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Does anyone else wonder if there are Inquisitors who are extra harsh on containing the spread of Chaos because they know how bad the Imperium really is, and worry that people would actively choose Chaos over the Imperium?

Like, from an outside observer standpoint, as someone who is aware of the pro and cons of both, if I suddenly found myself a denizen of the Imperium I'd almost immediately start looking for the nearest Tzeentch cult.

Entire ordo hereticus I think. Their main job is containing and stop chaos spread, and they mostly pretty harsh guys and gals.

Also could you visit nearest The Holy ordo office nearby your location...

the point of the Inquisition is that it's a loose collection of individual Inquisitors with theirown beliefs, politics, methods and allegiences. So yes, there will be some Inquisitors who are hyper-vigilant about containing heresy, up to and including executing/mind wiping forces that have fought against Daemons.

There are also some inquisitors who encourage and foster heresy, either out of a belief that the Imperium becomes stronger by fighting these threats, or by using them to gain power for themselves (Why should you risk summoning a daemon when you can just encourage and aid a cult doing it, then swoop in afterwards to kill it/bind it/defeat it for glory?)

Kinda?

The Imperium is awful to live in. Here on Earth we might justifiably moan about the 1%. But within the Imperium? It’s more the 0.00001% that have it good as the direct result of everyone else’s toil and literal self sacrifice.

Chaos only appears to offer freedom from that oppression. Anarchy does hold its own appeal to those oppressed after all.

But we, in our near omniscient view of the Galaxy and its workings know for a fact There Is No Winning when you bargain with Chaos. You put you foot on that path? And you’ve three fates. Dying in the name of your god. Turning to a spawn. Becoming a Daemon Prince - powerful yes, but still ultimately a slave.

Your kooky little cult might offer a modicum of freedom and enjoyment. And that might very make your life better. But only ever in the short term. Worse? Your fannying around with powers you cannot possibly comprehend can and will lead to the death and destruction of your entire planet. And all for naught.

 BorderCountess wrote:
Does anyone else wonder if there are Inquisitors who are extra harsh on containing the spread of Chaos because they know how bad the Imperium really is, and worry that people would actively choose Chaos over the Imperium?

Like, from an outside observer standpoint, as someone who is aware of the pro and cons of both, if I suddenly found myself a denizen of the Imperium I'd almost immediately start looking for the nearest Tzeentch cult.

Hand me a copy of the Mallaeus Malifacarium, Heinrich!

A Horrible Heretic is attempting spread her vile beliefs!

As long as you keep the number paykers down to a minimum. Bring me more torches for the Witchpyres, Henrich! You won't have to worry about the spread of Chaos coming to your world.

If you look at it from a sector view, there aren't any ways to send messages to other worlds, except through Astropathic Choirs and traveling starships.

If your Arbites are doing their jobs and scanning incoming personnel for ne'er'do'wells and other undesirables. That avenue should be blocked as well.

Thus an Inquisitor must keep his eyes and ears to the dangerous ones. The weak-willed who are in positions where they have access to interplanetary communications and cold-trader merchantmen who deal in less than approved merchandise.

Because the Imperium is perfectly fine.

Hear that Heinrich? The common citizen of the Imperium is a happy and content individual, doing their part for the glory of the Emperor!

Because, if one soul falters, entire worlds can be damned to the cleansing flame.

What Heinrich? She offered you cookies? That's a trick! There are no cookies!

In terms of the "better choice" I would wager those Inquisitors who deal with Chaos, rationalise it as not about the Imperium being worse but Chaos offering an out from specifically bad circumstances but still very much understanding Chaos is not a better option.
Chaos can give you the power to kill a brutal overseer, survive a deadly plague, escape persecution as a Psyker or even just experience joy in a joyless existence. But then you get possessed by Daemons, used as a sacrifice in a ritual, turned into a sentient plague bomb or used as cannon fodder for beings that will actually live long enough to benefit from the previously mentioned Chaos boons.

It's why the Imperium really struggles with T'au diplomacy because it actually is a better choice 9/10 times.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kinda?

The Imperium is awful to live in. Here on Earth we might justifiably moan about the 1%. But within the Imperium? It’s more the 0.00001% that have it good as the direct result of everyone else’s toil and literal self sacrifice.

Chaos only appears to offer freedom from that oppression. Anarchy does hold its own appeal to those oppressed after all.

But we, in our near omniscient view of the Galaxy and its workings know for a fact There Is No Winning when you bargain with Chaos. You put you foot on that path? And you’ve three fates. Dying in the name of your god. Turning to a spawn. Becoming a Daemon Prince - powerful yes, but still ultimately a slave.

