Yes. Folks like 40k because you never have to worry about your favorite faction being "problematic". Because they all are. They're all just the worst. So pick the war-criminal with the best drip or most interesting lore and just have fun with it.
There are more than a few guys at my local game store who will unironically argue that the Imperium aren't that bad or even good lol. Like they clearly don't know much lore beyond the games and almost all play marines but they do exist...
Which are probably the two least morally bad factions but realistically are two of the biggest threats to life itself. Which is an interesting thought dilemma. Can something less evil be worse than tbe more evil option.
They're an isolationist, generally egalitarian society (internally), who front as hyper-capitalists/mercantilists in their general approach to resource extraction.
But at least they're not colonial, oppressive hyper-capitalists! They usually (usually) give a choice: get out of the way, or get vaporized.
It’s even true on a visual level with Space Marines vs. Chaos Space Marines. There are chapters that wear spiky armor covered in skulls, eat the flesh of their enemies and allies alike, drink blood, assassinate Imperial Governors, and kidnap Imperial citizens for their breeding farms.
They are all Loyalists. The actual Heretic warbands are even worse.
Marines Malevolent are like the unofficial line of how evil a loyalist chapter is allowed to be. They regularly shoot through hostages and leave civilians to die horrible fates even when saving them would be no problem whatsoever.
Even when a Black Templar bitches about having to save civilians, it's specifically because he's upset that Space Marines are putting their lives on the line for civilians that are of no value.
Somehow, Chaos Marines are still far worse. At least the World Eaters will just kill you. The rest will find creative ways to turn you into a living ornament, or make you wish that was the worst thing that happened to you.
Hell, what nurgle does even to the space marines is straight up body horror. Episode 10 of Hammer and Bolter shows some of the horrific transformations that they go through, absolutely gruesome
NGL Alpha Legion really isn't that evil when compared to some specific loyalist chapters. Which should really tell you something, that basically the KGB gone rogue isn't that evil when compated to say the Death Spectres or Carcarodons. Like red tithes are some fucked shit.
Very true. Or the governer who tried to be a political reformist was assassinated and replaced with a Chaos cultist before you even got to the planet. (Yes, that happened)
Fascism doesn’t rely on how how centralized or decentralized a system is.
It’s an ideology, that like all ideologies, adapts to fit the situation and society it’s implemented in.
The imperium practices “small” fascism in the sense that that each world/official/governor is allowed to practice their own preferred/individual view of fascism, as long as it broadly aligns with the official/imperial form of fascism.
But, it’s all fascism from top to down.
(Plus, the systems of racism, eugenics, sterilization, genocide, chattel slavery, hyper-fetishization of the military and authority figures, the obsession of a “pure” race, and the glorification of the state and figures in power, that permeates throughout every layer of imperial society)
Cause Commissars totally weren't just lifted from the Soviet Union who had the exact same job position that served almost exactly the same function. And the Inquisition definitely doesn't function exactly like the NKVD. Here's what people get wrong about the IoM it's supposed to represent all authoritarian ideologies not simply just fascism it takes pieces from all forms mixes it together to make the cruelest regime in human history. It's not just supposed to be one ideology and restricted to 21st century concepts of political structure and ideology. The one you see it most ressembles is the one you think about the most. I see it as a Kafkaesque being oppression via a mindless bueacratic state that adheres to standard procedure in the coldest manner possible.
At least in 40k. 30k is basically a Greek tragedy an about how we got to 40k.
It's really frustrating to see people try and tie it to their one ideological boogeyman and miss the forest for the trees that "all authoritarianism, no matter what form it takes is bad"
Like that's literally the message, authoritarianism is bad no matter who is implementing it.
