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In terms of toppling the Imperium? You need to consider just how utterly vast it is. You could crush a sector, and still face overwhelming retribution. Unless you can take Terra out of the equation, which remember even Horus failed to do at the zenith of Chaos’ potential.

And since then? The Imperium has essentially been on a permanent war footing, it’s entire industry turned to its own preservation.

This is where Cults do so much damage, like, disproportionate damage. Not just during uprisings, but during constant purges and rooting them out.

Yet The Imperium can sustain far greater losses than Chaos simply because of its sheer, staggering size.

 Tyran wrote:
The thing about Chaos is that it is weakness made power.

Chaos preys on weaknesses to corrupt, and that means most Chaos characters are full of weaknesses as those don't disappear just because they gained daemonhood.

IIRC Horus complained that the Primarchs that followed him into rebellion were a bunch of nutcases vs the far more competent Primarchs that remained loyal. The best current example being Mortarion's obsession with personally defeating Guilliman led to a portion of the Garden being burned down and Granddaddy Nurgle being very pissed at him.

Not a general rule because otherwise that'd mean all those who stay loyal are likely to be the better people and clearly the imperium is rife with incompetence and stupidity.

But, tbh, I never thought about it that way although that makes sense.

I skimmed through posts so I hope and don't repeat something but the Chaos Gods, I believe, have one goal: to grow and grow and grow. But as all of them try to grow and eat each other they constantly face off and shoot one another in the back both in the warp and in the material universe, so they can't thrive up to that ultimate goal. After all, the self destructivness of Chaos indeed has got a God. Malal is to good a thing to be forgotten.

We can also look to AoS to see how Chaos is kind of inherently self-defeating.

United front when the war was on. But as soon as the scales tipped in favour of Chaos and Azyr was shut off? Every God For Itself.

Granted they utterly trashed the Mortal Realms, but Chaos and Chaos alone prevented its own ultimate, final victory. Because there can be only one winner, and they will absolutely scrap it out as soon as the enemy looks half way defeated.

I i am not wrong, it is stated in 40k lore that the chaos united only twice: once to scatter the emperor's progeny and then to corrupt horus after realising it didn't faired as expected.

Then Abaddon is kind of supported by all four gods but they still exchange blows with one another anyway now that Emp is down anyway.

This is as much of a question as it is a remark to the topic, I'm not sure.

It’s definitely a rare event that all four will pursue a common goal without tripping each other up.

There may be other instances, but none immediately spring to mind.

It isn't just the Gods. Chaos warlords, both mortal and Daemonic, despise, undermine and constantly betray each other. The Path to Glory is too narrow to be walked side by side.

 Overread wrote:
It's not stupidity its simply a mindset and attitude toward being one tiny cog in the machine where thinking outside the box is discouraged from a young age

Nah, it's definitely stupidity.


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 Tyran wrote:
The thing about Chaos is that it is weakness made power.

Chaos preys on weaknesses to corrupt, and that means most Chaos characters are full of weaknesses as those don't disappear just because they gained daemonhood.

IIRC Horus complained that the Primarchs that followed him into rebellion were a bunch of nutcases vs the far more competent Primarchs that remained loyal. The best current example being Mortarion's obsession with personally defeating Guilliman led to a portion of the Garden being burned down and Granddaddy Nurgle being very pissed at him.

That's more just because of the excessive protagonization/lionization of the loyalist side over time. The post-5e fluff that wanted to portray Chaos followers as LOSERS who didn't stay loyal to the (totally justified) fascist, genocidal, ignorant, corrupt Imperium has too much of this.

We're literally exterminating ourselves right now with full knowledge that we're doing it. Ain't seen nothing going on in 40k that's dumber than real life.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
We're literally exterminating ourselves right now with full knowledge that we're doing it. Ain't seen nothing going on in 40k that's dumber than real life.

In 40k, there's nobody going "Wait hold on a second, this is a bad idea."

I'll take a step to the side and give a tongue in cheek answer. Please misunderstand it right:

The widespread dumbness is a realistic historical reference, dialled up.

History inspire us with its geniuses, inventors, conquerors, heroes and saints. It electrify us with its excellence, its inventions, its art, its great deeds, adventures, selflessness and its groundbreaking discoveries.

But more to the point, history studied closely also informs us with its lapping oceans of mediocrity, stupidity and dysfunctionality.

Dumbness might be dumb, but it is not unrealistic.

