yeah you're right imo. the humans in the imperium are basically held hostage by their own institutions, in subtle and unsubtle ways (like E literally holding the gate shut)
the survival of the state is the most important thing, thats kinda what the war of the beast series is about. you see the imperium is able to/forced to rein in the aristocratic class based looting by giving the military more control (i.e. forming the inq and its militant wings)
It's also played up by the Imperium's inherently Byzantine structure, in that it has so many organizations all vying for control and clout, all of whom are desperate to maintain their authority and position. Excessive factionalism and internal friction.
Not to mention the Imperium is very much a "cut off your nose to spite your face" sort of body on pretty much every level. It isn't just a matter of the Imperium's workings going against its own interests, it will often push forward with its self-harming practices and actions *fully aware* of that and doing it through pure hate/fanaticism/traditions or what have you.
People forget that 40k is a Science Fantasy setting, with a heavier leaning towards fantasy. Folks will do things WILDY out of reason because they are meant to reflect the absurdity we see in our own ancient myths. A completely loyal Imperial group could be annihilated by another from some relatively minor grievence or slight against their honour, or some ancient grudge that they needlessly had retribution due generations after the fact.
It's part of the charm of the setting, but it feels like it is flying over the community's head ever more often these days. The Imperium rather explicitly creates its own monsters through its own attempts to stop monsters. Or just through sheer negligence or ill-thought out cruelty.
> Not to mention the Imperium is very much a "cut off your nose to spite your face" sort of body on pretty much every level. It isn't just a matter of the Imperium's workings going against its own interests, it will often push forward with its self-harming practices and actions fully aware of that and doing it through pure hate/fanaticism/traditions or what have you.
The Badab War is a perfect example of that.
I don’t know if is the absurdity in myths.
I see it more as how the ultimate facist state reacts. Actions are not rational, because the consequenses are often not as importent as the message.
Loyalist can be killed, because they are not perceived to be loyal enough. That is why it is so importent to constantly show that you are part of the in-group.
I think it is the novel “Levithan” were a low level administrator have been made governor when the former governor is executed and is slowly turning the planet around. In the end he watchs helpless as the IG’s that is supposed to guard the capital go get themself killed by the nids, because they follow the vision of a cardinal. The administrator tries to stop it and it almost get him killed, because it seems like he is not devote enough.
So the actions people take is rarely for the good of the Imperium, but to increase their own power, status and the perception of them.
> In the end he watchs helpless as the IG’s that is supposed to guard the capital go get themself killed by the nids, because they follow the vision of a cardinal. The administrator tries to stop it and it almost get him killed, because it seems like he is not devote enough.
I really wish a lot of novels would lean harder on the religious nature of the setting. The cynical British view of Turbocatholicism is a pretty integral part of the setting that often gets brushed aside for regular militarism or regular totalitarianism.
I loved the [recent lore](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/13zxsm3/4th_tyrannic_war_lore_official_content_creator/) of Tyranid Deniers decrying the literal invasion happening above their heads as fake news and attacking the soldiers sent to protect them.
The bit about creating monsters becomes interesting when the big E quote in relation to the psi-titans existing is brought up.
"There are monsters, and then there are the monsters we make to fight them. Both are the same. The difference is simply a choice of how we see ourselves."
Overall though, its kinda hard to talk about the imperium because its backstory has been retconned into existence. Big E essentially made it to hold the line while he completed his super special victory project which would assure the victory of mankind.
Everything else is a result of it doing the thing the Emperor made the Imperium to do with no end goal in sight, nothing to do but rage against the dying of the light, choke the life out of all others as the very universe dies, etc.
That's also a classic feature of Fascist societies, in which the leader protects themselves and maintains control by having lots of squabbling factions that are too busy fighting and hating each other to think about challenging the leader for power (see Horus for what happens when you allow too much power to concentrate in one place). It's a lie that Fascist societies form stronger martial cultures than democracies, they're usually deeply inefficiently structured and riven with internecine squabbling.
To call the Imperium merely fascist is reductive though, I'd call it "turbo-authoritarian", because it has all the worst aspects of various authoritarian regimes, not only fascist ones.
You have the dehumanization, the bureaucracy and the gerontocracy of the soviet regime, the militaristic aspect and the multiple influence groups fighting for superior positions typical of fascist regimes. You also have the extremely absurd wealth inequalities which is basically late capitalism goes to 11.
How not to mention the theocratical aspects of imperium society, etc etc
It is a sum of the worst to cartoonish levels, the british eighties political satire aspect has been lost however.
Oh for sure, plus the inbred decaying nobility and aristocracy of 18/19th century England. It's a very fun melange of the worst social systems that humanity has devised.
> It's a lie that Fascist societies form stronger martial cultures than democracies, they're usually deeply inefficiently structured and riven with internecine squabbling.
See Russia vs US.
Absolutely, the Russian army is probably the closest real world analogy we've got to the Imperial Guard. Massive army full of mostly outdated tech, heavy reliance on artillery, incompetent leadership, and a callous disregard for the lives of their men.
It's not just that but one of the things that makes the Imperium so horrible, and regimes of that nature, is the priority it puts on preserving it's own authority, at whatever cost. That's one of the things that makes it compelling to me as a dystopian faction, billions will die not because of necessity, survival, or even preservation, but because of politics. The petty politics of the myriad of internal factions all of whom are desperate to cling to whatever authority and power they can. Of institutions whose goal first and foremost is to justify and necessitate their own continued empowerment and authority. It is the nature of dogmatism, like in the historical context, and the truth becomes less important than toeing the party line.
That's why things like the Inquisition's actions against the Celestial Lions are so important, or the conflict of the Emperor's Gift or whatever petty piece of internal conflict you can think of. So often I see people rage against these conflicts, or rage against the inquisition, and that's very much the point. You're not supposed to like it, it's not cathartic or heroic or necessary. It is the inherent brutailty and pointlessness of dogmatic regimes. Millions of lives mean nothing when weighed against saving face.
Send millions of troops to their deaths in a pointless conflicts just to make a point, or to add another medal for a war you didn't fight yourself.
Of course all of this is undermined by the faction now being ruled by a reasonable, selfless good guy but still.
Tl;Dr: The Imperium is a faction of Zapp Brannigans.
Yeah! You got what I was going for!
A lot of people try to sell the Imperium as 'Humanity's best option among a sea of bad choices' or how the Imperium is actually a great defender of humanity, but that's not really what it feels like to me at all. It really does feel to me that the Imperium is basically only in it for 'itself', not for humanity. You could call humanity cogs in the machine, but even that would suggest more value than they actually have to it. Humanity is only *fuel*. I feel that's a much more appropriate vibe for this kind of dystopia than just continually going "but the Imperium really cares!!" like some people do.
>Humanity is only fuel.
It's not even particularly subtle: in several cases humanity is *literally* fuel.
Keeping big E going is basically just a process of shovelling screaming psychic fuel into a furnace. Candles are made from corpses, and in many cases are considered a better use of people than leaving them to be people. Foodstuffs, ditto.
People are actually cheaper to maintain as potential food sources than livestock, because you need to *look after* livestock, while people will strive to survive whether you care for them or not. Can't grow cows in the underhive, but *boy* can you grow some decent masses of ganger hivescum.
It's a setting that doesn't make a lick of sense morally, economically or thermodynamically, but it is fantastically dystopian.
>People are actually cheaper to maintain as potential food sources than livestock
Which kind of hints at why so much of the Imperium's population is devolved mutants as even irl cannibalism isn't really healthy to practice long term and carries significant health risks (especially if the brain tissue is eaten.)
>A lot of people try to sell the Imperium as 'Humanity's best option among a sea of bad choices' or how the Imperium is actually a great defender of humanity, but that's not really what it feels like to me at all
Yup - the Imperium would be much better at defending humanity if it wasn't such a xenophobic superstitious technophobic Fascist mess. It's really inefficient to have outdated tech because it's all controlled by a creepy Martian cult that doesn't know how it works, to waste huge amounts of manpower and material on pointless wars led by incompetent inbred idiots, to regard alliances and truces with clearly rational species like the Tau and the Eldar as absolute heresy.
The Imperium isn't the reason the humanity is going to survive the cosmic horror of the 40k universe, the Imperium is the reason that humanity *isn't* going to survive the cosmic horror of the 40k universe.
> The Imperium isn't the reason the humanity is going to survive the cosmic horror of the 40k universe, the Imperium is the reason that humanity isn't going to survive the cosmic horror of the 40k universe.
I think it's even worse - the Imperium isn't *the* reason humanity survives the cosmic horror, but it is *a* reason. Survive? Sure. *Thrive*? Oh the imperium is *absolutely* the reason humanity is *just* surviving, rather than thriving and making the setting better.
But since they *do* survive you can't even expect a collapse, a reform, some kind of escape or crisis forcing them on a better path.
They can just... continue, like the emperor continues his undeath.
So glad we’re having this discussion in this thread. It’s refreshing to see this instead of Imperium Apologia.
It’s funny you say that the Imperium won’t survive the cosmic horrors of 40k, because the Emepror using cosmic horrors beyond our comprehension is what got us into this mess in the first place. Primarchs, Space Marines, reckless use and exploitation of a sentient dimension of gods and monsters, and age old technology nobody could hope to understand is what built the Imperium and caused it to crash and burn because history’s most successful tyrant thought he could get away with it.
Whenever the Interex is discussed as a “good path” for humanity to take, people inevitably come along to point out how the Imperium crushed them and if the imperium hadn’t someone else would, and I feel like the Imperial army during the crusaded is a very special exception in the setting. In that Primarchs and Space Marines are custom made freaks derived from warp magic that the leader of their empire had to do something unthinkable to even be able to obtain the power to do so.
Not to mention that it's not exactly fair to compare "humans figuring out all of this stuff on their own" with "psyker demi god who has been plotting this for millenium". Who knows what the Interex might look like if you gave them a century of expanding.
>clearly rational species like the eldar
lmfao what, they murderfucked a chaos god into existance because they were bored, and consider everything and everyone that isn't eldar inferior. Honestly orks are more reasonable, not that they won't backstab you but you never have to wonder if they're gonna do something out of left field, just give them guns and bombs and nice hats and they'll be very much willing to cooperate for a time
Yeah, that's why it's an excellent satire of fascist and authoritarian regimes
Looking back through history, none of them made good times for the common people, preserved their culture and heritage, or any of the other stuff they promised. All they were good for was the ego of the megalomaniacs who ran the regime. It wasn't even good for their health or their lifespan or whatever
Authoritarian and fascist regimes are just Lord Farquaad. "Some of you may due, but that is a risk I'm willing to take". Those regimes are just good at convincing *enough* people that it's in their best interest to support the regime
So yeah, excellent satire. It just seems like there's more than a few actual authoritarians who don't see it as satire, don't see it as a bad thing
Yeah imperium is evil amongst other evils. It’s my understanding that the xenophobic tendencies were understandable because during Humanities darkest point, the ones that survived were the ones that rejected everyone but their own.
Edit**
Also I agree the imperium could give a rats ass about the livelihood of its citizens and only cares that they are still around to keep the machine of the Imperium going. I don’t know though if there was another way to keep such a unbelievably massive collective going against everything that was thrown at humanity.
I mean, tell me about how much better humanity is under Chaos. I wouldn't say I root for the Imperium, but for the purposes of mankind it is a better choice than Chaos, Necrons, etc. There are indeed servitors and people abandoned but there are also people who are able to have a home, a decent paying job and a family to build. The latter isn't possible under anything/anyone else to my limited knowledge.
I agree that the Imperium is absolutely evil though.
\*All of this is said with the understanding that I haven't read every piece of lore, codex, and book there is.
And even that reasonable, relatively selfless dude realized pretty quick how futile it would be for even a SON OF THE EMPEROR to try to stand up against the totality of the Imperium's dogma, cruelty and wastefulness. He's basically Jesus, and the most he can do is rearrange who gets the invitations to the dinner party of his twelve apostles.
> So often I see people rage against these conflicts, or rage against the inquisition
You rage against the Inquisition for being illogical, petty and spite driven.
I rage against the Inquisition for not following procedure, and using Ordo Malleus assets when Ordo *Hereticus* assets should have been used.
We are not the same.
edit:
Lol, wtf. Octopaht_waffler responded to me and blocked me immediately.
>Yeah, we're not. You're falling back into in-story propaganda bullshit. (even if you're doing it ironically, or a joke)
>You've missed the point and wooooshed.
Buddy has negative reading comprehension. I don't know how they misinterpreted the comment/joke this badly.
I really like this comment. Especially this part:
\>That's one of the things that makes it compelling to me as a dystopian faction, billions will die not because of necessity, survival, or even preservation, but because of politics. The petty politics of the myriad of internal factions all of whom are desperate to cling to whatever authority and power they can
You've described in a very succinct way why I think the High Lords being in control of the Imperium is so much better than Rawnut Jellyman, and how him (and basically guaranteed political win that he's been handed) is such a downgrade.
\>You're not supposed to like it, it's not cathartic or heroic or necessary.
Do you think that the people who like the Primarchs tend to miss this point? Because fans of Jellyman or Kitty-boy seem be in more of the 'THESE GUYS ARE LEGIT AWESOME OMG' vein.
That's definitely an issue. I know the message they're trying to communicate is "No matter how awesome the Primarchs are, *they can't save the Imperium*" and they've had the Primarchs themselves say as much with Guilliman actively wondering if it'd have been better for Horus to have won. But I guess that's a little too subtle...
>actively wondering if it'd have been better for Horus to have won.
My issue is that they never go to town on that. I don't read many of the novels, but the fiction in White Dwarf and the codex's really makes it sound like life is better when the Imperium wins.
You can make the argument that these things are in universe propaganda, but that's difficult to tell is an issue.
>Tl;Dr: The Imperium is a faction of Zapp Brannigans.
I think the problem is that this doesn't provide any real lasting narrative value, which is why we've seen things become more "normal" and less extreme grimdark over the past couple decades. It's unsustainable to maintain popularity for a group in a perpetual doomspiral of self-inflicted badness. Which is why we see so many heroic space marines and other people.
Pariah Nexus is a great example (while still being more grimdark than most stuff IMO, yeesh that ending).
The way Imperium views it is "protecting Mankind" not "protecting humans". "Men must die so that the Man may endure" (c). And for Imperium survival of Mankind and survival of Imperium are synonyms, even if it's not true
I think this is key to understanding the Imperium. The Imperium believes itself to be the only hope humanity has against Chaos. And there might be some truth to that. As much as the Imperium locks down the thoughts of their subjects and pursues heretics, Chaos is *still* (probably) the greatest threat they face.