You would think the fact that they had the IoM start as an atheistic science merit based authortarian state that transformed into a theocratic fuedalistic bueacratic nightmare betraying everything it set out to do would make it fairly clear what the criticism is. It's more about human nature then trying to talk about one specific ideology.
exactly, and that ceding power to ANY authoritarian government is a bad idea because eventually you're gonna end up with humans being used as furniture
I mean the whole reason you want human rights written in your constitution regardless of all other political beliefs and concerns, is shit always goes bad when the government views people as commodities it needs to manage instead of people it needs to serve. That's exactly what Big E's mistake was his ideology reduced everyone to tools. Like communism is a great example it was well intentioned. The problem was when actually implemented Lenin factored in human rights and the government basically saw everyone as tools to be used to produce the various goods society needed to function. Again the intention was to eliminate poverty and starvation. But they were so focused on doing that they reduced people to basically equipment and numbers. So it really shouldn't come as a surprise Joseph Stalin a secretary in this administration was so callous. When you view people as numbers it doesn't feel so bad when one million die during a drought. Nor is it hard to prder one million to just charge at machine guns knowing you can just replace them with another million. Like the Axis and Communist powers all had that problem look at their combat casualties in WW2 compared to the western allies. It's not actually because the fighting was different all fronts used similar enough weapons. Their treatment of people and attitude towards death was fundementally different. Hitler lost one million men at the start durring Barbarossa and just kinda shrugged. The Soviets lost millions durring Barbarossa and also just kinda shrugged. They then kept throwing millions of guys at each other until one finally ran out of men to throw and broke. And then we factor in the mass atrocities both sides committed with cold unsettlinh bueacratic ease. Genocide was procedural for both regimes a single partisan shoots at you just kill everyone in the village problem solved, Germany tries to use ethnic German who live in your territory, deport every single Ethnic German regardless of their actual beliefs to a labor camp Siberia where they'll all die in forced labor for the glorius regime! That's literally what 40k is trying to show case, the utter lunacy of authoritarian logic and how you get there.
Most of their enemies are far worse than them, genuinely:
– A literal demons from a literal cosmic super-Hell
– An ancient alien terminators, who want to exterminate all organic life in the galaxy
– A giant swarm of eldritch alien locusts, who wants to devour everything in the galaxy
– An alien mushroom-orcs, who wants nothing but an eternal war all over the galaxy
– Super depraved and bloodthirsty alien dark elves
The only ones who look somewhat better are Tau and normal eldars, who are not saints either, with the former being vain and xenophobic snobs, whose past depravity gave the birth to one of the Gods of Chaos, and the latter being militaristic caste society, who are just too young to experience everything, that made humanity into Imperium.
And don’t make me remind you that it’s Chaos actions, that made Imperium into what it is now. In other words, Chaos is perfectly fine with and directly responsible in Imperium being a fascistic totalitarian theocracy.
I was mainly making a joke lol, I main orks and I love my goofy boyz. But you are of course correct that they're not super nice, I certainly wouldn't want to meet one
The thing is, every single crime that Xenos or chaos commits. You can find the imperium doing it and doing it systemically but then finding an excuse for why they need to do it. The entire imperium is just one big battery that exists to fuel chaos with their endless warmongering, endless excess for the richest nobles, endless plotting and backstabbing, and such terrible quality of life that lets Nurgle breed need diseases among the downtrodden.
For every unique torture that the deldar think up, the inquisition is furiously taking notes. For every necron tech used to annihilate organic life, the mechanicus is drooling at their non-existent mouths to get to study it. That’s the imperium, they are a bunch of hypocrites.
I never said that Imperium was good at any point. I just consider them being a lesser evil in comparison to their enemies.
The key difference is reasoning. Imperium is committing an evil shit for the sake of survival of humanity and protecting the galaxy from Chaos. The rest are doing an evil shit because they are either just fucking evil or don’t think about anything but it.
That’s why I wouldn’t call Impreium a hypocrites, as they are fighting against Chaos and the rest of their enemies not because of their horrible actions, but because they’re a threats to humanity.
It was never about right or wrong, it was always about the survival. For Imperium it’s simply necessary to be as ruthless as possible, or they simply will not survive all the shit they're fighting against.
And, once again, Chaos knew that Imperium would be a perfect fuel fabric for them. They intentionally led it to its fall into this state, because it was profitable for them.
