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 Haighus wrote:
The IoM will happily genocide humans it considers traitors or geretics or too far from what it considers baseline humanity. It isn't trying to wipe out the entire species, but definitely specific groups.

True, but that still isn't the Imperium's end goal. No, it's end goal is to wipe out every other species except for humanity, thereby completing the Emperor's vision of a galaxy dominated by humanity.
As bleak and terrible as it may be, the Imperium is still very much pro-human. It's just that in true 40k fashion, it's a very bloody, disturbing and cynical form of it.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The Imperium has a vested interest in keeping humanity alive because it is humanity.

No, it isn't. Humanity is people, which the Imperium holds zero value in. The Imperium is the Imperium.

It's like saying the Nazi party is the German people. Just because the Nazis are germans, does not mean they represent the wishes of or wellbeing of germans as a whole. They will claim they do, because that is what fascism does, that's the populism of fascism.

The Imperium is exactly the same. It is controlled and run by humans who claim they act on the collective will of humanity as a whole, but that is a lie.

The Imperium has no vested interest in keeping humanity alive. If it could replace every guardsman with a servitor, it would. If it could replace every clerk with a servitor, it would. If it could replace every factory worker with a servitor, it would. The Imperium does not care about humanity as anything but a resource to be spent to preserve the Imperium.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I know it's tempting to speak of the Imperium as some nebulous, faceless force of nature controlling the masses like AM or Sauron, but all it is is a dysfunctional political system run by dysfunctional people.

Exactly, it is just like the Nazis, or Mussolini's fascists. They also claimed to represent the collective will of their people and were rife with dysfunction, and they were wrong. We saw that writ large when Italians executed Mussolini and strung him up from a lamppost.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
The IoM will happily genocide humans it considers traitors or geretics or too far from what it considers baseline humanity. It isn't trying to wipe out the entire species, but definitely specific groups.

True, but that still isn't the Imperium's end goal. No, it's end goal is to wipe out every other species except for humanity, thereby completing the Emperor's vision of a galaxy dominated by humanity.
As bleak and terrible as it may be, the Imperium is still very much pro-human. It's just that in true 40k fashion, it's a very bloody, disturbing and cynical form of it.

And if that happens, the Imperium will eat itself, as fascism cannot exist without an enemy to kill.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


The Imperium is exactly the same. It is controlled and run by humans who claim they act on the collective will of humanity as a whole, but that is a lie.

The Imperium has no vested interest in keeping humanity alive. If it could replace every guardsman with a servitor, it would. If it could replace every clerk with a servitor, it would. If it could replace every factory worker with a servitor, it would. The Imperium does not care about humanity as anything but a resource to be spent to preserve the Imperium.

Then why hasn't it? The high lords could do that. I'm sure the Ad mech would love to "improve" billions upon billions of factory workers. So why haven't they? Right now being a servitor is considered to be a punishment, as it strips away what is it to be human. If they hated humanity that much, then why do they hold it in such value?

It's almost as if the High Lords aren't lying, they actually believe what they are doing is for the good for mankind. No different than any other set of ideologically driven tyrants with delusions of grandeur, really.

even if the imperium ever did manage to eradicate every alien species from the galaxy, that wouldn't stop the violence. that just means it's time to turn inward. humanity is full of abhumans and mutants, so those also need to be dealt with. keep enacting violence until they reach the ideal. forever more death, forever more sacrifice, until that ideal is reached (nevermind the fact that this ideal of "human", much like the nazi ideal of "arayan" is nothing more than a hollow icon, a fascistic ideal that can never truly be accomplished, but instead provides an excuse to continue the violence against whoever is deemed as part of the out group

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


The Imperium is exactly the same. It is controlled and run by humans who claim they act on the collective will of humanity as a whole, but that is a lie.

The Imperium has no vested interest in keeping humanity alive. If it could replace every guardsman with a servitor, it would. If it could replace every clerk with a servitor, it would. If it could replace every factory worker with a servitor, it would. The Imperium does not care about humanity as anything but a resource to be spent to preserve the Imperium.