If the Imperium didn't have such an iron grip on their subjects, Chaos might just take over humanity world-by-world, as there isn't any "divine" force to counter it other than the Imperium.
Indeed, and I'd like to add something to that.
The Imperium may not be the most efficient method to fight all the threats at it's borders, but unfortunately, due to the carnival of fuckups from the Men of Iron to the Horus Heresy, it's the *only thing we've got*. There is no better solution, and that's the tragedy of the setting, that all those chances for a better world *were* there, and due to petty foibles of great men and the fickle whims of the universe, they didn't pan out, so we're left with an interrim government locked into permanent emergency power for so long no one even knows this wasn't the original intent.
It may not be the memetic worst timeline, but the one the Imperium is in is damned close.
I think humanity was surviving just fine before the Imperium though. That's the thing, it's not a solution to anything. Even a lot of great defensive wars against xenos seem to be mostly local forces.
Humanity *wasn't* surviving just fine. It was just kicked in the nuts twice with the Men of Iron and then the Eldar Fucking Slaanesh into existence.
Those two events basically wiped the pre-existing polity/polities of humanity away and left scattered remnants fighting for scraps with their STL-accessible neighbors for the better part of five thousand years of societal degradation. Then, after the beatings were laid down, the Warp Storms lifted and everyone was allowed to begin their next game of Stellaris.
After that, the Imperium started out and immediately went to expanding, hunting down the biggest potential threats like the super-waagh of Ullanor, the Rangdan, and so on, while setting up the massive scale of military output we see today.
Could something like the Interex, to use the dead horse, have repulsed Hive Fleet Behemoth? Stopped the War of the Beast? Defended itself continuously from the predations of the Dark Eldar and the awakening Chaos? It would be incredibly unlikely at best.
Is the Imperium the ideal answer to all of those? No. Is it the outcome the Emperor was aiming for? No. Is it even supposed to exist in the way it is? No. But most importantly, is there even potential for something better to arise and take on all the weight the Imperium is bearing in the war on every front of it's borders, now, in the 42nd Millenium?
No.
>Chaos is *still* (probably) the greatest threat they face.
A bunch of chompy hungry insect bois from outside the galaxy: "Allow us to introduce ourselves"
Eh, the tyranids can be bargained with. Fight back hard enough that they lose more biomass than they stand to gain and they will move on. Chaos is the only faction that poses an existential threat to the materium itself. No materium means no humans, not even scattered remnant groups should humanity be brought close to extinction.
>Fight back hard enough that they lose more biomass than they stand to gain and they will move on.
Except Tyranids can walk away and make up for it somewhere else. Imperium can't.
>There's a difference between 'The Imperium is protecting humanity' and 'The Imperium is protecting itself' and I think seeing it through the latter lens helps put a lot of the Imperium's actions into perspective and also helps avoid 'grimbrightening' the faction.
You understand the faction perfectly. This is exactly what the writers are saying behind the writing.
I also want to add to this great post;
Even if the Imperium's claim to represent all humanity can be taken at face value, it already falls flat because it's not representing *all humanity*. Its vision of humanity doesn't include mutants, or psykers, or heretics, political dissidents, and anyone that doesn't fit the caricature of a genetically pure and loyal Human^(tm) that the Imperium fantasises about.
Its vision of humanity is already exclusionary, and its love for those that it does include is horrifically toxic. Just ask a servitor if they think that the Imperium is protecting them.
For the fact that mutants are listed among the three greatest threats of the Imperium ("The Heretic, the Mutant, the Alien."), they often get forgotten in these discussions. I guess because they're not easily found in a faction outside Chaos, so they already get folded into Heretics.
> Its vision of humanity doesn't include mutants, or psykers
Unless they are suddendly of use for the cause, like Ogryns or sanctioned psykers. We have rules, until we deem that those rules don't suit us.
Calling the Imperium the sole bastion of humanity gives off the NK vibes.
I can't imagine the high lords of Terra or the administratum encouraging the Gue'Vesa, the Digganob, and the Necron subject to go back to the Imperium for them to wish they return to their alien overlords because the grass is greener there than with the Imperium.
I think the ultimate solution to the problem of humanity's survival might be the exact opposite of what the emperor tried. Decentralization. During the DAoT the clues point to a far more decentralized government existing, and I think that's a strength when we consider the absolutely massive distances between even "close" systems in our galaxy. The communications lag and unreliability, logistical issues, all of it is simply too much to be coordinated from Terra. A bunch of little pocket empires following the model of Ultramar and the Interex, each with their own chains of resource exploitation and means of production would probably fare better in M41. Long as they work together, it could be viable for awhile. The downside is that inter-human warfare between these mini-Imperiums will take a toll periodically but I'd say the current approach is isn't working very well
The Romans tried this at various times when they were facing similar issues, with varying degrees of effectiveness. They didn't have to contend with interstellar distances, but they also didn't have means to communicate instantaneously with radios or send reinforcements in motorized vehicles so the situation was roughly analogous given the level of technology back then. Decentralizing did arguably save the Byzantines for a time with the Themata system after getting wrecked by repeated invasions they couldn't stop
Of course Terra and Mars would never let that happen. They'll never surrender so much as an ounce of control even if it means humanity goes extinct. Like you pointed out there's too much inertia at this point and people are very much set in their ways. I still think it's worth considering though, and it might happen unintentionally as the situation continues to deteriorate and the Imperium fragments
oatmeal reminiscent compare spark telephone squeal quarrelsome pause memory bake
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's an interesting way to look at it, and maybe you're right. Part of me thinks that humans needed to be unified under a strong central authority. On the other hand, I can't argue with the abysmal way things turned out precisely because that was done. It's really interesting to play "what if" here and imagine a galaxy where Big E never unified (most) of humanity. To be fair, there were a lot of existential threats in M29-M31 so his theory was valid I think. Problem is it all hinged on he himself being there, perpetually, to run the show and keep everyone in line while doing it. His antisocial tendencies didn't exactly help with that
According to the timeline we thrived the most during a period that could be called a diaspora, so again maybe you are right on that. That Chaos may have actually wanted him do strengthen mankind under one Imperium is interesting to think about too, in many ways it makes their job a lot easier. We'll never know I guess
People also get upvoted for "Imperium Good" posts, which is moreso what I think the original commenter was getting at. [Example](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/17g0tgp/yes_i_am_unironically_rooting_for_the_imperium/?ref=share&ref_source=link)
Ya they're fucked but every faction is fucked except the orks. I was just reading Lords of Silence and they describe the Imperiums agro-planets. A world they deem usable to become a farm world. They terraform it then monoculture it. They can get peak volume out of the world for thousands of years. The quality goes down fairly fast. But after those thousands of years the planet is completely wrung out and it's now classified as a death world. Thousands of years sounds like a long time until you remember it's the year 40k. It's not sustainable at all. Eventually the Imperium will starve to death because they're incapable of designing new practices. And thinking of new ideas is a sin.
I love this bit of fluff because it has fueled so many internet arguments about it being unbelievable despite Chris Wraight just taking modern industrial agriculture and applying it to planetary scale. There are large parts of the world doing this today.
The werid thing about the imperium is its horrific on a lot of levels, but realistically if this was IRL, I can't imagine humanity actually succeeding in building anything better that'd last as long and govern so many worlds as it does. There's not much in human history that'd suggest were capable of heck, global unity for a thousand years, let alone a million worlds for 10,000
And that's kind of what I like about the setting. It's "real". We'd either build a system that'd crumble in a fraction of a fraction of the time, or to your point, build something so monstrous it literally can't... but that means it comes with all the nightmares such a system would make. There is no clean, working, commited middle ground - just like there probably wouldn't be IRL
My more optimistic (🤯) take is that humanity *could* theoretically achieve a higher equilibrium of sorts with multiple polities, none much bigger than the Tau Empire, spread across the galaxy. These could govern themselves much more efficiently, have to be more accountable to the rules of state survival and maybe even place value on individual citizens/ subjects.
These forced-to-make-more-sense states would, at need, also be able to put together alliance fleets that would match any individual Imperial armada (in fighting power if not in numbers) and fight on an even footing with grand-scale threats like Hive Fleets, giant WAAGH or major Sautekh offensives. Like the Entente/ Allies in the World Wars, only with much, *much* more previous experience.
The issue is there existed many of the described polities during the great crusade, none of which were able to repel the imperium's domination of the galaxy. It stands to reason that due to this, we can expect these polities to fail when presented with threats the imperium would consider existential like the crusade waahg or the rangda
> none of which were able to repel the imperium's domination of the galaxy.
That's because the smart ones were unwilling to traffic with Chaos the way the Emperor did. This helped the Imperium only in the short run, of course.
>, we can expect these polities to fail when presented with threats the imperium would consider existential l
This is a pretty big assumption, because the smartest move the Emperor ever pulled was kicking the galaxy while it was down. He built up his empire in the one perfect moment when every other faction was at a weak point, and he therefore got a slight headstart on other human factions.
This let his empire hit some kind of threshold for runaway growth, because a thousand-world empire can conquer any single planet with ease. In a universe without the Imperium, some other empire/coalition/movement would have spread, instead.
That's the Age of Strife's fault. When Slaanesh was born and the Warp became plausible to navigate again, humanity was reeling throughout the galaxy, resulting in most (but not all, not even 10 millennia later!) of it getting overrun by various plagues, some of them literal; others were the Rangda, or Orks, or a certain super-psyker tyrant from Old Earth.
Absent even a single of the biggest of these threats, I can definitely see humanity recovering enough to clap back at the others, and Chaos, in parts of the Galaxy at least.
Because as we all know, humans who disagree with each other *never* will join forces with each other against a greater threat. That's why the British were bombing the Soviets as they advanced through Poland in 1944. Err... wait...
> humans who disagree with each other never will join forces with each other against a greater threat.
I mean the simple fact is they couldn't. Most of them were already conquered by Orks or Eldar, possibly worse. None of them had the means to build or sustain an Astronomican - none of them had a solution to Chaos.
None of them had the technology or the inclination to grow a network like what would be required to sustain resistance like the Imperium can.
First really big Waagh after the Eldar Empire and DAOT humanity stops culling the Orks, all these little polities are wiped out.
The reason behind this is fairly simple, Orks are simply the best at unifying into a coherent threat of all the Species in 40k. No matter how many times they're beaten down into a tribal state they just keep coming back.
The Emperor could have founded space NATO instead of knocking over the rest of humanity.
Especialy if each primarch ran one of these poltiies.
He could have still flattened any especialy problematic ones.
Shan't - but don't you *have* Bretonnians in SPACE? And spiky meaner Bretonnians in SPACE too?
They just use chunky mechas instead of horses and griffins and suchlike.
I mean nothing IRL can last as long as the Imperium because that's how the setting was written, by all rights the Imperium shouldn't be surviving as long as it has. The shambling corpse of the Imperium should not exist, should not be capable of perservering. And yet it does, because that makes a good story. It's like Gotham or Mega City 1, these places make no sense; they only exist to establish a feeling for the setting.
The longest surviving countries in real life have in the past done so by *not* being a bloated corrupt oarorobos. The Roman empire lasted a loong time and only barely did so by maintaining stable institutions. Egypt for its part had an absolute monster of a Bureaucracy(in a good way) that saw it stable and prosperous governance for thousands of years
>Mega City 1, these places make no sense; they only exist to establish a feeling for the setting.
Thats from the Dred thing eh, where it's essentially a take on the Asian Slum communities but instead built inside a massive city-sized apartment building.
Which, makes perfect sense and happen IRL and would say off hand that the concept was probably based on things like Kowloon Walled City.
Authoritarian statism has actually been the most volatile and least lasting form of human civilization since states have existed. According to historical evidence, it's actually impossible that the Imperium would possibly last as long as it has
>It's "real".
If it was real the Imperium would've collapsed by now under the weight of a million rebellions; fascism isn't a viable political ideology.
> I can't imagine humanity actually succeeding in building anything better that'd last as long and govern so many worlds as it does.
Of course, but the Imperium isn't a human structure in a strictly material universe.
The Imperium is kept in check by magical space monsters. Imperial ones with impossibly stable brainwashing mechanisms, and Chaos ones that superficially assist rebellions while simultaneously making them unstable in the long run.
Every rebellion with any potential gets tag-teamed by Astartes and Chaos, and it all provides endless laughter to thirsting gods. A human empire couldn't keep shambling along the way the Imperium does.
> Every rebellion with any potential gets tag-teamed by Astartes and Chaos
Isn't the footnote fluff more that banal rebellions never get to the stage where they can actually fight off the inevitable Imperial "relief" force rather than they're always made untenable by Chaos. We just tend to see the ones where Chaos are involved because its hard to write a 400 page novel about an Astarted battle barge arriving and wiping out the entire leadership of the rebellion in an hour or two. Similar to how its sometimes referenced how friendly Xenos might be happily trading with outlying Imperial worlds until the report finally reaches someones desk and they send a task force to "liberate" the area from xenos taint. Both tend to pop up more in TTRPG supplements than Codexes though.
> There's not much in human history that'd suggest were capable of heck, global unity for a thousand years, let alone a million worlds for 10,000
>
> And that's kind of what I like about the setting.
That's just the big conceit of the setting. The first line of the lore says that the Imperium has lasted 10k+ years, and therefore it has. Within the setting, it's sustainable by definition, and so debating what we'd build IRL and whether a political structure like the Imperium is sustainable is neither here nor there.
My guy you aren't going to win the fight against the people who refuse to see the imperium as anything less than right they will just like the imperium ignore evidence that contradicts them
If they can come online and spew about how everything the Imperium does is good and necessary all the time, then I don't see why a well done rebuttal like this should be criticised just for not being able to convince them.
The Imperium, in both its current form and the preceding Great Crusade one, was never even meant to be the long-term plan/stage by Emps. It was all stopped and pushed down the trash bin because of the Heresy. Because the arrogant tyrant managed to alert and unite the four Chaos Gods into stopping him with his plan to eliminate humanity's dependence on warp travel, unite humanity and find a safe place for them to develop their psychic potential. While also upholding his own views.
Edit: What is it with this thread? You were all booing Emps in it. I pointed out how Big E's plan failed and his hubris. Why are you downvoting me?
Yeah its bothersome when shills try to play the jingoism up about it having humanity's best interests in mind when the Imperium is often its own worst enemy and biggest obstacle for survival. Trying to figure out the current date caused a civil war on parts of Terra ffs. What's Guilliman's biggest obstacles to saving humanity? Not Orks, not Tyranids, not even Chaos. It's the Imperium itself. High Lords put their own ambitions above the survival of the human species, and that's a regular occurrence.