Nah, the imperium does not need to do half the shit they do for survival. I wouldn’t even say they need to do a quarter of it. The imperium does it to benefit themselves. They are imperial to prop up and satisfy a noble class of 0.0001% of their total population. Every alien planet they attack is done to further bolster their imperial power.
The entire reason they are called the imperium in the first place even is because they are imperial. It goes without saying that the only noteworthy enemies left in the galaxy are the ones that can actually defend themselves from human aggression. The imperium is not some plucky defenders desperate to keep humanity going. They are a fascist theocracy that uses their systemic power to keep a select few in power. Every war they wage is to the benefit of the noble class.
There is no lesser evil in the imperium. They are just as evil as everyone else. They do the same things and then tell themselves it’s a lesser evil. What you are buying is the state mandated propaganda. That humanity can only survive if humans had 16 hour work days seven days a week with no breaks. That sending millions to die against a tau gunline is the only means for humanity to protect itself in the eyes of the emperor.
It’s all bullshit, the only truth is that the galaxy is dangerous. The imperium could easily fight them and be the lesser evil and still not cause the systemic and extreme injustices upon its own people. The imperium chooses to be twisted, warped, and needlessly cruel to satisfy their own ends.
the imperium is wildly unjustified in almost every evil act they do. it is done out of paranoia and systematic repression in the name of the god emperor. as another commenter said, almost everything evil the xenos do, the imperium does as well. we just empathize with them better due to us being human as well
I do not empathise with Imperium being humans. I just logically understand that their reasons for doing this things are more justifiable than thats of their enemies.
And no, evil acts that Imperium does are justified much more times than it’s not. Chaos, in particular, needs surprisingly little to turn a whole planets into a hellholes. Do you think it was a simple coincidence that when Kadia fell the entire galaxy was splitten in half by giant warp-rift?
the imperium absolutley turns planets into hellholes and cadia (with a c) falling was the entire point of the 13th black crusade SO abbadon coul split the eye open. it was a centuries long plan idk why the fall of Cadia is relevent
Even the worst Imperium Hive World is still the paradise compared to the most suitable for life Chaos world.
And the point about Cadia is that all what it needed for Chaos to split the whole galaxy in half is the fall of single planet. That just shows how truly dangerous they are.
The Craftworlders didn’t contribute to the birth of Slaanesh.
Also, it’s the Imperium’s actions that made Chaos what it is now. It was a comparatively small problem for humanity prior to the Great Crusade. Yes, it’s worse than the Imperium. But the Imperium directly enables it.
The funniest ones is when Orks get confused by just how cruel the imperium gets to its own people. Meanwhile Orks believe cannibalism is a valid practice because you wouldn’t have gotten eaten if you were strong.
You can have a pretty good life in the imperium, depending on the world. In some of the Eisenhorn books people are living a good life, going to ski fields, etc.
Meanwhile on a chaos world like Gerron? Yeah have fun.
Against Chaos perhaps? Yet tau, orks, eldar, and the still sentient necrons all enjoy a much better lifestyle than humans as a whole. Chaos can spread because humanity is so cruel to its own population. Every human on a planet like Gerron got there by escaping a far worse planet in the imperium.
Really only the tyranids, Dark eldar, and chaos. (Though it’s debatable for chaos, due to the average imperial subject, seemingly viewing enslavement under chaos as preferable to enslavement under the imperium, and in several cases, they’re arguably right. Which is insanely fucked)
The tau, Orks, craftworld and dinosaur/hunter gatherer eldar, Votann, and Necrons are nowhere near nightmarishly awful and horrific as the Imperium. (Especially since the Imperium is near single handedly responsible for both the current power/strength of Chaos, and the current terrible situation in our corner of the galaxy)
Don’t get me wrong, they’re bad, but nowhere near as bad as the Imperium.
Chaos Marines routinely subject people to horrific torture because it's fun. Necrons literally skin people alive to wear their skins as clothes.
Ok, Exodites, Votann, and to extent Tau get a pass. And Orks, well, they'll just brutally kill you, but that's about it, they aren't really into prolonged torture.