Then why hasn't it? The high lords could do that. I'm sure the Ad mech would love to "improve" billions upon billions of factory workers. So why haven't they?

It's almost as if the High Lords aren't lying, they actually believe what they are doing is the good for mankind. And that's even worse than a lie, which is the point.

The Imperium doesn't have the resources to, and it would result in loss of efficiency in many areas.

And nothing I said would require that the High Lords be actively lying. Hitler and the other leading Nazis believed that what they were doing would be good for the German people. They were just as wrong as the High Lords.

Fascism is inherently dishonest just as a fact of its ideals being in conflict with reality. It doesn't matter whether the people in charge believe in the lies, they are still lies.

hell, look at the difference between Squats and Votann. once abhuman, now xenos. it's an out of universe change, since "xenos" describes one of the major cornerstones of 40k factions, but it also works in-universe— what once was tolerable must now be cast aside and eradicated as more enemies are sought out (was meant to be added to my last post, oops)

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If they hated humanity that much, then why do they hold it in such value?

Because it is justification for war and genocide. Just like it was in Nazi Germany. Again, the end goal is war and genocide, everything else is justifications for that.

And again, they don't hold humanity in high regard, only their vision of humanity as a cog of endless war. What value does the Imperium place on human qualities such as compassion, or empathy? On curiosity?

Like all fascists, the Imperium chooses aspects of humanity it values, being aggression, xenophobia, hatred, fear. Everything that it cannot use in its pursuit of war is discarded and labelled as weakness or even treason.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
hell, look at the difference between Squats and Votann. once abhuman, now xenos. it's an out of universe change, since "xenos" describes one of the major cornerstones of 40k factions, but it also works in-universe— what once was tolerable must now be cast aside and eradicated as more enemies are sought out (was meant to be added to my last post, oops)

But they are still Abhuman though? They were never made xenos, they are still very much abhumans in the fluff.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
hell, look at the difference between Squats and Votann. once abhuman, now xenos. it's an out of universe change, since "xenos" describes one of the major cornerstones of 40k factions, but it also works in-universe— what once was tolerable must now be cast aside and eradicated as more enemies are sought out (was meant to be added to my last post, oops)

But they are still Abhuman though? They were never made xenos, they are still very much abhumans in the fluff.

is what i was talking about. it's an out of universe thing, but you can make in-universe commentary on it as well

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
hell, look at the difference between Squats and Votann. once abhuman, now xenos. it's an out of universe change, since "xenos" describes one of the major cornerstones of 40k factions, but it also works in-universe— what once was tolerable must now be cast aside and eradicated as more enemies are sought out (was meant to be added to my last post, oops)

But they are still Abhuman though? They were never made xenos, they are still very much abhumans in the fluff.

is what i was talking about. it's an out of universe thing, but you can make in-universe commentary on it as well

Oh, under categorizations. Fair enough, they aren't part of the Imperium, true.
But then again, GW doesn't seem to care that much about anything that's not Imperium or Chaos. They probably just see xenos as synonymous with "other"
Which means that if they somehow bring back Interex, who are also human, they will also count as xenos. Which is pretty funny to me.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Like all fascists, the Imperium chooses aspects of humanity it values, being aggression, xenophobia, hatred, fear. Everything that it cannot use in its pursuit of war is discarded and labelled as weakness or even treason.

That's just human society in a general. Every society picks and chooses aspects of human nature.
Our current one is against aggression and hatred. Does that mean we hate humanity? After all, though unpleasant, they are still aspects of humanity.
Picking aspects of humanity it values is hardly unique to fascists. Literally every civilization on Earth has done that in some form.

If your criteria for loving humanity is that it must embrace all aspects of it, then ironically that would make Slaanesh the most humanist in 40k. After all, Slaanesh values all forms of human emotion, both good and bad, does it not?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Like all fascists, the Imperium chooses aspects of humanity it values, being aggression, xenophobia, hatred, fear. Everything that it cannot use in its pursuit of war is discarded and labelled as weakness or even treason.

