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In 40K, is Chaos corruption of Non-Imperial human society inevitable?

BobTheNinja

BobTheNinja

Sword of Possibility
Location
Multiverse Sector Texas
I occasionally dabble in 40K fiction, mainly novels and fanfiction, and lately I'm interested in exploring the idea of human civilizations that either developed apart from or split away from the Imperium of Man, especially ones that don't have unthinking, fanatical intolerance as their core values.

A problem I see with this is that it seems like any alternative human civs in canon beyond a single star system are basically doomed to fail. Even if they somehow don't get nommed by hostile aliens, they more often than not seem to end up falling to Chaos corruption or incursion.

What I want to know is whether this is a purely narrative conceit in order to keep the Imperium of Man the only relevant human faction in the setting, or if there are actual in-universe reasons as to why non-Imperial, interstellar human civilizations cannot exist without falling to Chaos.

Basically, is it actually impossible for a larger space-faring human society to survive this universe without having a zealous, intolerant, take-no-prisoners worldview?
 
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What happened was that the Eldar partied Slaanesh into existence, and Slaanesh is the god of excess and extremes. As a result, Chaos got rammed into overdrive.
 
Mithras said:
What happened was that the Eldar partied Slaanesh into existence, and Slaanesh is the god of excess and extremes. As a result, Chaos got rammed into overdrive.
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My understanding is that what the Eldar did before the Fall went far beyond mere partying, and even beyond just kinky sex and drug stuff. Like, I'm pretty sure they were actually causing physical and mental damage to themselves and others for stimulation.

Ford Prefect said:
*whispers* the repression is the cause
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I mean, it would absolutely make sense that represssion would make the emotional psychic background of the galaxy actively worse, and I'm pretty sure that the Imperium is actively feeding Khorne and Nurgle just as much as they are fighting them. But even so, the impression that I get from secondary source readings amd general osmosis from fans is that any alternate human interstellar polities apart from the Imperium are inevitably killed off, a lot of the time because of Chaos.

To be sure, I think it's entirely possible that this is a mistaken misremembering, and that it's mostly because of other reasons like hostile aliens, warp disasters, and the Imperium itself eating them. I just want to confirm if other human civs are any less or more succeptible to Chaos corruption compared to the Imperium.

I just write said:
Remember that anything aside from the Imperium is viewed through a lens of pure propaganda.
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That does seem true, at least where the source materials are concerned.
 
Probably. 40k's so stupidly dark that it popularized GrimDerp as a saying. I think much of the original design process for 40k was either GW trying to imagine a setting where the classic Evil Empire is necessary, or GW trying to adapt the threats from Fantasy into Sci-Fi, blow up their memetic awfulness, and then imagine a society that could survive them.

Either way the 40k chaos was tailor designed to justify the imperium's awfulness, and vice-versa.
 
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BobTheNinja said:
What I want to know is whether this is a purely narrative conceit in order to keep the Imperium of Man the only relevant human faction in the setting, or if there are actual in-universe reasons as to why non-Imperial, interstellar human civilizations cannot exist without falling to Chaos.

Basically, is it actually impossible for a larger space-faring human society to survive this universe without having a zealous, intolerant, take-no-prisoners worldview?
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I am probably not the best person to answer this since I tend towards a more flexible interpretation of a lot of the WH40k, favouring the less grim-dark interpretations of it, than most myself but I don't think there is anything in the basic structure of Wh40k that necessitates a totalitarian regime like Imperium. Indeed, if I am not mis-remembering stuff we have a number of Canon examples of several human civilizations having a solid run before the Imperium came along and then there are the Tau who at least in the earlier versions showed how something like that might look (though of course some of that got retconned down the line since as I understand it the Tau were being viewed as to "good"). And there is certainly some truth in what Ford Perfect said that in many ways the Imperium is in vicious cycle of causing its own doom.
 
There are at least some human colonies that have joined the Tau?

How they will fare is up in the air though. I believe after the last expansion/codex Tau are not Chaos immune no more.

Plus explorator fleet were/are supposed to find lost human colonies all the time, some of the multisystem societies that have not fallen to Chaos during their time of isolation.
 