Your kooky little cult might offer a modicum of freedom and enjoyment. And that might very make your life better. But only ever in the short term. Worse? Your fannying around with powers you cannot possibly comprehend can and will lead to the death and destruction of your entire planet. And all for naught.

As opposed to being a slave in a factory or an agriworld, for example.

The Imperium is awful. And there should be more fiction in 40k that makes that clear.

Life in the Imperium varies a LOT

There are some worlds that are hellscapes - mining worlds where the very air is killing you; where you live in vast cities buried beneath other cities. Never seeing the light of day and fighting in gang wars over the scraps from above whilst they ooze pollutants out all over you.

There's worlds where you're basically a medieval serf slaving on the land. You might not have advanced medical care, but you don't have toxic air and so long as orks don't come invading you're probably reasonably safe

There's worlds that are adminstrative centres where you're safe; fed; clothed; worked to the bone entering data all day every day for the machine; so long as you don't question and just punch data you'll likely stay sort of sane.

There's worlds that are fairly ok. No extremes of production or work; life is fairly good and you've got access to decent levels of technology. You're not in nor near a warzone and the only reference to xenos or chaos you might even have heard of is old war tales from the handful of old cadians who retired to the world decades ago.




The Imperium has it all; the worst and the best places to live. Those far from the front lines which haven't seen war in generations; to worlds that live under the constant brutal pressure of warfare.
You can't paint the Imperium with one brushstroke; its so vast it has everything. Pick up one book its a hellscape; pick another its a slavers paradise; another and its not too bad on certain worlds; another its a whole region under constant invasion.

40k follows the historical fiction trope of only focusing on rich/powerful people who have the least problems with living in the era. The poors then become an aesthetic to add flavour to the world your PC wanders through. So you get the romance of the era without the realities.

If a setting could be a mary sue, that's kind of what it is - all the downsides are never downsides for the PCs, and end up being strengths in some way. It's the ripped jeans worn by trust fund kids of a setting, purely for the look.


The old Pawns of Chaos novel focused on powerless PCs on a chaos planet, and actually focused on the medieval culture there trying to repel an imperial invasion. It actually gave the populace character beyond being cackling chaos lackeys.

I mean that's true if you ignore all the Necromunda books.

Also most of the Guard books are pretty darn grim and dark all the time for them.


Even the Inquisition books deal a lot with the mess at the bottom whilst also tackling issues at the top.



And on other fronts yes - 40K comes from that era of fantasy/scifi where pain/struggle makes you stronger. Right out of Dune where the idea that living on the two worst planets in the whole Empire made the two most powerful warrior nations (Saduka and Fremen); or Conan becoming the most powerful fighter because he was the only small child who survived the mill and pushed it on his own.

Maybe it's the local store I frequent. There's newer players who have very positive views of the Imperium.

 Overread wrote:
I mean that's true if you ignore all the Necromunda books.

Also most of the Guard books are pretty darn grim and dark all the time for them.


Even the Inquisition books deal a lot with the mess at the bottom whilst also tackling issues at the top.



And on other fronts yes - 40K comes from that era of fantasy/scifi where pain/struggle makes you stronger. Right out of Dune where the idea that living on the two worst planets in the whole Empire made the two most powerful warrior nations (Saduka and Fremen); or Conan becoming the most powerful fighter because he was the only small child who survived the mill and pushed it on his own.

Outside necromunda which I've not read any of, the key in the other stories is always someone with power that can pull strings for the plucky protagonists, or is themselves the protagonist. It means they are never truly starving, or crushed under the heel of anyone. The issues that 99.9% of imperial citizens face are never a challenge for the PCs. They may encounter the dark underbelly, but they're not part of it. And of course most GW books are space marines, who encounter the dark underbelly and gloriously slaughter it but are themselves so far removed from the every day citizen's concerns as to make them invisible to the reader.


To make an anime analogy, you might get Cowboy Bebop 'poor' fighting over bell peppers and 'beef' for lols, but you never get Grave of the Fireflies poor...

Realise that most gamers only read the codex and the big rule book and that's it. Many don't real black library novels nor dip deeper into the lore.
A lot of codex/BRB stuff only deals with the war and frontlines with a sense that behind the scenes things are "better" Indeed that's one of the elements of the setting - that you have to scratch a bit to find the dark bits of the Imperium.

ALSO Don't forget that there's some echochamber online. Some places make the Imperium sound way worse than it is at large. Again its a bonkers huge setting; it has everything from good to bad within it.


