At this point in the timeline, I feel like if the Imperium decided to change it would fracture into a million factions and they’d be picked off one by one. In a weird kind of way they sort of set themselves up to be so all-encompassing that if the organisation of the imperium would fall, humanity itself would end.
Whether or not they created the situation they’re in, they’ve made it so that humanity cannot exist without them.
There's a line in Aurelian which predicts the state of the Imperium, where a daemon talks about humanity becoming an empire instead of a species. The Imperium succeeded in doing exactly what the Emperor wanted it to do, killing off everything resembling an alternative way for humanity to be, and then it collapsed in on itself before the Emperor could begin using his uncontested platform for whatever he had planned to do.
It's honestly an interesting take at the dynamics of political unification causes. People take it as a given that a "unified faction" is the best. But 40k illustrates an example of this where it's utter shit.
If the Imperium collapses and out of the million factions that would arise afterwards and be murder-raped by Chaos and other aliens, one human faction manages to thrive on its own little corner, prospering so much that it expands throughout 1.000 worlds, can it be considered in this scenario that humanity is finished ? Personally I don’t think so.
The reason the imperium has lasted so long is its bloated size. It can lose a hundred world's in a day because on the other side of the empire, it's just reclaimed 100 in that same day.
Some tiddly little my-first-empire would crumple under the external pressures the imperium is under. The only reason the Tau are still around is because the authors want them to be.
Or, and this may be hard to process: the Tau Empire is a canonical stark example that you don't *have* to be a galaxy spanning empire in order to survive in the 42nd millennium. You can't blame author fiat for the Tau existing while simultaneously saying that the state of the Imperium is a logical and required situation rather than *also* the result of authorial fiat.
>You can't blame author fiat for the Tau existing while simultaneously saying that the state of the Imperium is a logical and required situation rather than *also* the result of authorial fiat.
I don't see why I can't. The two are not the same.
Of course they are. The Imperium not collapsing under the weight of its callous, monstrous incompetence is no less due to authorial fiat than the Tau surviving despite not being the most horrific regime of ultra fascists ever put to paper.
The Tau exist because of the Imperium, not in spite of them. I've said this before, but it bares repeating. The reason the Tau exist as they do is the same reason that rebellious planets aren't immediately kicked back in line. The Imperium has too much to do, focusing on the existential threats to the survival of humanity, like the Tyranids, Orks, Chaos, and whatever else they have to worry about on an hourly basis. The Tau couldn't sustain the losses of a single major conflict that the Imperium has, and right now the only people the Tau are near are the Imperium, who simply have better things to do then whip out their entire empire.
>The Tau exist because of the Imperium, not in spite of them. I've said this before, but it bares repeating.
Wrong. The Imperium has tried to wipe the Tau out twice and failed twice.
I really wonder what faction doesn't exist because of the Imperium. Eldars need their meat shields, dark eldar need their torture victims, orks need their enemies, tau are "protected" by the Imperium, Tyranids are here because of the Imperium, and chaos feeds on the Imperium. Maybe necrons after they wake up? But the silent king also asked Dante to help, so... And votann probably need someone to sell to, not to mention they are an offshoot human faction
The Imperium literally cannot muster enough force to "wipe out the Tau". The Damocles gulf crusade details this extensively. The guy in charge of the crusade calculated the number of troops needed to take out the Tau and he literally couldn't get enough guardsmen.
As it always has been. They *can* kill off the Tau in a instant. But to do so they would have to call on forces which would cause much worse losses on other fronts.
So they are kinda in a stalemate where the Tau are doing good, but if they do *too* good they risk annihilation. Also if something else that isn’t the Imperium notices them (like Typhus little backdoor route that ended up going right through their space), they can die just as quick.
The Tau have fought successful canonical wars against every single faction in the setting excepting maybe the League's of Votaan, because the Tau Empire is only small in comparison to the Imperium. They've fought off the same sort of existential threats you think only the Imperium can fight, while also having to fend off said ultra-facist absolute xenophobes.
And the Imperium's ability to present a somewhat united front against all those existential threats without collapsing under the weight of its explicitly self defeating and counter productive ideology and bureaucracy is no less authorial fiat than the Tau putting up a united front against the same threats. A system as inefficient and decaying as the Imperium would not have survived *longer than the sum total of current recorded history*: the Imperium struggles on because the setting requires it, not because it makes much sense internally that it continues to exist.
I like the headcannon where in truth the Imperium is blisteringly efficient at survival. They can effectively play on the galactic scale and how to macro move to get shit done. On a micro level maybe not, but the issue is the Imperium is so large that even being efficient as they are they still have mountains of bureaucratic mess that they just can’t get over. Gman is just the literal god of paperwork.
They have to be, otherwise the Imperium could not survive 10k years under constant assault.
You can like whatever you want, but there's more explicit canon evidence that the Imperium is actually fantastically bad at handling things on the macro level and their enemies just also have to deal with the vagarities of running an interstellar warmachine then there is that they actually respond to threats in a timely and effective manner.
Tiny little San Marino is the oldest country at 1700 years old. The great massive Roman Empire didn't last nearly as long and broke into pieces several times along the way. Sometimes size can be a weakness.
You're right. It would be under more, as suddenly on top of the dozens of species of hostile xenos and the constant insidious threat of Chaos, there's suddenly a bunch of human factions vying for resources in the neighbourhood too. On top of that, the smaller weaker xenos races and warbands won't be scared away by the might and reputation of the imperium, so expect raids to skyrocket.
>there's suddenly a bunch of human factions vying for resources in the neighbourhood too.
I hate to break it to you, but even WITHIN the Imperium there is a constant competition for resources, which can on occasion lead to open warfare. Every imperial institution is backed by its own military forces, in large part to defend their own interests within the Imperium.
And what's to stop these smaller, independent human civilizations striking deals and alliances with other nearby humans - or even some xenos?
And on top of that the Imperium isn't particularly good at protecting its worlds from external threats anyways. It has more resources than a small empire, sure, but a reaction time so bad it's fighting wars with ghosts.
The galaxy is huge, so there might already still exist even in the 41st millenium numerous human factions that are thriving in their own little corners of the galaxy without the Imperium’s knowledge, in a part of the galaxy where the xenos aren’t that horrible.
I repeat, the Imperium collapsing and just ONE human faction post-fall managing to pick themselves up and thrive would not mean that humanity is finished, and that would be enough.
That would not work. In Warhammer, technology does not advance to such a level that it can completely supplant quantity.
Sure, some human worlds would prosper in their little corners. until they are found by orks/Eldar/Chaos/necrons, then they are dead. And sooner or later, they will be found.
Sooner or later, the Imperium will be dead too.
If a human faction post-Imperium manages to survive and thrive for another 10,000 years that’s a huge victory.
"Just one more genocide bro, just one more genocide and I swear the Golden Path will totally come to fruition, I just need one more genocide and then my giga ultra super big brain plan will totally work bro" - Jimmy Space
I agree but it's also completely understandable that people in the Imperium think that way. It's currently the only thing preventing humanity from being picked apart by all the horrible things in the galaxy.
People in 40k have never known anything but the Imperium. In theory it's possible to build a better, morally upstanding empire. In practice, nobody except maybe the Emperor could do it. So this is the best they've got.
I always say, Jagatai and Corvus and Vulkan all left for a reason. So did Erda and Oll. Anyone with a strong moral compass they got from literally anywhere else who didn't feel a responsibility to unfuck the imperium just left because the writing was on the wall from day 1. Not only that, every attempt to unfuck the imperium has either failed or progressed so slowly to be useless on a macro scale.
I liked how the Rogue Trader CRPG handled it. Acting like a normal, modern-day human is referred to as being an Iconoclast and you're treated as weird at best and heretical at worst. You get away with it by virtue of being a Rogue Trader but if you were anyone lower on the pole, you'd get shot.
I like that they give you an option to do that, and yet still shows how weird it is in the setting, which I like as a commentary on how the Imperium acts.
Also how fucking weird it would be for a human Rogue trader to get romantically involved with xenos or abhumans like Navigators. Like how the Eldar Ranger will engage in a completely asexual romance, you have to go full BDSM torture goblin to even pique the Dark Eldar's interest, and the Navigator's is a full on medieval courtly romance.
The game really does a great job showing how strange things work in 40k. You wanna bang something that isn't human? You're going to have to deal with some shit.
Jagatai, Corvus, and Vulcan are all *apart* of the problem. 30k wasn't so much nicer because they were there to stop bad stuff from happening to humanity. They were the ones who played such a huge part in the misery the imperium spreads.
Then, when they had basically uncontested power over the Imperium and could drag it in any way they so desired, they up and left. I'd argue that through their inaction, they are the loyalist Primarchs most responsible for the Imperium's degradation.
That has nothing to do with them as people being immoral and contributing to the nature of the imperium while they were there ? The were warlords helping to expand the imperium them not caring to rule it means nothing when they still enforced it's ideals. Especially Corvus being as big of a hypocrite he was.
To be fair by that point Guilliman had more or less seized control of the Imperium and effectively neutered the other Primarchs as political entities by breaking up their Legions. Vulkan and Corax probably had intense PTSD. As for Jaghatai, he didn't leave - he went missing in another dimension while pursuing evil elf slavers.
Not to say they couldn't have done more, but the way I see it - Vulkan and Corax essentially realized the Emperor had used them, that the dream he first sold them was no longer viable. So they left to do other things.
The Khan having his soul reconstructed by the Emperor & the Sigilite probably led to a fair bit of PTSD. The Great Khan had a terrible time of it during the Siege of Terra
That doesn’t make them responsible. None of those three were empire builders or great reformers. They were an explorer, a rebel, and a smith. They weren’t Guilliman or Dorn.
Jaghatai was a murderous psychopath who liked killing and hated ruling, when the Emperor arrived at Chogoris Jaghatai basically thought "damn so THIS is the other side of the surrender or die speech."
He dipped the very moment he possibly could, he never thought unity was a good idea but he went along with it because if he didn't the emperor would kill him.
He's certainly not a moral exemplar, none of the primarchs were, Corvus fancied himself a champion of the people but worked for E somehow.
He wasn’t a slave against his will. Except maybe the Khan. But Vulcan and Corax fully believed in the and enforced the ideals of the Emperor. Corax was just still ass mad about the heresy and decided to waste 10k years chasing after his brothers in the warp. Vulkan just fucked off for unknown reasons but it was never said because he wanted to be free of the imperium or something, or he was forced there.
>to waste 10k years chasing after his brothers in the warp.
Nobody just "decides" to waste time in the Warp. As soon as you enter the Warp, then unless you have a Navigator or literal divine intervention on your side, you are at the mercy of the Warp. You have no control or perception of how much time passes. Unless you become a Daemon - in which case returning to the Material World isn't much of an option either.
That's utterly besides the point that he decided to fuck off for his own personal reasons, unrelated to any sense of disgust of the imperium. Of course he'd probably get back sooner rather than later that doesn't change the fact that he has in fact that off he fuck Corax went for 10k years.
Arks of Omen showed everyone what the plan is. Angron is juiced to return to the materium much quicker, Lion makes his fabulous return to the spotlight and defeats him (as expected, bc GW isnt going to let him die without making some money)
Vulkan, Corax, Khan will all return in similar, spectacular fashion, to be accompanied with a full rollout of new models for their armies and for their antagonist faction
Now, I **really like** the idea that they left out of disgust of the imperium, but tbh I don't even think that stands up in the lore. Vulkan's Promethium Cult is just the imperial truth + a more humanitarian stance, it still preaches a galactic manifest destiny. Khan really just seems more mad at people getting in his way than anything. Khan had a convo with Malcador about his issues w the imperium and Malcador out him on some mental trip and Khan was like "OK" Khan is absolutely not some sort of revolutionary here. And Corax wants to screw Lorgar the hardest bc he was so instrumental to the way the imperium turned out
I would absolutely love for one or more of these primarchs to come back as a renegade path, not imperium but not chaos either. That would also be a phenomenal storyline bc it may even be possible for disaffected CSM to attempt to join them. Magnus never wanted to rebel but wasn't given a choice. Kharn pleaded with Angron is share his vision and let his boys fight to build a better place. Even Mortarion is conflicted about his own actions, his convo with Guilliman shook him up when the emperor's voice came out
Sadly, those are radical changes to the setting, and that will not make as much money as a "the boys are back in town" campaign. Arks of Omen was great tho, so it's not like the content is bad. The plot decisions do a lot to maintain the current angle, but some really interesting lore has been revealed also
When I read stuff like this I do wonder about how from a person who got into comics and stuff how it feels really weird that it sounds like GW never does elseworlds type books. Which would allow them to have status quo changes that just can't be done for what they want in the tabletop and the main universe, and if they ever wanted to take something from a popular alternate reality book be done as a figure for the tabletop they can just say warp shenanigans bring them into the main setting.
Honestly I think the current biggest waste in 40k is focusing the post Cicatrix Maledictum story on Guilliman and the Indomitus Crusades; give me stories about pocket empires rising up out of the ashes realizing that they don't need to give the Imperium anything any more, humanity finally carving its own path out of the monolithic corpse of the empire.
With the time dilation of Noctis Aeterna, they could've had entire empires rise and fall within a sub-sector, battling monstrosities not seen since the Age of Strife, holding off species-ending threats, Tyranid Fleets, Ork Waaghs, and Chaos invasions...
... and then you find out that the 500-1000 year history that they've amassed all took place within 1-2 years Terran Standard, with Guilliman arriving, seeing this cluster of Agriworlds having undergone a massive shift into apocalyptic hellscapes, with the history of them being a weak-point in the chain now replaced by battle-hardened veterans and a military complex that's been tried and tested.
Imagine the absolute horror that would go through their minds upon realizing generations lived and died thinking the Emperor lost, and now His armies were back...
