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Is the Imperium of Man about to die?

Leila Hann said:
Remember folks, the Imperium is, and I quote, "the cruellest and bloodiest regime inaginable."

That means that, canonically, according to the most foundational wh40k lore that's been published, chaos is less cruel and bloodthirsty than the Imperium.

The moral calculus here is clear.
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Or, you know, the state of affairs created by chaos winning is less "cruel and bloody regime" and more "cruel and bloody societal collapse".

Like, for all we all hate the authoritarian tyrants, let's not give the anarcho-capitalists a pass just because they fight the imperium ok?
 
NottheCrabs! said:
Or, you know, the state of affairs created by chaos winning is less "cruel and bloody regime" and more "cruel and bloody societal collapse".

Like, for all we all hate the authoritarian tyrants, let's not give the anarcho-capitalists a pass just because they fight the imperium ok?
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Chaos currently holds planetary populations of humans, and has held them for generations.

That means they have regimes.

That means that they are better than the Imperium.
 
Leila Hann said:
That means that they are better than the Imperium.
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The opening text of 40k is both its thesis statement but also outdated. The line about "the will of the gods" is very strange considering that it could refer Chaos but also just as likely because it sounds cool. Rick Priestly, the creator of 40k, didn't actually have a long running plan when making 40k. It also became untrue, as 40k went on and does show, living on a Chaos world is worse than living in the Imperium. There are actually worse places to live in the Imperium, but there also probably better places as well. Chaos worlds are consistently portrayed to be worse than the Imperium, all the time.

In short, it is true that the Imperium is the cruelest and worse regime available. But only if you squint, and if you ignore evidence elsewhere. It's very much cherry picking.
 
Hykal94 said:
The opening text of 40k is both its thesis statement but also outdated. The line about "the will of the gods" is very strange considering that it could refer Chaos but also just as likely because it sounds cool. Rick Priestly, the creator of 40k, didn't actually have a long running plan when making 40k. It also became untrue, as 40k went on and does show, living on a Chaos world is worse than living in the Imperium. There are actually worse places to live in the Imperium, but there also probably better places as well. Chaos worlds are consistently portrayed to be worse than the Imperium, all the time.

In short, it is true that the Imperium is the cruelest and worse regime available. But only if you squint, and if you ignore evidence elsewhere. It's very much cherry picking.
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Lol arguing with canon.
 
Leila Hann said:
GW imagined it though, so it couldn't mean that.
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Did they though? Can you actually describe any concrete details? I mean I'm sure it's covered somewhere because 40k is so big and old but the facts of society under chaos are largely unexplored and just nebulously bad for the most part.

I don't know if it's really productive to try and reason this out in that manner in the first place though.

Hykal94 said:
Canon is canon. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you.



I like this. I'm going to use this on Discord, may I?
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no problem
 
Flare said:
Should have said "most successful", since in tournament results they rock. Iron Hands are OP right now.
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So they're previous editions Grey Knights? Cool. Weird that a chapter with not that much lore (compared to other chapters), is the OP one right now.

Delirium said:
40k is so big and old but the facts of society under chaos are largely unexplored and just nebulously bad for the most part.
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If you want a view of a world under Chaos, Gaunt's Ghosts' Traitor General show Chaos forces treating human citizens even worse than the Imperium's. Chaos is this big threat but because of its focus on Chaos Marines, the normal folk don't get much of a spotlight.

There's also this excerpt from a novel I've forget about a Guardsman turned Nurgle slave and it is, downright, awful. Like being turned into a Servitor is more merciful. The most disturbing thing is that the Nurgle Marine in said novel honestly believes what he's doing is the right thing.
 
Leila Hann said:
Lol arguing with canon.
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Canon retcons the shit out of itself since the 80's and having multiple generations of writers doing the Marvel thing, where the new generation tries to hype their faves and demonize their least liked faction. give it 30 years and maybe GW's 40k lore will be retconned into Tyranids eating the T'au and Ultramarines being renegades or some crap.
 
Screwball said:
In a lot of ways, it would probably be fairly analogous to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. People have this image of the intact WRE being stormed by barbarian hordes, but the reality is that in a lot of places, the machinery of the Roman state just... stopped functioning, but nobody actually noticed until the barbarians turned up. The West was already dead at the point it started 'officially' losing territory, it just hadn't realised it yet.
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Honestly, I was just riffing on the start of Foundation.
 
Hykal94 said:
If you want a view of a world under Chaos, Gaunt's Ghosts' Traitor General show Chaos forces treating human citizens even worse than the Imperium's.
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To play Abaddon's advocate, that book also has the Imperium retaking the planet, realizing that huge segments of the population are non tainted, and then the Inquisition decides to herd said non Chaos Tainted survivors into camps to be vivisected so they can figure out why they resisted corruption.