The imperium does all of that, and more. (It’s just done in a more, ordered, clean, and “professional” manner, alongside waved away with better sounding excuses by the higher ups, if there’s an excuse made at all.)
the Necrons who flay people, are both an extreme minority within their “faction”, and are doing so due to suffering from a disease. Which because of that, the rest of the awakened Necrons hunt down and exterminate the flayed ones, whenever possible/they’re not distracted by their society’s political machinations and collective space dementia and schizophrenia.
They don’t destroy them they force them into quarantine and ban them from using the resurrection chambers. We see that in the twice dead king Flayed ones are allowed to exist because they’re occasionally useful.
Necrons literally skin people alive to wear their skins as clothes.
No they don't, the flayed ones have been rendered insane against their will, are infectious, and unaffiliated with the main necrons, that's like counting CSM's crimes as the imperium's
The Necron lords still lead the flayed into battle without concern about the horrors they commits against others. They are only scared they could one day become a flayed one too.
They don’t lead them they throw them at the enemy. Then stay as far away from them as possible while they kill them. Necron lords do not let flayed ones fight alongside regular troops unless they absolutely have too. They are terrified of flayed ones because they think the Flayers curse is contagious. Whether it’s actually contagious varies from book to book.
I would argue that since chaos afflicts people to make them want more chaos you can’t accurately make that judgement that the average citizen would want chaos. It’s like asking a drunk person if they want another beer.
Orks I wouldn’t say are significantly different than tyranids in context of the fates of their enemies. Both will just kill every human in the world in a quick fashion, nids infiltration can make it a horror show for a while but an ork breaking your door down is also pretty terrifying. On rare occasion you can work with an ork but that’s pretty rare and most of the time it’s a temporary alliance that once the big threat is dealt will result in a new fight between you and your former ork buddies.
The orks have worked with the Imperium before, but it devolved into fighting literally the moment they drove off their mutual enemy lol. They also canonically keep humans as slaves in what passes for their society
Chaos doesn’t mind control or force people to “covert” or follow them, at least initially.
It’s more like the devil/satan in Christian mythology. Where chaos just reveals the “truth” of a situation, and offers you something you’ve always wanted, or a seemingly better alternative to your current situation.
It doesn’t force your fall, it just allows your own inner desires and desperation to convince yourself to fall on your own.
The Orks aren’t much better than the Tyranids. An individual Ork can be something more maybe, but as a whole the Ork race is a swarm of warfare that threatens to overrun the galaxy.
The Necron’s ultimate goal is to genocide the entire galaxy of life. The only thing holding them back is the constant infighting between dynasties. They can be reasoned with to an extent but it’s on a case by case basis.
The Necrons wanting to exterminate all life, was their initial “theme”, but had since been dropped and moved on from by GW, in favor of the current incredibly loose collection of dynasty’s that prefer to fuck with each other over millions of years old rivalries and schemes, over fucking with anyone else. (Unless they’re forced to)
While there are dynasties that are effectively the old terminator interpretation from “old lore”, they’re just one out of dozens, hundreds, and potentially thousands of other dynasties. Most of which simply don’t care about the non-necron species of the galaxy, and will ignore them as long as they stay away from their tomb worlds. With even a few dynasties wishing to rule over the mortal races of the galaxy, as immortal god-monarchs, and currently do actually rule over large populations of humans. (With their treatment of said humans, unsurprisingly being better than life under the imperium)
Hold up what source says they treat their human slaves better. Necrons commoners were forced to live in mud huts and they had their troops fight each other for sport.
Oltyx has only ever seen the commoners’ belt from above, as he had that morning. From his chamber it is a great blurred sprawl, spread out from the necropolis like blood from a puncture wound. It is pleasing enough, he supposes, when he happens to regard it. But from the ground it is a drab, messy place. Everything is a shade of brown, and the narrow streets are crowded. The smell of the place is hard to parse. After a life spent among the spotless halls and bath-chambers of the necropolis, in fact, the stench is almost too large to be registered at all. In contrast to the soaring tombs and monuments of the necropolis citadel, the buildings here seem barely able to lift themselves above the dirt. And despite being at the heart of a civilisation which knows how to stop the heart of a star, or siphon away a planet’s iron core without touching its surface, they are still built from mud bricks.