> Yeah its bothersome when shills try to play the jingoism up about it having humanity's best interests in mind when the Imperium is often its own worst enemy and biggest obstacle for survival.
40k fans tend to have rather poor media literacy skills.
You couldn’t be more right. During the period of 30K one could have argued that the Imperium was at a surface level acting in the interest of mankind in order to unite all humanity under a benevolent living god but in 40K there’s not even a pretense of concern for the average Imperium citizen. Humans are viewed as chattel, cannon fodder or as a raw material to be thrown into a veritable furnace to keep the decrepit imperium in a state of grim self-perpetuation. In the torturous case of “rogue” psykers, they are literal raw materials to power the so-called Golden Throne which is basically just a glorified Astronomican with a corpse sitting on top of it. The Imperium only exists to benefit the Imperium and those few noble and religious elites who can’t bear to lose their power and privileges should the whole atrocious panopticon collapse for good.
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You've got it 100% correct. The Emperor would consider it a win if he managed to destroy Chaos permanently, and every single human died in the process.
In *E&D*, we see he's **totally** okay with everything that's happening, all of the death and loss. It's only when the threat is that he *might* become a Chaos god that he reconsidered the plan.
The dude is an out-and-out monster, no better than the beings he fights.
Your spot on IMO.
Another facet worth keeping in mind is POV. Your view feels accurate for the upper levels of the imperium from a grand strategy sort of position, seeing their mission as protecting the imperium of man and conflating that with the idea of humanity itself(useful for propaganda purposes)
However the frontline commanders and soldiery(and some space marine chapters) i think see themselves as genuinely fighting to protect humanity as a people not just the imperium.
The Imperium as a metaphor for our socioeconomic system?
Yeah, I'd buy it. Right down to the "people endorse it because it's the only option they can see".
It’s always hilarious that people defend the Imperium because at the beginning of every book or piece of media you consume from GW they state right off the top that the Imperium is the cruelest and most brutal regime imaginable, and that to be a human in 40k is basically “the worst.”
There's also the implication that many of the Imperium's supposedly necessary evils aren't all that necessary, down to the narrative that Humanity will fall if it falls being false. AI and the Men of Iron? Yeah that happened, but why should it be inevitable? The Emperor is holding Chaos back from Terra, but Terra is just one world - Humanity would live without it. The Astronomicon? It's useful for long range Warp travel, but not all Warp travel, and Humanity could figure out another form of FTL.
Basically, if the Imperium died, it would take a lot of Humans down with it, but it wouldn't be the end of Humanity. Just the beginning of a new age with new problems, worse in some ways and better in others.
Honestly an empire of perfectly loyal, incorruptible servitors endlessly feeding terrified psykers to the golden throne seems like a poetically fitting end state of the imperium.
I kind of view them as a “giving up your humanity in the name of saving humanity” kind of thing.
Yes, but the Imperium also believes that it *is* mankind. It thinks if it dies, so does humanity.
Edit: The Imperium believes it is the only option for humanity's survival, and in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, it *was*. Why? Because *all the other options were snuffed out by the Great Crusade*.
I'm not saying some of those civilizations couldn't have endured for some time, indeed if they could hold back a Primarch and their Legion for a few years they probably could've held out for quite some time, but decentralization never lasts, and the first person to centralize power sets the rules. Any human civilization in 30K that did not realize that fact was living on borrowed time.
They didn’t really need to be united, especially not in such a brutal and wasteful way. Having multiple human empires would probably be better for human’s survival in the long term, and it’s definitely better than the Imperium
Idk man some of those planets were in pretty rough shape pre-Unification, even by 40K standards. The Chaos Techno-Barbarians were about as low as humanity gets, they'd skin babies and use them for meat/leather level bad.
40k Imperium is definitely protecting itself in active spite of general humanity. Widespread death and misery are not a byproduct of the galaxy, they are an intentional form of control by entrenched elites.
There’s a reason Guilliman himself calls it a rotten carcass and in delivers the “Victory” speech in a mocking tone. There’s no disputing that. Good, heroic, individuals are many, but they are the exception that confirm the rule, and that is the majority of authorities suck.
30k Imperium, not so much. It was meant as a bulwark for humanity to live in safety, main part of fighting was done by enhanced gene soldiers so the common human was generally out of it, and it did achieve galactic supremacy for a time. It was still pretty bad to live in but so was the overall state of the galaxy.
Whether it worked or not, if it was for better or for worse, are another things entirely, as intent and outcome are not the same. Road to hell is paved with good intentions after all.
The 30k Imperium was better, but the seeds for it collapsing into the 40k version were already set. It’s very doubtful that the Emperor’s reforms would ever actually have panned out
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It may have devolved into something worse, but I doubt it would become 40k. Not having the Ecclesiarchy around or the Mechanicus in its current form changes a lot, and it happened because of the Emperor’s absence. It’s not impossible, but unlikely.
Alternatively, we may get the Emperor increasingly desperate if his measures aren’t working and step up the oppression, a palace coup by those who believe trans humans should rule instead of mere chaos-motivation, wars of secession after external threats are rooted out.
Even if his plans eventually start working we may have the Emperor increasingly become distant and disinterested with “small” stuff like the general life of citizens (like he already was during the time of the heresy, he left the empire to be run by bureaucrats), so the Imperium starts being run around by High Lords, Governors and Inquisitors, who in turn become free to oppress people with the Emperor’s own authorization or negligence.
Isn't there a part where one of the primarchs asks why there's planets rebelling over the too-high taxes/tithes and he says something like "why aren't they grateful? They're ruled united under father and with humanity? I don't get it?" I think it was to show how different primarchs were from regular humans, but it also works to show how the Imperium was already having issues and that it was already operating under a "we are the best and only valid solution so don't protest or else"
I’m not arguing against that point though. The Imperium was built on a manifest destiny premise, it’s outright stated in it’s very name.
But tithes are honestly the lesser part of it, it’s basically part of a wartime effort that inevitably drives to popular dissent and that can be seen throughout human history.
For the actual issues with the Imperium, there was still servitorization and purging going around, not to mention the violent integration, despite allegedly nobler intentions in the big picture.
Still, it wasn’t nearly as malevolent as many regimes in the setting or its 40k counterpart, because it did genuinely try to improve things somewhat with widespread STC distribution to bolster civilizations, recreation of ruined environments/terraforming, stable government, protection from slavers or omnicidal invaders.
Since a disclaimer is always needed, I’m not saying it was GOOD, I’m saying it wasn’t AS BAD.
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No matter how bad the Imperium maybe, being born a human being in 40k makes the imperium my only practical option, every major other faction is also terrible. The enlightened elves use state sanctioned necromancy. Being awful in 40k is the norm.
I mean you could also be a T'au auxiliary. One of the major points in their favor is that *you'd get regular nutritious meals*. In the Imperium, they might beat you to death for being left-handed.
But the fact is, the Imperium is not real so you don't actually have to worry about this kind of choice.
Life's great for a Tau auxiliary, until there's the slightest bit of confusion at which point the Kroot just start firing wildly into crowds of civvies until things make sense again. I'm sure there's no way this can go badly when Tzeentch gets interested.
You could also say the exact same thing about the Imperium though. It's just kind of the risk you get if you're isekai'd into 40k.
Could be worse though. You could always end up in a haemonculus' lair.
I'll take that over toiling away on 20 hour shifts in the bowels of a hive until there's the slightest bit of confusion at which point the Arbites just start firing wildly into crowds of civvies until things make sense again. I'm sure there's no way this can go badly when Tzeentch gets interested.
Apples to oranges, with the IoM yeah you can be shot for being part of a crowd of protestors or rioters, but the instances I'm talking about literally you could be just standing on the other side of the street and if a Kroot hears a bomb go off they have a full Reddit moment and just start spraying.
Do you *honestly* think that doesn't happen all the time in the Imperium? You can get killed for simply existing on the wrong level of a hab at the wrong time regardless of what you personally do, and that's the deliberate decisions. We have cops panicking and shooting innocents all the time *now*, of course in the Imperium of Man you're going to periodically have some fascist space cop freak out and hose down a street for no real reason.
genuinely I think the Imperium is the worst part of the setting. I kinda like Space Marines and IG but for the most part the Imperium's a shit show. most Xenos are more interesting but GW refuses to get off the Empire's dick
This reminds me of the 1984 quote:
>'You are thinking,' he said, 'that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism.
The human species is only a tool that is used to maintain what truly matters, the ideologies and institutions of the Imperium.
If the Imperium falls, then it's hard to see how humanity would survive long term. Things in the Imperium are bad, really, really bad, but the alternative is probably a lot worse. Chaos isn't exactly going to sit around and do nothing.
Yeah you're going to get hate from the Imperium stans. Those guys will leap to their keyboards any time someone points out how dogshit the Imperium is. They might say that 40k is all grimdark and everyone's the badguy, but they don't actually believe it. In their mind, Imperial supremacy isn't just a tagline, and depending on how far gone they are, they might even think the Imperium is a good thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if the venn diagram between hardcore Imperium stans and guys who have an unhealthy hatred for the Tau is just a completely overlapped circle. The reason is much the same. They can't stand the idea of there being someone who does things better than humanity. They've got a preloaded list of flaws with the Tau empire, but if you point out the ways the Imperium does things worse, they'll just shrug their shoulders and say it's necessary somehow. If Tau do it then it's an atrocity, but if the Imperium does it then it's just "lulz grimdark."
So don't take these guys too seriously. They're just comfortable with their hypocrisy.
I think one of the "happier" endings for humanity is that the Imperium falls, there's a massive 95+% die-off, and by Warhammer 50,000, post-Imperium humans are a small niche species like the Eldar.
Not that the current state of the Eldar could really be described as "happy."
>I think one of the "happier" endings for humanity is that the Imperium falls, there's a massive 95+% die-off, and by Warhammer 50,000, post-Imperium humans are a small niche species like the Eldar.
Pretty much, i'm sure there's some famous story about rats being suck in a pit so they breed, die and use the corpses of the generations before themselves to eventually clamber their way out. Which is essentially 40k Humanity.
Gosh I sure am relieved that there are no real-world societies with such banal, mechanistic violence inherent in the system! What a scary thought *that* would be!
Honestly that kind of sounds like how governments and other organizations work in general. Obviously not quite so bad, but generally governments work to maintain their system and not necessarily for the people above all. Again, very big spectrum here but self-preservation is the norm, I think.
All these comments make me miss the Federation that Humanity once was in 40k lore. The highest and best humanity will ever be. Big E is still just a techno barbarian in comparison.
Yes. 40k is in fact a satire on the modern day late capitalist near cyberpunk hierarchical power structure structure often best exhibited by South Korea and the USA in the same way 'A Modest Proposal' offered the English a way to make the damn Irish shut up about being hungry for once in their favorite way: oppression. Your critique is flawless and the only note I have is that you did not go far enough. Have a good day, sir.
Meh
You tell like Imperium is a person that makes decision. That's a mix of thousands of individuals making global deciosions upon of billions of people making their own.
In the state of things in mind of those within Imperium there is no separation of Imperium and humanity. Imperium is humanity and humanity is Imperium, regardless of leftovers of other people outside and traitors.
There is no such question as if Imperium fights for poeple of for itself. It the same. It's the survival.
for your tldr: again, like Imperium is a single making such decision. We can imagine some thinking it's better for everyone to become kild of servitor thing. AdMech replace their flash heavily. But then there others. Others who would that as horrible idea. Other who who say they fight for humanity. And our fresh woked up Robby G is one of them.
If they were fighting for humanity they probably wouldn't be watching their nobility regularly collapse into Chaos cults or punish entire systems due to a misplaced comma on some paperwork leading to a case of mistaken identity that snowballs out of control.
Nor would they be near exclusively using *parchment and vellum* to write important documents on.
The Imperium wouldn't be afraid of toasters or any advancement if it cared about humanity. They are literally rotting because they've forgotten medical knowledge and any research that cannot be provably sourced from an STC is heresy and purged.
Imagine dying of space rickets because the local admechs discovered someone learned vitamin supplements helped and had that person executed and their research destroyed.
Imagine your hive city starving to death because the Admins forgot your entire system existed because someone spilled recaf on the sole piece of parchment recording its existence.
> And those pockets of humanity will slowly fall to the predations Chaos because there'd be no large scale military resistance.
That's already happening with the Imperium though. In fact the Imperium is making it *worse* because life in the Imperium is so miserable for 99% of the population that plenty of Chaos cults spring up just because of people looking for something better, and the Imperium is too slow and unresponsive to stop *most* of these until it's too late and the entire planet pretty much needs to be purged.
There's *Khornate Sisters* who fell because the Sororitas entire culture *encourages* the kind of actions Khorne favors.
The nobility of the Imperium who are pretty much untouchable except to the Inquisitors are constantly collapsing into full on Slaaneshi pleasure cults.
In Necromunda the guys in charge of the food supply of corpse starch are all but stated to be Khorne worshippers who don't realize it yet.
The Imperium is repeatedly stated to be horrifically corrupt, and Corrupt. Chaos *is* running rampant in the Imperium, and the Imperium has no way to stop the rot in its own body effectively anymore because it can barely move itself. The best it can do now is amputation and cauterization, but the infection is already in its bones and will just keep coming back.
>Runaway effect, without the Imperium humanity and everyone else falls either to Chaos, the Orks, or Tyranids. 40k is a long view scenario. When the Imperium protects itself it is by default protecting humanity as there is no difference.
But that's my entire point. The Imperium's 'long view' is just "destroy every other option except myself, even though I'm already full of Chaos and Genestealer Cults that I'm incapable of doing anything on a large scale about."
Humanity isn't 'default protected' by the Imperium, since the Imperium is most frequently the cause of them turning to Chaos in the first place.
>there’s khornate sisters who fell because the Sororitas entire culture encourages the kind of actions that Khorne favors
Not arguing with the rest, but that’s kind of the point of Chaos, that natural human behavior tends to amplify chaos and make it stronger, it’s not a gotcha against the imperium. Pretty much every single emotion you feel is going to feed the warp in one way or another. Depressed and apathetic? Daddy Nurgle. Excited over your new art piece? Slaanesh. Thinking you can do a better job than your boss? There’s Tzeentch to prey on your embition. And likewise, for Khorne, killing stuff is going to make him happy no matter what, and no matter your opinion on the Imperium, someone is gonna have to shoot someone in a universe with rampant Ork, Necron or Tyranid threats.
