran wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:

But that's literally every faction in 40k. Every faction would subdue every other faction if they could.

And thus every other faction is also evil.

The Empire of man is not expanding but is struggling to hold onto what it can.

And what it has it got with war, conquest and genocide. The IoM was evil from its very inception, it was evil even while it enjoyed relatively unchallenged hegemony in the millennia after the Heresy.

The Empire is the savior of mankind. Done. Its not out to save the universe or save the Zenos, it can't even save itself.

The IoM's inevitable failure makes all these genocides, oppression and crimes particularly funny. It is like a cosmic joke really.
And IMHO it also makes it worse, it makes all of it meaningless and petty.

You have an odd definition of evil. Evil is more than just being bad at your job, or lazy, ignorant, or stupid. Evil is actively being immoral. Now morality is rarely binary and simple, but to say the Empire wishes to spread immorality form its own point of view is quite a leap. There are very few things in 40k or reality that are abjectly evil. People that kill dogs because its fun are evil, Vets that put down dogs because its their time to go are not.

You may believe the Empire is doomed. Fact is you are right, but all Empires are doomed, all things that have a beginning eventually have an end, even tyrranids. But that end is not now. Coming from someone who uses a Genesteeler Icon, I can see that you would wish the end to be now, and believe the Tyranids will consume all, but that that chapter has not been written yet.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
You have an odd definition of evil. Evil is more than just being bad at your job, or lazy, ignorant, or stupid. Evil is actively being immoral.

Again to reiterate the Imperium practices genocide as a day-to-day task. We're not even talking Orks or Tyranids but legitimately peaceful species or those who are fine co-existing such as the T'au, Interex, or Diasporex.
Also, slavery is very much a normal thing for the Imperium.
If anyone has an odd definition of evil, it's you.

 Gert wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
You have an odd definition of evil. Evil is more than just being bad at your job, or lazy, ignorant, or stupid. Evil is actively being immoral.

Again to reiterate the Imperium practices genocide as a day-to-day task. We're not even talking Orks or Tyranids but legitimately peaceful species or those who are fine co-existing such as the T'au, Interex, or Diasporex.
Also, slavery is very much a normal thing for the Imperium.
If anyone has an odd definition of evil, it's you.

Depends on how you look at it. People often kill things they fear or out of a plethora of reasons that are not evil, would I be evil for setting mouse traps or killing spiders, deer, bears on a property I wish to build a house on? There is grey area there. If I wished to just throw live cats on a fire to watch their pain well, Im certainly Evil. Is eating animals even if killed humanely evil, there certainly are alternatives....but what if there are not?

Oh Yes please bring up Tau, the Tau still subjugate other races and even their own people using chemistry, sure they let them live at least. The Tau are no angels. There is a reason Farsight will not let ethereals around him.

Interex how did that happen.......Chaos.

Diasporex might mean bad policy but its not evil. Do Zenos or Zenos lovers matter when it comes to human morality, surely not to the Empire?

Slavery is too hot of a topic, please don't.

Your definition of evil as just doing bad stuff doesn't really fit, you can be bad without being evil.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Slavery is too hot of a topic, please don't.

The rest of your post is inconsequential considering you've said this. Please do not reply to this post or try to defend yourself to me.

 Gert wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Slavery is too hot of a topic, please don't.

The rest of your post is inconsequential considering you've said this. Please do not reply to this post or try to defend yourself to me.

Whoa I'm not saying I agree with slavery, I'm just saying that conversation just derails every thread or gets them locked. Its pretty much a move even bringing ups the subject in the first place.

Angronsrosycheeks wrote:
Which is the underpinning issue. 40k becomes Nobledark when you make it absolutely clear that without Imperium humanity is doomed, and all the persecution, genocide and terror is in fact Doing Good Things and needed. Inquisitors dooming whole worlds to exterminatus for seeing a chaos invasion? Good thing, necessary evil, not overreach of a dogmatic fanatics.

I'd argue that persecution and genocide being portrayed as the only path to survival makes the setting even more grimdark, rather than nobledark. That's my whole issue with it, actually: this implication that there is no peace or hope possible for humankind unless the cruelest, most violent people in the Imperium have their way.

I prefer when the fluff tacitly acknowledges that the Imperium is often its own worst enemy and leaves lots of better options on the table out of dogmatism or aversion to change. It's dark too, but at least it's the writer winking at you and telling you: "Don't try fascism at home, kids. We at GW do not endorse genocide, even in a fictional setting."

.

I mean, if you want a major rebellion, just look at the Nova terra Interregium, where the entirety of segmentum pacificus seceeded, and led to a bloody civil war and set up the events of the age of apostasy. The Mechanicus also had a major civil war at the same time, with the moirae schism, with a group of mechanicus that I can best describe as space Mormons. (They believed there were binary codes coming off the Golden throne, then translated them into religous writings and added them to the existing ones) This massive civil war in the mechanicus also effected the Iron hands and led to the creation of the Sons of Medusa, the only chapter expressly created by High Lord's decree.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
There is grey area there.

Yeah, just like the "gray area" with the poor misunderstood Nazis who really did need all that new territory to survive. Sure, they genocided millions and planned to genocide millions more but it's not like they had fun doing it!

Seriously, the Imperium is evil. Its fundamental concept is to ask the question "how many atrocities can humanity commit before it is less evil for us to simply go extinct". The worst horrors of the real world are repeated countless times per day across the entire Imperium. Trillions are enslaved in the most brutal conditions, trillions more are slaughtered for the slightest of heresies. If you think there is anything even remotely morally defensible about the Imperium you are either badly missing the point of the setting or are getting deep into IRL sociopath territory.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
There is grey area there.

Yeah, just like the "gray area" with the poor misunderstood Nazis who really did need all that new territory to survive. Sure, they genocided millions and planned to genocide millions more but it's not like they had fun doing it!

Seriously, the Imperium is evil. Its fundamental concept is to ask the question "how many atrocities can humanity commit before it is less evil for us to simply go extinct". The worst horrors of the real world are repeated countless times per day across the entire Imperium. Trillions are enslaved in the most brutal conditions, trillions more are slaughtered for the slightest of heresies. If you think there is anything even remotely morally defensible about the Imperium you are either badly missing the point of the setting or are getting deep into IRL sociopath territory.

I've never said the Imperium are the good guys, but on a scale of evil they are nothing compared to Chaos. Nobody is white knighting the imperium, but we have people here stating that the Empire is Evil, possibly the Evil, meh, there are far worse factions. Evil is an intent. The Imperium's actions are not out of malice, but out of the goal of saving humanity, which they do quite maliciously but malice is not the end goal. It is a noble goal, no matter how drunken and heavy fisted they do it. Chaos's goal is to burn the whole thing down to get personal power from their Gods. There are a lot of bad factions in 40K, as its been noted, none of them are really good, they all do evil things, but that doesn't necessarily make them evil.

Take Tyrranids for example, I don't consider the Tyranids Evil, sure through the eyes of humans they are Absolutly evil, but the Tyrranids are not acting out of Malice, they don't hate the other factions, they just have to eat to survive. They not only commit genocide, they want to eat everything! Hell they make hordes of creatures to conquer a planet and then eat everything, their own hordes included. Thats pretty evil stuff, but the intent is not evil. Morality doesn't even play a roll.

Chaos and maybe the Dark Eldar are the only Truly Evil Factions in the setting. Other factions do evil stuff all the time. Its a distinction some people struggle with.

And come on could we not keep bringing up terms like Nazi's and Slavery. It just brings out the whackos and gets threads shut down.