That's just human society in a general. Every society picks and chooses aspects of human nature.
Our current one is against aggression and hatred. Does that mean we hate humanity? After all, though unpleasant, they are still aspects of humanity.
Picking aspects of humanity it values is hardly unique to fascists. Literally every civilization on Earth has done that.

The specific aspects that are picked are common amongst all fascists. Because fascism as an ideology requires violence as its goal, so aspects which support that are always lauded.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If your criteria for loving humanity is that it must embrace all aspects of it, then ironically that would make Slaanesh the most humanist in 40k. After all, Slaanesh values all forms of human emotion, both good and bad, does it not?

Slaanesh is hedonism. It is possible to embrace humanity in all its aspects without that. But yes, slaanesh is much closer to actual humanity than the Imperium.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Like all fascists, the Imperium chooses aspects of humanity it values, being aggression, xenophobia, hatred, fear. Everything that it cannot use in its pursuit of war is discarded and labelled as weakness or even treason.

That's just human society in a general. Every society picks and chooses aspects of human nature.
Our current one is against aggression and hatred. Does that mean we hate humanity? After all, though unpleasant, they are still aspects of humanity.
Picking aspects of humanity it values is hardly unique to fascists. Literally every civilization on Earth has done that.

The specific aspects that are picked are common amongst all fascists. Because fascism as an ideology requires violence as its goal, so aspects which support that are always lauded.

Ok, yes, a militaristic society will encourage aspects that encourage militarism, I never denied that. But that still doesn't make it unique among societies in general when it comes to picking and choosing human traits.

The Imperium is militaristic, so it will encourage traits that promote aggression. If it weren't then it would promote other traits. That doesn't mean it hates humanity, it just means that it's yet another militaristic, expansionist empire, brought to its over the top, brutal extreme.
Because remember, it's 40k. Exaggerations are to be expected.

I never said it was unique, just that it doesn't represent humanity.

The Imperium is the the Imperium. Everything it does is for the survival of the Imperium as a political and ideological system.

If you don't believe that, would the imperium accept subjugation to a greater alien power in return for the survival of humanity as a species, or would it fight to the absolute end even if it meant every single human dying?

The Imperium would rather destroy entire worlds and populations of humans than have humans live under the rule of aliens. How is that beneficial to the survival of the human species? It isn't, but it is beneficial to the survival of the Imperium.

The real question is if humanity itself would accept a benevolent xenos hegemon and thus overthrown the IoM or fight to the bitter and absolute end and thus prove the IoM does represent humanity.

 Tyran wrote:
The real question is if humanity itself would accept a benevolent xenos hegemon and thus overthrown the IoM or fight to the bitter and absolute end and thus prove the IoM does represent humanity.

We already know the answer to that, as human worlds have joined the tau empire willingly and without violence.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I never said it was unique, just that it doesn't represent humanity.

The Imperium is the the Imperium. Everything it does is for the survival of the Imperium as a political and ideological system.

If you don't believe that, would the imperium accept subjugation to a greater power in return for the survival of humanity as a species, or would it fight to the absolute end even if it meant every single human dying?

Depends, what are you calling a greater power, and how do you know it's 100% benevolent with no ulterior motives or colonialist overtones?
Because that currently doesn't exist in the setting.

What greater power that does exist in the setting is Chaos, which is known to grant it's followers great power in exchange for sacrifice. So tell me, would the Imperium sacrifice humanity to chaos in exchange for godhood, Beserk style, or would it resist it?


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The real question is if humanity itself would accept a benevolent xenos hegemon and thus overthrown the IoM or fight to the bitter and absolute end and thus prove the IoM does represent humanity.

We already know the answer to that, as human worlds have joined the tau empire willingly and without violence.

There's also worlds that resisted, so no, we don't know the answer to that and it's not that clear cut.

I like how people are decrying the Imperium for being fascist in this thread, but supporting literal Imperial colonialism. Not only colonialism, but colonialism by collectivist aliens who follow a strict caste system and follow an ideology that demands that you sacrifice the self to further the whole. As if that can't be abused.