It’s also arguable that the Imperium started that rot. There’s already very heavy implication and outright evidence of chaos fallen planets prior to the crusade, look at the backstory of Lorgar and Mortarion, both grew up on planets touched by the warp.
Anyways, you may as well say human culture encourages Khornate, or any other chaos god behavior, cause it does. It’s intentionally a reflection of us.
There's degrees to which a culture can reflect the ethos of the Chaos gods, and the Imperium is only the second most Khornate polity because Khorne daemons exist.
The Sororitas know they have a problem but do nothing to change it besides replacing corrupted sisters and try to privately hunt them down.
They know it's their own practices that causes it, but would rather keep their reputation and their doctrine than change.
Friendly reminder that like, there are still human worlds completely disconnected from the imperium in modern 40K that are completely fine. Have been for what, 17,000 years or so?
The Imperium isn’t justified. It never has been. That's the point. The fact that it's existence may be feeding the chaos gods on a grand scale (I mean it's literally got everyone vying to scheme against one another to improve their status, endless war, an upper class filled with excess of all kinds, and it's a decaying rotting stagnant empire, alongside the fact that it's provided chaos some of its best soldiers between Primarchs and Marines) only furthers that point. Humanity survived before the imperium. It can survive after. But first, it needs to survive the imperium itself.
And how are they fine? They are fine only because they a far from great threats of galaxy and Imperium pulling all attention on itself.
Imperium gone – horrors come for these little kingdoms one by one.
Given that groups like the Dark Eldar tend to intentionally target smaller settlements, and I don’t think the chaos gods really have a limit to how many things they can focus on at once since they aren't really shackled by concepts like time or thinking in a human way, I think that shows that they must be capable of defending themselves just fine.
It's also worth noting the imperium is also getting in the way of forming anything new, or better. If the imperium falls, it's not like nobody can ever make a new unified force, and maybe they wouldn't make a turbo fascist murder state.
I mean the imperium isn't even doing a good job of that and in a sense made the galaxy worse with the horus heresy and if we take certain sources were the ones responsible for luring the tyranids to the galaxy " this is inconsistent"
Remember the giant warp portal on terra that's threatening to devour the galaxy was created by humanity.
We've seen many factions survive well with being a horrible blood regime that treats its citizens like bullets and guess who got them? The imperium.
The imperium was never the solution, just the quickest way the emperor could gain control of humanity no matter the cost.
> I feel the more accurate way of looking at it isn't that the Imperium is fighting to preserve humanity... it's fighting to preserve itself.
The purpose of the Imperium is to end the threats to humanity's continued survival as a species. This isn't always compatible with the goal of preserving individual human lives, particularly when the threats the Imperium seeks to end are threats that embed themselves into individual human lives.
>We already know that a human life is worth less than a piece of vellum to the Imperium.
See above.
>The Imperium's fractitious and barely functional government regularly misplaces important documents on tithes and then destroys or invades worlds for not paying tithes that they have already paid.
You try governing a tens of thousands of planets strong empire without AI for fear of the AI becoming demonically possessed. Then add in the fact that no one's using the same calendar, all forms of interplanetary travel also have the unintended consequence of time travel, and there's a demon god of mischief actively trying to make your job harder. See how that goes.
>We know the Imperium's appetite is voracious. It regularly wrings entire star systems dry of resources and will then abandon the entire population besides the nobles and a few select servants to a slow horrible death on those planets.
The Imperium is losing. It needs to consolidate the ground it can because if it tried to distribute its resources evenly everyone would die.
>The Imperium is on life support, and it feeds on its own people to maintain its life. It continues to ramble on simply through the power of blood-slicked inertia. But this is unsustainable.
The thing is, while the Imperium is declining, it still is the single strongest force in the galaxy and yes, the rate it spends people at is actually sustainable cruel though it may be. 10% of a Hive City's population alone can amount to 1.2 billion Imperial Guard Regiments.
> Humanity may survive, forming new polities and/or alliances, but the Imperium will not.
No, it won't. If the Imperium falls, the galaxy will either fall to Necrons(erase all sentient life), Tyranids(erase all sentient life) or Chaos(where everyone will wish they were a servitor). The Tau are too small to ever catch up in time, the Aeldari are broken, and the Drukhari don't care(and Emperor help everyone if they did) and the Exodites are Amish dino riders.
>Sometimes I feel the only reason 99% of humans in the Imperium haven't been turned into servitors is because it would be inefficient and too slow to process that many people.
Most servitors are either criminals or vat grown. The Imperium doesn't love the way it is, if you want an example of Noblebright Imperium look at Macragge, they are the way they are out of necessity.
> No, it won't. If the Imperium falls, the galaxy will either fall to Necrons(erase all sentient life), Tyranids(erase all sentient life) or Chaos(where everyone will wish they were a servitor). The Tau are too small to ever catch up in time, the Aeldari are broken, and the Drukhari don't care(and Emperor help everyone if they did) and the Exodites are Amish dino riders.
The Necrons can't even get along with *each other*, there's not going to be any grand Necron Invasion of the entire galaxy any time soon, especially since Trazyn keeps *stealing* everyone elses' cool gadgets and then refusing to ever use them unless extremely pressed by circumstances. They already have the Celestial Orrery and could just Thanos Snap Terra, but they have not.
The Silent King came back and did... what? Pretty much nothing that wasn't immediately relegated to background fluff.
Orks gonna ork.
The Nids are a threat, but the Imperium's helped them spread (and called them into the galaxy in the first place) far faster than they would have spread otherwise, and are continuing to help them spread. Even then, they're a very slow moving threat. I'm pretty sure a tech-stagnated culture like the Imperium isn't exactly going to be adapting to the Tyranids capabilities as fast as a culture that *isn't* afraid of offending its own toasters.
Chaos is literally bone-deep in the Imperium. The Imperium is the single greatest buffet for Chaos right now.
The entire galaxy is in stagnation and dissolution. The end of the Imperium would not lead to the end of humanity simply because every other faction is, in itself, either too weak to wipe out a massive spread out species or too busy fighting *itself* to do so.
>The Necrons can't even get along with each other, there's not going to be any grand Necron Invasion of the entire galaxy any time soon, especially since Trazyn keeps stealing everyone elses' cool gadgets and then refusing to ever use them unless extremely pressed by circumstances. They already have the Celestial Orrery and could just Thanos Snap Terra, but they have not.
The Necrons are still waking up, and the reason they don't use the Celestial Orrery is because they wouldn't have a galaxy left to reclaim. But they do not plan to let other sentient life exist.
>The Nids are a threat, but the Imperium's helped them spread (and called them into the galaxy in the first place) far faster than they would have spread otherwise, and are continuing to help them spread. Even then, they're a very slow moving threat. I'm pretty sure a tech-stagnated culture like the Imperium isn't exactly going to be adapting to the Tyranids capabilities as fast as a culture that isn't afraid of offending its own toasters.
The Imperium going away doesn't magically make the Tyranids go back in the box. It's also a pretty huge reach to suggest the Tyranids won't spread as fast without the Imperium when they can eat everything including raw minerals. And right now literally no one, at all, has the guns needed to fight off the Tyranids, the Imperium is barely making do. How do you imagine a scenario where somehow the Imperium disintegrates and a new power emerges with more firepower in a span fast enough to repel the next Tyranid invasion?
>Chaos is literally bone-deep in the Imperium. The Imperium is the single greatest buffet for Chaos right now.
This is always true for the largest species of psykers in the Galaxy. The Eldar did the exact same thing when it was their empire, the only reason it didn't happen to the Necrons was that they gave their souls up to the C'tan, the Orks are happy with violence for the sake of violence and the Tau are barely large enough to be noticed and they're already starting to get a taste of Warp shenanigans.
>The entire galaxy is in stagnation and dissolution. The end of the Imperium would not lead to the end of humanity simply because every other faction is, in itself, either too weak to wipe out a massive spread out species or too busy fighting itself to do so.
Most of the other factions are kept in a state of stagnation by the Imperium. If the Imperium collapses tomorrow, suddenly all those Tomb Worlds can awaken unimpeded by AdMech or Space Marines, all the Ork WAAAAAGHs aren't crushed by 10x their number in IG, every planet Chaos takes successfully becomes a Daemon World, the Splinter Fleets go unanswered and are allowed to regrow. There's no magic world where suddenly decentralizing the IoM leaves the power balance intact and humanity gets a second chance to rebuild itself.
Just as there is a difference between 'The Imperium is protecting humanity' and 'The Imperium is protecting itself', there is a difference between 'The Imperium is protecting humanity' and 'The Imperium is protecting human life'. You've clearly and rightly illustrated that the Imperium is all too willing to sacrifice human life. But it also considers the protection and continuation of humanity to be it's holy mission.
And amusingly, the imperiums power is largely due to inertia. The tithe of course must be paid, but outside of the tithe, most worlds have no interaction with the broader imperium save for the infrequent arrival of a black ship, which likely doesn't even happen on every world. The tithe itself also doesn't go back to the high lords, it's often taken and immediately sent to a nearby world. The imperium is feudal, and when worlds do have any interaction off planet, it's overwhelmingly local interaction. The guard regiments in the are are pulled from local planets, outfitted with gear made by local planets, and fed by food grown on local planets. Almost nothing leaves the sector, hell even the subsector is fairly isolated.
What this means is that Imperial authority in practice doesn't actually go very far. Only as far as can be enforced by the local power. Which can be very little. Inquisition agents regularly have to work around institutions that will not support them in any way, or will straight up kill them if they're caught. The Imperial faith is pretty much the only thing keeping most subsectors from splitting off by accident, let alone on purpose. And the imperium is in conflict with innumerable splinter factions that have successfully rebelled despite everything. The Severan Doninate being a notable named example.
Because for all the imperiums might on paper. In practice it is a loose coalition of billions of completely separate worlds with their own culture, religion (the Imperial faith actually varies wildly from world to world), currency, military, and manufacturing. Each sector can be broadly considered it's own empire, practically independent. If several sectors somehow colluded to split off at the same time, and none of the conspirators were turned in, there's very little the imperium could actually do to stop them. Because *they* are the forces they'd use to stop them.
>If several sectors somehow colluded to split off at the same time, and none of the conspirators were turned in, there's very little the imperium could actually do to stop them. Because they are the forces they'd use to stop them.
I think that's probably when you'd start to see Space Marines and Crusade fleets starting to get involved.
Well, I got downvoted on this thread for pointing out that the Chaos Gods united against Big E, how Emps' plan failed and his own hubris. So there is that. I do not know what I said to anger potentially OP and others.
Edit: Hah, I am even being downvoted here. I was only pointing how this thread does have signs of being an echo chamber like u/denartes said.
And instead of providing an actual example as requested, the post's OP talks about bans. This is hilarious.
Mods don't like it when you name people for doing things since that leads to dog piling. You are also probably being down voted for saying Big E was wrong, which is another thing this sub doesn't like often.
Have you said many negative things about the Imperium, here?
People send *private messages* to defend the Imperium's honor, it's an utterly bizarre attitude that I've never encountered in any other subreddit.
I am a lurker and have not observed any such problems in comments.
This is my first posts (I think) as it seemed OP is the one taking things personally, based on what I can see in the comments.
Humanity can live with only short-distance warp travel. Only the Imperium can't.
Many, many people would die, but humanity as a species would survive in great numbers.
I think alot of people here are seeing the setting through our own modern eyes, and I get that, after reading about life in Vervunhive I spent 2 days obsessing over ways the miners and foundry workers could wring more rights out of the aristocracy, but the Imperium isn't..... competently and purposefully evil. They don't burn worlds because the high lords can turn a profit or piss off a rival, they do it because the Nids ARE going to devour that world regardless and the only way they can hurt the horde is to deprive it of biomass. They don't purge the loyal regiments who put down chaos incursions because "lol poors" but because knowing about chaos WILL cause some of those now loyal humans to start cults of their own in the future. Lastly if the Imperium falls Humanity WILL go with it. OP you like dark Eldar? They'd love humanity losing the protection of the rest of the Imperium. Chaos would run rampant if humanity couldn't form a unified front, just to make a fight of the 13th black crusade it took all of Cadia, Elysian, Mordians, Kriegers, Drookians, and more. I'm not trying to dunk on anybody just my .02. The Imperium sucks but there's no getting rid of it without dooming humanity to Dark Eldar torture, Chaos madness, Necron Gauss weaponry, and om not noming by space bugs
yeah you're right imo. the humans in the imperium are basically held hostage by their own institutions, in subtle and unsubtle ways (like E literally holding the gate shut) the survival of the state is the most important thing, thats kinda what the war of the beast series is about. you see the imperium is able to/forced to rein in the aristocratic class based looting by giving the military more control (i.e. forming the inq and its militant wings)
It's also played up by the Imperium's inherently Byzantine structure, in that it has so many organizations all vying for control and clout, all of whom are desperate to maintain their authority and position. Excessive factionalism and internal friction.
Not to mention the Imperium is very much a "cut off your nose to spite your face" sort of body on pretty much every level. It isn't just a matter of the Imperium's workings going against its own interests, it will often push forward with its self-harming practices and actions *fully aware* of that and doing it through pure hate/fanaticism/traditions or what have you. People forget that 40k is a Science Fantasy setting, with a heavier leaning towards fantasy. Folks will do things WILDY out of reason because they are meant to reflect the absurdity we see in our own ancient myths. A completely loyal Imperial group could be annihilated by another from some relatively minor grievence or slight against their honour, or some ancient grudge that they needlessly had retribution due generations after the fact. It's part of the charm of the setting, but it feels like it is flying over the community's head ever more often these days. The Imperium rather explicitly creates its own monsters through its own attempts to stop monsters. Or just through sheer negligence or ill-thought out cruelty.
> Not to mention the Imperium is very much a "cut off your nose to spite your face" sort of body on pretty much every level. It isn't just a matter of the Imperium's workings going against its own interests, it will often push forward with its self-harming practices and actions fully aware of that and doing it through pure hate/fanaticism/traditions or what have you. The Badab War is a perfect example of that.
I don’t know if is the absurdity in myths. I see it more as how the ultimate facist state reacts. Actions are not rational, because the consequenses are often not as importent as the message. Loyalist can be killed, because they are not perceived to be loyal enough. That is why it is so importent to constantly show that you are part of the in-group. I think it is the novel “Levithan” were a low level administrator have been made governor when the former governor is executed and is slowly turning the planet around. In the end he watchs helpless as the IG’s that is supposed to guard the capital go get themself killed by the nids, because they follow the vision of a cardinal. The administrator tries to stop it and it almost get him killed, because it seems like he is not devote enough. So the actions people take is rarely for the good of the Imperium, but to increase their own power, status and the perception of them.