There is not a single source contradicting this in any Necron book I’ve read if you have one please post it. It’s explicitly said that their human slaves are below commoners. Trazyn is the only one who treats his slaves good in the slightest but that’s only the slaves that are useful to him or he personally likes. The rest he just kept locked in stasis. Here’s an excerpt proving my point.
Oltyx was aware; in fact, it was virtually all he knew of the distant northern kingdom. He and Djoseras had talked often of Vitokh’s famous misery, and his conviction that a ruler could enjoy no glory if his subjects were not mortal. Far less discussed, continued the submind, is the remedy they sought. Rather than being cleansed, as is proper, it is whispered that some of the worlds retaken by Vitokh were merely subjugated, with the Unclean allowed to persist under his rule. Clarify, demanded the strategic submind. The aliens are treated as commoners? Nobody would be that mad! scoffed Doctrinal. The Unclean are afforded no such luxuries. They are kept as slaves, it is said, labouring to no purpose beyond the construction of endless monuments to Vitokh’s glory.
Necrons are actually split in three groups, the Destroyers want to genocide all life and they side with the Stormlord, then you have the faction that sides with the original king wanting to find a way to undo their robotic forms and return to life, and finally you have all the disconnected dynasties which are doing their own thing and can vary drastically in culture, some making museums, others making theater plays which span centuries, some trying to research the C’tan, others just dealing with the Flayed virus, usually they do all treat all other races as lesser, so even the “friendly” dynasties would likely subjugate other nations and enslave them.
I’ll grant you that Orks are happier than the average imperium citizen. The thing is most people in Ork society aren’t Orks they’re Grots or slaves. They are also absolutely worse than the imperium towards literally everyone who isn’t an Ork. When the Lamenters attacked an Ork world and didn’t have enough room in their ships to evacuate all the slaves. The remaining slaves begged them to blow the world up rather than leave them to be reenslaved. Know you could argue whether it’s worse to genocide a population or enslave it and work it to death over a few years. In my personal opinion both end the same everyone they conquer dies. Orks just make them suffer for a few years until they die so I’d say Orks are worse.
Kinda insane take, honestly. Like, chaos is debatable? Really?
People are corrupted by chaos, or sucked into cults on false pretences, or just unaware of how fucked chaos is. It's all shiny promises until the eternal torment nexus kicks in. Also, you forget that dark eldar are just the purest expression of chaos. Like, chaos cannot be better than them, yet you understand the dark eldar are worse than humanity in this setting?
Necrons are set on genociding all life from the galaxy, and orks want to murder everything to death making them de facto tyranids, they all are far worse than the imperium, which is "merely" turbo fascism with ruthless persecution of perceived chaos taint.
Votann and tau are not worse, but not exactly better. Votann is ayn randian turbo hell, and the tau is almost exactly just a communist Japanese empire if the imperial family had mind control.
The other eldar? No way are they better than the imperium. You undersell the freaky cult aspects of them, too, like how they banish any who dont follow the path, and use the threat of being withheld from the infinity circuits to enforce that, or how they view all other life as lesser, to the point where many see the genocide of entire species as worthwhile if it would remove a minor potential inconvenience.
I disagree with chaos being debatable. The average imperium citizen probably has about as shitty of a life as the average slave to darkness, but there's more people having a slightly less shitty life in the imperium then there are people having a slightly less shitty life serving chaos. I do admit there is the counterpoint to my opinion of the people with a less shitty life in the imperium were born into that, while the people with a less shitty life in chaos achieve that through their own effort. But the amount of effort it takes to have that less shitty life under chaos makes it so you have to have been born into a situation where it was possible for you to strive for that.
There's also the whole thing with chaos wanting to destroy everything, while the imperium only wants to destroy most things.