 Tyran wrote:
The real question is if humanity itself would accept a benevolent xenos hegemon and thus overthrown the IoM or fight to the bitter and absolute end and thus prove the IoM does represent humanity.

"humanity" isn't making choices as a collective whole. either the imperium imposes its will onto humanity and forces those choices, or humanity is unable to make such universal choices. some worlds would happily accept xenos leadership, while some would fight to the last man, and a vast range exists between those extremes. even under the imperium, worlds are divided

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Fun observation: The IOM likely kills more of humanity than any other source. Between executions, sacrifices, Wholesale World ending execution missiles, wasteful and protracted conflicts, and collateral damage, IOM likely kills more IOM than anything else. All combined in a single day, maybe "they" kill more, but IOM is certainly better at killing itself than being killed.

Ah, but those don't actually kill the Imperium as an entity. That kind of mass death is the goal of the Imperium, as fascism is a cult of death, be it in war or genocide. War, wholesale murder and genocide isn't a means to an end for the Imperium, it is the end that the Imperium seeks.

Humanity is the fuel that the Imperium burns to sustain itself.

Genocide of other species? Sure. Genocide of humanity? No, because the Imperium is ultimately run by humans. Not xenos, not machines, not chaos, humans.
The Imperium has a vested interest in keeping humanity alive because it is humanity. It saw to that following the Great Crusade, absorbing or destroying any lost colony the Emperor's forces came across.

Think of it as an ant hive. It doesn't matter how many drones die, as long as the hive as a whole (or rather the queen, which is basically the hive as it's the only source of new ants) survives, because there will be more ants to take its place. The hive doesn't seek to wipe itself out through it's expansionism because that would be counterproductive.
Indeed, there is a parallel between the Imperium and eusocial insect colonies; remember that their cities are called hives.

I know it's tempting to speak of the Imperium as some nebulous, faceless force of nature controlling the masses like AM or Sauron, but all it is is a dysfunctional political system run by dysfunctional people.

But the humans that run the Imperium think nothing of throwing as many bodies as they think are necessary to stop a problem. Throwing millions of lives at an opponent isn't a bug, it's a feature. Between that and Exterminatus, they will gladly genocide entire planets of humans if they think it will slow down Chaos/Tyranids/Whatever.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The real question is if humanity itself would accept a benevolent xenos hegemon and thus overthrown the IoM or fight to the bitter and absolute end and thus prove the IoM does represent humanity.

"humanity" isn't making choices as a collective whole. either the imperium imposes its will onto humanity and forces those choices, or humanity is unable to make such universal choices. some worlds would happily accept xenos leadership, while some would fight to the last man, and a vast range exists between those extremes. even under the imperium, worlds are divided

This. There can be no universal voice that represents humanity because the will of humanity is not homogeneous. If one world chooses to leave the Imperium, it is enough to expose the Imperium as being the will of humanity as a whole as a lie.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I never said it was unique, just that it doesn't represent humanity.

The Imperium is the the Imperium. Everything it does is for the survival of the Imperium as a political and ideological system.

If you don't believe that, would the imperium accept subjugation to a greater power in return for the survival of humanity as a species, or would it fight to the absolute end even if it meant every single human dying?

Depends, what are you calling a greater power, and how do you know it's 100% benevolent with no ulterior motives or colonialist overtones?
Because that currently doesn't exist in the setting.

It's a thought experiment. A new player enters the game as instantly demonstrates their invulnerability to the Imperium's arms and ability to wipe out humanity. What does the Imperium do? Does it kneel, or does it futilely fight?


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
.

What greater power that does exist in the setting is Chaos, which is known to grant it's followers great power in exchange for sacrifice. So tell me, would the Imperium sacrifice humanity to chaos in exchange for godhood, Beserk style, or would it resist it?

The Imperium already did that when the Emperor made the primarchs and space marines. Sacrificing humanity for godhood is literally the foundation upon which the imperium was built.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

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It's a thought experiment. A new player enters the game as instantly demonstrates their invulnerability to the Imperium's arms and ability to wipe out humanity. What does the Imperium do? Does it kneel, or does it futilely fight?