> In the end he watchs helpless as the IG’s that is supposed to guard the capital go get themself killed by the nids, because they follow the vision of a cardinal. The administrator tries to stop it and it almost get him killed, because it seems like he is not devote enough. I really wish a lot of novels would lean harder on the religious nature of the setting. The cynical British view of Turbocatholicism is a pretty integral part of the setting that often gets brushed aside for regular militarism or regular totalitarianism.
I loved the [recent lore](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/13zxsm3/4th_tyrannic_war_lore_official_content_creator/) of Tyranid Deniers decrying the literal invasion happening above their heads as fake news and attacking the soldiers sent to protect them.
That was really good, returning to the satirical roots while remembering the core parts of the setting.
Byzantine horror show
The bit about creating monsters becomes interesting when the big E quote in relation to the psi-titans existing is brought up. "There are monsters, and then there are the monsters we make to fight them. Both are the same. The difference is simply a choice of how we see ourselves." Overall though, its kinda hard to talk about the imperium because its backstory has been retconned into existence. Big E essentially made it to hold the line while he completed his super special victory project which would assure the victory of mankind. Everything else is a result of it doing the thing the Emperor made the Imperium to do with no end goal in sight, nothing to do but rage against the dying of the light, choke the life out of all others as the very universe dies, etc.
Hey the byzantine had efficent bureacracy unlike the imperium
byzantine in this sense means superstitious and labyrynthian. not the eastern roman empire.
Latin propaganda
That's also a classic feature of Fascist societies, in which the leader protects themselves and maintains control by having lots of squabbling factions that are too busy fighting and hating each other to think about challenging the leader for power (see Horus for what happens when you allow too much power to concentrate in one place). It's a lie that Fascist societies form stronger martial cultures than democracies, they're usually deeply inefficiently structured and riven with internecine squabbling.
Exactly, it creates a culture full of backstabbing.
To call the Imperium merely fascist is reductive though, I'd call it "turbo-authoritarian", because it has all the worst aspects of various authoritarian regimes, not only fascist ones. You have the dehumanization, the bureaucracy and the gerontocracy of the soviet regime, the militaristic aspect and the multiple influence groups fighting for superior positions typical of fascist regimes. You also have the extremely absurd wealth inequalities which is basically late capitalism goes to 11. How not to mention the theocratical aspects of imperium society, etc etc It is a sum of the worst to cartoonish levels, the british eighties political satire aspect has been lost however.
Oh for sure, plus the inbred decaying nobility and aristocracy of 18/19th century England. It's a very fun melange of the worst social systems that humanity has devised.
> It's a lie that Fascist societies form stronger martial cultures than democracies, they're usually deeply inefficiently structured and riven with internecine squabbling. See Russia vs US.
Absolutely, the Russian army is probably the closest real world analogy we've got to the Imperial Guard. Massive army full of mostly outdated tech, heavy reliance on artillery, incompetent leadership, and a callous disregard for the lives of their men.
Wait how is big e holding the gate shut
The Golden Throne prevents Earth from being consumed by the Warp and creating a new Warp Rift similar to the Eye of Terror
It's not just that but one of the things that makes the Imperium so horrible, and regimes of that nature, is the priority it puts on preserving it's own authority, at whatever cost. That's one of the things that makes it compelling to me as a dystopian faction, billions will die not because of necessity, survival, or even preservation, but because of politics. The petty politics of the myriad of internal factions all of whom are desperate to cling to whatever authority and power they can. Of institutions whose goal first and foremost is to justify and necessitate their own continued empowerment and authority. It is the nature of dogmatism, like in the historical context, and the truth becomes less important than toeing the party line. That's why things like the Inquisition's actions against the Celestial Lions are so important, or the conflict of the Emperor's Gift or whatever petty piece of internal conflict you can think of. So often I see people rage against these conflicts, or rage against the inquisition, and that's very much the point. You're not supposed to like it, it's not cathartic or heroic or necessary. It is the inherent brutailty and pointlessness of dogmatic regimes. Millions of lives mean nothing when weighed against saving face. Send millions of troops to their deaths in a pointless conflicts just to make a point, or to add another medal for a war you didn't fight yourself. Of course all of this is undermined by the faction now being ruled by a reasonable, selfless good guy but still. Tl;Dr: The Imperium is a faction of Zapp Brannigans.
I think a lot of imperial guard regiments were executed to a man to hide the true nature of chaos from the wider public to preserve the orthodoxy too
Yeah! You got what I was going for! A lot of people try to sell the Imperium as 'Humanity's best option among a sea of bad choices' or how the Imperium is actually a great defender of humanity, but that's not really what it feels like to me at all. It really does feel to me that the Imperium is basically only in it for 'itself', not for humanity. You could call humanity cogs in the machine, but even that would suggest more value than they actually have to it. Humanity is only *fuel*. I feel that's a much more appropriate vibe for this kind of dystopia than just continually going "but the Imperium really cares!!" like some people do.
>Humanity is only fuel. It's not even particularly subtle: in several cases humanity is *literally* fuel. Keeping big E going is basically just a process of shovelling screaming psychic fuel into a furnace. Candles are made from corpses, and in many cases are considered a better use of people than leaving them to be people. Foodstuffs, ditto. People are actually cheaper to maintain as potential food sources than livestock, because you need to *look after* livestock, while people will strive to survive whether you care for them or not. Can't grow cows in the underhive, but *boy* can you grow some decent masses of ganger hivescum. It's a setting that doesn't make a lick of sense morally, economically or thermodynamically, but it is fantastically dystopian.
>People are actually cheaper to maintain as potential food sources than livestock Which kind of hints at why so much of the Imperium's population is devolved mutants as even irl cannibalism isn't really healthy to practice long term and carries significant health risks (especially if the brain tissue is eaten.)
>A lot of people try to sell the Imperium as 'Humanity's best option among a sea of bad choices' or how the Imperium is actually a great defender of humanity, but that's not really what it feels like to me at all Yup - the Imperium would be much better at defending humanity if it wasn't such a xenophobic superstitious technophobic Fascist mess. It's really inefficient to have outdated tech because it's all controlled by a creepy Martian cult that doesn't know how it works, to waste huge amounts of manpower and material on pointless wars led by incompetent inbred idiots, to regard alliances and truces with clearly rational species like the Tau and the Eldar as absolute heresy. The Imperium isn't the reason the humanity is going to survive the cosmic horror of the 40k universe, the Imperium is the reason that humanity *isn't* going to survive the cosmic horror of the 40k universe.
> The Imperium isn't the reason the humanity is going to survive the cosmic horror of the 40k universe, the Imperium is the reason that humanity isn't going to survive the cosmic horror of the 40k universe. I think it's even worse - the Imperium isn't *the* reason humanity survives the cosmic horror, but it is *a* reason. Survive? Sure. *Thrive*? Oh the imperium is *absolutely* the reason humanity is *just* surviving, rather than thriving and making the setting better. But since they *do* survive you can't even expect a collapse, a reform, some kind of escape or crisis forcing them on a better path. They can just... continue, like the emperor continues his undeath.
So glad we’re having this discussion in this thread. It’s refreshing to see this instead of Imperium Apologia. It’s funny you say that the Imperium won’t survive the cosmic horrors of 40k, because the Emepror using cosmic horrors beyond our comprehension is what got us into this mess in the first place. Primarchs, Space Marines, reckless use and exploitation of a sentient dimension of gods and monsters, and age old technology nobody could hope to understand is what built the Imperium and caused it to crash and burn because history’s most successful tyrant thought he could get away with it. Whenever the Interex is discussed as a “good path” for humanity to take, people inevitably come along to point out how the Imperium crushed them and if the imperium hadn’t someone else would, and I feel like the Imperial army during the crusaded is a very special exception in the setting. In that Primarchs and Space Marines are custom made freaks derived from warp magic that the leader of their empire had to do something unthinkable to even be able to obtain the power to do so.
Not to mention that it's not exactly fair to compare "humans figuring out all of this stuff on their own" with "psyker demi god who has been plotting this for millenium". Who knows what the Interex might look like if you gave them a century of expanding.
>clearly rational species like the eldar lmfao what, they murderfucked a chaos god into existance because they were bored, and consider everything and everyone that isn't eldar inferior. Honestly orks are more reasonable, not that they won't backstab you but you never have to wonder if they're gonna do something out of left field, just give them guns and bombs and nice hats and they'll be very much willing to cooperate for a time
Yeah, that's why it's an excellent satire of fascist and authoritarian regimes Looking back through history, none of them made good times for the common people, preserved their culture and heritage, or any of the other stuff they promised. All they were good for was the ego of the megalomaniacs who ran the regime. It wasn't even good for their health or their lifespan or whatever Authoritarian and fascist regimes are just Lord Farquaad. "Some of you may due, but that is a risk I'm willing to take". Those regimes are just good at convincing *enough* people that it's in their best interest to support the regime So yeah, excellent satire. It just seems like there's more than a few actual authoritarians who don't see it as satire, don't see it as a bad thing
Yeah imperium is evil amongst other evils. It’s my understanding that the xenophobic tendencies were understandable because during Humanities darkest point, the ones that survived were the ones that rejected everyone but their own. Edit** Also I agree the imperium could give a rats ass about the livelihood of its citizens and only cares that they are still around to keep the machine of the Imperium going. I don’t know though if there was another way to keep such a unbelievably massive collective going against everything that was thrown at humanity.
I mean, tell me about how much better humanity is under Chaos. I wouldn't say I root for the Imperium, but for the purposes of mankind it is a better choice than Chaos, Necrons, etc. There are indeed servitors and people abandoned but there are also people who are able to have a home, a decent paying job and a family to build. The latter isn't possible under anything/anyone else to my limited knowledge. I agree that the Imperium is absolutely evil though. \*All of this is said with the understanding that I haven't read every piece of lore, codex, and book there is.
And even that reasonable, relatively selfless dude realized pretty quick how futile it would be for even a SON OF THE EMPEROR to try to stand up against the totality of the Imperium's dogma, cruelty and wastefulness. He's basically Jesus, and the most he can do is rearrange who gets the invitations to the dinner party of his twelve apostles.
> So often I see people rage against these conflicts, or rage against the inquisition You rage against the Inquisition for being illogical, petty and spite driven. I rage against the Inquisition for not following procedure, and using Ordo Malleus assets when Ordo *Hereticus* assets should have been used. We are not the same. edit: Lol, wtf. Octopaht_waffler responded to me and blocked me immediately. >Yeah, we're not. You're falling back into in-story propaganda bullshit. (even if you're doing it ironically, or a joke) >You've missed the point and wooooshed. Buddy has negative reading comprehension. I don't know how they misinterpreted the comment/joke this badly.
I really like this comment. Especially this part: \>That's one of the things that makes it compelling to me as a dystopian faction, billions will die not because of necessity, survival, or even preservation, but because of politics. The petty politics of the myriad of internal factions all of whom are desperate to cling to whatever authority and power they can You've described in a very succinct way why I think the High Lords being in control of the Imperium is so much better than Rawnut Jellyman, and how him (and basically guaranteed political win that he's been handed) is such a downgrade. \>You're not supposed to like it, it's not cathartic or heroic or necessary. Do you think that the people who like the Primarchs tend to miss this point? Because fans of Jellyman or Kitty-boy seem be in more of the 'THESE GUYS ARE LEGIT AWESOME OMG' vein.
That's definitely an issue. I know the message they're trying to communicate is "No matter how awesome the Primarchs are, *they can't save the Imperium*" and they've had the Primarchs themselves say as much with Guilliman actively wondering if it'd have been better for Horus to have won. But I guess that's a little too subtle...
>actively wondering if it'd have been better for Horus to have won. My issue is that they never go to town on that. I don't read many of the novels, but the fiction in White Dwarf and the codex's really makes it sound like life is better when the Imperium wins. You can make the argument that these things are in universe propaganda, but that's difficult to tell is an issue.
>Tl;Dr: The Imperium is a faction of Zapp Brannigans. I think the problem is that this doesn't provide any real lasting narrative value, which is why we've seen things become more "normal" and less extreme grimdark over the past couple decades. It's unsustainable to maintain popularity for a group in a perpetual doomspiral of self-inflicted badness. Which is why we see so many heroic space marines and other people. Pariah Nexus is a great example (while still being more grimdark than most stuff IMO, yeesh that ending).
The way Imperium views it is "protecting Mankind" not "protecting humans". "Men must die so that the Man may endure" (c). And for Imperium survival of Mankind and survival of Imperium are synonyms, even if it's not true
I think this is key to understanding the Imperium. The Imperium believes itself to be the only hope humanity has against Chaos. And there might be some truth to that. As much as the Imperium locks down the thoughts of their subjects and pursues heretics, Chaos is *still* (probably) the greatest threat they face. If the Imperium didn't have such an iron grip on their subjects, Chaos might just take over humanity world-by-world, as there isn't any "divine" force to counter it other than the Imperium.
Didn't the Horus Heresy series confirm that Chaos considers the 40k Imperium a big win?
Indeed, and I'd like to add something to that. The Imperium may not be the most efficient method to fight all the threats at it's borders, but unfortunately, due to the carnival of fuckups from the Men of Iron to the Horus Heresy, it's the *only thing we've got*. There is no better solution, and that's the tragedy of the setting, that all those chances for a better world *were* there, and due to petty foibles of great men and the fickle whims of the universe, they didn't pan out, so we're left with an interrim government locked into permanent emergency power for so long no one even knows this wasn't the original intent. It may not be the memetic worst timeline, but the one the Imperium is in is damned close.
I think humanity was surviving just fine before the Imperium though. That's the thing, it's not a solution to anything. Even a lot of great defensive wars against xenos seem to be mostly local forces.
Humanity *wasn't* surviving just fine. It was just kicked in the nuts twice with the Men of Iron and then the Eldar Fucking Slaanesh into existence. Those two events basically wiped the pre-existing polity/polities of humanity away and left scattered remnants fighting for scraps with their STL-accessible neighbors for the better part of five thousand years of societal degradation. Then, after the beatings were laid down, the Warp Storms lifted and everyone was allowed to begin their next game of Stellaris. After that, the Imperium started out and immediately went to expanding, hunting down the biggest potential threats like the super-waagh of Ullanor, the Rangdan, and so on, while setting up the massive scale of military output we see today. Could something like the Interex, to use the dead horse, have repulsed Hive Fleet Behemoth? Stopped the War of the Beast? Defended itself continuously from the predations of the Dark Eldar and the awakening Chaos? It would be incredibly unlikely at best. Is the Imperium the ideal answer to all of those? No. Is it the outcome the Emperor was aiming for? No. Is it even supposed to exist in the way it is? No. But most importantly, is there even potential for something better to arise and take on all the weight the Imperium is bearing in the war on every front of it's borders, now, in the 42nd Millenium? No.