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Those societies are fine and Chaos free until they face one of the big players. The problem is, most people don't really understand what Chaos is or just how malevolent the gods are. So, when the (Ork horde, Imperial army, Dark Eldar pillaging expedition, whatever) shows up, and this one guy tells the government 'yeah, I know a way that we can fight these off. I found this book that describes how to summon an infinite, tireless, bloodthirsty army to save us. We just need to do this ritual here...' things rapidly spiral downhill.
 
No, because the Interex existed just fine until Fuckhead Erebus ruined everything. Hell, even Horus decided "you know maybe genocide bad" until he was tricked.
 
Hykal94 said:
No, because the Interex existed just fine until Fuckhead Erebus ruined everything.
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But wasn't Erebus an agent of Chaos? I mean sure, yeah, the Interex didn't fall to chaos, until, you know, they did.

That's kinda the issue with trying to determine what kind of society could resist Chaos, because Chaos, by author fiat, is apparently everywhere, and every bad thing happening ever is a Tzeentch plot.
 
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There are definitely better ways than the Imperium to make a chaos resistant society. Although they would need some form of internal security, it does not need to be as harsh as the Imperial method (which is wasteful at best and counterproductive at worst).

In most of the stories and lore I read, chaos corruption starts at the top or the very bottom of the social ladder. Those at the top have everything and want more, while those at the bottom have nothing to lose. By restricting the power of those at the top, and providing a safety net for those at the bottom, the influence of chaos can be mitigated.
 
Tealg said:
But wasn't Erebus and agent of Chaos? I mean sure, yeah, the Interex didn't fall to chaos, until, you know, they did.
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Yeah but that's not really the Interex's fault, being super careful about this dude who calls himself 'Warmaster' decked in power armor with a big fuckoff mace, and thinking "are these the servants of Khorne?"

They were the prime example of humans living in peace with their xeno neighbourd AND educating their citizend about Chaos.

Anyway, to anyone who hasn't read Horus Rising, ya' should. It's like Point A in every discussion about Chaos.
 
BobTheNinja said:
What I want to know is whether this is a purely narrative conceit in order to keep the Imperium of Man the only relevant human faction in the setting, or if there are actual in-universe reasons as to why non-Imperial, interstellar human civilizations cannot exist without falling to Chaos.

Basically, is it actually impossible for a larger space-faring human society to survive this universe without having a zealous, intolerant, take-no-prisoners worldview?
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It's not impossible, and there are non-Imperial worlds and small empires and whatnot that aren't corrupted, especially beyond the light of the astronomicon. From a narrative standpoint, however, there are two major problems:
1. 40K is a post-apocalyptic universe. The golden age of man has come and gone, disappeared in horror with the Age of Strife, and the Emperor's attempted renaissance has failed. It's very explicit that you should forget the hopes of technology, science, progress, and understanding because it is all gone, never to return. Anything that could return that, that could be that hope, must fail then, in order to keep to the narrative.
2. There is also the issue, existent from the beginning of 40K, that mankind is rapidly evolving into a psychic race, one that will make the birth of Slaanesh look like a tame affair. So yeah, small empires and whatnot might be ok, but they'll still be affected by GALAXY OF TERROR EREBUS BOOGALOO. This is currently being explored by the Psychic Awakening campaign, which is filling in the gaps from "Cadia went boom and oh god there's a warp rift cutting the galaxy in two" to today, approximately a century later, at the end of the Indomitus Crusade.
 
Hykal94 said:
Yeah but that's not really the Interex's fault, being super careful about this dude who calls himself 'Warmaster' decked in power armor with a big fuckoff mace, and thinking "are these the servants of Khorne?"
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Sure, but arguing it's not inevitable to fall to Chaos by using a society that did fall to Chaos seems kinda... Counterproductive.
 
The interex did not fall in the sense of being corrupted, which is what is generally referred to by it.

They fell to an attack by chaos forces, bit were an example of an outside polity exosting without being corrupted.
 