Well, they're humans, so they'd fight. And then surrender when they get beaten hard. I mean, there's cases in human history where a weaker power tried fighting a stronger power instead of immediately surrendering. Humans aren't rational like that.
And with an empire the size of the Imperium with ridiculous numbers of soldiers at their disposal, why wouldn't they fight? They've already been fighting for the last 10,000 years, what's one more war?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

There's also worlds that resisted, so no, we don't know the answer to that and it's not that clear cut.

I like how people are decrying the Imperium for being fascist in this thread, but supporting literal Imperial colonialism. Not only colonialism, but colonialism by collectivist aliens who follow a strict caste system and follow an ideology that demands that you sacrifice the self to further the whole. As if that can't be abused.

One world choosing to willingly join and live under alien rule is enough to expose the Imperium's false claim to being humanity because it shows that humans as a collective can make a choice the Imperium never would.

And nobody here is supporting colonialism. Also, the Imperium has all of those things you just decried in the Tau.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:


"humanity" isn't making choices as a collective whole. either the imperium imposes its will onto humanity and forces those choices, or humanity is unable to make such universal choices. some worlds would happily accept xenos leadership, while some would fight to the last man, and a vast range exists between those extremes. even under the imperium, worlds are divided

The IoM only is capable of imposing it's will only humanity because humans chose to follow and enforce that will on other humans.

That combinations of helpless compliance + enforcement is a collective choice even if it doesn't cover the entirety of humanity.

There is an argument there than the IoM only works because of plot fiat and should have dissolved long ago, although one could also argue 40k humans are more inherently hierarchical than real life humans.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Also, the Imperium has all of those things you just decried in the Tau.

I know they do. I consider the T'au to just be an Imperium in the making. The Imperium has been rotting for thousands of years. The Tau are still fresh.
The two are more similar than you think. It's just one is more willing to engage in diplomacy, because it hasn't had a Dark Age of Technology event yet.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


One world choosing to willingly join and live under alien rule is enough to expose the Imperium's false claim to being humanity because it shows that humans as a collective can make a choice the Imperium never would.

One world in an empire of thousands is hardly a collective, and that's assuming that all humans on that world agreed with the governor's decision to defect.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

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It's a thought experiment. A new player enters the game as instantly demonstrates their invulnerability to the Imperium's arms and ability to wipe out humanity. What does the Imperium do? Does it kneel, or does it futilely fight?

Well, they're humans, so they'd fight. And then surrender when they get beaten hard. I mean, there's cases in human history where a weaker power tried fighting a stronger power instead of immediately surrendering. Humans aren't rational like that.
And with an empire the size of the Imperium with ridiculous numbers of soldiers at their disposal, why wouldn't they fight? They've already been fighting for the last 10,000 years, what's one more war?

The point is that the Imperium would never choose not to fight, regardless of the futility. Even if it knew it could not win and that fighting would result in the complete genocide of humanity, it would still fight because to do anything else would be to expose the entire basis of the Imperium as a lie, and fascists would rather die and condemn all around them to death than admit that. That's why Hitler was sending children to fight Russian armour in the ruins of Berlin.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Also, the Imperium has all of those things you just decried in the Tau.

I know they do. I consider the T'au to just be an Imperium in the making. The Imperium has been rotting for thousands of years. The Tau are still fresh.
The two are more similar than you think. It's just one is more willing to engage in diplomacy, because it hasn't had a Dark Age of Technology event yet.

Neither has the Imperium. The Imperium didn't suffer the dark age of technology. The Imperium has never, ever tried diplomacy as anything but a stalling tactic while it gets it's forces in position for war.

The Imperium is not a continuation of the human empire that existed before.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

One world in an empire of thousands is hardly a collective, and that's assuming that all humans on that world agreed with the governor's decision to defect.

Yes it is, it is the collective of that world, composed of millions of people.

And, again, no it doesn't require unanimous approval of all humans on the world.

