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dabnett kinda said it best that (paraphrasing) there are a lot of cool universes in fiction that many fans would love to visit, this is not one of those if you are healthy mentally.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:48
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The Imperium definitely has to win sometimes, but victory for the Imperium is usually a monstrous thing, and very different from the positively charged concept of "progress".
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Apr 1, 2024 18:49
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Kylaer posted:That's one of the reasons I love Twice-Dead King so much, it actually shows the Imperium from the outside perspective as terrifying. Also always good to remember the Chaos Gods call Big E "anathema" when they refer to him.
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Apr 1, 2024 18:59
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my wife has asked me for years why i like the grimdark poo poo and i tell her it keeps my nihilism in check.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:00
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Black Griffon posted:The Imperium definitely has to win sometimes, but victory for the Imperium is usually a monstrous thing, and very different from the positively charged concept of "progress". I really think that depends on the foe the victory is over. You are not going to convince me that Orks, Dark Eldar, Tyranids, or like 99% of Chaos are great, non monstrous, alternatives.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:23
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Telsa Cola posted:I really think that depends on the foe the victory is over. You are not going to convince me that Orks, Dark Eldar, Tyranids, or like 99% of Chaos are great, non monstrous, alternatives. IMHO the joke isn't that chaos or deldar or whatever is better than the imperium, it's that the imperium is so bad that chaos seems like a viable alternative despite how obviously horrible it is.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:28
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Improbable Lobster posted:IMHO the joke isn't that chaos or deldar or whatever is better than the imperium, it's that the imperium is so bad that chaos seems like a viable alternative despite how obviously horrible it is. Right and in-universe that works as good character/society motivations, but out of universe its made very clear that it's a loving trap. My point is that Imperial Victory over the above listed foes is very likely not a monstrous thing because those guys suck more.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:33
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You could plausibly argue that a Tyranid victory is a mercy killing compared to continued existence in the 40k universe, the book Day of Ascension certainly does.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:35
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https://twitter.com/MeU_317/status/1774642873964822996?s=20
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Apr 1, 2024 19:39
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Yeah it's not that the enemies of the Imperium are better, or that they even seem better, but that a victory for the Imperium means they can more effectively perpetuate the machinery of suffering that grinds billions of souls into warp gatorade. A more powerful Imperium is just more opportunities for horror.
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Apr 1, 2024 19:40
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Black Griffon posted:Yeah it's not that the enemies of the Imperium are better, or that they even seem better, but that a victory for the Imperium means they can more effectively perpetuate the machinery of suffering that grinds billions of souls into warp gatorade. A more powerful Imperium is just more opportunities for horror. I'm pointedly looking at chaos and dark eldar. If your only issue here is scale you are aware that those two factions would almost certainly do things large scale if they could, right? Your argument is basically that the Imperium is a horrible fascist dystopia and that it's existence leads to large scale suffering of trillions, and that continued victories only enable this to continue. My argument is that, at the very least, Chaos and Dark Eldar are substantially worse and actively have the whole cause large scale suffering as their goals. A substantial victory of the Imperium over these forces is literally a better outcome because the Imperium does not have a committee that goes "How can we increase our suffering quota by 11%" while Chaos and DE literally would do that. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 19:42
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StrixNebulosa posted:I say we hit the logical endpoint and have the Imperium begin to actually fracture as a political entity. Only through pure firey chaotic civil war can things begin to get better, maybe. I feel like this is where Imperium Nihilus is going - with a very small number of exceptions, if you're an Imperial world on the wrong side of the Great Rift and you try to carry on with business as usual, you're going to get hosed by the near-total breakdown of the Imperial logistics chain. Even if Xenos or Chaos isn't actively invading your home it's going to be a more mundane 'the grain freighters haven't arrived and now the population is starving and/or rioting' scenario. The ruling structures in Nihilus have to adapt to a way of existence that pays less attention to what Terra says and does, even if some of them claim to be still loyalist to some extent.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:10
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there is no ethical choice in 40k, its just disaster/atrocity porn.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:11