Tealg said:
Sure, but arguing it's not inevitable to fall to Chaos by using a society that did fall to Chaos seems kinda... Counterproductive.
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The fall of the Interex wasn't really felled by Chaos. It was felled by the Secular Rational Atheistic Good Enlightened Woke Truth of the Imperium and its zealousness to destroy anything that isn't them. It didn't even fall to Chaos at all, it fell to the Imperium. Chaos was just there to give it a little bump.

It also wasn't inevitable because not every planet is ever going to meet Horus and his Legions. For every fallen Interex, there's a thousand that's probably doing just fine.

Which really goes to show was a gigantic waste of potential the Interex was and how GW messed it up by ignoring it in the second book.
 
So going off of all this, there' really nothing that would explicitly violate the setting in creating an alternative major human civilization in the 40K, except for the fact that it would be completely non-canon?
 
BobTheNinja said:
So going off of all this, there' really nothing that would explicitly violate the setting in creating an alternative major human civilization in the 40K, except for the fact that it would be completely non-canon?
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or Undiscovered. Or hidden behind a Warp Storm. Or any of the myriad tools one can use to place a big civ in the galaxy.

It is a fuckhuge place so it can totally be canon.
 
BobTheNinja said:
So going off of all this, there' really nothing that would explicitly violate the setting in creating an alternative major human civilization in the 40K, except for the fact that it would be completely non-canon?
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40K is all about your dudes and canon isn't necessarily a thing. If you're dead set on keeping it in canon, you could do stuff like all the advanced non-Imperial worlds before they got conquered by the Macharian Crusade, or after they threw off the Imperium and stayed independent in the aftermath of the Macharian Heresy (when shit's so bad that 10% of the Space Marines in the galaxy are sent to put it down). The Astral Claws weren't Chaos until Lufgt Huron was dying, the Ashen Claws have survived 10 thousand years outside the Imperium without turning to Chaos, and it's canon that there are all sorts of human civilizations beyond the light of the Astronomicon that aren't Chaos worshippers. The Nova Terra Interrugnum split the Imperium in two without the second half becoming Chaos goodies.

Non-canon would be changing existing established things like existing planets/sectors or major shifts in character (like Dark Angels being the most open and transparent dudes or Salamanders not chanting "Phospex sticks to little children" or Ultramarines being humble).
 
Honestly, with how bad the Warp Storms were, I wouldn't be surprised if the Materium actually underwent a timeline fork.
 
BobTheNinja said:
But even so, the impression that I get from secondary source readings amd general osmosis from fans is that any alternate human interstellar polities apart from the Imperium are inevitably killed off, a lot of the time because of Chaos.
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Fans will say that the Imperium's repression, authoritarianism and cruelty is just an unfortunate necessity, and that without it the human species will be destroyed. What they tend to forget is that the Imperium is absolutely rife with Chaos cults and daemon uprisings and whatever. Life is so unrelenting and grinding that it people flee evil and find themselves in the embrace of another evil. The only reason the Imperium doesn't fall over entirely is that it's so big that whole planets can disappear and it will keep stumbling along like a zombie.

Think about Ultramar. Ultramar went about ten thousand years without much in the way of internal unrest and is not, as far as I can recall, known to have ever known any sort of Chaos outbreak. While it's known war, all its enemies have been external, like the Tyranid invasion. While some of this can be attributed to the fact that the Ultramarines live there, a lot of it just comes down to the fact that Ultramar doesn't suck. Life is pretty good in Ultramar. That matters.
 
When Girlylad took power, there's this event called the Primarch's Purge in which Roboto went onto Terra with blade and bolter more or less uprooting the corruption. All of the corruption. Including chaos cults which meant chaos cults was operating on Terra itself. Which is 500 ways of messed up if the Custodes couldn't get a handle on it.

Aranfan said:
Chaos is how fascists view non fascists. So yes.
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This answer is frustrating because it's more or less ignoring the setting for a knee jerk reaction to the themes and also intellectually lazy. It's a bad faith answer that adds nothing to the discussion.
 
Hykal94 said:
This answer is frustrating because it's more or less ignoring the setting for a knee jerk reaction to the themes and also intellectually lazy. It's a bad faith answer that adds nothing to the discussion.
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Fine.

Chaos is how fascists view non fascists. So, if you want to maintain thematic coherence with 40k, the narrative conceit must remain.
 
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