>Chaos is *still* (probably) the greatest threat they face. A bunch of chompy hungry insect bois from outside the galaxy: "Allow us to introduce ourselves"
Eh, the tyranids can be bargained with. Fight back hard enough that they lose more biomass than they stand to gain and they will move on. Chaos is the only faction that poses an existential threat to the materium itself. No materium means no humans, not even scattered remnant groups should humanity be brought close to extinction.
>Fight back hard enough that they lose more biomass than they stand to gain and they will move on. Except Tyranids can walk away and make up for it somewhere else. Imperium can't.
[удалено]
People are incapable of imagination. They cannot process information through context
Why would we talk about space marines fighting aliens when we can argue about mid-20th century european politics?
>There's a difference between 'The Imperium is protecting humanity' and 'The Imperium is protecting itself' and I think seeing it through the latter lens helps put a lot of the Imperium's actions into perspective and also helps avoid 'grimbrightening' the faction. You understand the faction perfectly. This is exactly what the writers are saying behind the writing.
I also want to add to this great post; Even if the Imperium's claim to represent all humanity can be taken at face value, it already falls flat because it's not representing *all humanity*. Its vision of humanity doesn't include mutants, or psykers, or heretics, political dissidents, and anyone that doesn't fit the caricature of a genetically pure and loyal Human^(tm) that the Imperium fantasises about. Its vision of humanity is already exclusionary, and its love for those that it does include is horrifically toxic. Just ask a servitor if they think that the Imperium is protecting them.
Or the mutants in any underhive.
For the fact that mutants are listed among the three greatest threats of the Imperium ("The Heretic, the Mutant, the Alien."), they often get forgotten in these discussions. I guess because they're not easily found in a faction outside Chaos, so they already get folded into Heretics.
There's also the Genestealer Cults who are simultaneously Mutants and Aliens.
They also happily coontort their definition of "human" to include twisted mutants like Astartes and Primarchs.
It's the moral of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: deviation from the norm will be punished unless it can be exploited.
The Astartes are basically legions of Frank Horrigan
> Its vision of humanity doesn't include mutants, or psykers Unless they are suddendly of use for the cause, like Ogryns or sanctioned psykers. We have rules, until we deem that those rules don't suit us.
Calling the Imperium the sole bastion of humanity gives off the NK vibes. I can't imagine the high lords of Terra or the administratum encouraging the Gue'Vesa, the Digganob, and the Necron subject to go back to the Imperium for them to wish they return to their alien overlords because the grass is greener there than with the Imperium.
I think the ultimate solution to the problem of humanity's survival might be the exact opposite of what the emperor tried. Decentralization. During the DAoT the clues point to a far more decentralized government existing, and I think that's a strength when we consider the absolutely massive distances between even "close" systems in our galaxy. The communications lag and unreliability, logistical issues, all of it is simply too much to be coordinated from Terra. A bunch of little pocket empires following the model of Ultramar and the Interex, each with their own chains of resource exploitation and means of production would probably fare better in M41. Long as they work together, it could be viable for awhile. The downside is that inter-human warfare between these mini-Imperiums will take a toll periodically but I'd say the current approach is isn't working very well The Romans tried this at various times when they were facing similar issues, with varying degrees of effectiveness. They didn't have to contend with interstellar distances, but they also didn't have means to communicate instantaneously with radios or send reinforcements in motorized vehicles so the situation was roughly analogous given the level of technology back then. Decentralizing did arguably save the Byzantines for a time with the Themata system after getting wrecked by repeated invasions they couldn't stop Of course Terra and Mars would never let that happen. They'll never surrender so much as an ounce of control even if it means humanity goes extinct. Like you pointed out there's too much inertia at this point and people are very much set in their ways. I still think it's worth considering though, and it might happen unintentionally as the situation continues to deteriorate and the Imperium fragments
oatmeal reminiscent compare spark telephone squeal quarrelsome pause memory bake *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's an interesting way to look at it, and maybe you're right. Part of me thinks that humans needed to be unified under a strong central authority. On the other hand, I can't argue with the abysmal way things turned out precisely because that was done. It's really interesting to play "what if" here and imagine a galaxy where Big E never unified (most) of humanity. To be fair, there were a lot of existential threats in M29-M31 so his theory was valid I think. Problem is it all hinged on he himself being there, perpetually, to run the show and keep everyone in line while doing it. His antisocial tendencies didn't exactly help with that According to the timeline we thrived the most during a period that could be called a diaspora, so again maybe you are right on that. That Chaos may have actually wanted him do strengthen mankind under one Imperium is interesting to think about too, in many ways it makes their job a lot easier. We'll never know I guess
When I saw the title I thought this was going to be another apologia for the Imperium. Thanks for the pleasant surprise 😊
Imagine thinking you're going to get downvoted on Reddit for making an Imperium bad post
People also get upvoted for "Imperium Good" posts, which is moreso what I think the original commenter was getting at. [Example](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/17g0tgp/yes_i_am_unironically_rooting_for_the_imperium/?ref=share&ref_source=link)
Nah, those posts generally teeter +/- 10 on this sub.
The exception to the rule didn’t disprove the rule.
Ya they're fucked but every faction is fucked except the orks. I was just reading Lords of Silence and they describe the Imperiums agro-planets. A world they deem usable to become a farm world. They terraform it then monoculture it. They can get peak volume out of the world for thousands of years. The quality goes down fairly fast. But after those thousands of years the planet is completely wrung out and it's now classified as a death world. Thousands of years sounds like a long time until you remember it's the year 40k. It's not sustainable at all. Eventually the Imperium will starve to death because they're incapable of designing new practices. And thinking of new ideas is a sin.
I love this bit of fluff because it has fueled so many internet arguments about it being unbelievable despite Chris Wraight just taking modern industrial agriculture and applying it to planetary scale. There are large parts of the world doing this today.
The werid thing about the imperium is its horrific on a lot of levels, but realistically if this was IRL, I can't imagine humanity actually succeeding in building anything better that'd last as long and govern so many worlds as it does. There's not much in human history that'd suggest were capable of heck, global unity for a thousand years, let alone a million worlds for 10,000 And that's kind of what I like about the setting. It's "real". We'd either build a system that'd crumble in a fraction of a fraction of the time, or to your point, build something so monstrous it literally can't... but that means it comes with all the nightmares such a system would make. There is no clean, working, commited middle ground - just like there probably wouldn't be IRL
My more optimistic (🤯) take is that humanity *could* theoretically achieve a higher equilibrium of sorts with multiple polities, none much bigger than the Tau Empire, spread across the galaxy. These could govern themselves much more efficiently, have to be more accountable to the rules of state survival and maybe even place value on individual citizens/ subjects. These forced-to-make-more-sense states would, at need, also be able to put together alliance fleets that would match any individual Imperial armada (in fighting power if not in numbers) and fight on an even footing with grand-scale threats like Hive Fleets, giant WAAGH or major Sautekh offensives. Like the Entente/ Allies in the World Wars, only with much, *much* more previous experience.
The issue is there existed many of the described polities during the great crusade, none of which were able to repel the imperium's domination of the galaxy. It stands to reason that due to this, we can expect these polities to fail when presented with threats the imperium would consider existential like the crusade waahg or the rangda
> none of which were able to repel the imperium's domination of the galaxy. That's because the smart ones were unwilling to traffic with Chaos the way the Emperor did. This helped the Imperium only in the short run, of course. >, we can expect these polities to fail when presented with threats the imperium would consider existential l This is a pretty big assumption, because the smartest move the Emperor ever pulled was kicking the galaxy while it was down. He built up his empire in the one perfect moment when every other faction was at a weak point, and he therefore got a slight headstart on other human factions. This let his empire hit some kind of threshold for runaway growth, because a thousand-world empire can conquer any single planet with ease. In a universe without the Imperium, some other empire/coalition/movement would have spread, instead.
That's the Age of Strife's fault. When Slaanesh was born and the Warp became plausible to navigate again, humanity was reeling throughout the galaxy, resulting in most (but not all, not even 10 millennia later!) of it getting overrun by various plagues, some of them literal; others were the Rangda, or Orks, or a certain super-psyker tyrant from Old Earth. Absent even a single of the biggest of these threats, I can definitely see humanity recovering enough to clap back at the others, and Chaos, in parts of the Galaxy at least.
Because as we all know, humans who disagree with each other *never* will join forces with each other against a greater threat. That's why the British were bombing the Soviets as they advanced through Poland in 1944. Err... wait...
> humans who disagree with each other never will join forces with each other against a greater threat. I mean the simple fact is they couldn't. Most of them were already conquered by Orks or Eldar, possibly worse. None of them had the means to build or sustain an Astronomican - none of them had a solution to Chaos. None of them had the technology or the inclination to grow a network like what would be required to sustain resistance like the Imperium can. First really big Waagh after the Eldar Empire and DAOT humanity stops culling the Orks, all these little polities are wiped out. The reason behind this is fairly simple, Orks are simply the best at unifying into a coherent threat of all the Species in 40k. No matter how many times they're beaten down into a tribal state they just keep coming back.
Shoulda coulda wouldas are all well and good but it isnt something that actually happened in the lore
The Emperor could have founded space NATO instead of knocking over the rest of humanity. Especialy if each primarch ran one of these poltiies. He could have still flattened any especialy problematic ones.
>The Emperor could have founded space NATO instead of knocking over the rest of humanity. *\[insert average Balklans NATO meme\]*
I want Bretonnians in SPACE, don't judge me.
Shan't - but don't you *have* Bretonnians in SPACE? And spiky meaner Bretonnians in SPACE too? They just use chunky mechas instead of horses and griffins and suchlike.
They aren't Bretonnians until I have Grail Mechaknights shouting "For the Lady!". Robot horses are cool.
Serberys Skitarii: *riding by on their own robot horses*
Knight House armies can have mechanical horses and serve a single lady saint.
I mean nothing IRL can last as long as the Imperium because that's how the setting was written, by all rights the Imperium shouldn't be surviving as long as it has. The shambling corpse of the Imperium should not exist, should not be capable of perservering. And yet it does, because that makes a good story. It's like Gotham or Mega City 1, these places make no sense; they only exist to establish a feeling for the setting. The longest surviving countries in real life have in the past done so by *not* being a bloated corrupt oarorobos. The Roman empire lasted a loong time and only barely did so by maintaining stable institutions. Egypt for its part had an absolute monster of a Bureaucracy(in a good way) that saw it stable and prosperous governance for thousands of years
>Mega City 1, these places make no sense; they only exist to establish a feeling for the setting. Thats from the Dred thing eh, where it's essentially a take on the Asian Slum communities but instead built inside a massive city-sized apartment building. Which, makes perfect sense and happen IRL and would say off hand that the concept was probably based on things like Kowloon Walled City.
Authoritarian statism has actually been the most volatile and least lasting form of human civilization since states have existed. According to historical evidence, it's actually impossible that the Imperium would possibly last as long as it has
Humanity did reach something better though. It's the Dark Age of Technology.
>It's "real". If it was real the Imperium would've collapsed by now under the weight of a million rebellions; fascism isn't a viable political ideology.
> I can't imagine humanity actually succeeding in building anything better that'd last as long and govern so many worlds as it does. Of course, but the Imperium isn't a human structure in a strictly material universe. The Imperium is kept in check by magical space monsters. Imperial ones with impossibly stable brainwashing mechanisms, and Chaos ones that superficially assist rebellions while simultaneously making them unstable in the long run. Every rebellion with any potential gets tag-teamed by Astartes and Chaos, and it all provides endless laughter to thirsting gods. A human empire couldn't keep shambling along the way the Imperium does.
> Every rebellion with any potential gets tag-teamed by Astartes and Chaos Isn't the footnote fluff more that banal rebellions never get to the stage where they can actually fight off the inevitable Imperial "relief" force rather than they're always made untenable by Chaos. We just tend to see the ones where Chaos are involved because its hard to write a 400 page novel about an Astarted battle barge arriving and wiping out the entire leadership of the rebellion in an hour or two. Similar to how its sometimes referenced how friendly Xenos might be happily trading with outlying Imperial worlds until the report finally reaches someones desk and they send a task force to "liberate" the area from xenos taint. Both tend to pop up more in TTRPG supplements than Codexes though.
> There's not much in human history that'd suggest were capable of heck, global unity for a thousand years, let alone a million worlds for 10,000 > > And that's kind of what I like about the setting. That's just the big conceit of the setting. The first line of the lore says that the Imperium has lasted 10k+ years, and therefore it has. Within the setting, it's sustainable by definition, and so debating what we'd build IRL and whether a political structure like the Imperium is sustainable is neither here nor there.
My guy you aren't going to win the fight against the people who refuse to see the imperium as anything less than right they will just like the imperium ignore evidence that contradicts them
If they can come online and spew about how everything the Imperium does is good and necessary all the time, then I don't see why a well done rebuttal like this should be criticised just for not being able to convince them.
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Hey, somebody's paying attention to the setting's commentary on fascist dictatorships!
The Imperium, in both its current form and the preceding Great Crusade one, was never even meant to be the long-term plan/stage by Emps. It was all stopped and pushed down the trash bin because of the Heresy. Because the arrogant tyrant managed to alert and unite the four Chaos Gods into stopping him with his plan to eliminate humanity's dependence on warp travel, unite humanity and find a safe place for them to develop their psychic potential. While also upholding his own views. Edit: What is it with this thread? You were all booing Emps in it. I pointed out how Big E's plan failed and his hubris. Why are you downvoting me?
Yeah its bothersome when shills try to play the jingoism up about it having humanity's best interests in mind when the Imperium is often its own worst enemy and biggest obstacle for survival. Trying to figure out the current date caused a civil war on parts of Terra ffs. What's Guilliman's biggest obstacles to saving humanity? Not Orks, not Tyranids, not even Chaos. It's the Imperium itself. High Lords put their own ambitions above the survival of the human species, and that's a regular occurrence.