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e: Quote is not edit
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Apr 1, 2024 20:11
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Of the factions in 40k we got: Imperium: generally speaking, your average civilian living in this vast empire is going to range from pre-tech randos (see the Space Wolf series) who don't know what starships are to educated civilians living 'normal' lives (see Gaunt's Ghosts) to everything inbetween. The Imperium of Man is, writ large, a giant fascist theocracy dystopia that is going to suck for most people living in it, BUT it has (thanks to the scale) more pockets of humans living happy lives... at the ongoing cost of the grinding cost of war, the hunt for heresy, the Imperium's own stupid sacrifices, the golden throne eating people (I think) and more. Lots more. It's not a good world to live in, even if you get lucky, thanks to the prevalence of dangers. That said our other options are (listing everyone for convenience): Chaos: haha Eldar: gently caress if I know, they're not in a position to take power and they don't seem to be interested in ruling human worlds anyways. Dark Eldar: see chaos Tyranids: at least it will be painless and/or quick, probably Votann: gently caress if I know, probably the eldar thing again Necrons: ..... do.... do people survive as civilians under Necron rule? I don't actually know what they're like in 'peacetime'. Orkz: Not the worst option, because if they win and rule over the entire universe, they'll probably be willing to barter/trade/etc as rulers as long as you can stand up to them and/or pay them. Like. It's not gonna be great! It's not a great option, because for humanity it's going to be an endless WAAAAGH! for survival and carving out small niches for human communities to live in, but Orkz don't want genocide, they want to fight! T'au: [ignoring anything grimdark or mind control-y about them because I like them as the one genuinely good force for good] welcome to the Federation, Captain Kirk and Spock are waiting for you to contribute to the greater good and help everyone out so they can live happily ever after in the worst setting for that
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Apr 1, 2024 20:16
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Black Griffon posted:Yeah it's not that the enemies of the Imperium are better, or that they even seem better, but that a victory for the Imperium means they can more effectively perpetuate the machinery of suffering that grinds billions of souls into warp gatorade. A more powerful Imperium is just more opportunities for horror. I'd love for the next grand story arc to be about the Imperium taking steps towards some reforms. The pieces are being added to the board for it - Guilleman explicitly tells Dante that he wants Baal to be made more hospitable and less of a horrific deathworld so he's on the reformer side, the Star Child is potentially a powerful force to push that goal, etc. Watchers of the Throne gave us a taste for how this kind of conflict could run, and I thought it was great. Also keep in mind that all of the eras can exist actively alongside each other, there's no need to stick with just the latest status of the fiction if you're designing an army or writing a story. Heresy era, "Minutes to midnight" late-M.41, and Indomitus-era M.42 are all equally valid choices for a player or writer.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:27
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The only constant is that no one faction takes a serious upper hand in the lore since they have little men to sell.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:45
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StrixNebulosa posted:Necrons: ..... do.... do people survive as civilians under Necron rule? I don't actually know what they're like in 'peacetime'. Necrons are really "it depends" because they range from "destroy all biological life because it's icky" to "enslave the lesser races for the glory of the Necrons" to "so crazy they think they're back in the time of flesh and other species are just different Dynasties" but in general I think the second option may be the more likely. Hope you like building pyramids and/or monoliths!
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Apr 1, 2024 21:43
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Necrons are really "it depends" because they range from "destroy all biological life because it's icky" to "enslave the lesser races for the glory of the Necrons" to "so crazy they think they're back in the time of flesh and other species are just different Dynasties" but in general I think the second option may be the more likely. Hope you like building pyramids and/or monoliths! Also they can be "Try to eat the living but you don't have a mouth so you just smash the meat against your faceplate and let it fall on the floor" if they're afflicted by the Flayer Curse 
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Apr 1, 2024 21:49
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Adeptus Castordes
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Apr 1, 2024 22:36
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StrixNebulosa posted:Of the factions in 40k we got: For the orks, what they do to worlds they capture after they've killed all the fighters is enslave and torture the civilians, they're about as bad as chaos and the dark eldar, they just have a different attitude about it, seeing it as a natural state of might makes right and things dying or hurting is funny. Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 1, 2024 23:58
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Telsa Cola posted:I'm pointedly looking at chaos and dark eldar. If your only issue here is scale you are aware that those two factions would almost certainly do things large scale if they could, right? You are fundamentally misunderstanding things if you think there are any good endings in 40k.