Cheers

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:We can also look to AoS to see how Chaos is kind of inherently self-defeating.

United front when the war was on. But as soon as the scales tipped in favour of Chaos and Azyr was shut off? Every God For Itself.

Granted they utterly trashed the Mortal Realms, but Chaos and Chaos alone prevented its own ultimate, final victory. Because there can be only one winner, and they will absolutely scrap it out as soon as the enemy looks half way defeated.

Chaos in AoS can operate slightly differently though. Chaos in 40K is looking at the whole Galaxy in one go. It's the entire table of play.
In AoS even though the Mortal Realms are vast they are but one port in the sea. Old World wasn't the only life giving world, the Mortal Realms are vast but also not the only life and magic infused realm. They are simply one of many. This means Chaos CAN win - as it did in the Old World.
Yes it will still be self-defeating, but with enough drive behind it, there is potential for Chaos to win on that battlefield and to destroy the Mortal Realms; realm by realm if need be.

That's one big difference in the settings, there's no "wait we really do have to stop winning" element.

Hecaton wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
We're literally exterminating ourselves right now with full knowledge that we're doing it. Ain't seen nothing going on in 40k that's dumber than real life.

In 40k, there's nobody going "Wait hold on a second, this is a bad idea."

Sometimes there is, but they are classed as mad, insane, heretical and often either ignored or killed

Authoritarian regimes tend to:

A.) Pit different elements of the state against each other.
B.) Discourage independent thought and initiative.

At least with the Imperium, that explains it.

Pitting different elements against one another in the imperium in my mind justifies to some extent overreads thesis of the "cog syndrome" in humanity.

The imperium divides, pitting it's military branches against one another, it's administrative branches against one another, it's political factions against one another, and then those corps still against one another.

I can imagine it to have 2 consequences leading to dumb actions on behalf of ts characters. First, they never get the full picture even, not only because the universe is vast but because someone somewhere is actively trying to restrict him from, or he hasn't been taught what he needed.

Or, he knows, is competent but he faces active resistance from other branches actively trying to make him fail (I'm thinking of Vraks and the fuss between IG and Iquisition), so hiss clever plans are dialed down due to it's own side stabbing him in the back.

In the end, he looks like an idiot anyway!

But as was already stated above that applies to chaos rivalries, necron dynastic wars, eldar intrigues and philosophy about their future, ork brawls for the sake of it...

Only the Tau are notably consistent as a society, which might be why they act less stupidly. Does'nt mean they're not donkey-caves. But their unity of purpose is above that of any other faction of the setting saved the nids.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 Abanshee wrote:
Hell, I'm fairly sure Chaos is a joke faction now with the amount of memes, losses, and sheer stupid that infests the faction to it's very core. There like Cobra or Skeletor-tier now.

Chaos has to be fairly successful most of the time, just to get thwarted when they diabolical scheme is coming to fruition.
Otherwise, what is Exterminatus for?

Fair point. Exterminatus > Chaos as a faction.


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 Grey Templar wrote:

 Abanshee wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
'Everyone is either insane or needs to be an idiot for the plot/themes' is a horrible justification of bad writing.

I absolutely loathe the fact that Necrons or Chaos acting like complete fools all the time is just handwaved away with 'they're crazy and arrogant tho'.

I do too enjoy a massive over-simplification of mental illness, being mentally ill myself.

It's gotten too the point where I genuinely believe Chaos is nothing more than just "stupidity" made manifest. Like, the opposite of how Orks work (So, incredibly stupid to the point that they succeed) and are simply the settings' "paper tiger".

Looks, really scary, but would get absolutely bodied by one of Roboute's shiny nu-marines. Hell, I'm fairly sure Chaos is a joke faction now with the amount of memes, losses, and sheer stupid that infests the faction to it's very core. There like Cobra
or Skeletor-tier now.

In a way, this is kinda true.

The Chaos Gods themselves are to blame. They don't have an end goal. They don't want to win, they want the status quo to be maintained. Their followers want to win, but not the Chaos Gods. They've already won in a sense. A galaxy of chaos and suffering and constant strife. So its now all about milking it for all its worth.

There is almost certainly a lot of deliberate sabotage of Chaos forces by their own patrons. They'll give power to a champion for a while, but eventually they'll get bored of him winning so they'll let him die eventually in a spectacular fashion and pick another dude. They'll never let their champions bring down the Imperium, they'll let them rampage but if they do too well they'll let them lose when the time comes.