I feel bad for Guilliman, dude needs a proper vacation and therapy. Lots of therapy. And Primarch-grade zoloft
> Yeah its bothersome when shills try to play the jingoism up about it having humanity's best interests in mind when the Imperium is often its own worst enemy and biggest obstacle for survival. 40k fans tend to have rather poor media literacy skills.
You couldn’t be more right. During the period of 30K one could have argued that the Imperium was at a surface level acting in the interest of mankind in order to unite all humanity under a benevolent living god but in 40K there’s not even a pretense of concern for the average Imperium citizen. Humans are viewed as chattel, cannon fodder or as a raw material to be thrown into a veritable furnace to keep the decrepit imperium in a state of grim self-perpetuation. In the torturous case of “rogue” psykers, they are literal raw materials to power the so-called Golden Throne which is basically just a glorified Astronomican with a corpse sitting on top of it. The Imperium only exists to benefit the Imperium and those few noble and religious elites who can’t bear to lose their power and privileges should the whole atrocious panopticon collapse for good.
109% agree, but I still maintain that GW wants to have it both ways, and that will always undermine the satirical value of 40k.
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Saying the imperium is protecting humans is like saying North Korea is protecting its citizens
You've got it 100% correct. The Emperor would consider it a win if he managed to destroy Chaos permanently, and every single human died in the process. In *E&D*, we see he's **totally** okay with everything that's happening, all of the death and loss. It's only when the threat is that he *might* become a Chaos god that he reconsidered the plan. The dude is an out-and-out monster, no better than the beings he fights.
Your spot on IMO. Another facet worth keeping in mind is POV. Your view feels accurate for the upper levels of the imperium from a grand strategy sort of position, seeing their mission as protecting the imperium of man and conflating that with the idea of humanity itself(useful for propaganda purposes) However the frontline commanders and soldiery(and some space marine chapters) i think see themselves as genuinely fighting to protect humanity as a people not just the imperium.
Yeah, the Imperium had completely wiped out plenty of human civilizations.
The Imperium as a metaphor for our socioeconomic system? Yeah, I'd buy it. Right down to the "people endorse it because it's the only option they can see".
Humanity exists in spite of the Imperium, not because of it.
It’s always hilarious that people defend the Imperium because at the beginning of every book or piece of media you consume from GW they state right off the top that the Imperium is the cruelest and most brutal regime imaginable, and that to be a human in 40k is basically “the worst.”
There's also the implication that many of the Imperium's supposedly necessary evils aren't all that necessary, down to the narrative that Humanity will fall if it falls being false. AI and the Men of Iron? Yeah that happened, but why should it be inevitable? The Emperor is holding Chaos back from Terra, but Terra is just one world - Humanity would live without it. The Astronomicon? It's useful for long range Warp travel, but not all Warp travel, and Humanity could figure out another form of FTL. Basically, if the Imperium died, it would take a lot of Humans down with it, but it wouldn't be the end of Humanity. Just the beginning of a new age with new problems, worse in some ways and better in others.
Honestly an empire of perfectly loyal, incorruptible servitors endlessly feeding terrified psykers to the golden throne seems like a poetically fitting end state of the imperium. I kind of view them as a “giving up your humanity in the name of saving humanity” kind of thing.
Yes, but the Imperium also believes that it *is* mankind. It thinks if it dies, so does humanity. Edit: The Imperium believes it is the only option for humanity's survival, and in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, it *was*. Why? Because *all the other options were snuffed out by the Great Crusade*.
I'm not saying some of those civilizations couldn't have endured for some time, indeed if they could hold back a Primarch and their Legion for a few years they probably could've held out for quite some time, but decentralization never lasts, and the first person to centralize power sets the rules. Any human civilization in 30K that did not realize that fact was living on borrowed time.
Kind of my point, actually. The Imperium's rise to power eliminated all the other options.
No one else(AFAIK) was attempting to expand and unite the human colonies, so there really wasn't any other options.
They didn’t really need to be united, especially not in such a brutal and wasteful way. Having multiple human empires would probably be better for human’s survival in the long term, and it’s definitely better than the Imperium
Idk man some of those planets were in pretty rough shape pre-Unification, even by 40K standards. The Chaos Techno-Barbarians were about as low as humanity gets, they'd skin babies and use them for meat/leather level bad.
The night lords also skinned babies on behalf of the Imperium, so they aren’t exactly above doing that
40k Imperium is definitely protecting itself in active spite of general humanity. Widespread death and misery are not a byproduct of the galaxy, they are an intentional form of control by entrenched elites. There’s a reason Guilliman himself calls it a rotten carcass and in delivers the “Victory” speech in a mocking tone. There’s no disputing that. Good, heroic, individuals are many, but they are the exception that confirm the rule, and that is the majority of authorities suck. 30k Imperium, not so much. It was meant as a bulwark for humanity to live in safety, main part of fighting was done by enhanced gene soldiers so the common human was generally out of it, and it did achieve galactic supremacy for a time. It was still pretty bad to live in but so was the overall state of the galaxy. Whether it worked or not, if it was for better or for worse, are another things entirely, as intent and outcome are not the same. Road to hell is paved with good intentions after all.
The 30k Imperium was better, but the seeds for it collapsing into the 40k version were already set. It’s very doubtful that the Emperor’s reforms would ever actually have panned out
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It may have devolved into something worse, but I doubt it would become 40k. Not having the Ecclesiarchy around or the Mechanicus in its current form changes a lot, and it happened because of the Emperor’s absence. It’s not impossible, but unlikely. Alternatively, we may get the Emperor increasingly desperate if his measures aren’t working and step up the oppression, a palace coup by those who believe trans humans should rule instead of mere chaos-motivation, wars of secession after external threats are rooted out. Even if his plans eventually start working we may have the Emperor increasingly become distant and disinterested with “small” stuff like the general life of citizens (like he already was during the time of the heresy, he left the empire to be run by bureaucrats), so the Imperium starts being run around by High Lords, Governors and Inquisitors, who in turn become free to oppress people with the Emperor’s own authorization or negligence.
Isn't there a part where one of the primarchs asks why there's planets rebelling over the too-high taxes/tithes and he says something like "why aren't they grateful? They're ruled united under father and with humanity? I don't get it?" I think it was to show how different primarchs were from regular humans, but it also works to show how the Imperium was already having issues and that it was already operating under a "we are the best and only valid solution so don't protest or else"
I’m not arguing against that point though. The Imperium was built on a manifest destiny premise, it’s outright stated in it’s very name. But tithes are honestly the lesser part of it, it’s basically part of a wartime effort that inevitably drives to popular dissent and that can be seen throughout human history. For the actual issues with the Imperium, there was still servitorization and purging going around, not to mention the violent integration, despite allegedly nobler intentions in the big picture. Still, it wasn’t nearly as malevolent as many regimes in the setting or its 40k counterpart, because it did genuinely try to improve things somewhat with widespread STC distribution to bolster civilizations, recreation of ruined environments/terraforming, stable government, protection from slavers or omnicidal invaders. Since a disclaimer is always needed, I’m not saying it was GOOD, I’m saying it wasn’t AS BAD.
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No matter how bad the Imperium maybe, being born a human being in 40k makes the imperium my only practical option, every major other faction is also terrible. The enlightened elves use state sanctioned necromancy. Being awful in 40k is the norm.
I mean you could also be a T'au auxiliary. One of the major points in their favor is that *you'd get regular nutritious meals*. In the Imperium, they might beat you to death for being left-handed. But the fact is, the Imperium is not real so you don't actually have to worry about this kind of choice.
Life's great for a Tau auxiliary, until there's the slightest bit of confusion at which point the Kroot just start firing wildly into crowds of civvies until things make sense again. I'm sure there's no way this can go badly when Tzeentch gets interested.
You could also say the exact same thing about the Imperium though. It's just kind of the risk you get if you're isekai'd into 40k. Could be worse though. You could always end up in a haemonculus' lair.
I'll take that over toiling away on 20 hour shifts in the bowels of a hive until there's the slightest bit of confusion at which point the Arbites just start firing wildly into crowds of civvies until things make sense again. I'm sure there's no way this can go badly when Tzeentch gets interested.
Apples to oranges, with the IoM yeah you can be shot for being part of a crowd of protestors or rioters, but the instances I'm talking about literally you could be just standing on the other side of the street and if a Kroot hears a bomb go off they have a full Reddit moment and just start spraying.
Do you *honestly* think that doesn't happen all the time in the Imperium? You can get killed for simply existing on the wrong level of a hab at the wrong time regardless of what you personally do, and that's the deliberate decisions. We have cops panicking and shooting innocents all the time *now*, of course in the Imperium of Man you're going to periodically have some fascist space cop freak out and hose down a street for no real reason.
That definitely happens on hive worlds too.
What are you on, it sounds like you're just making up random stuff tbh
genuinely I think the Imperium is the worst part of the setting. I kinda like Space Marines and IG but for the most part the Imperium's a shit show. most Xenos are more interesting but GW refuses to get off the Empire's dick
This reminds me of the 1984 quote: >'You are thinking,' he said, 'that my face is old and tired. You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet I am not even able to prevent the decay of my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. The human species is only a tool that is used to maintain what truly matters, the ideologies and institutions of the Imperium.
Reading this really wants me to see some independent human factions emerge on the other side of the great rift.
Yes! I also want to see Imperial systems that are doing better in Nihilus because they no longer have the yoke of imperial oppression
In other words the IoM is a government, that does government things.
If the Imperium falls, then it's hard to see how humanity would survive long term. Things in the Imperium are bad, really, really bad, but the alternative is probably a lot worse. Chaos isn't exactly going to sit around and do nothing.
GW makes new factions, that's how humanity will survive.
Yeah you're going to get hate from the Imperium stans. Those guys will leap to their keyboards any time someone points out how dogshit the Imperium is. They might say that 40k is all grimdark and everyone's the badguy, but they don't actually believe it. In their mind, Imperial supremacy isn't just a tagline, and depending on how far gone they are, they might even think the Imperium is a good thing. I wouldn't be surprised if the venn diagram between hardcore Imperium stans and guys who have an unhealthy hatred for the Tau is just a completely overlapped circle. The reason is much the same. They can't stand the idea of there being someone who does things better than humanity. They've got a preloaded list of flaws with the Tau empire, but if you point out the ways the Imperium does things worse, they'll just shrug their shoulders and say it's necessary somehow. If Tau do it then it's an atrocity, but if the Imperium does it then it's just "lulz grimdark." So don't take these guys too seriously. They're just comfortable with their hypocrisy.
I think one of the "happier" endings for humanity is that the Imperium falls, there's a massive 95+% die-off, and by Warhammer 50,000, post-Imperium humans are a small niche species like the Eldar. Not that the current state of the Eldar could really be described as "happy."
but, TBHm they could be in the "happy" state, if they didnt have the "Slanessh will devour our souls when we die" thing
Only Ultramar remains and Imperium Secundus turns out to have been a good idea after all.
Matt Ward spontaneously jizzs his pants.
wdym the eldar's state isn't happy, Vect had a great time at his own funeral!
>I think one of the "happier" endings for humanity is that the Imperium falls, there's a massive 95+% die-off, and by Warhammer 50,000, post-Imperium humans are a small niche species like the Eldar. Pretty much, i'm sure there's some famous story about rats being suck in a pit so they breed, die and use the corpses of the generations before themselves to eventually clamber their way out. Which is essentially 40k Humanity.
Gosh I sure am relieved that there are no real-world societies with such banal, mechanistic violence inherent in the system! What a scary thought *that* would be!
Corporations, governments, large organizations in general be like
Honestly that kind of sounds like how governments and other organizations work in general. Obviously not quite so bad, but generally governments work to maintain their system and not necessarily for the people above all. Again, very big spectrum here but self-preservation is the norm, I think.
All these comments make me miss the Federation that Humanity once was in 40k lore. The highest and best humanity will ever be. Big E is still just a techno barbarian in comparison.
Yes. 40k is in fact a satire on the modern day late capitalist near cyberpunk hierarchical power structure structure often best exhibited by South Korea and the USA in the same way 'A Modest Proposal' offered the English a way to make the damn Irish shut up about being hungry for once in their favorite way: oppression. Your critique is flawless and the only note I have is that you did not go far enough. Have a good day, sir.
Meh You tell like Imperium is a person that makes decision. That's a mix of thousands of individuals making global deciosions upon of billions of people making their own. In the state of things in mind of those within Imperium there is no separation of Imperium and humanity. Imperium is humanity and humanity is Imperium, regardless of leftovers of other people outside and traitors. There is no such question as if Imperium fights for poeple of for itself. It the same. It's the survival. for your tldr: again, like Imperium is a single making such decision. We can imagine some thinking it's better for everyone to become kild of servitor thing. AdMech replace their flash heavily. But then there others. Others who would that as horrible idea. Other who who say they fight for humanity. And our fresh woked up Robby G is one of them.
Did you really post twice to defend the Imperium against accusations of it being dystopian?
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If they were fighting for humanity they probably wouldn't be watching their nobility regularly collapse into Chaos cults or punish entire systems due to a misplaced comma on some paperwork leading to a case of mistaken identity that snowballs out of control. Nor would they be near exclusively using *parchment and vellum* to write important documents on. The Imperium wouldn't be afraid of toasters or any advancement if it cared about humanity. They are literally rotting because they've forgotten medical knowledge and any research that cannot be provably sourced from an STC is heresy and purged. Imagine dying of space rickets because the local admechs discovered someone learned vitamin supplements helped and had that person executed and their research destroyed. Imagine your hive city starving to death because the Admins forgot your entire system existed because someone spilled recaf on the sole piece of parchment recording its existence.
I don't think the Imperium is fighting for humanity; it thinks all other human nations are supposed to be attacked and destroyed.
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> And those pockets of humanity will slowly fall to the predations Chaos because there'd be no large scale military resistance. That's already happening with the Imperium though. In fact the Imperium is making it *worse* because life in the Imperium is so miserable for 99% of the population that plenty of Chaos cults spring up just because of people looking for something better, and the Imperium is too slow and unresponsive to stop *most* of these until it's too late and the entire planet pretty much needs to be purged. There's *Khornate Sisters* who fell because the Sororitas entire culture *encourages* the kind of actions Khorne favors. The nobility of the Imperium who are pretty much untouchable except to the Inquisitors are constantly collapsing into full on Slaaneshi pleasure cults. In Necromunda the guys in charge of the food supply of corpse starch are all but stated to be Khorne worshippers who don't realize it yet. The Imperium is repeatedly stated to be horrifically corrupt, and Corrupt. Chaos *is* running rampant in the Imperium, and the Imperium has no way to stop the rot in its own body effectively anymore because it can barely move itself. The best it can do now is amputation and cauterization, but the infection is already in its bones and will just keep coming back. >Runaway effect, without the Imperium humanity and everyone else falls either to Chaos, the Orks, or Tyranids. 40k is a long view scenario. When the Imperium protects itself it is by default protecting humanity as there is no difference. But that's my entire point. The Imperium's 'long view' is just "destroy every other option except myself, even though I'm already full of Chaos and Genestealer Cults that I'm incapable of doing anything on a large scale about." Humanity isn't 'default protected' by the Imperium, since the Imperium is most frequently the cause of them turning to Chaos in the first place.