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Apr 2, 2024 00:38
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Black Griffon posted:The Imperium definitely has to win sometimes, but victory for the Imperium is usually a monstrous thing, and very different from the positively charged concept of "progress". That's a good story seed, in fact. Say, the Indomitus Crusade liberating a swath of systems from the grip of Chaos, only for the Inquisition to then go wild trying to purge any remaining taint/chastising the population for not resisting harder, perhaps even precipitating a wave of revolts. The returned loyalist primarchs very uncomfortable watching it happen but not sure on how to deal with it.
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Apr 2, 2024 00:40
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Sephyr posted:That's a good story seed, in fact. Say, the Indomitus Crusade liberating a swath of systems from the grip of Chaos, only for the Inquisition to then go wild trying to purge any remaining taint/chastising the population for not resisting harder, perhaps even precipitating a wave of revolts. The returned loyalist primarchs very uncomfortable watching it happen but not sure on how to deal with it. or would it 
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Apr 2, 2024 00:57
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Yeah there's that concept of snapback which you see innumerable instances of in the real world too, where reactionary elements fill in the spaces and attack the weak fronts left after a popular uprising or a democratic election or whatever. Sometimes it's a consequence of a fragile and dysfunctional society where there's still a lot of In ant case, fear wins out over that short-lived moment of hope and triumph, and the moment the thunderhawks leave the parade ground and the servitors start cleaning up the rose petals and confetti, the arbites move in, people start disappearing, and the bright promises of a fairer life are put on hold for confidential reasons. Actually, you shouldn't even know there is anything to keep confidential. Do you have something you want to tell us?
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Apr 2, 2024 00:59
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One of the best parts of the Sea of Souls novel is the chief engineer that had her life ruined by just being tangentially related to a possible insurrection/revolt that saw entire hab-blocks disappeared and herself arrested, tortured, questioned, and by the time she was cleared, no one in the planet wanted anything to do with her, so she had to take to the stars and basically take on a new life. Understandably, she's -terrified- the moment she learns an Inquisitor is aboard the ship, because she's sure they're still chasing her over basically nothing, decades later. And the catch was.... there was no heretical cult or real insurrection. The Inquisition just did a planet-wide entrapment of passing around leaflets about organizing for better conditions and such, and swept in to arrest/kill/servitorize those that showed interest.
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Apr 2, 2024 01:43
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Sephyr posted:One of the best parts of the Sea of Souls novel is the chief engineer that had her life ruined by just being tangentially related to a possible insurrection/revolt that saw entire hab-blocks disappeared and herself arrested, tortured, questioned, and by the time she was cleared, no one in the planet wanted anything to do with her, so she had to take to the stars and basically take on a new life. Understandably, she's -terrified- the moment she learns an Inquisitor is aboard the ship, because she's sure they're still chasing her over basically nothing, decades later. My favorite chaos turning reason is 'I don't care what you do to me. I want you to do it to them harder.'
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Apr 2, 2024 01:51
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OPAONI posted:My favorite chaos turning reason is 'I don't care what you do to me. I want you to do it to them harder.' Chaos sees great results from "you get to hold the knife, and your boss gets to be tied to an altar." The fact that they can slam pure god-juice into your brain at the same time just makes it work better.
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Apr 2, 2024 02:19
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wiegieman posted:Chaos sees great results from "you get to hold the knife, and your boss gets to be tied to an altar." "They deserve it" is a fantastic plot hook in 40k, yeah
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Apr 2, 2024 02:51
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The Imperium is so lovely that it deserves an enemy like Chaos
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Apr 2, 2024 04:40
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Improbable Lobster posted:You are fundamentally misunderstanding things if you think there are any good endings in 40k. And you are fundementallly misunderstanding my point if you think I said that anywhere. I didn't, I just said that chaos winning a substantial victory is objectively worse.