To use the Skeletor or Cobra analogy. its like if those guys had some entity backing them, a patron who gives them stuff so they can do their bidding. But this entity doesn't want them to win. He wants the show to keep going forever. He wants Skeletor to constantly be fighting He-man forever. He wants Cobra to constantly be fighting GI Joe, forever. All so he can watch the shenanigans.

The Chaos followers themselves are fully serious about the part. They aren't trying to be cartoon villains. But they are the playthings of their gods, and the gods want their followers to be cartoon villains. Abaddon is fully aware of this tragedy, which is why he hates the gods and is trying to succeed in-spite of their meddlings.

Yeah, I can't argue against that. I mean by the time of the Siege, the Iron Warriors were practically hard-carrying the traitors to the point that Perturabo rage-quit and left the Traitor Legion's official Discord channel, lol.

It's just frustrating watching interesting villians (I fething loved Abaddon in ADB's BL books and genuinely felt for his cause) be very static with their development and not really accomplish much, but I guess that's the point. They're damned.

I do wonder how the Renegade God would play into all of this, Malal. He's inherently self-destructive, yet seeks to destroy everything else entirely. I do like that out of all the gods he sort of has a goal: Total and utter annihilation of everything, him
included.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Tell me you’ve only read 4chan summary without telling me you’ve only read 4chan summary.

Tell me you make assumptions by literally telling me.

 Abanshee wrote:


Yeah, I can't argue against that. I mean by the time of the Siege, the Iron Warriors were practically hard-carrying the traitors to the point that Perturabo rage-quit and left the Traitor Legion's official Discord channel, lol.

It's just frustrating watching interesting villians (I fething loved Abaddon in ADB's BL books and genuinely felt for his cause) be very static with their development and not really accomplish much, but I guess that's the point. They're damned.

Eh, followers of Chaos aren't really any more damned than followers of the Emperor. It's one soul-eating nigh-omnicidal god for another.

The lionization of the Imperium, which is supposed to be corrupt, inefficient, ignorant, etc, has bad knockoff effects for the rest of the setting.

Hecaton wrote:

 Abanshee wrote:


Yeah, I can't argue against that. I mean by the time of the Siege, the Iron Warriors were practically hard-carrying the traitors to the point that Perturabo rage-quit and left the Traitor Legion's official Discord channel, lol.

It's just frustrating watching interesting villians (I fething loved Abaddon in ADB's BL books and genuinely felt for his cause) be very static with their development and not really accomplish much, but I guess that's the point. They're damned.

Eh, followers of Chaos aren't really any more damned than followers of the Emperor. It's one soul-eating nigh-omnicidal god for another.

The lionization of the Imperium, which is supposed to be corrupt, inefficient, ignorant, etc, has bad knockoff effects for the rest of the setting.

Sure, I guess you could look at it that way, but I see the Emperor as better than the Chaos Gods. He isn't solely dedicated to leeching off of humanity and his god status is fairly complicated. He doesn't see himself as a god, displays the abilities of divine beings, however, most of his origins start with him as a man (or a collective of humans, if you go with the psyker suicide myth). Plus, he actually wants to progress humanity, he just went about it in utterly uncaring ways.

I can see why Games Workshop glorified the Imperium over other factions or outright ignored the satire in favor of pushing the development of the setting forward. It makes them more money since the Imperium is by far the most played out of any of the factions. Also, they get the opportunity to create interesting character/plot developments within the setting by setting the satire to the side for a moment. Has it been set to the side for far too long? I guess so, but like every faction has glaring
issues with their characterization.

Tyranids? Intended to be the giant middle finger to the galaxy and ends up getting stomped on by the Marines, most of the time.

Necrons? Were changed to have more "character" ended up getting like 3 or so books on their characters alone. Also, could be argued that they're literally space tomb kings now.

Chaos? Fights amongst itself to the point it becomes a running joke and can never conceivably achieve anything of note. Thereby, accidentally creating a joke faction.

Eldar? How long has it been stated that "they're a dying race, soon to be cast to the wind" and then show up at battles with the full-strength of a Craftworld, with like two wraith units.

Tau? Can't decide if they morally questionable or just the Imperium, "but not like the other girls".