Now, I don't think the imperium being more moral than chaos was a good decision. I kinda think it was GW's worst decision for the writing of the setting. Having literal daemons that are objectively evil and are worse than the imperium takes away from the whole "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable" thing. And it makes it so a significant number of things the imperium does can be rationalized as being necessary to resist against chaos.
I mean, it was Chaosits who made Imperium into the shithole it is now. If not Lorgar and Chorus actions, the life of average Imperium citizen wouldn’t be so shitty, to turn to Chaos
Emperor did not create them this way, since all the Primarchs were intended to be the champions of humanity. His treatment was definetely harsh and cold, but it was ultimately a Chaos that corrupted them and turned them against humanity.
The Necrons literally want to cleanse the galaxy of all non Necrons that's just as evil as the Imperium accept unlike the Imperium the Necrons could actually pull it if it wasn't for infighting, the Orcs pretty much already got what they want the enjoy fighting and killing for the sake of fighting and killing that's actually worse then the Imperium like they would destroy the entire galaxy, the Tau won't kill you but will enslave your mind, put into a caste system depriving you of freedom, and do practice eugenics it's better then living on a Hive world but I would actually take an agriworld or the average IoM fringe world which was only recently integrated and wasn't actually converted yet. Hell the 500 worlds of Ultramar are significantly better then living under Tau rule. The Tau are preferable to say life on Armageddon or Mord. But they're centralized meaning every world is run in a totalitarian manner. The IoM is so decentralized you infact do have planets where shit doesn't suck that bad in the same subsector as "It's literally hell....like the governor is covering up the fact the under hive has an actual portal to hell in fear of being exterminatused by the Inquisition." the evil has levels on the IoM instead of a consistent baseline. Agriworld life is boring as shit but that's just it, so long as xenos or chaos doesn't show up that's the worst part, it's boring like never being able to get out of rural small town. Like if your in the IG and you get assigned to gaurd an Agriworld you lucked out.
But then you get the fun stat. Most planets aren't hive worlds. However most people live on hive worlds. Which the more you think about is wild. Cause that implies people are actually still motivated to have children on hive worldw. You would think it'd be the opposite way around. You'd have bigger populations on Agriworlds. But no. People like to fuck on hive worlds, unprotected, this is definitely the source of 90% of the IoMs problems....condom shortage.
I'll give you the Votann and the craft world Eldar they're actually not that bad true nuetral on the alignment chart if we're being honest and if the Eldar won meaning defeated all threats to their existence they wouldn't exterminate place but the tyranids, Orcs, and necrons ny neccesity and the Galaxy probably would be a better place.
The Necrons wanting to exterminate all life, was their initial “theme”, but had since been dropped and moved on from by GW, in favor of the current incredibly loose collection of dynasty’s that prefer to fuck with each other over millions of years old rivalries and schemes, over fucking with anyone else. (Unless they’re forced to)
While there are dynasties that are effectively the old terminator interpretation from “old lore”, they’re just one out of dozens, hundreds, and potentially thousands of other dynasties. Most of which simply don’t care about the non-necron species of the galaxy, and will ignore them as long as they stay away from their tomb worlds. With even a few dynasties wishing to rule over the mortal races of the galaxy, as immortal god-monarchs, and currently do actually rule over large populations of humans. (With their treatment of said humans, unsurprisingly being better than life under the imperium)
And it’s intentionally muddy of the true pure uses mind control on its population, or if it’s just a result of the political indoctrination the empire subjects its population to.
Even then, the only group that’s being “mind controlled” are the various tau subspecies, as it’s heavily implied that if it does exist, is done so through pheromones produced by the ethereals.