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 Hellebore wrote:

To make an anime analogy, you might get Cowboy Bebop 'poor' fighting over bell peppers and 'beef' for lols, but you never get Grave of the Fireflies poor...

Considering one of those is an anime I can watch over and over and the other is one that I've got on the shelf and I consider a fantastic experience having seen - and now have zero interest in seeing it again for a VERY long time after.

Yeah I can see why GW doesn't try to make every novel Grave of the Fireflies.

... if the head of your empire is fed 10,000 humans a day to live, and a not insignificant amount of your population is in indentured servitude in hive cities working themselves to death, and your entire computing system across a million worlds is built on enslaved mutilated servitor humans, I don't think a few pleasure planets really counter that.

So I'm no sure what you could say about the imperium that's hyperbolic over those facts?


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 Overread wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:

To make an anime analogy, you might get Cowboy Bebop 'poor' fighting over bell peppers and 'beef' for lols, but you never get Grave of the Fireflies poor...

Considering one of those is an anime I can watch over and over and the other is one that I've got on the shelf and I consider a fantastic experience having seen - and now have zero interest in seeing it again for a VERY long time after.

Yeah I can see why GW doesn't try to make every novel Grave of the Fireflies.

Oh yeah I totally understand and am on the same level about those. Whether GW should be showing it it or not, it's clear they don't. Which hides the 'reality' of the imperial citizenry from the reader.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kinda?

The Imperium is awful to live in. Here on Earth we might justifiably moan about the 1%. But within the Imperium? It’s more the 0.00001% that have it good as the direct result of everyone else’s toil and literal self sacrifice.

Chaos only appears to offer freedom from that oppression. Anarchy does hold its own appeal to those oppressed after all.

But we, in our near omniscient view of the Galaxy and its workings know for a fact There Is No Winning when you bargain with Chaos. You put you foot on that path? And you’ve three fates. Dying in the name of your god. Turning to a spawn. Becoming a Daemon Prince - powerful yes, but still ultimately a slave.

Your kooky little cult might offer a modicum of freedom and enjoyment. And that might very make your life better. But only ever in the short term. Worse? Your fannying around with powers you cannot possibly comprehend can and will lead to the death and destruction of your entire planet. And all for naught.

As opposed to being a slave in a factory or an agriworld, for example.

The Imperium is awful. And there should be more fiction in 40k that makes that clear.

Life as a loyal Imperial Citizen is of course nasty, brutal and often pretty short by our standards.

But, unlike selling your soul to Chaos? The Imperium’s Torment is, ultimately, finite.

Given no human soul retains cohesion after death, you're really only offering your soul energy to increase a God's power.

Unlike the Eldar who are fully conscious after death and are tortured for eternity....

 BorderCountess wrote:
Does anyone else wonder if there are Inquisitors who are extra harsh on containing the spread of Chaos because they know how bad the Imperium really is, and worry that people would actively choose Chaos over the Imperium?

Like, from an outside observer standpoint, as someone who is aware of the pro and cons of both, if I suddenly found myself a denizen of the Imperium I'd almost immediately start looking for the nearest Tzeentch cult.

I thought that's the whole point of the Inquisition? The imperium is an insane hellhole, so much that people even look at Nurgle of all things and think: Well, look at that ugly guy with his guts hanging out. Looks as if he's having a better time than I do!

The interesting part about the Imperium is that its extreme measures against the actually existing Chaos thread helps Chaos to find more followers.

Nurgle is more subtle than that.

Not all plague and illness are Grandfather’s doing. And what he offers isn’t More Plague? But a relief from the suffering. When he answers beseechment and prayers, he doesn’t cure you of the illness. He just removes the suffering. Which seems to be enough for many.

Exactly - don't forget the Chaos we see on the tabletop is basically "final stage" corruption. People who are entirely within the thrall of Chaos itself and who are so far down the rabbit hole there's no way out.


Chaos indeed is born from suffering within the Imperium, but its also born from the richest wanting more; its born from the affluent wanting more power; more knowledge; more pleasure. A release from the stresses of life; or a means to enact revenge upon those who have wronged them.
To save the world they are on from invasion; as a bid to save the Imperium; to protect their loved ones and families.


There's so many pathways to Chaos and many start on them without realising.

The average citizen doens't really know of Chaos itself. They might know of cults; or worshippers; or aliens being "things" or even have seen some. But the Imperium keeps a tight lid on Chaos on many worlds. So the average players has more meta-understanding of Chaos itself.