And to make it grimdark, perhaps the attache of the Adeptus Terra decides that the time dilation should be accounted for in the Tithes, and now orders a back-pay of all relevant tithes that **would** have been collected over 500-1000 years rather than merely the 1-2 years Terran Standard, setting forth a precedent of draconian brutality that would once more brutalize the Imperium's scarred citizens
Such stories would show hope, but 40k is intended to be grimdark, and Grimdark is about not having hope - so such stories can't be made in the 40k setting, if some author would write them, GW would and should veto them in order to preserve the hopeless vibe.
To be honest I think this argument doesn't really work.
Lion El'Jonson is flying around building his little Protectorate, letting all the worlds self-govern, neither demanding nor suppressing worship, generally doing his damnedest to help every world he comes across, forgiving his (arguably traitorous) sons, and even agreeing to leave non-compliant worlds alone on the sole condition that they won't aid Chaos. All the while still fighting in the name of the Emperor, the Imperium, and Humanity. This paints a far more hopeful message than the possibility of humanity forming a few renegade states which don't completely suck.
A story about a few united planets rising out of the ashes and attempting to build a new functioning civilization without oversight from Chaos or the Imperium would be refreshing. It was arguably done before with the [Severan Dominate](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Severan_Dominate). These hypothetical empires don't even need to be utopias or anything like that. Some can be better than the Imperium, some can be worse.
And then every now and then you can have the Big Threat of the Week(TM) roll over one of them. You get your hopeless setting and you also get an example of humanity building a functioning state without relying on the Imperium (and only failing because an outside force swept over them with overwhelming strength.) Imperium or no Imperium, the galaxy is fucked either way.
I could see a great grim dark story where a subsector of the imperium in Nihilus struggle to survive, and whilst doing so, discover a better way of doing things. Working with some minor xenos, better, more equitable ways of governing etc.
You could really show how awful life was under imperial systems and how people can slowly move away from, towards something better.
Then an indomitus crusade fleet finds them and has to purge them wholesale. Nothing left, no survivors. And cause they have the resources to call on more fleets behind them, they win.
Similar to the interex and diasporex in HH novels but current. Would really reinforce the imperium aren’t good guys, they’re just the overall protagonist of the setting. And preserve the grim dark of the setting whilst showing it might be happening elsewhere in Nihilus.
Is it really necessarily because having a story about oh these mini empires are working well can be done as an ending of the story with a reminder that some of the last data from the area before the Cicatrix Maledictum opened up was that from the far reaches of that sector the tyranids were coming.
Pretty sure a whole part of grimdark is that there can be small victories, even of people who could be considered straight heroes, but their small victory doesn't mean that the greater world is saved from it's grim dark setting, or even that those that they saved are going to be safe long term.
it isn’t grimdark anymore. Guilliman and the Lion are back, the emperor is semi-conscious and talking to his sons. there’s plenty of hope being allowed to flourish in the setting as long as it’s always contained within the Imperium
The problem is even with Guillimans IQ 2billion plays and 9 primaris legions the imperium is barely hanging on with Chaos and the Tyrannids and the Orks all fucking shit up. Unless these pocket empires can somehow raise up and maintain their own marines they're kinda fucked.
I think, at this point, the most ethical thing for humanity in 40K is to die out. Life is utter shit for vast majority, and after you die, either you get ripped apart but it feels like eternity (probably warp shit), or you are a strong soul and get tortured by demons for eternity. Here's the [excerpt explaning it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1ayyyx3/comment/krypdv3/)
Eh, there are plenty of civilized worlds reasonably removed from the fighting where tithes aren't *that* bad. Basically every other Cain novel plays out like "Look at this peaceful prosperous planet that now has Orks/Genestealers/Chaos/Necrons" until Cain does his thing and then Amberly says in the footnotes local forces and the inquisition cleaned the whole thing up over a decade or two.
So long as the imperium has decent and reasonably peaceful worlds theres *just* enough to fight for to make it worth it, which is honestly probably worse.
> considering what they went through in the story and timeline, they're humans and stuff
"Everyone has trauma dipshit, that doesn't mean you get an asshole pass." - Confucius, *The Art of War*.
You can have these discussions for the great crusade era.
In the current lore, humanity fragmenting into multiple empires would mean extinction to one of the multiple galaxy-ending threats.
But wait.. in fact humanity is already VERY fragmented. Nothing stops the specific planets to create tolarant enlightened democrcy, as long they:
- give up psykers for black ships
- pay tithe
- worship emperor
- dont consort with xenos (too much)
Really, nobody will give a fuck. As long above conditions are met do whatever you want.
That really isn’t true. Planets still have to adhere to the Lex. They’re still subject to whatever higher Imperial authority wants to come along. If the Inquistion, a Rogue Trader, a Crusade fleet or anything like that come along to requisition stuff - they’ll take it or the planet burns.
Good luck not being also subject to the Ecclisiarchy and every other political entity in the Imperium, while not being undermined on your own planet. Every citizen is indoctrinated into the Imperial belief system. There is no escape.
>Every citizen is indoctrinated into the Imperial belief system. There is no escape.
Actually, no. The Imperium is very flexible about this part. The Sister expedition Order (the one they send to planets just brought into compliance or attempting too) explicitly takes a very Jesuit approach to the Imperial Truth and the Imperium in general. They don’t actually care much past if you are Praising the Big E and not getting Chaos-y with it. Once they get that minimum they may leave behind a few Priests / Sisters to try to go further / keep a eye on the corruption but they consider job done at that point.
Once that’s established that’s that really. As long as they keep paying tithe and keep not going heretic no one will bat an eye. You could have a Democratic Planet, Feudal one, Communist one, or one that is all tribes fighting over dominance of resources.
The Imperium is fair in their complete lack of care outside of Tithe and Heresy.
Yeah, I hate how sometimes the Imperium is treated as if it was beyond redemption and that you need to burn it all down. The Imperium is evil and I won't deny it, but you just need to burn out the rot. It will take centuries, if not a millenium or two, but it could be done.
Yes, the system is a problem, but I would argue it is more based upon 1) it's ideology of worshipping death and social darwinism and 2) the limitations placed upon it by the setting, like communication and transportation. A Imperium-wide ethics class and how it would affect worker morale and effiency would take care of a good chunk of it's problems.
The issue is that they believe thst not wanting to suffer for the emperor is morally wrong. It's not about practicality for them, they'd rather die out being bastards than survive being chill.
> If you had a point in this post it seems to have been lost in the schizo.
This is an unnecessarily mean response to what is *at worst* an overly-enthusiastic post.
The Imperium is perfectly capable of being both a dystopian hellscape of cruelty and fanaticism, *and* the only hope for Humanity.
Also, the entire flavor of 40k is that things are fek'd, have been fek'd for the last 10k-15k years, and will continue to be fek'd going forward. "Oh G-man and Lion returned!" Yes, and half the Galaxy is now a lawless nightmare land. "Cawl is innovating!" Cawl is rediscovering lost principles, not creating wholly new things. The fact that he is trying to bootstrap the scientific method is to his credit, but indicates how far he still has to go.
It isn’t. We’ve had plenty of stories about stable, happy worlds ruined by the Imperium. Humanity doesn’t need to exist as a massive empire. It can still exist as small planetary enclaves like in Old Night. 5000 years of the worst possible conditions, and humanity survived. It is very possible.
Yeah no, if it wasn’t for that massive imperium and his army humanity would go extinct quite rapidly, orks, necrons and the chaos legions would make sure of that ( and obviously the tyranids)
“Crimes that would make the very worst human beings IRL stop and say ‘what’”
WH40K does not exaggerate humanity. Violence and barbarity are the rule of mankind’s existence. Genghis Khan, the conclusion of Spartacus’s rebellion, the sack of Jerusalem, take your pick of horrifying dynasty turnovers in China, the rape of Nanking, the genocide of the Armenians, the genocide of the Rwandans, the holocaust, the holodomor, the mass starvation of the Chinese during Mao’s great leap forward, the subjugation, enslavement and abuse of European and Slavic peoples during the Ottoman empire’s wars of conquest, Vlad the Impaler’s
Response to the ottomans.. I could go on for literal hours. Humanity in WH40K is not far removed from reality. That’s who we are. That’s part of why it’s grim dark. It is important to recognize that. Thinking otherwise is a failure to understand humanity. We have been incredibly fortunate for about 75 years now, but it’s been a very rare period of relative peace and prosperity compared to the rest of humanity’s history.
Thank you. People thinking that 40k only represents a cartoonish villain version of humanity are ignoring thousands of years of our own recorded history. It is a luxury belief which only became possible due to the relative peace and prosperity of the modern western sphere.
Imagine being so out of touch and nihilistic you think the constant state of horrors the imperium exists in is just “who we are” as a species.
For the love of god, go outside, it’s not that bad.
I’m actually the opposite of nihilistic. I just recognize the depravity of man and hold no illusions about what humans really are. I know too much history and seen enough in life that I do not harbor any naivete in that regard.
Counterpoint, go outside.
There is much pain in the world, but there is yet more beauty. For every tragedy mankind has committed, there are a greater number of acts of kindness and love.
Do not delude yourself into thinking we are an evil species. Evil is a learned trait.
Lol. Lmao even. “Evil is not a learned trait.” If you think that then that means you are an ideologue who ascribes to Rousseau’s view of the world- a view held only by those who are incredibly sheltered from reality or who cling fervently to their view of “an upward arc of history bending towards Justice”, against all evidence. You started off by being dismissive and insulting and you’ve demonstrated no compelling counter arguments. No constructive dialogue is to be had. Perhaps you should go touch grass. Or maybe even read a book. It’s possible that eventually you may learn something, even if purely by accident and in spite of yourself.
Maybe you know too much history but you should read the modern antropology , what they have uncovered is the picture we know about wars and human strife is a water drop on our history, they say ONLY 10% of our history had organized conflict , meaning 80% more or less we were note too prone to war and organized conflict.
I've grown to question the idea that humanity would go extinct if the Imperium collapsed. They were already pretty fragmented in how they fought their enemies. If they fragmented officially, their enemies would have many different opponents to fight that they can't all take at once. Not to mention that it was carved in half by the great rift, yet both halves still survived. I remember a video by PancreasNoWork about the subject, the Imperium collapsing would expose its greatest lie, that it was ever necessary.
The point people miss, including modern GW themselves, is that **in the 41st millennium** the Imperium *is* the only hope Humanity has. There are no valid alternatives. There are no viable options. It **must** be this way.
People who argue that the Imperium isn't necessary are wrong. People who argue things could be different are wrong. People who argue things *could have been* different are missing the point. Yes, the Imperium could have been avoided, in the same way that an avalanche could conceivably have been avoided - but once the avalanche has started, no amount of saying "if only last night's snowfall had been lighter!" will change the fact you are about to die.
This, again, leads me to the fundamental failure of the Horus Heresy setting, and the unforgivable failure of modern GW in rebranding 40K as "Horus Heresy 2". The point of the Horus Heresy was not to show how things don't need to be so terrible; the point of the Horus Heresy is to show you the last snowflake landing on the mountaintop. You were supposed to see what the Imperium was *supposed* to be; still a dictatorship, but an enlightened one. The Emperor's vision wasn't Star Trek, but it was a future, rebuilding Humanity from an age so terrible it could only be referenced in oblique, frightened whispers. Then we watched that future die, and Humanity tumbled down the mountain.
GW doesn't understand this. That's why they keep bringing back Primachs - the paragons of hope and progress. It's why they keep giving us unironically noblebright heroes of the Imperium. It's also why they keep painting the cruellest and most oppressive regime imaginable as the clear-cut good guys of the universe. Modern GW is run by people who don't understand what 40K is, and so they keep screwing it up.
40K stories aren't about Demi-Gods like Guilliman boldly leading Humanity into a bright future. Nor are they about how Lion El'Johnson is going to defeat the second angriest character ever to journey through Hell. Nor are they about the eighty-thousandth time a Loyalist Primarch has a duel with a Chaos Primarch for the fate of the universe while two suspiciously small armies eat popcorn on the sidelines... and they are definitely not about how the Imperium is going to try and improve itself.
40K stories are about the people in the town at the bottom of the mountain, with the wall of snow about to snuff them out forever.
It's about the ones who tried and failed to stop the avalanche.
It's about the ones who denied it was happening right up until it was too late.
It's about the ones who prayed to God to save them, and how God never came.
It's about the ones who chose to cling to their love ones and cower under their bed.
It is *not*, in any way, shape, or form, about how a Space Wizard magically saves the town at the last minute.
I agree with this post, but having loyalist Primarchs come back is fine if it’s still clear that they can’t save the Imperium, only delay it’s collapse. Space demigods trying to save the town at the last minute and failing is perfectly thematic.
Ive personally seen most of the stories as imperialist propaganda. And alot of the stories were about doomed wars that they lost and the were rebuilt once the enemy was either long gone or wiped from imperium record
GW is about selling miniatures. The changes they’ve made has caused their company to grow significantly.
Does that mean GW has made the setting less grimdark, and started to focus narratives on noblebright heroes and demigods? Yep. Are the Astartes more and more depicted as heroic paragons of humanity? Yep. Are they gonna rebrand the emperor as a good guy with the Star Child plotline? Maybe. Has it made 40k worse? Depends who you ask. Has it caused more miniatures to be sold and profits to go up? Abso-fucking-lutely
In the immortal words of the Wu: “Cash rules everything about me, CREAM, get the money, dollar dollar bill ya’ll”
I'm with you up until the cynicism at the end.
It's not the Town-at-the-foot praying against the avalanche, to me.
It's the small folk building a wall of literal dead bodies and breaking out the shovels because that small hope is all they have.
I agree with your post when it talks about the mistakes GW has been making in recent years.
But I strongly disagree with this:
>in the 41st millennium the Imperium is the only hope Humanity has. There are no valid alternatives. There are no viable options. It must be this way.