The slaves of the Ruinous Powers just cannot set the bar low enough the Inquisition won't requisition archaetech digging engines and burrow under it.
 
Also, the Imperium only accepts "pure," "unmutated" humans. Chaos, meanwhile accepts all sentient beings.

Yeah, t'is a bad look emperor lovers.
 
That's incorrect. That's a future book, Armour of Contempt.

This doesn't change the fact that when the Imperium does retake the world, most of the human population is dead. That all of them probably have severe PTSD. That Gereon before Chaos was a normal agriworld with normal people living normal (if restricted) lives, before being subjected to chattel slavery. Chaos branded them, placed these worm things on their chests that act as collars, and stole all the water. Like all of it. When the Ghosts return to find civilians, they realise that very likely, most of the world is dead. The people there are gone. The population might as well been hit by a plague.

The Gereon native that followed the Ghosts offworld, realising her loved ones are gone, commits suicide at the end of said novel. Chaos has taken all of that from her. There's nothing left for her.

We also, don't actually know what happens afterwards because Abnett does not revisit Gereon. Not even a mention. Which is quite a shame.

In short, every single Chaos world has shown, to be time and time again, to be worse than the Imperium. There are normal, 21st century "our" planet likes in the galaxy. Chaos controlled worlds, and their superversions, Daemon Worlds, are all abjectly terrible. There is not a single comparison of Chaos Worlds, compared to, say, the 500 Worlds of Ultramar.

There's also the fact that the Ghosts sent there acted as leaders to the already existing guerilla fighters. If Chaos is so benevolent, why do did the people of Gereon fought back? Because they were horrible. That's really it.

Baron Ouroboros said:
Also, the Imperium only accepts "pure," "unmutated" humans. Chaos, meanwhile accepts all sentient beings.
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Abhumans are a thing.
 
Meh, I'm still pro-chaos. At least when you go for the stereotypical evil look the giant pauldrons don't look out of place among all the spikes and skulls.

The imperium is pretty good for the skulls, tbh.
 
Estro said:
it doesn't have the spikes, tho. you've got to have blackened pointy bits to have that proper aesthetic. how else can you build a proper doom-ray without the spikey bits.
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have you seen an imperial ship? With all those spiked cathedral towers they might as well be a hedgehog
 
Hykal94 said:
If Chaos is so benevolent, why do did the people of Gereon fought back? Because they were horrible. That's really it.
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"If the Imperium is so benevolent, why do Chaos cults rise up to challenge it on planet after planet? Because it's horrible. That's really it." Do y'ken why this line of argument falls flat on its face with a resounding thud? Not to mention you still kinda failed to address the whole bit where the Inquisition decided to reward those who resisted madness and mutation by herding them into camps to be experimented on. (See also Armageddon, First War Of, when the Inquisition murdered more people cleaning up afterwards than Daemon Prince Angron and the World Eaters did in the war itself)

And hey, maybe the fact that the people from birth they were indoctrinated into an all pervasive religion that teachs that hatred of anything except the Imperium of Man is a holy virtue and the most noble death is to die killing an alien, mutant, human secessionist etc, maybe that might have had something to do with why they chose to wage an insurgency against the occupying Chaos forces. Possibly.

Not the sole reason, you're right, the Chaos forces stripped the planet clean and used the population as slave labor to feed their war machine, that breeds backlash and resistance.

It is also not noticeably worse in degree or kind from the things the Administratum, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and Rogue Trader dynasties do to feed the Imperium's war machine or line their own pockets. Yes, Ultramar's 500 Worlds are better than living on worlds like the Khornate planet Justicar Alaric of the Gray Knights was stranded on, or the various worlds in the Eye described in the Black Legion novels or the Word Bearer trilogy.

Counterpoint: said societies are not noticeably worse than being middle to lower class on Necromunda or any other Hive World, or being a menial on a Forge World, and are arguably nicer places to live than say, Krieg.

Ultramar is the exception and nowhere close to the rule, and all those unnamed 21st century Earth planets who don't have the most politically influential First Founding Chapter watching over them are still subject to having their entire population tortured to death if an Inquisitor gets a wild hair up their arse, which really undercuts your "nice as 21st century Earth" narrative.
 
Except I never argued the Inquisition is ever a good thing? That in other threads, I'm pretty sure I said something along the lines of "the Imperium breeds its own rebels"? I don't who or what you're arguing with. We are in agreement with this.

I've been in enough threads in which I argue the Imperium is tyrannical. I don't need to defend myself as some sort of "Imperium apologist" when I'm certainly not. You are arguing with a strawman, Wade.
 
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