Heck even with knowledge of what Chaos is its not protection. It's noted in the Inquisition books that many Inquisitors fall to Chaos itself - becoming radicals and some falling all the way to corruption.

Chaos worms its way in steadily. It's a tool, it serves you, it helps you, it corrupts and twists. Maybe you think you're the one that can out-game Chaos. That you can use it only as far as you need and then walk away

You were just using the knowledge to help cure a disease spreading through the population. You saved countless lives! It's the Inquisitor who is visiting who is in the wrong, who is blinded by misguided dogma. They can't see all the lives you've saved, they are the reason you are now on the run. Why you have to trust in others of a like mind, why you have to call on that whispering voice to just find a way to escape.
It wasn't your fault you called more and more of the demon into being; that you sacrificed part of yourself so that the demon would manifest to kill that agent before they harmed your family whilst you're on the run. You're saving lives; you're saving your family and yourself. So what if you have to use powers you don't understand to tear that Inquisitor in half; then his retinue; then the local guard that tried to stop you getting off-world to escape. There's a plague a few systems over, you can go there - work miracles and save more lives

I'm sure the lines between dogmatic, iconoclast and heretic behaviour are very blurred within the Inquisition. Sometimes you fight heresy best with any of these approaches, and a good Inquisitor knows how to keep all approoaches in balance. Having said that, its also easy to make mistakes of judgement, which will end up damning entire sectors..

Can't imagine it being easy doing Inquisitions' work. Act too agressively to root out every bit of taint, and you risk working for the arch-enemy instead, turning "neutral" imperial citizens against itself. Act too leniently, and risk the corruption sinking in too deep. Damned if you do, damned if you dont..

It’s definitely a gentle spiral, at least at first.

Martial Arts training for fitness becomes being good enough to enter Martial Arts competitions, becomes winning Martial Arts competitions and learning more disciplines leads to MMA leads to bare knuckle MMA leads to wanting to smash your opponent in record time.

If you can stop there? So far so good. But when you start going further, that can lead you to Khorne,

Passions are risky, but mostly fine. Chaos lies in Obsession. When what was once something you did in your free time to blow off steam becomes your entire life. When you can’t sleep at night unless you’ve pushed yourself further that day.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Nurgle is more subtle than that.

Not all plague and illness are Grandfather’s doing. And what he offers isn’t More Plague? But a relief from the suffering. When he answers beseechment and prayers, he doesn’t cure you of the illness. He just removes the suffering. Which seems to be enough for many.

On the one hand I'm totally with you and it's the reason I've started DG back in 5th edition. I like the apathy aspect of nurgle as well as the concept of eternal circle of life and death and so on, so my comment was rather tongue in cheek.
However, since at least 8th edition I get the feeling GW loves to show nurgle in one way only, and that's sickness and guts all the time.

But yeah, if you wonder why people would fall to nurgle it's probably more because of suffering or doing the same thing day in day out. Nurgle is anathema to change, so sitting at an assembly line 18 hours per day every day will make you embrace him at some point.

Nurgle is an odd god.

Of the big four? I’ll argue he’s by no means Actually Malevolent.

He’s a Nature God at the end of the day. Just, to the detriment of more complex life forms? A Nature God that holds all life exactly equal. You could be a human, you could be a bio-titan. You could be a bacteria. Maybe even a virus (yes I know they’re not exactly lifeforms as we define life, but shush for now).

When you or I snuff it? Whether or not our remains are cremated in the end, our remains become host to all sorts of bacteria and germs and that. Even living, we are The Universe to some of the tiniest forms of life.

And it’s that actually kinda respectably honest lack of discrimination that makes Nurgle such a danger. He loves all forms of life, and wants as much life as possible. But life is necessarily a wheel. Everything we are will, one way or another, return to the earth in due course. And once whatever consciousness actually is had departed our meat suits? So, so much more life will spring forth.

Kill a few billion smelly hoomans, and you end up with Eff Knows How Many micro-organisms flourishing, and thriving, and evolving.

Of all the Chaos Gods? I genuinely do not believe that Nurgle is definitively evil. Insane by our egotistical standards, sure. But, in the truly grand scheme of things, on the galactic and then universal scale….are we really, genuinely, superior to bacteria? They do after all live in some kind of harmony with their biome.

So we now all know which Chaos god Doc Worships!



Honestly Nurgle is still as twisted as the others; unlike traditional nature gods that focus on higher life forms, Nurgle is the opposite and thus also isn't a balanced nature god. He's focused on decay, rot and ruination. Whilst he's got an eye for the microbial and fungal species he's also very happy to twist, torment and utterly ruin regular higher life forms and thus is no better than the other Chaos Gods in that regard.