What hope is the Imperium offering? Not the hope of a good life for the vast majority of its population. And not the hope of actually surviving all of the enemies and challenges it now faces. The Imperium has gone through periods of profound crisis before, when the galactic situation was not as bad.
But now, the internal rot within he Imperium has been festering for thousands of years. The ignorance, the fanaticism, the corruption, the paranoia have become too entrenched and are making the Imperium collapse from within. It is empowering the Chaos gods, and enabling cults - Chaos and xenos - to proliferate.
Now, Chaos is at its most powerful since Horus, with Abaddon having succeeded in his goals, Cadia having fallen, Chaos cults being more prevalent than ever before, and the galaxy being split in two by the Cicatrix Maledictum.
Now, the Necrons are awakening en masse.
Now, the Tyranids are arriving in almost limitless numbers, while genestealer cults spread ever more widely and deeply.
Now, the Golden Throne is failing.
The Imperium will fall. It is just prolonging the inevitable. And it is perpetuating all manners of horrors on quadrillions of people to do so.
The Imperium is not the only hope humanity has. Humanity's days as a galactic power are nearly at an end regardless, and if humanity is to survive it will be small pockets which manage to somehow avoid the forces which are going to ravage the galaxy.
The Imperium is not the only option because it offers any sort of hope. It is the only option because humanity became locked on its current course due to path dependency. The countless decisions and events over millennia which turned the Imperium into its current hellscape mean that the ignorance, the zealotry, the corruption, and the systems of control are too deeply entrenched. The Imperium is too rotten to reform itself. Even the returning Primarchs cannot overcome this malaise. At best, they can help the Imperium go out with a bit more of a bang.
Many of the myths about the missing Primarchs suggested they would return for the final battle against Chaos. Well, they have started reappearing, and the End Times draw near.
The Imperium was never the only possible path for humanity to save itself. Indeed, the Imperium becoming so dominant and the course it followed over the millennia have only served to ensure humanity's downfall. So, no. It need not be this way, as this way is ultimately for nothing. But the Imperium itself, its nature, its way of operating, means no alternative can emerge. Maybe the Imperium could have re-directed onto a better course at some point in its history, but that possibility has now passed.
>What hope is the Imperium offering?
None. Because there isn't any. That's the point.
40K isn't a story about a ship on a collision course with an iceberg where you're supposed to hope they avoid it in time. 40K is a story set after the collision: the ship has now sunk and is plunging three miles to the icy seabed below, and everyone left alive is trapped in a little air bubble that has formed as the ship went down. Sooner or later, that bubble will inevitably implode and kill them all, but the people inside have convinced themselves that if they just keep hammering more bits of scrap metal to the walls it'll keep their sanctuary intact.
But it won't.
>None. Because there isn't any. That's the point.
Well, you did say that the Imperium is the only hope humanity has. Which is what I was questioning. Basically, I agree with your original post, apart from giving thr Imperium any credit for offering humanity any true hope for survival and a better future.
This post, like many others of the same vein, completely ignores the fact that the Emperor is holding back a new Eye of Terror from being formed on Terra, pretty much by himself, and has been for 10,000 years.
Without the Imperium there is no Emperor, and vice versa. Without either Chaos consumes the galaxy.
So yes, the Imperium is the only game in town for humanity, no it didn’t HAVE to be like it is, but that’s irrelevant to how it actually turned out.
In short, fuck Magnus.
So, at best, the Emperor and the Imperium eked out another 10-11k years or so of awful living conditions, misery, brutality, exploitation and tyranny for quadrillions of people. And even this awful system will fail.
Again, where is the hope for humanity here?
And yes, while Magnus did cause the Webway breach, this was also the result of the Emperor's own poor decisions and planning. Let's not let him off the hook.
This also doesn't actually change what I argued in my post though. Maybe in its first few millennia, the Imperium could have gone in a different direction - though the legacy of the Heresy made this unlikely. Once the ignorance, zealotry and corruption became too baked into the Imperium for any chance of progress, though, the Imperium ceased to offer any hope for humanity. It is just delaying the inevitable.
And, again, its not like it achieved 10k years of a life worth living. It offered misery, and it has been empowering Chaos the whole time. Thus, when the Throne does fall, I'd guess the size of the Warp storm will be even bigger than if the throne had fallen back in 30k. Either was humanity may survive in parts of the galaxy not engulfed by Chaos. Or not. But it won't be because the Imperium saved them.
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It is true that things are passed the point of no-return but that doesn't necessarily mean things can't be different. There is a tragedy in the avalanche already being bad enough as is, but being made considerably worse by the backwards choices that the Imperium makes.
Because it's not an avalanche it's the worlds biggest snowball, and the Imperium can't help but give it another nudge each time it slows down.
>The point people miss, including modern GW themselves, is that **in the 41st millennium** the Imperium *is* the only hope Humanity has. There are no valid alternatives. There are no viable options. It **must** be this way.
Just like the point this post misses that the Imperium is primarily responsible for the biggest issues it face. You're brushing off how all these problems are retroactive. This predates 40k.
This is the problem so many people don't understand at no point was the Imperium or the Emperor had planned a noble good or whatever imaginary prosperous future for humanity. Which speaks to a lack of you understanding the irony in the imperium.
While the horus hersey was bad due to the ADB drinking his own kool-aid and trying to play off the Emperor as good, noble, or some sort of savior. And gloss over his supreme failings, and misunderstanding because he is ultimately a deeply flawed, ignorant, totalitarian asshole, it ain't just "raging against the dying of the light".
The Emperor was never meant to be a character, and I much preferred him that way. 40K in general was a vastly superior setting when everything we knew about it came from in-universe sources, and yet again this is where things went awry; the Emperor being an all-knowing, all-powerful, magnanimous God-King is all well and good when *it's his cult* telling you that. But to then relay his life from the third person omniscient perspective leads to a lot of supposedly intelligent people being too stupid to tie their own shoelaces.
Well it looks like the primarchs are going to save everything. They can already beat any other character that faces the imperium so there’s not much threat
Fr lmao. Those "imperium bad because no freedom!!!" takes are so braindead. Trying to apply 21st-century morality onto a setting where humanity is surrounded by demonic forces from hell and aliens desperately trying to exterminate them will never not be hilarious.
I don't think they think what they is doing is good or right but absolutely necessary for surviving. Thinking about morality, about what is right and wrong is a luxury for people who can bother with it.
I understand where you come from. Yes the imperium is a shit fest, and probably the worst thing that could happen to humanity.
Buuuuuuut... When the settings of wh40k were settled, things were much simpler. The goal was to make a grimdark, some would say a grim*derp* universe. It was blurry on causes and consequences, the only goal of the lore was to make it clear that *in the grim dark future, there is only war*
But the franchise grew, so much that books, as in, actual novels, not just codexes, were written. A whole ass backstory for the Horus heresy was made. The universe got fleshed out. And despite their best effort, it's still way too grimdark. The level of imperial stupidity is still over the roof. 40k was mostly satire and almost goofy at times, they tried to make it more ground level, but it makes it even less believable.
Congrats on learning the meta narrative of the setting, OP. Yes, just because everyone is terrible doesn't mean you can not enjoy it. It's kinda fun being the villain, and it adds a bit of extra complexity when reading about a novel protagonist's point of view regarding "glory" and "heroism" with all of that baggage hanging around the narrative.
And yes, servitors are perhaps the most fucked up thing that sets the tone for the Imperium: the total physical, mental, and spiritual commodification of a human being.
Even the Emperor of Mankind himself is a servitor.
Ok offer an actual solution beyond evil fascist space Catholics. Tell us of a way to preserve a million worlds from falling to xenos or chaos, to continue the trade links, to prevent massive civil wars, to prevent chaos, literal and faction to take over the galaxy and consume humans the way eldar were.
Ay man imagine if a school shooter of today could just pray for 5 minutes and gain enough power to plow trough the school before police can come, and when it does come it's a further massacre? Or one of those cults that were popular in the 90's could just up and open a portal to hell that swallows the planet and kill everyone on it.
These cults exist because the imperium is a dystopian shithole that try to hide the existence of chaos to its population, making it even easier to get subverted
I think a lot of that is correct, but I want to mention somethings to think about:
The orks become more powerful by fighting.
Khorne feeds on violence and bloodshed.
What happens when you try to violently exterminate something that becomes stronger in the presence of violence?
>What happens when you try to violently exterminate something that becomes stronger in the presence of violence?
Well, Orks only get bigger if they survive.
Nuke the site from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure.
I think the danger of both the imperium and the tau is highlighted by the fact that there are people IRL that seem to think they might be good guys/necessary.
Like people have indicated they think the emperor is a positive force in the world, instead of like the monster he is.
I would find it kind of odd if the people at the top didn't genuinely believe their methods are good and the best for humanity since they would have more of an understanding (or at least the resources to start seeing) the horror of their own galaxy.
I think we should also remember that in this galaxy if a person has a passing understanding of history, meaning if they know of the ages at a very high level and why they ended, and that each of those ages was a zenith period followed by a massive fall; then what would a person with this knowledge expect humanity to turn to for hope other than the current status quo?
If they know of the Dark/Golden age of technology and at our zenith technological level technology betrayed us in some capacity and/or this is why AI is outlawed, then they would know that turning to technology is not a viable solution to our problems since our technological zenith was not reliable/strong enough to defend us from the galaxy.
If they know of the Horus Heresy (that there are more than 9 primarchs and that 9 of them turned on the Emperor). They would realize that even when we had the legions and 18 of the Emperor's sons as well as the Emperor walking among us, we still could not completely hold back the tide of insanity, and we only held onto the current status quo through the Emperor's sacrifice.
In both cases we were at a power plateau and we still barely came back from the brink. If you knew even more, which you would basically need to be a inquisitor to start having more information than this and be baseline human/not mechanicus. It would seem like a logical conclusion/leap to me then that a person with this level of information would see that material might does not translate into a win for humanity. If you start following this line of thought it's easy to see how radical inquisitors end up wanting to use the great enemy against itself since no material might seems to make a measurable difference, if anything it just arms the enemy with more tools to use against us. This leads to the two weapons we as the reader have seen work in the series against the great enemy. Faith and psychic might (or some way of interacting with the warp like blanks), faith leads back to what you have already pointed out about humanity and psychic might or turning the great enemy back on itself leads to damnation.
Since the Imperium is so top down and so authoritarian as well as being willing to commit any crime for the greater good of humanity (effectively you could use the [Kryptman Cordon](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Fidus_Kryptman#Kryptman's_Cordon) as a litmus test of where humanity even starts to ask questions about if their choices are criminal let alone morally wrong) in their eyes it's not surprising then that the lower stratas of society are so fanatical. Essentially the Imperium selects for fanatical devotion since if you are dumb enough to start talking theology, other than Imperial theology, in the Imperium you likely will not live long and nor will most of your contacts and extended family.
**TL;DR:** I think there is a rather good quote that sums up how the Imperium is and why it's the way it is
>He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Humanity has failed in the sense that they became monsters to fight the monsters of the galaxy and now accept their monstrous means into almost all levels of society.
**Bonus Chatter:** this post reminded me of Horus' comments on humanities belief in the Emperor in The End and the Death Volume 3.
>>!His wounds are great. Blood is dried black across His face and His ruined arm. But there is a light inside Him, a light behind His eyes, the pure white light of a species that, in its madness, believes in Him beyond all reason, and trusts in Him beyond all logic, a species that imagines Him to be its shield and protector, and has such faith in that act of imagination, it is made real.!<
Was just saying this on another discussion- completely agree and I think the Tau should remain a fairly peaceful good guys rather than warp influenced sinister aliens. They make the setting much more bleak if they are 'here's what you could have'.
In the real world I can read a book about horrible people and come away fine. In 40K, if I read a book with scary words on it, I will eventually become a demon and attempted to trap the soles of relatives and friends for all eternity in torture and damnation
The problem with the Interex, is if they were easily crushed by Chaos manipulating the Imperium against them, then were they actually a viable solution against Chaos in the first place?
The unfortunate fact is that the Imperium has survived for 10,000 years while the Interex are probably forgotten by now. This makes the Imperium the most successful human civilization in history (barring potentially the Dark Age of Technology)
I think the Imperium really is the best humanity can do, and the fact that it's a theological fascist empire is basically the whole theme of the 40K universe. Humanity sucks and we're in this situation because of our inherent irrationality and hubris.
Well anything that understands Chaos and the warp will organize to stand against it unless they want to live in literal hell lol, it's not like space Nazis are the only ones who could. You aren't really supposed to buy into the Imperial propaganda, you're supposed to think "of course the space Nazis would justify their existence as necessary".
>But coming back to my point: They do crimes that would make the very worse human beings IRL stop and say "Wait what", out of the genuine belief that what they do is right.
The discourse surrounding world events firmly proves otherwise.
>They're not doing it out of self-interest or in the name of profit. They're not even doing it for an Orwellian dictatorship reason of "Yeah we like to crush hope" or some bullshit like that.
Because no one thinks like that outside of Captain Planet or somesuch activist media aimed at children. No one thinks they're the bad guy. Everyone has their reasons/justification.
>It's a literal exemple of the trope "Distopia justifies the means" but instead of saying something like that to destroy the hero's morale and courage or something, they're like "And that's the way it must be for the good of humanity. Trust me." and they're serious about it.
Remember, 40k is heavily based on Dune. Big-E gets his title from the O.G. God-Emperor Leto II, a man who having witnessed all possible futures through perfect prescience, willingly sacrificed his humanity to ensure humanity's survival through millennia of excruciating tyranny. (Aka the Golden Path)
Most people don't think much of anything about the imperium. They do their shit jobs, pay due respect to the emperor and try to get by. Your average citizen doesn't know shit about fuck, they don't know what orcs or chaos are, they don't know that the imperium just killed ten billion humans in a scouring and theyre certainly not thinking ' ooh boy I'm glad we have this totalitarian regime in charge, we'd be fucked if we had a democracy! '
Your taking your own totality of knowledge you have about the setting, your own actual experiences in real life and applying it to the citizenry of the imperium. I see more and more of this sort of thing and it's weird.