Plus, the whole thing of the only source of the tau using mind control, being a very old dissection report on a tau ethereal, performed by members of the inquisition that had little to no non-violent exposure to the tau, their empire, their society, educational system, or religion or really anything. Plus, the inherent xenophobia, superiority complex, and immense paranoia present to all members of the Imperium, which is only magnified by members of the inquisition. (Meaning, it’s likely something the imperium made up, but there’s enough openness surrounding it, that if you wish to believe it, you can do so, just don’t force your interpretation onto others, or act as if it’s objectively “correct”)
Alongside, the brainwashing aspect of the etherials and the tau empire as a whole, was something GW did to make the tau more “edgy” after the initial backlash towards their introduction by elements of the community, something GW has since been walking back, and largely centered the brainwashing and viewing other species as cannon fodder/worthless onto the fourth sphere expansion fleet, and their descendants.
In the wider empire, Humans and other client species are definitely “lesser” than the tau, but are still valued and viewed with trust and respect. They aren’t just sacrificed willy nilly, as among other reasons, it goes against the entire concept/basis of tau strategy and method of waging war. Sacrificing troops(irregardless of the species) is something that’s done, if there’s no other choice.
To go even more “extreme”, in the farsight enclaves, other species and humans in particular, are considered equal to the tau, and are viewed with even more respect and trust than in the empire(alongside the ability for a member born of any caste, to change their caste to any other caste, at any time they wish, as long as they show aptitude for whatever caste they wish to join)
Though tau, humans, and any other species that serve in the fire cast, or dedicate their skills and expertise to the waging of fire, are viewed with the most trust and respect, due to the enclaves being a military junta ruled by a stereotypical, super-honorable samurai-lord, and his advisors of the 40k-themed power rangers.
Finally, no matter the world, the population of that world, the purpose of that world, or who rules that world. It’s still the imperium, and still operates like the imperium.
Meaning, it’s the most inefficient, self-sabotaging, wasteful, corrupt, apathetic, sadistic, hypothetical, violent, cruel, brutal, and generally horrific version that it could possibly be.
(And many imperial worlds, both hives and not, have policies and enforcement to ensure the population is producing as many offspring as possible, especially as for many of them, that’s how they pay their tithe)
The Imperium empowered and continues to empower every single chaos god, more than anything/one else has, currently does, or ever will, in the setting.
(Alongside, have created/will create a chaos god of their own, that being the dark king, who is supposedly the most powerful and horrific one of the group, out of the combined psykic nexus of the emperor’s soul and humanity’s collective faith in/worship of him)
The part of your comment regarding the eldar, is so shockingly ignorant, I don’t know how to even begin to explain describe the myriad of ways it’s wrong.
There was no dark eldar before slaanesh. Yes they continue the culture that created it was all eldar that was part of it. The craftworlds stopped and changed into their current version out of fear and not wanting to their souls eaten by slaanesh when they die.
The dark eldar are the descendants of the ancient eldari, whose unrestrained hedonism destroyed their civilization and birthed slaanesh.
The exodites are the descendants who saw the writing on the wall, and decided to fuck off to planets/colonies on the furthest edges of the eldari empire
The craftworld eldar are the descendants of the ancient eldari who preached moderation to their kin, and attempt to not only prevent, but reverse the destruction of their civilization they could see. However, seeing the vast majority of their kin refused to listen to reason, what would become the craftworlders and whomever they could convince, and boarded ancient eldari trade/cruise/diplomatic/exploration ships, and flung themselves through the webway and realspace as far away from their empire as possible.
Saying the craftworlders/exodites are responsible for the birth of slaanesh, is the equivalent of saying all Germans, dead and alive, are personally responsible for the rise and actions of the Nazi party/Adolf Hitler.
It’s “dehumanization” to the point of ignoring/stupidity.
I loved how the made the Tau very good and compelling, people liked them and they started with shit...but wait, what if they were brainwashed?...wait what are their ulterior motives?...Just because the empire fans complained they were not grimdark enough
I thought they were plenty grimdark from the root premise of being an idealistic up and commer who finds themselves in the absolute worse possible neighborhood to be xenophile federation builders.
I feel like some folks in the fandom dislike the T'au and some of those people are writers who had to give them kick the dog moments. They are fine enough as paragons because the universe they live in is the worst neighborhood to do that in. There is darkness in that.