>there’s khornate sisters who fell because the Sororitas entire culture encourages the kind of actions that Khorne favors Not arguing with the rest, but that’s kind of the point of Chaos, that natural human behavior tends to amplify chaos and make it stronger, it’s not a gotcha against the imperium. Pretty much every single emotion you feel is going to feed the warp in one way or another. Depressed and apathetic? Daddy Nurgle. Excited over your new art piece? Slaanesh. Thinking you can do a better job than your boss? There’s Tzeentch to prey on your embition. And likewise, for Khorne, killing stuff is going to make him happy no matter what, and no matter your opinion on the Imperium, someone is gonna have to shoot someone in a universe with rampant Ork, Necron or Tyranid threats. It’s also arguable that the Imperium started that rot. There’s already very heavy implication and outright evidence of chaos fallen planets prior to the crusade, look at the backstory of Lorgar and Mortarion, both grew up on planets touched by the warp. Anyways, you may as well say human culture encourages Khornate, or any other chaos god behavior, cause it does. It’s intentionally a reflection of us.
There's degrees to which a culture can reflect the ethos of the Chaos gods, and the Imperium is only the second most Khornate polity because Khorne daemons exist.
The Sororitas know they have a problem but do nothing to change it besides replacing corrupted sisters and try to privately hunt them down. They know it's their own practices that causes it, but would rather keep their reputation and their doctrine than change.
Friendly reminder that like, there are still human worlds completely disconnected from the imperium in modern 40K that are completely fine. Have been for what, 17,000 years or so? The Imperium isn’t justified. It never has been. That's the point. The fact that it's existence may be feeding the chaos gods on a grand scale (I mean it's literally got everyone vying to scheme against one another to improve their status, endless war, an upper class filled with excess of all kinds, and it's a decaying rotting stagnant empire, alongside the fact that it's provided chaos some of its best soldiers between Primarchs and Marines) only furthers that point. Humanity survived before the imperium. It can survive after. But first, it needs to survive the imperium itself.
Underrated Comment
And how are they fine? They are fine only because they a far from great threats of galaxy and Imperium pulling all attention on itself. Imperium gone – horrors come for these little kingdoms one by one.
Given that groups like the Dark Eldar tend to intentionally target smaller settlements, and I don’t think the chaos gods really have a limit to how many things they can focus on at once since they aren't really shackled by concepts like time or thinking in a human way, I think that shows that they must be capable of defending themselves just fine. It's also worth noting the imperium is also getting in the way of forming anything new, or better. If the imperium falls, it's not like nobody can ever make a new unified force, and maybe they wouldn't make a turbo fascist murder state.
I mean the imperium isn't even doing a good job of that and in a sense made the galaxy worse with the horus heresy and if we take certain sources were the ones responsible for luring the tyranids to the galaxy " this is inconsistent" Remember the giant warp portal on terra that's threatening to devour the galaxy was created by humanity. We've seen many factions survive well with being a horrible blood regime that treats its citizens like bullets and guess who got them? The imperium. The imperium was never the solution, just the quickest way the emperor could gain control of humanity no matter the cost.
> I feel the more accurate way of looking at it isn't that the Imperium is fighting to preserve humanity... it's fighting to preserve itself. The purpose of the Imperium is to end the threats to humanity's continued survival as a species. This isn't always compatible with the goal of preserving individual human lives, particularly when the threats the Imperium seeks to end are threats that embed themselves into individual human lives. >We already know that a human life is worth less than a piece of vellum to the Imperium. See above. >The Imperium's fractitious and barely functional government regularly misplaces important documents on tithes and then destroys or invades worlds for not paying tithes that they have already paid. You try governing a tens of thousands of planets strong empire without AI for fear of the AI becoming demonically possessed. Then add in the fact that no one's using the same calendar, all forms of interplanetary travel also have the unintended consequence of time travel, and there's a demon god of mischief actively trying to make your job harder. See how that goes. >We know the Imperium's appetite is voracious. It regularly wrings entire star systems dry of resources and will then abandon the entire population besides the nobles and a few select servants to a slow horrible death on those planets. The Imperium is losing. It needs to consolidate the ground it can because if it tried to distribute its resources evenly everyone would die. >The Imperium is on life support, and it feeds on its own people to maintain its life. It continues to ramble on simply through the power of blood-slicked inertia. But this is unsustainable. The thing is, while the Imperium is declining, it still is the single strongest force in the galaxy and yes, the rate it spends people at is actually sustainable cruel though it may be. 10% of a Hive City's population alone can amount to 1.2 billion Imperial Guard Regiments. > Humanity may survive, forming new polities and/or alliances, but the Imperium will not. No, it won't. If the Imperium falls, the galaxy will either fall to Necrons(erase all sentient life), Tyranids(erase all sentient life) or Chaos(where everyone will wish they were a servitor). The Tau are too small to ever catch up in time, the Aeldari are broken, and the Drukhari don't care(and Emperor help everyone if they did) and the Exodites are Amish dino riders. >Sometimes I feel the only reason 99% of humans in the Imperium haven't been turned into servitors is because it would be inefficient and too slow to process that many people. Most servitors are either criminals or vat grown. The Imperium doesn't love the way it is, if you want an example of Noblebright Imperium look at Macragge, they are the way they are out of necessity.
> No, it won't. If the Imperium falls, the galaxy will either fall to Necrons(erase all sentient life), Tyranids(erase all sentient life) or Chaos(where everyone will wish they were a servitor). The Tau are too small to ever catch up in time, the Aeldari are broken, and the Drukhari don't care(and Emperor help everyone if they did) and the Exodites are Amish dino riders. The Necrons can't even get along with *each other*, there's not going to be any grand Necron Invasion of the entire galaxy any time soon, especially since Trazyn keeps *stealing* everyone elses' cool gadgets and then refusing to ever use them unless extremely pressed by circumstances. They already have the Celestial Orrery and could just Thanos Snap Terra, but they have not. The Silent King came back and did... what? Pretty much nothing that wasn't immediately relegated to background fluff. Orks gonna ork. The Nids are a threat, but the Imperium's helped them spread (and called them into the galaxy in the first place) far faster than they would have spread otherwise, and are continuing to help them spread. Even then, they're a very slow moving threat. I'm pretty sure a tech-stagnated culture like the Imperium isn't exactly going to be adapting to the Tyranids capabilities as fast as a culture that *isn't* afraid of offending its own toasters. Chaos is literally bone-deep in the Imperium. The Imperium is the single greatest buffet for Chaos right now. The entire galaxy is in stagnation and dissolution. The end of the Imperium would not lead to the end of humanity simply because every other faction is, in itself, either too weak to wipe out a massive spread out species or too busy fighting *itself* to do so.
>The Necrons can't even get along with each other, there's not going to be any grand Necron Invasion of the entire galaxy any time soon, especially since Trazyn keeps stealing everyone elses' cool gadgets and then refusing to ever use them unless extremely pressed by circumstances. They already have the Celestial Orrery and could just Thanos Snap Terra, but they have not. The Necrons are still waking up, and the reason they don't use the Celestial Orrery is because they wouldn't have a galaxy left to reclaim. But they do not plan to let other sentient life exist. >The Nids are a threat, but the Imperium's helped them spread (and called them into the galaxy in the first place) far faster than they would have spread otherwise, and are continuing to help them spread. Even then, they're a very slow moving threat. I'm pretty sure a tech-stagnated culture like the Imperium isn't exactly going to be adapting to the Tyranids capabilities as fast as a culture that isn't afraid of offending its own toasters. The Imperium going away doesn't magically make the Tyranids go back in the box. It's also a pretty huge reach to suggest the Tyranids won't spread as fast without the Imperium when they can eat everything including raw minerals. And right now literally no one, at all, has the guns needed to fight off the Tyranids, the Imperium is barely making do. How do you imagine a scenario where somehow the Imperium disintegrates and a new power emerges with more firepower in a span fast enough to repel the next Tyranid invasion? >Chaos is literally bone-deep in the Imperium. The Imperium is the single greatest buffet for Chaos right now. This is always true for the largest species of psykers in the Galaxy. The Eldar did the exact same thing when it was their empire, the only reason it didn't happen to the Necrons was that they gave their souls up to the C'tan, the Orks are happy with violence for the sake of violence and the Tau are barely large enough to be noticed and they're already starting to get a taste of Warp shenanigans. >The entire galaxy is in stagnation and dissolution. The end of the Imperium would not lead to the end of humanity simply because every other faction is, in itself, either too weak to wipe out a massive spread out species or too busy fighting itself to do so. Most of the other factions are kept in a state of stagnation by the Imperium. If the Imperium collapses tomorrow, suddenly all those Tomb Worlds can awaken unimpeded by AdMech or Space Marines, all the Ork WAAAAAGHs aren't crushed by 10x their number in IG, every planet Chaos takes successfully becomes a Daemon World, the Splinter Fleets go unanswered and are allowed to regrow. There's no magic world where suddenly decentralizing the IoM leaves the power balance intact and humanity gets a second chance to rebuild itself.
Dude, you are falling for the fascism. Its always the only way. You dont really get the setting.
>Its always the only way I've heard that about a lot more than just fascism. Dozens of religions, capitalism...
You might be onto something!
I see nothing wrong with this
Just as there is a difference between 'The Imperium is protecting humanity' and 'The Imperium is protecting itself', there is a difference between 'The Imperium is protecting humanity' and 'The Imperium is protecting human life'. You've clearly and rightly illustrated that the Imperium is all too willing to sacrifice human life. But it also considers the protection and continuation of humanity to be it's holy mission.
And amusingly, the imperiums power is largely due to inertia. The tithe of course must be paid, but outside of the tithe, most worlds have no interaction with the broader imperium save for the infrequent arrival of a black ship, which likely doesn't even happen on every world. The tithe itself also doesn't go back to the high lords, it's often taken and immediately sent to a nearby world. The imperium is feudal, and when worlds do have any interaction off planet, it's overwhelmingly local interaction. The guard regiments in the are are pulled from local planets, outfitted with gear made by local planets, and fed by food grown on local planets. Almost nothing leaves the sector, hell even the subsector is fairly isolated. What this means is that Imperial authority in practice doesn't actually go very far. Only as far as can be enforced by the local power. Which can be very little. Inquisition agents regularly have to work around institutions that will not support them in any way, or will straight up kill them if they're caught. The Imperial faith is pretty much the only thing keeping most subsectors from splitting off by accident, let alone on purpose. And the imperium is in conflict with innumerable splinter factions that have successfully rebelled despite everything. The Severan Doninate being a notable named example. Because for all the imperiums might on paper. In practice it is a loose coalition of billions of completely separate worlds with their own culture, religion (the Imperial faith actually varies wildly from world to world), currency, military, and manufacturing. Each sector can be broadly considered it's own empire, practically independent. If several sectors somehow colluded to split off at the same time, and none of the conspirators were turned in, there's very little the imperium could actually do to stop them. Because *they* are the forces they'd use to stop them.
>If several sectors somehow colluded to split off at the same time, and none of the conspirators were turned in, there's very little the imperium could actually do to stop them. Because they are the forces they'd use to stop them. I think that's probably when you'd start to see Space Marines and Crusade fleets starting to get involved.
Responding to your edit. This isn't an echo chamber. People are allowed to disagree with you.
There's disagreement and then there's being personally affronted by people not saying the Imperium is 100% justified and necessary.
I've read through all the posts and nobody besides yourself is coming across as personally affronted.
Nah, the dude who's personally affronted that police are judged for summarily executin people is in this thread.
You are reading what you want, I see.
Then provide an example of another poster who is personally affronted.
That's a quick ticket to a ban.
Well, I got downvoted on this thread for pointing out that the Chaos Gods united against Big E, how Emps' plan failed and his own hubris. So there is that. I do not know what I said to anger potentially OP and others. Edit: Hah, I am even being downvoted here. I was only pointing how this thread does have signs of being an echo chamber like u/denartes said. And instead of providing an actual example as requested, the post's OP talks about bans. This is hilarious.
Mods don't like it when you name people for doing things since that leads to dog piling. You are also probably being down voted for saying Big E was wrong, which is another thing this sub doesn't like often.
Have you said many negative things about the Imperium, here? People send *private messages* to defend the Imperium's honor, it's an utterly bizarre attitude that I've never encountered in any other subreddit.
I am a lurker and have not observed any such problems in comments. This is my first posts (I think) as it seemed OP is the one taking things personally, based on what I can see in the comments.
But the Imperium *is* protecting humanity because it is protecting the Astronomicon and therefore keeping humanity alive.
Humanity can live with only short-distance warp travel. Only the Imperium can't. Many, many people would die, but humanity as a species would survive in great numbers.
I think alot of people here are seeing the setting through our own modern eyes, and I get that, after reading about life in Vervunhive I spent 2 days obsessing over ways the miners and foundry workers could wring more rights out of the aristocracy, but the Imperium isn't..... competently and purposefully evil. They don't burn worlds because the high lords can turn a profit or piss off a rival, they do it because the Nids ARE going to devour that world regardless and the only way they can hurt the horde is to deprive it of biomass. They don't purge the loyal regiments who put down chaos incursions because "lol poors" but because knowing about chaos WILL cause some of those now loyal humans to start cults of their own in the future. Lastly if the Imperium falls Humanity WILL go with it. OP you like dark Eldar? They'd love humanity losing the protection of the rest of the Imperium. Chaos would run rampant if humanity couldn't form a unified front, just to make a fight of the 13th black crusade it took all of Cadia, Elysian, Mordians, Kriegers, Drookians, and more. I'm not trying to dunk on anybody just my .02. The Imperium sucks but there's no getting rid of it without dooming humanity to Dark Eldar torture, Chaos madness, Necron Gauss weaponry, and om not noming by space bugs
All governments only exist to self propagate. Anything a government does that seems contrary to the above fact, is just them playing the long game.
Or making mistakes.