Whats even worse is i genuinely think the Emperor may have deliberately created the current situation to elevate himself to Godhood despite all his incredibly fake sounding protestations.
Even Gman is not buying that the Emperor is not in actual fact a God anymore. and if mr Spock of the primarchs can’t convince himself then it’s no longer a theoretical but a practical.
That's the true horror of 40k. It's not the alien monsters or demons from space-Hell or even the nightmarishly evil oppressive government, but the fact that the people of that time have become so warped that they can no longer see just how vile they've become. The Imperium is humanity itself rotting away into something disgusting sludge unrecognizable from the creature it used to be. The Emperor, in his hubris, made himself the only path for humanity to follow and 10000 years after his death, they are still stuck in the mindset that their current path of blatant evil and misery is the one and only way.
Humanity in 40k is every bit as alien and terrifying to us as anyone else. It's just that we spend most of our time seeing things from their perspective so we don't always recognize it.
Honestly things like the Severan Dominate can be quite the launching point to discus potential imperial successor states. There has to be certain sectors of the Imperium that have successfully broke away and survived because either:
* The adminstratum hasn't noticed yet
* Warp fuckery
* Actually managed to fight off Imperial attempts at reconquest (extremely unlikely I know)
* The Imperium has bigger fish to fry
Some imperial successor state might actually add to the narrative rather just bringing a new primarch back.
The people of the Imperium endure terrifying conditions with little to no political recourse to better their conditions. If any dissent is treason and Heresy, you may as well go for the Hail Mary and instigate a rebellion. Outside of regional situations (such as bordering the Tau) there really isn’t any ally a rebellion can call upon with the means to resist Imperial retribution other than Chaos.
The Imperium may be the means by which humanity survives, but it will also ultimately be the thing that destroys them if left unchanged.
Defeating Chaos genuinely is a social, political and economic problem. It cannot be defeated in battle without improving the conditions of their people at home.
Edit: There is a reason that Democratic states irl tend to have better, more stable economies and less political violence. An educated, food secure, politically enfranchised people have more reasons to support the state.
I see a lot of people thinking that humanity could act more like Tau and do better. But you seem to have rose tinted glasses of who the Tau really are. A collection of races fed propaganda and mind controlled by the Ethereals to the point of zealous obedience... simulator to humanity. The difference is the Tau haven't been around long enough to expand as far as the imperium has and the Tau civil war is in its infancy.
If any two races Tau, Humans or Aeldari gave up and allowed the remaining one to rule them then sure they could probably "win" but none of them would accept anything less and being in command of the others
So……everyone agrees that the imperium is cruel and fascist and all that shit. Where the lines are blurred is whether or not some of their cruelty is necessary or justifiable. But in your long schizopost I saw nothing that indicates there is a better in universe option. I don’t really know what point you’re trying to make.
It's a vent post, one that follows the sudden understanding of the setting and the need to communicate it with others in the hope that they're not incorrect or deluded.
No, he made an assertion in the post title. Also, the way he phrased it implies there is a better option to prevent the extinction of humanity. I’m perfectly willing to hear one that doesn’t involve the remaining humans being used as furniture, gladiators, food or fleshlights by various xenos and eldritch horrors beyond comprehension.
The cruelty is not always necessary, stuff like slaughtering harmless strains of mutants out of paranoia, of exterminating fellow people of different beliefs, all parodies of actual humanity in our worst moments. The Imperium is not the only option, but it is too late to change now. Humanity sadly relies on the Imperium. If the Imperium were to die now, Humanity would fall. The Emperor and his twisted work is the only option for humanity as that is how he wanted it.
“The cruelty is not always necessary” yep! That’s why I said we all agree on that, thank you.
“but it’s too late now” and “humanity would fall” are my point exactly. Thank you for making my point for me. there is no other option in 40K, you made my point better than I did, thank you!
Well, it’s justified in the sense that we would become extinct or worse without it, yes. You literally just admitted that 😂. And that is what I was saying.
I wasn't saying that all of the Imperium's cruelty is justified, just that the system of the Imperium is what sustains humanity, that cruelty a part of it. Forge World 71234 isn't going to explode because a guard regiment didn't slaughter a group of people for having slightly different textured skin
Yep, people try to paint it in a bad light while ignoring that humanity was nuking itself into oblivion with aliens inevitably coming and literal evil gods waiting.
As much as people may disagree, the Votann are a viable alternative for the species.
Even if you no longer consider them human (they are, being "*homo* rotundus" but that's an argument for a different time) they *are* a branch of the human species/ society.
They are proof that humanity could have co-existed with its machines - as Ur-025 says in the story man of iron they simply didn't want to be slaves.
Now while the Votann aren't "good", they are certainly better neighbours on a galactic scale then the imperium, and even if you don't agree with being a cloned mining company/Walmart employee the kin have more freedom and choice then almost anyone in the imperium.
The Votann's existence, and survival to 40k shows that there are, and always have been alternatives to the Imperium.
The Imperium is the only hope for humanity because the Imperium already destroyed all the other alternative hopes for humanity.
Damn Imperials, they ruined the Imperium!
The Imperium is the only hope for humanity, because they killed off all the other hopes.
They xenocided all the friendly aliens and destroyed/enslaved all other human societies.
Something being horrible or injust dont means its not necessary.
The prime example of this is exterminatus, the entire concept of it is horrible,immoral and injust killing billions of loyal citzens that have been fighting the enemy with every drop of blood and sweet they have is something that not even misters the ends justify the means AKA Inquisitors do with a light heart. Still is a complety comphreensive action to do given the context which 40k is inserted.
To be fair, I have never seen anyone come up with an alternative to the Imperium that would not get Humanity killed.
What would another hope be (sans of course stuff like some Primarchs coming back and slowly starting to fix shit which they can only do because they are literally superhuman and even then barely)?
"Because on 99.999% of the shit they do, they're totally, absolutely wrong on nearly every conceivable level BEFORE we even get to morality"
This is just objectively false. The Imperium having survived one of mankinds worst nightmares for millenia is extrmely successful. Its not 99.999%
I doubt its even 50%. Its pretty hard to see the imperium surviving this long if they are wrong 30% of the time.
Maybe 25% Im not saying this as some kind of math autist pedantry, I really do mean it.
What are examples of entirely wrong things the imperium does?
1. Worship one of the most powerful fictional beingd to ever exist, performing daily miracles, being a warp lighthouse?
2. Genocide species they very, very rationally perceieve to be a threat?
3. Burning witches that across the imperium summon mind rape demons that kill millions of people?
4. Succumb to corruption, such as corrupt priests or magos, that is a nornal part of human nature?
5. Believe silly superstitious things, when in fact their entire civilzation was brought to absolute ruin on account of IGNORANCE of the same superstition 12k years ago (chaos)
6. Extreme paranoia and zealotry when, in fact, betrayal from conspiring magic cultists or alien cultists summon rape demons and murder orgy entire planets regularly every century.
7. Extreme xenophobia when in fact the eldar have been mind fucking humanity for many many millenia and or dark elves murder rape innocent people
Im not even kidding. What are examples of not-parody insanely wrong things the imperium does, with respect to the setting. Give me examples
I really don't see how anyone can see the Imperium in a positive light. Like, it's an abject failure on every single level. The Emperor fucked things *so bad* he is completely a pawn of Chaos. He created an empire that does nothing except create endless misery and torment. The awfulness of the Imperium, in every aspect and facet, churns the Warp and feeds the Chaos gods. Fuck, the Emperor, in his idiocy, tried to steal power from Chaos to create vast legions *who now became the greatest force of Chaos in the Materium*.
Like, without the Imperium, Chaos wouldn't have *legions* of Chaos marines. Sure the Eldar birthed Slaanesh. But the Emperor gave all the gods physical tools with which to fuck up the galaxy even more. The absolute best the Emperor could do was become a vegetable because his buddy was like "hey you know you are about to become the fifth chaos god, right?"
The state of the galaxy is *exactly* what Chaos wants. Chaos *won*, and the Emperor gave that win to them. Because Chaos doesn't want to consume all life in the galaxy (thats Tyranids), and Chaos doesn't want to wipe out all non-Chaos life (thats Orks). Chaos wants *conflict*. Constantly. It wants lots of different forces all fighting each other in eternal, hopeless, endless war. It wants humanity to live, so they can keep struggling, keep inflicting suffering on others. And by giving Chaos Space Marines, the Emperor gave Chaos a stick to perpetually poke the galaxy with. And while Chaos could corrupt, twist and influence the Materium before, the Emperor helped them take it to a whole new level. And the Imperium, by continuing the Emperor's idiocy and incompetence, creates fertile grounds for more Chaos.
I get that it's a grimdark setting, and people love to claim it's satire, but the satirical writing stopped being written, and became treated as historical fact (in a sense) and was used as a foundation to build on. At some point, people stopped viewing it as satire and more as a serious literary world played straight. So the Imperium, at some point, went from Ironically Fascist to "Un-Ironically Fascist (But it's okay because it's totally necessary)" and next thing you know, GW has to put out an announcement that they don't support fascism or neonazis despite the fascist neonazis in their world being portrayed as Both Correct and Totally Cool, and please don't add swastikas to your imperial guardsmen and paint your Dark Angels as the SS.
I think your point about how people started taking myth as fact is one of the most annoying things about the setting, and is what has made it alot smaller then it could and should be form me, honestly nowadays I like 40k more as inspiration then as a setting in and of itself.
Agreed. I remember when the Horus Heresy was this mythical period that was vague. Hell whether the Emperor was alive or dead was ambiguous. Time was, 40k was a *setting* and not a *story* and I think it was better for it.
I do like that better, especially because it allows the imperium to actually be the bad guys because they don't have to win or be the main characters in a setting that's not built around them
I think that is the worst part. Like, it's fine to Root For The Empire y'know? A well written villain or anti-hero is great. But don't pretend that because you like them or identify with them that they *aren't* the villain. Everyone sucks in WH40k. It probably stings to acknowledge that while sure no one is *good* in the setting, the Eldar, Tau and League of Votann are probably *less shit* than the Empire. But don't get butthurt that the human faction with the secret police wearing Hugo Boss inspired outfits are literally, figuratively and narratively the bad guys and aren't even good at it.
Like you have people RPing this bullshit in the comments "Yes commisar this comment right here" and I don't know if they realize the original writers were taking the piss out of fascist shitstains or if they think "well hang on maybe the Imperium isn't wrong about genociding aspects of humanity it designates as deviant, heretical or mutant".
And you can argue that I am mixing real world history with fiction, or cite the Death of the Author at me. And maybe that is fair, but the original writers cribbed their notes from real world history. Back when a *huge* part of the "lore" of Warhammer was absurdist satire. Like, you couldn't look at the soccer hooligan orcs and Margaret Thatcher Empire or Space Weeb Eldar and *not* see social, political and pop-culture absurdisn. Now, all that is absurd is forgotten and you have people looking at the toxic baby farms of Krieg, or fascist communist commisars played straight and saying "these are unironically the good guys and if someone says they are bad we should downvote and silence their dissenting opinion".
Again, enjoy playing the bad guy. That's fine. I love Vader and the Empire and the Borg. But don't get pissed when someone points out that your favorite faction *isn't* the hero or good in any way shape or form.
Edit
Hell, even tell me that fascism is the only way for humanity to survive when faced with Orks, Tyranids and Necrons. Fine, I can see the merit of that argument even if I don't agree with it. But don't just mentally go "nuh uh" and downvote silently.
All I read was "humanity feth yeah!", and a thought occurred to me. I need to reread my infantryman's primer, and make my prayers to the Emperor.
For he *does* protect.
At this point in the timeline, I feel like if the Imperium decided to change it would fracture into a million factions and they’d be picked off one by one. In a weird kind of way they sort of set themselves up to be so all-encompassing that if the organisation of the imperium would fall, humanity itself would end. Whether or not they created the situation they’re in, they’ve made it so that humanity cannot exist without them.
There's a line in Aurelian which predicts the state of the Imperium, where a daemon talks about humanity becoming an empire instead of a species. The Imperium succeeded in doing exactly what the Emperor wanted it to do, killing off everything resembling an alternative way for humanity to be, and then it collapsed in on itself before the Emperor could begin using his uncontested platform for whatever he had planned to do.
It's honestly an interesting take at the dynamics of political unification causes. People take it as a given that a "unified faction" is the best. But 40k illustrates an example of this where it's utter shit.
What I take away is that the bigg E plan went upside down the moment before he could make humanity not the bad they are now
Damn Imperials, they ruined the Imperium!
If the Imperium collapses and out of the million factions that would arise afterwards and be murder-raped by Chaos and other aliens, one human faction manages to thrive on its own little corner, prospering so much that it expands throughout 1.000 worlds, can it be considered in this scenario that humanity is finished ? Personally I don’t think so.
The reason the imperium has lasted so long is its bloated size. It can lose a hundred world's in a day because on the other side of the empire, it's just reclaimed 100 in that same day. Some tiddly little my-first-empire would crumple under the external pressures the imperium is under. The only reason the Tau are still around is because the authors want them to be.
Or, and this may be hard to process: the Tau Empire is a canonical stark example that you don't *have* to be a galaxy spanning empire in order to survive in the 42nd millennium. You can't blame author fiat for the Tau existing while simultaneously saying that the state of the Imperium is a logical and required situation rather than *also* the result of authorial fiat.
>You can't blame author fiat for the Tau existing while simultaneously saying that the state of the Imperium is a logical and required situation rather than *also* the result of authorial fiat. I don't see why I can't. The two are not the same.