The point, once again, is that there is no unanimous will of the people that any government can represent. The Imperium is not humanity, the Tories are not the British, the Nazis were not the Germans, the Republicans are not the Americans etc.

No government, anywhere, can legitimately claim to be the will of their entire people.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


The point is that the Imperium would never choose not to fight, regardless of the futility. Even if it knew it could not win and that fighting would result in the complete genocide of humanity, it would still fight because to do anything else would be to expose the entire basis of the Imperium as a lie, and fascists would rather die and condemn all around them to death than admit that. That's why Hitler was sending children to fight Russian armour in the ruins of Berlin.

So the British were fascists then? They refused to surrender, even when their backs were against the wall by an enemy that held the advantage? Even when asked to surrender multiple times?
I suppose the VietCong were also fascists, communist fascists no less. After all, as even though they kept losing engagement after engagement to the Americans and used child soldiers they refused to surrender to a superior foe.

It's almost as if fighting regardless of futility is something humans do, which isn't unique to fascists. You're assuming a level of perfect rationality that simply doesn't exist.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Neither has the Imperium. The Imperium didn't suffer the dark age of technology. The Imperium has never, ever tried diplomacy as anything but a stalling tactic while it gets it's forces in position for war.

The Imperium is not a continuation of the human empire that existed before.

Oh, but it is a continuation of that empire. It was born from its corpse, and now scrambles to gather its remains. The Imperium would not exist without the old empire's death. And no one suffered the dark age of technology; The Dark Age of Technology was the peak of human civilization. It's called the Dark Age because most traces of it has been lost, not because it was terrible. The suffering came after its collapse.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:


The point, once again, is that there is no unanimous will of the people that any government can represent. The Imperium is not humanity, the Tories are not the British, the Nazis were not the Germans, the Republicans are not the Americans etc.

No government, anywhere, can legitimately claim to be the will of their entire people.

Except they do claim. A government, after all, is supposed to represent their nation and people.
Whether or not they are actually the will of the people, as if they operate as some sort of hive mind, is irrelevant.
In practice, a government does represent the people because, in theory at least, they are of the people.

Could you try actually refuting the points I am making rather than jumping to strawmen? Nothing I said there could be interpreted in good faith as implying that Britain was fascist, nor the Vietcong. They were fighting materially superior enemies but still had the possibility of victory. Which can be seen by the fact they won. This is not true of the Imperium. It, like all fascists governments, has war as it's end goal. Final victory is not actually desirable, or achievable, in fascism as war is the goal, not the means to achieve the goal.

I am also not assuming perfect rationality, in fact I am doing the complete opposite as the Imperium is inherently irrational as you have to be irrational to believe in fascism. The Imperium would not behave rationally if faced with an existential threat it could not defeat because the foundational dogma of the Imperium is irrational belief that humans are the ultimate superior species, and it would doom the entire human species as a result. That's literally the point I have been saying.

The Imperium has as much a claim to the human empire whose ashes it rose out of as the Third Reich had to the Roman Empire. That is, none. Like all fascists, the Imperium used claims of a connection to a past empire to give itself the veneer of legitimacy in its expansionist goals. How many countries on Earth would not exist today if not for the collapse of the British Empire? Being born from the collapse of an empire does not give you a claim to that Empire, else Uganda would have a claim on a quarter of the entire globe.

Notice I said legitimately claim. The Tories can claim to represent the entire will of the British people all they want, it will never be true. Just like the Imperium claims to represent the will of all humanity, and is wrong about that as well as it is impossible as there is no universal will of Humanity.

I'm not making strawmen, I just do not agree that refusal to surrender against all odds is a fascist trait. The VietCong and British didn't know that they were going to win, but they could see a chance at victory.

Hitler had the delusional idea that victory was always a possibility, that eventually the allies will just give up if he keeps throwing more into the grinder. Whilst absurd, to him there was still a chance at victory. Were Hitler not a meth headed fanatic undergoing a mental breakdown, he might have been more willing to negotiate.