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Apr 2, 2024 05:44
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[="OPAONI" post="538697561"] My favorite chaos turning reason is 'I don't care what you do to me. I want you to do it to them harder.' [/quote] Eh, I think they do actually care and it's chaos loving their brain up, theres a reason a bunch of chaos legionairres explicitly have a moment of sanity during the siege and try to off themselves, and Horus as a "Holy poo poo loving kill me" moment. Death Guard have similar poo poo when the veil is removed and they die from horror. Ditto Chosen of Slaneesh who realize that actually, having nerve endings exposed is not fun. It's pretty clear that chaos does something to your perception of it that lets you be okay with it, and then it will periodically remove the veil just to gently caress with you. ADB has a tweet thats basically "Writing and explaining why and how people turn to chaos is incredibly interesting and satisfying, but they are stupid, hypocritical idiots who deserve to be shot" Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 06:05
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Heck 40K beastmen aren’t inherently Chaotic like they are in Fantasy/AoS, it’s just they’re so mistreated by the Imperium that a lot of them join Chaos. The 30k Imperialis Militia rules even note that Beastmen were just as loyal and intelligent as their human counterparts.
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Apr 2, 2024 09:45
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Kylaer posted:That's one of the reasons I love Twice-Dead King so much, it actually shows the Imperium from the outside perspective as terrifying. It's nice when they flip the expectations over like that since it's normally the Necrons being portrayed as faceless, implacable horde and in this book they're just scared shitless and Battlestar Galactica-ing their way from the
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Apr 2, 2024 11:04
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Z the IVth posted:It's nice when they flip the expectations over like that since it's normally the Necrons being portrayed as faceless, implacable horde and in this book they're just scared shitless and Battlestar Galactica-ing their way from the Loved the bit when the space marines go after what they think is the energy storage...
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Apr 2, 2024 11:56
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Just some incidental Penitent talk: One reason I got extremely giddy near the end of the book is because I've been thinking a lot about what a Chaos Imperium led by either a turned Dorne or Guilliman or an ascendant Emperor would look like (for long before TEatD), and I always come back to something that is so ordered, delineated and perfect that it's horrifying. Like a titanic fractal palace of fearful symmetries and endless repetition that just extends and extends like a cancer. The platonic ideal of order and empire as a structure so far beyond perfection that it breaks your mind. When Abnett started describing the City of Dust, and with the kicker at the end, it felt like just for a moment, our minds had run along the same track, and that's a great feeling.
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Apr 2, 2024 12:20
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Black Griffon posted:Just some incidental Penitent talk: One reason I got extremely giddy near the end of the book is because I've been thinking a lot about what a Chaos Imperium led by either a turned Dorne or Guilliman or an ascendant Emperor would look like (for long before TEatD), and I always come back to something that is so ordered, delineated and perfect that it's horrifying. Like a titanic fractal palace of fearful symmetries and endless repetition that just extends and extends like a cancer. The platonic ideal of order and empire as a structure so far beyond perfection that it breaks your mind. When Abnett started describing the City of Dust, and with the kicker at the end, it felt like just for a moment, our minds had run along the same track, and that's a great feeling. In the Plague Wars novel there's a scene where the Emperor, possessing Guilliman, very plainly tells Nurgle that there's supposed to be a balance and the chaos gods have been ascendant for too long. Nurgle shits himself.
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Apr 2, 2024 12:26
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Z the IVth posted:It's nice when they flip the expectations over like that since it's normally the Necrons being portrayed as faceless, implacable horde and in this book they're just scared shitless and Battlestar Galactica-ing their way from the The funny thing about this is that one of the Necrons has done more to help the Imperium, intentionally, than just about anyone else in the setting.
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Apr 2, 2024 14:21
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Edit: I confused Calgar with Guilliman. Still, the Gillen Calgar series is still worth a read.
Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Apr 2, 2024 |
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Apr 2, 2024 14:43
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The marvel comics were surprisingly fun.
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Apr 2, 2024 15:29
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