He is more "caring" in many ways than the others, but no less twisted and evil by our standards.


Similar to how Slaanesh isn't evil, Slaanesh just seeks pure excess.
Or how Tzeentch just seeks knowledge
Or Khorne the honour of combat.


Each one can be justified from a point of view as "not entirely evil"; yet each one would consume your soul in the warp and put you through endless eternal torment. The nature of the torment changes; the ways to them vary; but each one is no doubt not a god you'd actually want to follow. They are all eldritch horrors.

Ah. But what is the end to that purpose?

“Higher” life form snuffs it. And from its corpse? Untold billions of life forms flourish.

Rot and decay is a massive part of nature. It’s how the soil replenishes is nutrients. And so, the more rot? The richer the soil. The richer the soil, the richer the biome.

Whether Nurgle is evil really does boil down to the subject’s ego. I don’t consider myself a bad person. Sure, I’ve done bad things, but they’re outweighed by the good I’ve done. But a mere bacteria? It Simply Is. If it causes harm? It’s not a conscious or unconscious thing. It’s just the bacteria doing whatever it is that bacteria does.

To put a right downer on things? If all of humanity disappeared, right this second? Do you think the remaining life on earth would be better or worse off? I’m certain it would be unequivocally better off. No more maniacs farting massed pollution into the atmosphere or setting off nuclear weapons to test them or all the other horrible things we do in the name of civilisation.

A bacteria cannot do that. A virus cannot do that. Before us smelly hoomans started founding densely populated villages, towns, and then cities? Their reach was limited by their deadliness to the host organism, and so there was a balance.

Smelly Hoomans. We’re not all we’re cracked up to be.


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Khorne ultimately demands outright murder. In the earliest days of WarHams, he rewarded martial prowess and shunned those who preyed exclusively on the weak. Not so much anymore.

Tzeentch just doesn’t know when to stop manipulating.

Slaanesh inherently drive selfish actions. It’s all about your experience and your pleasure, and the suffering you can inflict on others.

Darn it the forum doesn't have a "Call inquisitor" button. ... that's a serious flaw in design!




Also I'd hasten to add that most bacteria can live and thrive WITH higher life forms (you've got billions in your gut right now). In fact in the real world diseases often don't want to kill their actual host; they want to infect and spread, but not actually kill. This is why natural disease within a species will often end up evolving toward lower lethality (also helps you spread if you don't kill your host).

The ones that do kill you tend to be the result of cross-species interaction. Human has quite a few because of pets, livestock and such.

In theory Nurgle shouldn't have to create a mega-disease to spread bacteria and kill people; in theory that's a loss because now where can all those bacteria thrive now that everyone is dead and gone and rotted to nothing.

Oh I’ve not argued Nurgle isn’t insane. Just not actually evil or malevolent, not when you remove human ego and the concept of “higher” life from the equation.

As my granny used to say? We’re all god’s children.

Also also? Once again I need to point out I’m quite possibly the only Dakkanaut to hold an honest to goodness real life Inquisitorial Mandate. Invent that button, press it? And I’ll just tell you you’re all wrong.

Well. Not all wrong. Not gonna say you’re wrong in the face. That’s just needlessly rude. And almost certainly incorrect.

So you freely admit you're a Radical Inquisitor who has likely fallen to the dark festering embrace of Nurgle!

 Overread wrote:
Darn it the forum doesn't have a "Call inquisitor" button. ... that's a serious flaw in design!




Also I'd hasten to add that most bacteria can live and thrive WITH higher life forms (you've got billions in your gut right now). In fact in the real world diseases often don't want to kill their actual host; they want to infect and spread, but not actually kill. This is why natural disease within a species will often end up evolving toward lower lethality (also helps you spread if you don't kill your host).

The ones that do kill you tend to be the result of cross-species interaction. Human has quite a few because of pets, livestock and such.

In theory Nurgle shouldn't have to create a mega-disease to spread bacteria and kill people; in theory that's a loss because now where can all those bacteria thrive now that everyone is dead and gone and rotted to nothing.

We do have several of Nurgle's deseases that aren't completely deadly. His Zombie- and poxwalker plagues might kill your "soul", but your body is still running around spreading desease. The Death Guard can spread Nurgle's Rot but will never themselves die from it, despite falling apart. There are rust viruses that even infect Necrons and are spread by them.

in fact one of the poxwalker plagues explicitly does not destroy the victim's soul. They're trapped, conscious in their decaying body forced to watch it devour their friends and family