 Abanshee wrote:


Sure, I guess you could look at it that way, but I see the Emperor as better than the Chaos Gods. He isn't solely dedicated to leeching off of humanity and his god status is fairly complicated. He doesn't see himself as a god, displays the abilities of divine beings, however, most of his origins start with him as a man (or a collective of humans, if you go with the psyker suicide myth). Plus, he actually wants to progress humanity, he just went about it in utterly uncaring ways.

He says his motivations are good, but so does Chaos. And he was a sadistically cruel imitation of a father to his sons and a genocidal maniac before he got shoved on the throne. He hypocritically accepted being worshiped as a god by the AdMech but took great pleasure in pitting Guilliman against Lorgar over the topic, like a child with a couple of insects in a jar trying to get them to fight.

His version of a perfect humanity was like the Custodes, slaves to his will. His motivations were anything but pure, in my estimation, and I think the text supports that. He was all for wholesale genocide of innocent mutants, who are not a threat, when he was ambulatory, and he set the tone for his followers to do the same for ten thousand years.

 Abanshee wrote:


I can see why Games Workshop glorified the Imperium over other factions or outright ignored the satire in favor of pushing the development of the setting forward. It makes them more money since the Imperium is by far the most played out of any of the factions. Also, they get the opportunity to create interesting character/plot developments within the setting by setting the satire to the side for a moment. Has it been set to the side for far too long? I guess so, but like every faction has glaring
issues with their characterization.

I can see why, but it doesn't reflect well on GE to make the baby-murdering turbofascists the heroes of the setting. There's plenty of room for plot development that involves all the factions, as well. It's an open question as to whether or not other choices would have made GW more money, especially when they won't open up production facilities in the US despite the financial sense it would make to do so.

When has Chaos ever said their motivations are good? They are very openly about slavery, rape, baby murdery, spreading disease, standard murdery and dragging reality into the warp.

The IoM is genocidal, fascists and all that, but Chaos characters are former Imperials that found standard genocide boring and standard fascism lukewarm and decided to find something worse.

 Tyran wrote:
When has Chaos ever said their motivations are good? They are very openly about slavery, rape, baby murdery, spreading disease, standard murdery and dragging reality into the warp.

The IoM is genocidal, fascists and all that, but Chaos characters are former Imperials that found standard genocide boring and standard fascism lukewarm and decided to find something worse.

Seems just about as bad from where I'm standing.

Hecaton wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
When has Chaos ever said their motivations are good? They are very openly about slavery, rape, baby murdery, spreading disease, standard murdery and dragging reality into the warp.

The IoM is genocidal, fascists and all that, but Chaos characters are former Imperials that found standard genocide boring and standard fascism lukewarm and decided to find something worse.

Seems just about as bad from where I'm standing.

I'd totally report you to the authorities if you uttered this. Hypothetically of course if we both lived there. Your line of thinking could turn me into a disgusting nurgle creature hahaha

Hecaton wrote:

Seems just about as bad from where I'm standing.

You could even say Chaos gets bonus points for being honest about it.

But still that is beside the point.

To answer the OP's question: because the target audience is about twelve, and it takes more work to make something make sense to someone who isn't a twelve-year-old boy than it does to make a twelve-year-old boy go "woah awesome!" (see: Eragon.)

Swastakowey wrote:


I'd totally report you to the authorities if you uttered this. Hypothetically of course if we both lived there. Your line of thinking could turn me into a disgusting nurgle creature hahaha

Huh? One of the things in the setting is that Chaos isn't actually a cognitohazard.

 Tyran wrote:
When has Chaos ever said their motivations are good? They are very openly about slavery, rape, baby murdery, spreading disease, standard murdery and dragging reality into the warp.

The IoM is genocidal, fascists and all that, but Chaos characters are former Imperials that found standard genocide boring and standard fascism lukewarm and decided to find something worse.

Those that argue for Chaos within the universe generally take these stances:

1. Chaos is the honest true nature of reality that the Emperor tried to conceal from humanity.

This basically is arguing that the Chaos gods are "honest" to their own natures, and that this therefore makes the atrocities committed in their name more justifiable as compared to those done in the Emperor's names, since those were done in the name of a lie.

2. Chaos is freedom

It is the kind of will to power freedom in that those that are strong enough or lucky enough to achieve more or grasp power are free to gain the power and climb ever higher. It is a callous kind of freedom though as it does not care what happens to those that are mediocre and that lack such talent (i.e. the vast bulk of humanity). The critique applied to the Imperium is that it oppresses all and stifles those with the intelligence, strength, and talent to do better from achieving their potential. Chaos has no such systemic oppression and is the law of the jungle. If you think you deserve better, you need to seize power and make others respect/fear you. If you try and fail, clearly you were too weak and deserve to be killed, tortured, or otherwise mistreated.