Yeah but it's overly idealistic to expect them to stay that way when exposed to horrors of reality. Like after a few raiding parties from chaos and the IoM they're gonna have some societal PTSD and corresponding responses.
Depends on who you talking about. Eldar, Tau and Votann are certainly not worse than the Imperium.
They are kinda better than worshipping literal daemons, green tides of hooligans, bug infestations, deranged Terminators and the most vile Eldar who ever lived... but not by much.
I mean, it's more feudal than fascist, but even then, "fascist theocracy" doesn't begin to go to the depths of evil that the Imperium operates on. The beginning of every 40k book describes the Imperium as "the bloodiest regime imaginable.'
their enemies are even worse.
Even that's Imperial propaganda. The T'au, Leagues, and non-Dark Eldar are just straight up morally better than the Imperium, but they're not homo sapiens, so they get less fans.
Thanks bro, I'll choose the authoritarian human regime that might turn me into a lobotomized servitor if I commit a serious enough crime over hellspawn who will rip all of my skin off and graft me onto a daemon engine to live in agony for all of eternity.
Eldar birthed the devil with their debauchery, Necrons are literally soulless machines who only provided limited sentience to it's upper class. Tau are arguably 'the good guys' but I've heard that they use a lot of very malicious forms of control like chemical castration and pheromone mind control. Also, they're profoundly ignorant of the dangers that the universe holds as they care very little for the warp, meaning they're susceptible to manipulations from corrupted vassals
The Craftworld Eldar didn't do that. They were on generation ships that would only occasional come back to the Eldar worlds and thought the others were going nuts towards the end. The Dark Eldar are just obviously worse.
The Tau are very authoritarian and tend to abuse their subject species. They're also as you say pretty prone to ignorance. Some of their newer stuff frames it as being like a younger and more vigorous Imperium which is at a big turning point for if it fails and goes the same route as humanity.
Yeah, millenias ago, while the craftworlders and exodites are nothing like it anymore
Necrons are literally soulless machines who only provided limited sentience to it's upper class
Being soulless is just an indication of their warp presence, not their morality, while lesser necron bodies not being able to run their consciousness is because the cthan scammed them; Trazyn was really sweet to his human librarians and their families
Tau are arguably 'the good guys' but I've heard that they use a lot of very malicious forms of control like chemical castration and pheromone mind control.
The latter of which comes frim phil kelley (a very hated writer for tau novels) and is now dubiously cannon, and the former of which comes from the wh dawn of war games, which were never cannon
Also, they're profoundly ignorant of the dangers that the universe holds as they care very little for the warp, meaning they're susceptible to manipulations from corrupted vassals
Which is not a moral failing, and is a non issue thanks to their diminished warp presence (in spite of which their belief in the greater good which still somehow strong enough to manifest an avatar of it similar in strength to a greater daemon to save them when they first tried warp travel while lacking gellar fields)
It was WAAAAAAY more than sex, it was literally a culture of pressing the boundaries of their own sensation, they were dark eldar before the dark eldar had to eat pain to survive. Just because the splinter groups feel real bad about it doesn't undo the tremendous evil they unleashed on the universe
Eh, it depends. You can argue about it, but generally everyone agrees Chaos and the Drukarhi are basically 100% eviler than the Imperium. Orcs & Tyranids are arguable in regards to better or worse since they're kinda hostile just by default due to their nature as a species, so it depends on your thought process, but aside from those yeah Imperium is only the protagonists because those enemies are worse, the rest of the factions are generally less evil than the Imperium.
And also the setting, kinda by nature, has the Imperium at the center of it, since the whole point of the Imperium is being the dominant but actively decaying / falling apart empire of the galaxy.
The Imperium has moreso devolved into a hyper-religious feudal state following a small council of oligarchs and military leaders. Under the Emperor before the Heresy, it was an absolute Monarchy overseeing a feudalistic galaxy.
Imperial planets on the other hand can be fascist, but not all of them.
97
u/Sunny_Hill_1 8h ago
Isn't that literally Warhammer? Imperium of Man is basically a fascist theocracy, and their enemies are even worse.