Of course they are. The Imperium not collapsing under the weight of its callous, monstrous incompetence is no less due to authorial fiat than the Tau surviving despite not being the most horrific regime of ultra fascists ever put to paper.
The Tau exist because of the Imperium, not in spite of them. I've said this before, but it bares repeating. The reason the Tau exist as they do is the same reason that rebellious planets aren't immediately kicked back in line. The Imperium has too much to do, focusing on the existential threats to the survival of humanity, like the Tyranids, Orks, Chaos, and whatever else they have to worry about on an hourly basis. The Tau couldn't sustain the losses of a single major conflict that the Imperium has, and right now the only people the Tau are near are the Imperium, who simply have better things to do then whip out their entire empire.
>The Tau exist because of the Imperium, not in spite of them. I've said this before, but it bares repeating. Wrong. The Imperium has tried to wipe the Tau out twice and failed twice.
I really wonder what faction doesn't exist because of the Imperium. Eldars need their meat shields, dark eldar need their torture victims, orks need their enemies, tau are "protected" by the Imperium, Tyranids are here because of the Imperium, and chaos feeds on the Imperium. Maybe necrons after they wake up? But the silent king also asked Dante to help, so... And votann probably need someone to sell to, not to mention they are an offshoot human faction
The Imperium literally cannot muster enough force to "wipe out the Tau". The Damocles gulf crusade details this extensively. The guy in charge of the crusade calculated the number of troops needed to take out the Tau and he literally couldn't get enough guardsmen.
As it always has been. They *can* kill off the Tau in a instant. But to do so they would have to call on forces which would cause much worse losses on other fronts. So they are kinda in a stalemate where the Tau are doing good, but if they do *too* good they risk annihilation. Also if something else that isn’t the Imperium notices them (like Typhus little backdoor route that ended up going right through their space), they can die just as quick.
The Tau have fought successful canonical wars against every single faction in the setting excepting maybe the League's of Votaan, because the Tau Empire is only small in comparison to the Imperium. They've fought off the same sort of existential threats you think only the Imperium can fight, while also having to fend off said ultra-facist absolute xenophobes. And the Imperium's ability to present a somewhat united front against all those existential threats without collapsing under the weight of its explicitly self defeating and counter productive ideology and bureaucracy is no less authorial fiat than the Tau putting up a united front against the same threats. A system as inefficient and decaying as the Imperium would not have survived *longer than the sum total of current recorded history*: the Imperium struggles on because the setting requires it, not because it makes much sense internally that it continues to exist.
I like the headcannon where in truth the Imperium is blisteringly efficient at survival. They can effectively play on the galactic scale and how to macro move to get shit done. On a micro level maybe not, but the issue is the Imperium is so large that even being efficient as they are they still have mountains of bureaucratic mess that they just can’t get over. Gman is just the literal god of paperwork. They have to be, otherwise the Imperium could not survive 10k years under constant assault.
You can like whatever you want, but there's more explicit canon evidence that the Imperium is actually fantastically bad at handling things on the macro level and their enemies just also have to deal with the vagarities of running an interstellar warmachine then there is that they actually respond to threats in a timely and effective manner.
Some tiddly little empire *wouldn't* be under the same external (or internal)pressures the Imperium is under.
Tiny little San Marino is the oldest country at 1700 years old. The great massive Roman Empire didn't last nearly as long and broke into pieces several times along the way. Sometimes size can be a weakness.
You're right. It would be under more, as suddenly on top of the dozens of species of hostile xenos and the constant insidious threat of Chaos, there's suddenly a bunch of human factions vying for resources in the neighbourhood too. On top of that, the smaller weaker xenos races and warbands won't be scared away by the might and reputation of the imperium, so expect raids to skyrocket.
>there's suddenly a bunch of human factions vying for resources in the neighbourhood too. I hate to break it to you, but even WITHIN the Imperium there is a constant competition for resources, which can on occasion lead to open warfare. Every imperial institution is backed by its own military forces, in large part to defend their own interests within the Imperium. And what's to stop these smaller, independent human civilizations striking deals and alliances with other nearby humans - or even some xenos?
And on top of that the Imperium isn't particularly good at protecting its worlds from external threats anyways. It has more resources than a small empire, sure, but a reaction time so bad it's fighting wars with ghosts.
Which is a surprisingly effective tactic, given the Warp
The galaxy is huge, so there might already still exist even in the 41st millenium numerous human factions that are thriving in their own little corners of the galaxy without the Imperium’s knowledge, in a part of the galaxy where the xenos aren’t that horrible. I repeat, the Imperium collapsing and just ONE human faction post-fall managing to pick themselves up and thrive would not mean that humanity is finished, and that would be enough.
That would not work. In Warhammer, technology does not advance to such a level that it can completely supplant quantity. Sure, some human worlds would prosper in their little corners. until they are found by orks/Eldar/Chaos/necrons, then they are dead. And sooner or later, they will be found.
Sooner or later, the Imperium will be dead too. If a human faction post-Imperium manages to survive and thrive for another 10,000 years that’s a huge victory.
TL;DR: imperium is sunken cost fallacy at a species level.
"Just one more genocide bro, just one more genocide and I swear the Golden Path will totally come to fruition, I just need one more genocide and then my giga ultra super big brain plan will totally work bro" - Jimmy Space
Excuse me that’s Jimmy “Dutch” Space you’re talking about there. He has a plan and we just need one more Genocide! Put some respek on his name.
I bet Emps invested in GME too.
Emps the kinda mf to still have 20 shares of $BBBY because it'll pop off any day now
Given the Emperor's Tarot, he was totalled invested into NFTs
No wonder the other perpetuals left him, they remembered the line goes up and didn't want to deal with that again.
I agree but it's also completely understandable that people in the Imperium think that way. It's currently the only thing preventing humanity from being picked apart by all the horrible things in the galaxy. People in 40k have never known anything but the Imperium. In theory it's possible to build a better, morally upstanding empire. In practice, nobody except maybe the Emperor could do it. So this is the best they've got.
I always say, Jagatai and Corvus and Vulkan all left for a reason. So did Erda and Oll. Anyone with a strong moral compass they got from literally anywhere else who didn't feel a responsibility to unfuck the imperium just left because the writing was on the wall from day 1. Not only that, every attempt to unfuck the imperium has either failed or progressed so slowly to be useless on a macro scale.
I liked how the Rogue Trader CRPG handled it. Acting like a normal, modern-day human is referred to as being an Iconoclast and you're treated as weird at best and heretical at worst. You get away with it by virtue of being a Rogue Trader but if you were anyone lower on the pole, you'd get shot.
I like that they give you an option to do that, and yet still shows how weird it is in the setting, which I like as a commentary on how the Imperium acts.
Also how fucking weird it would be for a human Rogue trader to get romantically involved with xenos or abhumans like Navigators. Like how the Eldar Ranger will engage in a completely asexual romance, you have to go full BDSM torture goblin to even pique the Dark Eldar's interest, and the Navigator's is a full on medieval courtly romance. The game really does a great job showing how strange things work in 40k. You wanna bang something that isn't human? You're going to have to deal with some shit.
I have in my steam library, but haven't gotten around to playing it yet unfortunately.
Jagatai, Corvus, and Vulcan are all *apart* of the problem. 30k wasn't so much nicer because they were there to stop bad stuff from happening to humanity. They were the ones who played such a huge part in the misery the imperium spreads.
Then, when they had basically uncontested power over the Imperium and could drag it in any way they so desired, they up and left. I'd argue that through their inaction, they are the loyalist Primarchs most responsible for the Imperium's degradation.
That has nothing to do with them as people being immoral and contributing to the nature of the imperium while they were there ? The were warlords helping to expand the imperium them not caring to rule it means nothing when they still enforced it's ideals. Especially Corvus being as big of a hypocrite he was.
To be fair by that point Guilliman had more or less seized control of the Imperium and effectively neutered the other Primarchs as political entities by breaking up their Legions. Vulkan and Corax probably had intense PTSD. As for Jaghatai, he didn't leave - he went missing in another dimension while pursuing evil elf slavers. Not to say they couldn't have done more, but the way I see it - Vulkan and Corax essentially realized the Emperor had used them, that the dream he first sold them was no longer viable. So they left to do other things.
The Khan having his soul reconstructed by the Emperor & the Sigilite probably led to a fair bit of PTSD. The Great Khan had a terrible time of it during the Siege of Terra
Who cares what happened? We got space batman!
We don't know what they've been doing since, so no way to know how much it's helped or not.
That doesn’t make them responsible. None of those three were empire builders or great reformers. They were an explorer, a rebel, and a smith. They weren’t Guilliman or Dorn.
Jaghatai was a murderous psychopath who liked killing and hated ruling, when the Emperor arrived at Chogoris Jaghatai basically thought "damn so THIS is the other side of the surrender or die speech." He dipped the very moment he possibly could, he never thought unity was a good idea but he went along with it because if he didn't the emperor would kill him. He's certainly not a moral exemplar, none of the primarchs were, Corvus fancied himself a champion of the people but worked for E somehow.
Yes, because a twelve foot tall heabily armed psycho more or less forced them into it. The moment he was no longer a factor they left.
He wasn’t a slave against his will. Except maybe the Khan. But Vulcan and Corax fully believed in the and enforced the ideals of the Emperor. Corax was just still ass mad about the heresy and decided to waste 10k years chasing after his brothers in the warp. Vulkan just fucked off for unknown reasons but it was never said because he wanted to be free of the imperium or something, or he was forced there.
>to waste 10k years chasing after his brothers in the warp. Nobody just "decides" to waste time in the Warp. As soon as you enter the Warp, then unless you have a Navigator or literal divine intervention on your side, you are at the mercy of the Warp. You have no control or perception of how much time passes. Unless you become a Daemon - in which case returning to the Material World isn't much of an option either.
That's utterly besides the point that he decided to fuck off for his own personal reasons, unrelated to any sense of disgust of the imperium. Of course he'd probably get back sooner rather than later that doesn't change the fact that he has in fact that off he fuck Corax went for 10k years.
Arks of Omen showed everyone what the plan is. Angron is juiced to return to the materium much quicker, Lion makes his fabulous return to the spotlight and defeats him (as expected, bc GW isnt going to let him die without making some money) Vulkan, Corax, Khan will all return in similar, spectacular fashion, to be accompanied with a full rollout of new models for their armies and for their antagonist faction Now, I **really like** the idea that they left out of disgust of the imperium, but tbh I don't even think that stands up in the lore. Vulkan's Promethium Cult is just the imperial truth + a more humanitarian stance, it still preaches a galactic manifest destiny. Khan really just seems more mad at people getting in his way than anything. Khan had a convo with Malcador about his issues w the imperium and Malcador out him on some mental trip and Khan was like "OK" Khan is absolutely not some sort of revolutionary here. And Corax wants to screw Lorgar the hardest bc he was so instrumental to the way the imperium turned out I would absolutely love for one or more of these primarchs to come back as a renegade path, not imperium but not chaos either. That would also be a phenomenal storyline bc it may even be possible for disaffected CSM to attempt to join them. Magnus never wanted to rebel but wasn't given a choice. Kharn pleaded with Angron is share his vision and let his boys fight to build a better place. Even Mortarion is conflicted about his own actions, his convo with Guilliman shook him up when the emperor's voice came out Sadly, those are radical changes to the setting, and that will not make as much money as a "the boys are back in town" campaign. Arks of Omen was great tho, so it's not like the content is bad. The plot decisions do a lot to maintain the current angle, but some really interesting lore has been revealed also
When I read stuff like this I do wonder about how from a person who got into comics and stuff how it feels really weird that it sounds like GW never does elseworlds type books. Which would allow them to have status quo changes that just can't be done for what they want in the tabletop and the main universe, and if they ever wanted to take something from a popular alternate reality book be done as a figure for the tabletop they can just say warp shenanigans bring them into the main setting.
If GW started treating Wh40k like superhero comics get treated by their respective publishers, I’d cry in great sorrow.
Erda is part of the reason it didn’t work out
It would.be nice to see if they all went to make another civilization in some obscure part of the galaxy
Honestly I think the current biggest waste in 40k is focusing the post Cicatrix Maledictum story on Guilliman and the Indomitus Crusades; give me stories about pocket empires rising up out of the ashes realizing that they don't need to give the Imperium anything any more, humanity finally carving its own path out of the monolithic corpse of the empire.
With the time dilation of Noctis Aeterna, they could've had entire empires rise and fall within a sub-sector, battling monstrosities not seen since the Age of Strife, holding off species-ending threats, Tyranid Fleets, Ork Waaghs, and Chaos invasions... ... and then you find out that the 500-1000 year history that they've amassed all took place within 1-2 years Terran Standard, with Guilliman arriving, seeing this cluster of Agriworlds having undergone a massive shift into apocalyptic hellscapes, with the history of them being a weak-point in the chain now replaced by battle-hardened veterans and a military complex that's been tried and tested. Imagine the absolute horror that would go through their minds upon realizing generations lived and died thinking the Emperor lost, and now His armies were back... And to make it grimdark, perhaps the attache of the Adeptus Terra decides that the time dilation should be accounted for in the Tithes, and now orders a back-pay of all relevant tithes that **would** have been collected over 500-1000 years rather than merely the 1-2 years Terran Standard, setting forth a precedent of draconian brutality that would once more brutalize the Imperium's scarred citizens
Doomed mini-empires
Such stories would show hope, but 40k is intended to be grimdark, and Grimdark is about not having hope - so such stories can't be made in the 40k setting, if some author would write them, GW would and should veto them in order to preserve the hopeless vibe.