Of course, every Chaos Champion believes they are among those that deserve to be on top, and they have some reason to think so since they have already been given gifts from the Chaos gods. However for the slave toiling away at building temples and monuments for the Word Bearers, and doomed to likely be a sacrifice once the project is done, a life as a boring scribe in the Imperium might not be so bad by comparison.

Hecaton wrote:

Swastakowey wrote:


I'd totally report you to the authorities if you uttered this. Hypothetically of course if we both lived there. Your line of thinking could turn me into a disgusting nurgle creature hahaha

Huh? One of the things in the setting is that Chaos isn't actually a cognitohazard.

Actually it is.

A naive person who doesn't know anything about chaos is safer than someone who does know about it(and also doesn't know proper mental safety protocols). A person who knows too much might start thinking about that sort of thing, and thoughts can draw the attention of daemons.

This is why collecting psykers and heretical tomes is important, as is suppressing information regarding anything about the nature of the warp and its residents beyond "There are bad things there!". Even if a loyal citizen knew that daemons existed and was on-board with them being evil, if you didn't train them to guard their mind after knowing such information they might begin to have stray thoughts. They might try to rationalize what they know or have seen, and that could doom whole planets.

Of course it is debatable if less damage might be done by admitting its existance but also religiously ingraining the proper mental conditioning into the population. In some ways, the Ecclesiarchy kinda does as its religious litanies can protect you from the warp even if you are naive to its true nature but being more open about the protections might be a better idea. Either way could be viewed as the correct choice.

 Tyran wrote:
When has Chaos ever said their motivations are good?

Since before GW decided to play it straight with heroic space marines. The Chaos gods embodied both virtues and vices, and even people who thought they were doing good could easily be serving Chaos. See here for some discussion of the concept: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/673274.page

 Grey Templar wrote:


Actually it is.

*snip*

Nah, you're confusing the in-universe propaganda for what's actually given as third-party omniscient information. The Grey Knights, especially, believe (or at least say that they believe) that the mere knowledge of Chaos is a risk, but given their penchant for massacring civilians and their willingness to backstab other parts of the Imperium to maintain their status and institutional power, it's clear that they gain a concrete benefit from claiming as they do. If you read the Chaos Daemons 9e codex you'll notice the shift in tone - Chaos is this, Chaos is that, and then when it gets to what you're describing it's all "The Grey Knights and others believe...", clearly avoiding making a statement supporting it objectively.

This fits in with the theme during the HH of the Emperor's hubris in keeping information from the Primarchs leading to the problem itself. If you value ignorance as a virtue, at least for those serving you (which the Emperor did, and many in the Imperium clearly do, then you will make sacrifices to enable that ideology. It's not a matter of expedience or protection - it's a matter of ego-tripping and selfishness on the part of those who claim that Chaos is a cognitohazard.

The Emperor trained his most psychically capable Primarch in all things of the warp and said "Don't make deals with denizens of the warp". What does Magnus do? He makes a deal with a denizen of the warp.

Can you imagine why this guy didn't trust anyone with more information about Chaos than he thinks they are capable of handling? The one guy he thought could handle the truth fell for the very thing he told him to look out for.

Two core guidepost in 40K: Power Corrupts and Knowledge Corrupts.

There is a giant warp rift splitting the galaxy in half and pretty much every world was exposed to Chaos in some way by it.

If knowledge of Chaos alone corrupted then the IoM would have already fallen because by this point everyone knows Chaos.

 Tyran wrote:
There is a giant warp rift splitting the galaxy in half and pretty much every world was exposed to Chaos in some way by it.

If knowledge of Chaos alone corrupted then the IoM would have already fallen because by this point everyone knows Chaos.

that's what I thought about in the first place when I heard about that piece of new lore, one that make me ponder, "they just flung the universe's logic out of the window". In the pre greatrift lore I still play in the corrupting influence of knowlegde above is valid. In my view at the beginning this is a huge factor and a big contributor in making the setting miserable, so to an extent participating in giving it its atmosphere.


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On our topic though you could say people are just too slowed or uninformed to come to the conclusion that this is chaos by themselves but still more influencial figures should I guess.