Same with Imperial and feudal Japan, same with the Zulu, same with the Soviets, same with most other powers throughout history.
Refusing to surrender against seemingly superior odds, especially when one believes that the alternative is enslavement or extermination, is not unique to fascists. If there is the slightest chance at victory, no matter how outlandish, humans will fight.
Fascism just happens to encourage this aspect, due to it's glorification of war and extreme tribalism.

Yes, I did notice you said legitimately claim. And I'm saying that governments do that already. You can say "but that's not really true" all you want but that's how they function politically and is used as such internationally.
Narratively and politically speaking; the Imperium represents humanity, and in true grimdark fashion, they happen to represent the darker aspects of it. If that bothers you, good, that's the bloody point.

Also, the Third Reich never claimed to be a successor to the Roman Empire. That was Mussolini's goal. They claimed to be a successor to the Holy Roman Empire (or more directly, the German Empire), which is something completely different.

No, the Third Reich did claim to be a successor to the Roman Empire.

Why do you think they used Roman salutes and eagles all over the place? The Nazis believed that the Romans were actually Germanic Aryans.




In fact they believed that the Greek and Mesopotamian civilisations was founded by Germanic Aryans, because if you believe you are the master race, you have to explain why you weren't or were the dominant civilisation of the past.

And again, the point is not the futility of the war but that war is the end goal of fascism. Fascism cannot exist without war. If the Imperium were not at war it would collapse as it would have no external enemies to direct the aggression it fosters in its populace at and so all that aggression, hate, and fear would be directed inwards and would tear itself apart.

There is a reason that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia/Eastasia, and that is because the people require that external enemy in war for fascism to sustain itself. The Imperium is no different.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
No, the Third Reich did claim to be a successor to the Roman Empire.

Why do you think they used Roman salutes and eagles all over the place? The Nazis believed that the Romans were actually Aryans.

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Well one, that salute wasn't Roman, two, they got it from the Italian Fascists who did try to be Roman who thought that salute was something the Romans did, and three Romans don't have a monopoly on eagles.
The Holy Roman Empire also used the Eagle as their emblem, it was used by the German Empire so of course the Nazis are going to use an eagle as it is a "Germanic" emblem.

Where did they claim that they were successors to Rome? Because there is literally nothing I could find that support that.
Think about it logically; if the Nazis believed themselves to be the heirs to the Roman Empire, they'd be the Fourth Reich, not the Third. The First was the HRE, the Second was the German Empire.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
No, the Third Reich did claim to be a successor to the Roman Empire.

Why do you think they used Roman salutes and eagles all over the place? The Nazis believed that the Romans were actually Aryans.

.
Well one, that salute wasn't Roman, two, they got it from the Italian Fascists who did try to be Roman who thought that salute was something the Romans did, and three Romans don't have a monopoly on eagles.
The Holy Roman Empire also used the Eagle as their emblem, it was used by the German Empire so of course the Nazis are going to use an eagle as it is a "Germanic" emblem.

Where did they claim that they were successors to Rome? Because there is literally nothing I could find that support that.
Think about it logically; if the Nazis believed themselves to be the heirs to the Roman Empire, they'd be the Fourth Reich, not the Third. The First was the HRE, the Second was the German Empire.

And the HRE claimed to be a successor of what previous empire in order to use it as a basis for legitimacy? The clue is in the name.

Again, you are operating on the assumption that fascism makes sense. It doesn't. It engages in doublethink, doublespeak, it lies. Fascists believe things that are not true, such as that Germanic Aryans are the supreme race responsible for all the great civilisations of Europe's past, or that humanity is the supreme race destined to rule the galaxy alone. These are not true, never have been true. The Imperium claims to be humanity and that all it does is for humanity, this is also not true. Everything the Imperium does is for the continuation of the Imperium as a system of fascist government, not the survival of humanity which is just a byproduct of that prime goal.

Perpetual warfare is the end goal of the Imperium because it is the only means by which the Imperium as a system can be sustained. You keep talking about how it is run by humans but that doesn't actually matter anymore. Political systems have inertia and momentum of their own.