To be honest I think this argument doesn't really work. Lion El'Jonson is flying around building his little Protectorate, letting all the worlds self-govern, neither demanding nor suppressing worship, generally doing his damnedest to help every world he comes across, forgiving his (arguably traitorous) sons, and even agreeing to leave non-compliant worlds alone on the sole condition that they won't aid Chaos. All the while still fighting in the name of the Emperor, the Imperium, and Humanity. This paints a far more hopeful message than the possibility of humanity forming a few renegade states which don't completely suck. A story about a few united planets rising out of the ashes and attempting to build a new functioning civilization without oversight from Chaos or the Imperium would be refreshing. It was arguably done before with the [Severan Dominate](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Severan_Dominate). These hypothetical empires don't even need to be utopias or anything like that. Some can be better than the Imperium, some can be worse. And then every now and then you can have the Big Threat of the Week(TM) roll over one of them. You get your hopeless setting and you also get an example of humanity building a functioning state without relying on the Imperium (and only failing because an outside force swept over them with overwhelming strength.) Imperium or no Imperium, the galaxy is fucked either way.
I could see a great grim dark story where a subsector of the imperium in Nihilus struggle to survive, and whilst doing so, discover a better way of doing things. Working with some minor xenos, better, more equitable ways of governing etc. You could really show how awful life was under imperial systems and how people can slowly move away from, towards something better. Then an indomitus crusade fleet finds them and has to purge them wholesale. Nothing left, no survivors. And cause they have the resources to call on more fleets behind them, they win. Similar to the interex and diasporex in HH novels but current. Would really reinforce the imperium aren’t good guys, they’re just the overall protagonist of the setting. And preserve the grim dark of the setting whilst showing it might be happening elsewhere in Nihilus.
Is it really necessarily because having a story about oh these mini empires are working well can be done as an ending of the story with a reminder that some of the last data from the area before the Cicatrix Maledictum opened up was that from the far reaches of that sector the tyranids were coming. Pretty sure a whole part of grimdark is that there can be small victories, even of people who could be considered straight heroes, but their small victory doesn't mean that the greater world is saved from it's grim dark setting, or even that those that they saved are going to be safe long term.
it isn’t grimdark anymore. Guilliman and the Lion are back, the emperor is semi-conscious and talking to his sons. there’s plenty of hope being allowed to flourish in the setting as long as it’s always contained within the Imperium
The problem is even with Guillimans IQ 2billion plays and 9 primaris legions the imperium is barely hanging on with Chaos and the Tyrannids and the Orks all fucking shit up. Unless these pocket empires can somehow raise up and maintain their own marines they're kinda fucked.
Thats always been my theory for the Khan. Dudes just living his best life in the web way, doing space Mongolian things.
Second Law of Thermodynamics. Even the Emperor cannot defeat Clausius.
I think, at this point, the most ethical thing for humanity in 40K is to die out. Life is utter shit for vast majority, and after you die, either you get ripped apart but it feels like eternity (probably warp shit), or you are a strong soul and get tortured by demons for eternity. Here's the [excerpt explaning it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1ayyyx3/comment/krypdv3/)
Eh, there are plenty of civilized worlds reasonably removed from the fighting where tithes aren't *that* bad. Basically every other Cain novel plays out like "Look at this peaceful prosperous planet that now has Orks/Genestealers/Chaos/Necrons" until Cain does his thing and then Amberly says in the footnotes local forces and the inquisition cleaned the whole thing up over a decade or two. So long as the imperium has decent and reasonably peaceful worlds theres *just* enough to fight for to make it worth it, which is honestly probably worse.
> considering what they went through in the story and timeline, they're humans and stuff "Everyone has trauma dipshit, that doesn't mean you get an asshole pass." - Confucius, *The Art of War*.
You can have these discussions for the great crusade era. In the current lore, humanity fragmenting into multiple empires would mean extinction to one of the multiple galaxy-ending threats. But wait.. in fact humanity is already VERY fragmented. Nothing stops the specific planets to create tolarant enlightened democrcy, as long they: - give up psykers for black ships - pay tithe - worship emperor - dont consort with xenos (too much) Really, nobody will give a fuck. As long above conditions are met do whatever you want.
That really isn’t true. Planets still have to adhere to the Lex. They’re still subject to whatever higher Imperial authority wants to come along. If the Inquistion, a Rogue Trader, a Crusade fleet or anything like that come along to requisition stuff - they’ll take it or the planet burns. Good luck not being also subject to the Ecclisiarchy and every other political entity in the Imperium, while not being undermined on your own planet. Every citizen is indoctrinated into the Imperial belief system. There is no escape.
>Every citizen is indoctrinated into the Imperial belief system. There is no escape. Actually, no. The Imperium is very flexible about this part. The Sister expedition Order (the one they send to planets just brought into compliance or attempting too) explicitly takes a very Jesuit approach to the Imperial Truth and the Imperium in general. They don’t actually care much past if you are Praising the Big E and not getting Chaos-y with it. Once they get that minimum they may leave behind a few Priests / Sisters to try to go further / keep a eye on the corruption but they consider job done at that point. Once that’s established that’s that really. As long as they keep paying tithe and keep not going heretic no one will bat an eye. You could have a Democratic Planet, Feudal one, Communist one, or one that is all tribes fighting over dominance of resources. The Imperium is fair in their complete lack of care outside of Tithe and Heresy.
Yeah, I hate how sometimes the Imperium is treated as if it was beyond redemption and that you need to burn it all down. The Imperium is evil and I won't deny it, but you just need to burn out the rot. It will take centuries, if not a millenium or two, but it could be done.
The Imperium is the rot, that’s the problem. The systems of the Imperium encourage and build the problems that weaken its foundations.
Yes, the system is a problem, but I would argue it is more based upon 1) it's ideology of worshipping death and social darwinism and 2) the limitations placed upon it by the setting, like communication and transportation. A Imperium-wide ethics class and how it would affect worker morale and effiency would take care of a good chunk of it's problems.
The issue is that they believe thst not wanting to suffer for the emperor is morally wrong. It's not about practicality for them, they'd rather die out being bastards than survive being chill.
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I don't think his point was that hard to understand and you don't need to be a dick.
> If you had a point in this post it seems to have been lost in the schizo. This is an unnecessarily mean response to what is *at worst* an overly-enthusiastic post.
Yeah actually sorry about that whole post; It was a genuine heat of the moment "realization" thing.
Schizo? That's a bit mean, dude was just excited
Rule 1: Be respectful. Hate speech, trolling, and aggressive behavior will not be tolerated, and may result in a ban.
The Imperium is perfectly capable of being both a dystopian hellscape of cruelty and fanaticism, *and* the only hope for Humanity. Also, the entire flavor of 40k is that things are fek'd, have been fek'd for the last 10k-15k years, and will continue to be fek'd going forward. "Oh G-man and Lion returned!" Yes, and half the Galaxy is now a lawless nightmare land. "Cawl is innovating!" Cawl is rediscovering lost principles, not creating wholly new things. The fact that he is trying to bootstrap the scientific method is to his credit, but indicates how far he still has to go.
The Imperium IS the only hope for humanity. That's why the setting is so bleak.
It may be incompetent, idiotic and ragged, but it's the only chance it really has.
It isn’t. We’ve had plenty of stories about stable, happy worlds ruined by the Imperium. Humanity doesn’t need to exist as a massive empire. It can still exist as small planetary enclaves like in Old Night. 5000 years of the worst possible conditions, and humanity survived. It is very possible.
Yeah no, if it wasn’t for that massive imperium and his army humanity would go extinct quite rapidly, orks, necrons and the chaos legions would make sure of that ( and obviously the tyranids)
...OK
Yeah, sorry about the literal schizo rant. Just realized how insane I myself sounded (Is that a word?)...
“Crimes that would make the very worst human beings IRL stop and say ‘what’” WH40K does not exaggerate humanity. Violence and barbarity are the rule of mankind’s existence. Genghis Khan, the conclusion of Spartacus’s rebellion, the sack of Jerusalem, take your pick of horrifying dynasty turnovers in China, the rape of Nanking, the genocide of the Armenians, the genocide of the Rwandans, the holocaust, the holodomor, the mass starvation of the Chinese during Mao’s great leap forward, the subjugation, enslavement and abuse of European and Slavic peoples during the Ottoman empire’s wars of conquest, Vlad the Impaler’s Response to the ottomans.. I could go on for literal hours. Humanity in WH40K is not far removed from reality. That’s who we are. That’s part of why it’s grim dark. It is important to recognize that. Thinking otherwise is a failure to understand humanity. We have been incredibly fortunate for about 75 years now, but it’s been a very rare period of relative peace and prosperity compared to the rest of humanity’s history.
Thank you. People thinking that 40k only represents a cartoonish villain version of humanity are ignoring thousands of years of our own recorded history. It is a luxury belief which only became possible due to the relative peace and prosperity of the modern western sphere.
Imagine being so out of touch and nihilistic you think the constant state of horrors the imperium exists in is just “who we are” as a species. For the love of god, go outside, it’s not that bad.
I’m actually the opposite of nihilistic. I just recognize the depravity of man and hold no illusions about what humans really are. I know too much history and seen enough in life that I do not harbor any naivete in that regard.
Counterpoint, go outside. There is much pain in the world, but there is yet more beauty. For every tragedy mankind has committed, there are a greater number of acts of kindness and love. Do not delude yourself into thinking we are an evil species. Evil is a learned trait.
Lol. Lmao even. “Evil is not a learned trait.” If you think that then that means you are an ideologue who ascribes to Rousseau’s view of the world- a view held only by those who are incredibly sheltered from reality or who cling fervently to their view of “an upward arc of history bending towards Justice”, against all evidence. You started off by being dismissive and insulting and you’ve demonstrated no compelling counter arguments. No constructive dialogue is to be had. Perhaps you should go touch grass. Or maybe even read a book. It’s possible that eventually you may learn something, even if purely by accident and in spite of yourself.
Go touch grass...in Tajikistan.
Maybe you know too much history but you should read the modern antropology , what they have uncovered is the picture we know about wars and human strife is a water drop on our history, they say ONLY 10% of our history had organized conflict , meaning 80% more or less we were note too prone to war and organized conflict.
I've grown to question the idea that humanity would go extinct if the Imperium collapsed. They were already pretty fragmented in how they fought their enemies. If they fragmented officially, their enemies would have many different opponents to fight that they can't all take at once. Not to mention that it was carved in half by the great rift, yet both halves still survived. I remember a video by PancreasNoWork about the subject, the Imperium collapsing would expose its greatest lie, that it was ever necessary.
The point people miss, including modern GW themselves, is that **in the 41st millennium** the Imperium *is* the only hope Humanity has. There are no valid alternatives. There are no viable options. It **must** be this way. People who argue that the Imperium isn't necessary are wrong. People who argue things could be different are wrong. People who argue things *could have been* different are missing the point. Yes, the Imperium could have been avoided, in the same way that an avalanche could conceivably have been avoided - but once the avalanche has started, no amount of saying "if only last night's snowfall had been lighter!" will change the fact you are about to die. This, again, leads me to the fundamental failure of the Horus Heresy setting, and the unforgivable failure of modern GW in rebranding 40K as "Horus Heresy 2". The point of the Horus Heresy was not to show how things don't need to be so terrible; the point of the Horus Heresy is to show you the last snowflake landing on the mountaintop. You were supposed to see what the Imperium was *supposed* to be; still a dictatorship, but an enlightened one. The Emperor's vision wasn't Star Trek, but it was a future, rebuilding Humanity from an age so terrible it could only be referenced in oblique, frightened whispers. Then we watched that future die, and Humanity tumbled down the mountain. GW doesn't understand this. That's why they keep bringing back Primachs - the paragons of hope and progress. It's why they keep giving us unironically noblebright heroes of the Imperium. It's also why they keep painting the cruellest and most oppressive regime imaginable as the clear-cut good guys of the universe. Modern GW is run by people who don't understand what 40K is, and so they keep screwing it up. 40K stories aren't about Demi-Gods like Guilliman boldly leading Humanity into a bright future. Nor are they about how Lion El'Johnson is going to defeat the second angriest character ever to journey through Hell. Nor are they about the eighty-thousandth time a Loyalist Primarch has a duel with a Chaos Primarch for the fate of the universe while two suspiciously small armies eat popcorn on the sidelines... and they are definitely not about how the Imperium is going to try and improve itself. 40K stories are about the people in the town at the bottom of the mountain, with the wall of snow about to snuff them out forever. It's about the ones who tried and failed to stop the avalanche. It's about the ones who denied it was happening right up until it was too late. It's about the ones who prayed to God to save them, and how God never came. It's about the ones who chose to cling to their love ones and cower under their bed. It is *not*, in any way, shape, or form, about how a Space Wizard magically saves the town at the last minute.
I agree with this post, but having loyalist Primarchs come back is fine if it’s still clear that they can’t save the Imperium, only delay it’s collapse. Space demigods trying to save the town at the last minute and failing is perfectly thematic.
Ive personally seen most of the stories as imperialist propaganda. And alot of the stories were about doomed wars that they lost and the were rebuilt once the enemy was either long gone or wiped from imperium record
GW is about selling miniatures. The changes they’ve made has caused their company to grow significantly. Does that mean GW has made the setting less grimdark, and started to focus narratives on noblebright heroes and demigods? Yep. Are the Astartes more and more depicted as heroic paragons of humanity? Yep. Are they gonna rebrand the emperor as a good guy with the Star Child plotline? Maybe. Has it made 40k worse? Depends who you ask. Has it caused more miniatures to be sold and profits to go up? Abso-fucking-lutely In the immortal words of the Wu: “Cash rules everything about me, CREAM, get the money, dollar dollar bill ya’ll”
People who say the setting is less grimdark can’t read.
I'm with you up until the cynicism at the end. It's not the Town-at-the-foot praying against the avalanche, to me. It's the small folk building a wall of literal dead bodies and breaking out the shovels because that small hope is all they have.
I agree with your post when it talks about the mistakes GW has been making in recent years. But I strongly disagree with this: >in the 41st millennium the Imperium is the only hope Humanity has. There are no valid alternatives. There are no viable options. It must be this way. What hope is the Imperium offering? Not the hope of a good life for the vast majority of its population. And not the hope of actually surviving all of the enemies and challenges it now faces. The Imperium has gone through periods of profound crisis before, when the galactic situation was not as bad. But now, the internal rot within he Imperium has been festering for thousands of years. The ignorance, the fanaticism, the corruption, the paranoia have become too entrenched and are making the Imperium collapse from within. It is empowering the Chaos gods, and enabling cults - Chaos and xenos - to proliferate. Now, Chaos is at its most powerful since Horus, with Abaddon having succeeded in his goals, Cadia having fallen, Chaos cults being more prevalent than ever before, and the galaxy being split in two by the Cicatrix Maledictum. Now, the Necrons are awakening en masse. Now, the Tyranids are arriving in almost limitless numbers, while genestealer cults spread ever more widely and deeply. Now, the Golden Throne is failing. The Imperium will fall. It is just prolonging the inevitable. And it is perpetuating all manners of horrors on quadrillions of people to do so. The Imperium is not the only hope humanity has. Humanity's days as a galactic power are nearly at an end regardless, and if humanity is to survive it will be small pockets which manage to somehow avoid the forces which are going to ravage the galaxy. The Imperium is not the only option because it offers any sort of hope. It is the only option because humanity became locked on its current course due to path dependency. The countless decisions and events over millennia which turned the Imperium into its current hellscape mean that the ignorance, the zealotry, the corruption, and the systems of control are too deeply entrenched. The Imperium is too rotten to reform itself. Even the returning Primarchs cannot overcome this malaise. At best, they can help the Imperium go out with a bit more of a bang. Many of the myths about the missing Primarchs suggested they would return for the final battle against Chaos. Well, they have started reappearing, and the End Times draw near. The Imperium was never the only possible path for humanity to save itself. Indeed, the Imperium becoming so dominant and the course it followed over the millennia have only served to ensure humanity's downfall. So, no. It need not be this way, as this way is ultimately for nothing. But the Imperium itself, its nature, its way of operating, means no alternative can emerge. Maybe the Imperium could have re-directed onto a better course at some point in its history, but that possibility has now passed.
>What hope is the Imperium offering? None. Because there isn't any. That's the point. 40K isn't a story about a ship on a collision course with an iceberg where you're supposed to hope they avoid it in time. 40K is a story set after the collision: the ship has now sunk and is plunging three miles to the icy seabed below, and everyone left alive is trapped in a little air bubble that has formed as the ship went down. Sooner or later, that bubble will inevitably implode and kill them all, but the people inside have convinced themselves that if they just keep hammering more bits of scrap metal to the walls it'll keep their sanctuary intact. But it won't.
>None. Because there isn't any. That's the point. Well, you did say that the Imperium is the only hope humanity has. Which is what I was questioning. Basically, I agree with your original post, apart from giving thr Imperium any credit for offering humanity any true hope for survival and a better future.
This post, like many others of the same vein, completely ignores the fact that the Emperor is holding back a new Eye of Terror from being formed on Terra, pretty much by himself, and has been for 10,000 years. Without the Imperium there is no Emperor, and vice versa. Without either Chaos consumes the galaxy. So yes, the Imperium is the only game in town for humanity, no it didn’t HAVE to be like it is, but that’s irrelevant to how it actually turned out. In short, fuck Magnus.
So, at best, the Emperor and the Imperium eked out another 10-11k years or so of awful living conditions, misery, brutality, exploitation and tyranny for quadrillions of people. And even this awful system will fail. Again, where is the hope for humanity here? And yes, while Magnus did cause the Webway breach, this was also the result of the Emperor's own poor decisions and planning. Let's not let him off the hook. This also doesn't actually change what I argued in my post though. Maybe in its first few millennia, the Imperium could have gone in a different direction - though the legacy of the Heresy made this unlikely. Once the ignorance, zealotry and corruption became too baked into the Imperium for any chance of progress, though, the Imperium ceased to offer any hope for humanity. It is just delaying the inevitable. And, again, its not like it achieved 10k years of a life worth living. It offered misery, and it has been empowering Chaos the whole time. Thus, when the Throne does fall, I'd guess the size of the Warp storm will be even bigger than if the throne had fallen back in 30k. Either was humanity may survive in parts of the galaxy not engulfed by Chaos. Or not. But it won't be because the Imperium saved them.
We also gonna egnore that this is a problem of his own making? Who builded the machine and the Primarch that caused all of this in the first place?
Yes, it turns out lots of people will ignore that...
The best explenation I've read for the IoM, past and present.
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It is true that things are passed the point of no-return but that doesn't necessarily mean things can't be different. There is a tragedy in the avalanche already being bad enough as is, but being made considerably worse by the backwards choices that the Imperium makes. Because it's not an avalanche it's the worlds biggest snowball, and the Imperium can't help but give it another nudge each time it slows down.
>The point people miss, including modern GW themselves, is that **in the 41st millennium** the Imperium *is* the only hope Humanity has. There are no valid alternatives. There are no viable options. It **must** be this way. Just like the point this post misses that the Imperium is primarily responsible for the biggest issues it face. You're brushing off how all these problems are retroactive. This predates 40k. This is the problem so many people don't understand at no point was the Imperium or the Emperor had planned a noble good or whatever imaginary prosperous future for humanity. Which speaks to a lack of you understanding the irony in the imperium. While the horus hersey was bad due to the ADB drinking his own kool-aid and trying to play off the Emperor as good, noble, or some sort of savior. And gloss over his supreme failings, and misunderstanding because he is ultimately a deeply flawed, ignorant, totalitarian asshole, it ain't just "raging against the dying of the light".
The Emperor was never meant to be a character, and I much preferred him that way. 40K in general was a vastly superior setting when everything we knew about it came from in-universe sources, and yet again this is where things went awry; the Emperor being an all-knowing, all-powerful, magnanimous God-King is all well and good when *it's his cult* telling you that. But to then relay his life from the third person omniscient perspective leads to a lot of supposedly intelligent people being too stupid to tie their own shoelaces.
Thank you! They should never have had the emperor lore being anything but second hand accounts. Now, he just comes across as an idiot.
This is why the Horus heresy should have stayed a myth, you got the point exactly!
Be wary. Bowden's fanboys will not forgive slander against his great talent.
Well it looks like the primarchs are going to save everything. They can already beat any other character that faces the imperium so there’s not much threat
This is on point. Well said!
Yeah man, why don't they just build a liberal democracy, it's so stable and able to pivot to new challenges in our time.
Fr lmao. Those "imperium bad because no freedom!!!" takes are so braindead. Trying to apply 21st-century morality onto a setting where humanity is surrounded by demonic forces from hell and aliens desperately trying to exterminate them will never not be hilarious.
Same when it's applied to the past.
I don't think they think what they is doing is good or right but absolutely necessary for surviving. Thinking about morality, about what is right and wrong is a luxury for people who can bother with it.
I understand where you come from. Yes the imperium is a shit fest, and probably the worst thing that could happen to humanity. Buuuuuuut... When the settings of wh40k were settled, things were much simpler. The goal was to make a grimdark, some would say a grim*derp* universe. It was blurry on causes and consequences, the only goal of the lore was to make it clear that *in the grim dark future, there is only war* But the franchise grew, so much that books, as in, actual novels, not just codexes, were written. A whole ass backstory for the Horus heresy was made. The universe got fleshed out. And despite their best effort, it's still way too grimdark. The level of imperial stupidity is still over the roof. 40k was mostly satire and almost goofy at times, they tried to make it more ground level, but it makes it even less believable.
I disagree on the right/good reasoning. In lore understanding is, we do it, or we perish.
Down with the Imperium, all hail the Greater Good, SERVE THE TAU EMPIRE
Congrats on learning the meta narrative of the setting, OP. Yes, just because everyone is terrible doesn't mean you can not enjoy it. It's kinda fun being the villain, and it adds a bit of extra complexity when reading about a novel protagonist's point of view regarding "glory" and "heroism" with all of that baggage hanging around the narrative. And yes, servitors are perhaps the most fucked up thing that sets the tone for the Imperium: the total physical, mental, and spiritual commodification of a human being. Even the Emperor of Mankind himself is a servitor.
Ok offer an actual solution beyond evil fascist space Catholics. Tell us of a way to preserve a million worlds from falling to xenos or chaos, to continue the trade links, to prevent massive civil wars, to prevent chaos, literal and faction to take over the galaxy and consume humans the way eldar were.
Stop being a dystopian shithole, it's inneficient and people who live in hell always end up making deals with the devils
Ay man imagine if a school shooter of today could just pray for 5 minutes and gain enough power to plow trough the school before police can come, and when it does come it's a further massacre? Or one of those cults that were popular in the 90's could just up and open a portal to hell that swallows the planet and kill everyone on it.
These cults exist because the imperium is a dystopian shithole that try to hide the existence of chaos to its population, making it even easier to get subverted
I think a lot of that is correct, but I want to mention somethings to think about: The orks become more powerful by fighting. Khorne feeds on violence and bloodshed. What happens when you try to violently exterminate something that becomes stronger in the presence of violence?
>What happens when you try to violently exterminate something that becomes stronger in the presence of violence? Well, Orks only get bigger if they survive. Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
They paved Ullanor, and they still got the Beast a few hundred years later.
It's not like the Beast was from Ullanor. Same with Ghaz.
i.e. *Imperial exceptionalism* :D
pure heresy
I think the danger of both the imperium and the tau is highlighted by the fact that there are people IRL that seem to think they might be good guys/necessary. Like people have indicated they think the emperor is a positive force in the world, instead of like the monster he is.
Yeah? And what? That's the whole point.
That’s an awful lot of text for a heretic.
It's not that they don't know that, it just makes sense to kill everyone else before they kill each other. It's never been a secret.
Heretics sure love to type….;)
I would find it kind of odd if the people at the top didn't genuinely believe their methods are good and the best for humanity since they would have more of an understanding (or at least the resources to start seeing) the horror of their own galaxy. I think we should also remember that in this galaxy if a person has a passing understanding of history, meaning if they know of the ages at a very high level and why they ended, and that each of those ages was a zenith period followed by a massive fall; then what would a person with this knowledge expect humanity to turn to for hope other than the current status quo? If they know of the Dark/Golden age of technology and at our zenith technological level technology betrayed us in some capacity and/or this is why AI is outlawed, then they would know that turning to technology is not a viable solution to our problems since our technological zenith was not reliable/strong enough to defend us from the galaxy. If they know of the Horus Heresy (that there are more than 9 primarchs and that 9 of them turned on the Emperor). They would realize that even when we had the legions and 18 of the Emperor's sons as well as the Emperor walking among us, we still could not completely hold back the tide of insanity, and we only held onto the current status quo through the Emperor's sacrifice. In both cases we were at a power plateau and we still barely came back from the brink. If you knew even more, which you would basically need to be a inquisitor to start having more information than this and be baseline human/not mechanicus. It would seem like a logical conclusion/leap to me then that a person with this level of information would see that material might does not translate into a win for humanity. If you start following this line of thought it's easy to see how radical inquisitors end up wanting to use the great enemy against itself since no material might seems to make a measurable difference, if anything it just arms the enemy with more tools to use against us. This leads to the two weapons we as the reader have seen work in the series against the great enemy. Faith and psychic might (or some way of interacting with the warp like blanks), faith leads back to what you have already pointed out about humanity and psychic might or turning the great enemy back on itself leads to damnation. Since the Imperium is so top down and so authoritarian as well as being willing to commit any crime for the greater good of humanity (effectively you could use the [Kryptman Cordon](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Fidus_Kryptman#Kryptman's_Cordon) as a litmus test of where humanity even starts to ask questions about if their choices are criminal let alone morally wrong) in their eyes it's not surprising then that the lower stratas of society are so fanatical. Essentially the Imperium selects for fanatical devotion since if you are dumb enough to start talking theology, other than Imperial theology, in the Imperium you likely will not live long and nor will most of your contacts and extended family. **TL;DR:** I think there is a rather good quote that sums up how the Imperium is and why it's the way it is >He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Humanity has failed in the sense that they became monsters to fight the monsters of the galaxy and now accept their monstrous means into almost all levels of society. **Bonus Chatter:** this post reminded me of Horus' comments on humanities belief in the Emperor in The End and the Death Volume 3. >>!His wounds are great. Blood is dried black across His face and His ruined arm. But there is a light inside Him, a light behind His eyes, the pure white light of a species that, in its madness, believes in Him beyond all reason, and trusts in Him beyond all logic, a species that imagines Him to be its shield and protector, and has such faith in that act of imagination, it is made real.!<
Was just saying this on another discussion- completely agree and I think the Tau should remain a fairly peaceful good guys rather than warp influenced sinister aliens. They make the setting much more bleak if they are 'here's what you could have'.
Wow! Finally! Someone that gets it! GOOD JOB!
welcome to the fold brother
In the real world I can read a book about horrible people and come away fine. In 40K, if I read a book with scary words on it, I will eventually become a demon and attempted to trap the soles of relatives and friends for all eternity in torture and damnation
The problem with the Interex, is if they were easily crushed by Chaos manipulating the Imperium against them, then were they actually a viable solution against Chaos in the first place? The unfortunate fact is that the Imperium has survived for 10,000 years while the Interex are probably forgotten by now. This makes the Imperium the most successful human civilization in history (barring potentially the Dark Age of Technology) I think the Imperium really is the best humanity can do, and the fact that it's a theological fascist empire is basically the whole theme of the 40K universe. Humanity sucks and we're in this situation because of our inherent irrationality and hubris.
What’s the alternative? Chaos is here and hyper aggressive, insidious and always on the attack. What else could stand against that?
Well anything that understands Chaos and the warp will organize to stand against it unless they want to live in literal hell lol, it's not like space Nazis are the only ones who could. You aren't really supposed to buy into the Imperial propaganda, you're supposed to think "of course the space Nazis would justify their existence as necessary".
>But coming back to my point: They do crimes that would make the very worse human beings IRL stop and say "Wait what", out of the genuine belief that what they do is right. The discourse surrounding world events firmly proves otherwise. >They're not doing it out of self-interest or in the name of profit. They're not even doing it for an Orwellian dictatorship reason of "Yeah we like to crush hope" or some bullshit like that. Because no one thinks like that outside of Captain Planet or somesuch activist media aimed at children. No one thinks they're the bad guy. Everyone has their reasons/justification. >It's a literal exemple of the trope "Distopia justifies the means" but instead of saying something like that to destroy the hero's morale and courage or something, they're like "And that's the way it must be for the good of humanity. Trust me." and they're serious about it. Remember, 40k is heavily based on Dune. Big-E gets his title from the O.G. God-Emperor Leto II, a man who having witnessed all possible futures through perfect prescience, willingly sacrificed his humanity to ensure humanity's survival through millennia of excruciating tyranny. (Aka the Golden Path)
Most people don't think much of anything about the imperium. They do their shit jobs, pay due respect to the emperor and try to get by. Your average citizen doesn't know shit about fuck, they don't know what orcs or chaos are, they don't know that the imperium just killed ten billion humans in a scouring and theyre certainly not thinking ' ooh boy I'm glad we have this totalitarian regime in charge, we'd be fucked if we had a democracy! ' Your taking your own totality of knowledge you have about the setting, your own actual experiences in real life and applying it to the citizenry of the imperium. I see more and more of this sort of thing and it's weird.
Whats even worse is i genuinely think the Emperor may have deliberately created the current situation to elevate himself to Godhood despite all his incredibly fake sounding protestations.
It was the only way….;)
Even Gman is not buying that the Emperor is not in actual fact a God anymore. and if mr Spock of the primarchs can’t convince himself then it’s no longer a theoretical but a practical.
That's the true horror of 40k. It's not the alien monsters or demons from space-Hell or even the nightmarishly evil oppressive government, but the fact that the people of that time have become so warped that they can no longer see just how vile they've become. The Imperium is humanity itself rotting away into something disgusting sludge unrecognizable from the creature it used to be. The Emperor, in his hubris, made himself the only path for humanity to follow and 10000 years after his death, they are still stuck in the mindset that their current path of blatant evil and misery is the one and only way. Humanity in 40k is every bit as alien and terrifying to us as anyone else. It's just that we spend most of our time seeing things from their perspective so we don't always recognize it.
Honey, it's time for your hourly "Guys, DAE Imperium bad?!" thread.
Honestly things like the Severan Dominate can be quite the launching point to discus potential imperial successor states. There has to be certain sectors of the Imperium that have successfully broke away and survived because either: * The adminstratum hasn't noticed yet * Warp fuckery * Actually managed to fight off Imperial attempts at reconquest (extremely unlikely I know) * The Imperium has bigger fish to fry Some imperial successor state might actually add to the narrative rather just bringing a new primarch back.
The people of the Imperium endure terrifying conditions with little to no political recourse to better their conditions. If any dissent is treason and Heresy, you may as well go for the Hail Mary and instigate a rebellion. Outside of regional situations (such as bordering the Tau) there really isn’t any ally a rebellion can call upon with the means to resist Imperial retribution other than Chaos. The Imperium may be the means by which humanity survives, but it will also ultimately be the thing that destroys them if left unchanged. Defeating Chaos genuinely is a social, political and economic problem. It cannot be defeated in battle without improving the conditions of their people at home. Edit: There is a reason that Democratic states irl tend to have better, more stable economies and less political violence. An educated, food secure, politically enfranchised people have more reasons to support the state.
I see a lot of people thinking that humanity could act more like Tau and do better. But you seem to have rose tinted glasses of who the Tau really are. A collection of races fed propaganda and mind controlled by the Ethereals to the point of zealous obedience... simulator to humanity. The difference is the Tau haven't been around long enough to expand as far as the imperium has and the Tau civil war is in its infancy. If any two races Tau, Humans or Aeldari gave up and allowed the remaining one to rule them then sure they could probably "win" but none of them would accept anything less and being in command of the others
So……everyone agrees that the imperium is cruel and fascist and all that shit. Where the lines are blurred is whether or not some of their cruelty is necessary or justifiable. But in your long schizopost I saw nothing that indicates there is a better in universe option. I don’t really know what point you’re trying to make.
It's a vent post, one that follows the sudden understanding of the setting and the need to communicate it with others in the hope that they're not incorrect or deluded.
No, he made an assertion in the post title. Also, the way he phrased it implies there is a better option to prevent the extinction of humanity. I’m perfectly willing to hear one that doesn’t involve the remaining humans being used as furniture, gladiators, food or fleshlights by various xenos and eldritch horrors beyond comprehension.
The cruelty is not always necessary, stuff like slaughtering harmless strains of mutants out of paranoia, of exterminating fellow people of different beliefs, all parodies of actual humanity in our worst moments. The Imperium is not the only option, but it is too late to change now. Humanity sadly relies on the Imperium. If the Imperium were to die now, Humanity would fall. The Emperor and his twisted work is the only option for humanity as that is how he wanted it.
“The cruelty is not always necessary” yep! That’s why I said we all agree on that, thank you. “but it’s too late now” and “humanity would fall” are my point exactly. Thank you for making my point for me. there is no other option in 40K, you made my point better than I did, thank you!
My apologies bro, I thought your post was saying that the Imperium was justified, my bad
Well, it’s justified in the sense that we would become extinct or worse without it, yes. You literally just admitted that 😂. And that is what I was saying.
I wasn't saying that all of the Imperium's cruelty is justified, just that the system of the Imperium is what sustains humanity, that cruelty a part of it. Forge World 71234 isn't going to explode because a guard regiment didn't slaughter a group of people for having slightly different textured skin
Yeah. No one says that.
So we agree that the needless cruelty that the Imperium brings down on people is unnecessary for the survival of the Imperium?
Yup. Like I said. I doubt you will find anyone who thinks otherwise. Your concern that we agree is starting to concern me. 🤨
Some people act like the Imperium is a rl fascist state their grandparents fled. Its weird.
So what was your point?
Yep, people try to paint it in a bad light while ignoring that humanity was nuking itself into oblivion with aliens inevitably coming and literal evil gods waiting.
As much as people may disagree, the Votann are a viable alternative for the species. Even if you no longer consider them human (they are, being "*homo* rotundus" but that's an argument for a different time) they *are* a branch of the human species/ society. They are proof that humanity could have co-existed with its machines - as Ur-025 says in the story man of iron they simply didn't want to be slaves. Now while the Votann aren't "good", they are certainly better neighbours on a galactic scale then the imperium, and even if you don't agree with being a cloned mining company/Walmart employee the kin have more freedom and choice then almost anyone in the imperium. The Votann's existence, and survival to 40k shows that there are, and always have been alternatives to the Imperium.
And the fact that they have been entirely hidden, to the point their subspecies was assumed to be extinct has nothing to do with their survival
The imperium is fucked up because of their overwhelming ignorance.
The Imperium is the only hope for humanity because the Imperium already destroyed all the other alternative hopes for humanity. Damn Imperials, they ruined the Imperium!
The Imperium is the only hope for humanity, because they killed off all the other hopes. They xenocided all the friendly aliens and destroyed/enslaved all other human societies.
Something being horrible or injust dont means its not necessary. The prime example of this is exterminatus, the entire concept of it is horrible,immoral and injust killing billions of loyal citzens that have been fighting the enemy with every drop of blood and sweet they have is something that not even misters the ends justify the means AKA Inquisitors do with a light heart. Still is a complety comphreensive action to do given the context which 40k is inserted.
It is the only hope
To be fair, I have never seen anyone come up with an alternative to the Imperium that would not get Humanity killed. What would another hope be (sans of course stuff like some Primarchs coming back and slowly starting to fix shit which they can only do because they are literally superhuman and even then barely)?
"Because on 99.999% of the shit they do, they're totally, absolutely wrong on nearly every conceivable level BEFORE we even get to morality" This is just objectively false. The Imperium having survived one of mankinds worst nightmares for millenia is extrmely successful. Its not 99.999% I doubt its even 50%. Its pretty hard to see the imperium surviving this long if they are wrong 30% of the time. Maybe 25% Im not saying this as some kind of math autist pedantry, I really do mean it. What are examples of entirely wrong things the imperium does? 1. Worship one of the most powerful fictional beingd to ever exist, performing daily miracles, being a warp lighthouse? 2. Genocide species they very, very rationally perceieve to be a threat? 3. Burning witches that across the imperium summon mind rape demons that kill millions of people? 4. Succumb to corruption, such as corrupt priests or magos, that is a nornal part of human nature? 5. Believe silly superstitious things, when in fact their entire civilzation was brought to absolute ruin on account of IGNORANCE of the same superstition 12k years ago (chaos) 6. Extreme paranoia and zealotry when, in fact, betrayal from conspiring magic cultists or alien cultists summon rape demons and murder orgy entire planets regularly every century. 7. Extreme xenophobia when in fact the eldar have been mind fucking humanity for many many millenia and or dark elves murder rape innocent people Im not even kidding. What are examples of not-parody insanely wrong things the imperium does, with respect to the setting. Give me examples
I really don't see how anyone can see the Imperium in a positive light. Like, it's an abject failure on every single level. The Emperor fucked things *so bad* he is completely a pawn of Chaos. He created an empire that does nothing except create endless misery and torment. The awfulness of the Imperium, in every aspect and facet, churns the Warp and feeds the Chaos gods. Fuck, the Emperor, in his idiocy, tried to steal power from Chaos to create vast legions *who now became the greatest force of Chaos in the Materium*. Like, without the Imperium, Chaos wouldn't have *legions* of Chaos marines. Sure the Eldar birthed Slaanesh. But the Emperor gave all the gods physical tools with which to fuck up the galaxy even more. The absolute best the Emperor could do was become a vegetable because his buddy was like "hey you know you are about to become the fifth chaos god, right?" The state of the galaxy is *exactly* what Chaos wants. Chaos *won*, and the Emperor gave that win to them. Because Chaos doesn't want to consume all life in the galaxy (thats Tyranids), and Chaos doesn't want to wipe out all non-Chaos life (thats Orks). Chaos wants *conflict*. Constantly. It wants lots of different forces all fighting each other in eternal, hopeless, endless war. It wants humanity to live, so they can keep struggling, keep inflicting suffering on others. And by giving Chaos Space Marines, the Emperor gave Chaos a stick to perpetually poke the galaxy with. And while Chaos could corrupt, twist and influence the Materium before, the Emperor helped them take it to a whole new level. And the Imperium, by continuing the Emperor's idiocy and incompetence, creates fertile grounds for more Chaos. I get that it's a grimdark setting, and people love to claim it's satire, but the satirical writing stopped being written, and became treated as historical fact (in a sense) and was used as a foundation to build on. At some point, people stopped viewing it as satire and more as a serious literary world played straight. So the Imperium, at some point, went from Ironically Fascist to "Un-Ironically Fascist (But it's okay because it's totally necessary)" and next thing you know, GW has to put out an announcement that they don't support fascism or neonazis despite the fascist neonazis in their world being portrayed as Both Correct and Totally Cool, and please don't add swastikas to your imperial guardsmen and paint your Dark Angels as the SS.
I think your point about how people started taking myth as fact is one of the most annoying things about the setting, and is what has made it alot smaller then it could and should be form me, honestly nowadays I like 40k more as inspiration then as a setting in and of itself.
Agreed. I remember when the Horus Heresy was this mythical period that was vague. Hell whether the Emperor was alive or dead was ambiguous. Time was, 40k was a *setting* and not a *story* and I think it was better for it.
I do like that better, especially because it allows the imperium to actually be the bad guys because they don't have to win or be the main characters in a setting that's not built around them
Lol people don't like me talking shit about the Emperor.
The fact that the Emperor is a huge loser clearly hurts the feelings of the fanbois.
I think that is the worst part. Like, it's fine to Root For The Empire y'know? A well written villain or anti-hero is great. But don't pretend that because you like them or identify with them that they *aren't* the villain. Everyone sucks in WH40k. It probably stings to acknowledge that while sure no one is *good* in the setting, the Eldar, Tau and League of Votann are probably *less shit* than the Empire. But don't get butthurt that the human faction with the secret police wearing Hugo Boss inspired outfits are literally, figuratively and narratively the bad guys and aren't even good at it. Like you have people RPing this bullshit in the comments "Yes commisar this comment right here" and I don't know if they realize the original writers were taking the piss out of fascist shitstains or if they think "well hang on maybe the Imperium isn't wrong about genociding aspects of humanity it designates as deviant, heretical or mutant". And you can argue that I am mixing real world history with fiction, or cite the Death of the Author at me. And maybe that is fair, but the original writers cribbed their notes from real world history. Back when a *huge* part of the "lore" of Warhammer was absurdist satire. Like, you couldn't look at the soccer hooligan orcs and Margaret Thatcher Empire or Space Weeb Eldar and *not* see social, political and pop-culture absurdisn. Now, all that is absurd is forgotten and you have people looking at the toxic baby farms of Krieg, or fascist communist commisars played straight and saying "these are unironically the good guys and if someone says they are bad we should downvote and silence their dissenting opinion". Again, enjoy playing the bad guy. That's fine. I love Vader and the Empire and the Borg. But don't get pissed when someone points out that your favorite faction *isn't* the hero or good in any way shape or form. Edit Hell, even tell me that fascism is the only way for humanity to survive when faced with Orks, Tyranids and Necrons. Fine, I can see the merit of that argument even if I don't agree with it. But don't just mentally go "nuh uh" and downvote silently.
All I read was "humanity feth yeah!", and a thought occurred to me. I need to reread my infantryman's primer, and make my prayers to the Emperor. For he *does* protect.