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Sympathy for the heretic

veteranMortal said:
I wouldn't say Suffer Not is a poster child for "not having fascism" in 40k?

Like - it does have fascism in it? The Imperium is an awful fascist regime in Suffer Not. That's not really something it shies away from?
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I was referring to the idea that you have to embrace the fascist mindset to enjoy 40k. I think that Suffer Not demonstrates that this is not the case by having the protagonist be an admirable and noble figure who fights against their fascist society rather than embracing it. Much of the narrative is explicitly centered on deconstructing the idea that fascism is somehow a necessity for survival against the threats faced by the Imperium.

Fascism is treated as a pervasive enemy that needs to be opposed rather than a necessary evil or source of strength as is the traditional approach that many people (myself included) dislike.
 
veteranMortal said:
I wouldn't say Suffer Not is a poster child for "not having fascism" in 40k?

Like - it does have fascism in it? The Imperium is an awful fascist regime in Suffer Not. That's not really something it shies away from?
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The assertion was that it didn't "glorify fascism or treat it as the only solution to the challenges of the Warhammer setting", not that fascism didn't exist.

Ct613hulu said:
Fascism is treated as a pervasive enemy that needs to be opposed rather than a necessary evil or source of strength as is the traditional approach that many people (myself included) dislike.
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Yeah; I think that much of the Imperium's bad behavior including fascism can be described as "doing a necessary job in the most evil and self defeating way possible".
 
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Drachyench said:
But on the other hand. On the other hand. It writes itself: Really? Really? We are supposed to take it at face value that Nostramans are just built different, pay no mind to the sheer coincidence the moment Curze ceded Nostramo to the Emperor's Great Crusade they slid immediately back into the same lopsided government he had overthrown, and that The Administratum Couldn't Do Anything About It the inequalities just rapidly reasserted themselves crime magically skyrocketed after the removal of one single person and the Societal Undesirables just coincidentally kept filtering into Legion?

You have a world - no, I apologize: Explicitly an entire system: Night Lord lore explicitly mentioned in the old Index Astartes how he found out from intersystem traders - that in the span of a singular generation had its inequalities removed by the removal of every single despot that Curze didn't think he could press his thumb down on hard enough to play nice in the new system, and with Curze's removal the Administratum... magically couldn't do the same job as one person to keep at least one star system from falling back into the same groups' hands? And for that matter practically everyone that system recruited after the first generation was a bunch of horrific baby-eating self-serving murdering societal rejects who had no concern for anyone beyond He Himself And Him?
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It would fit with Curze being a grimdark deconstruction of the superhero concept: he wanted to achieve positive change, but had no plan for it besides "punch baddies" (which rapidly turned into "do unspeakable things to baddies to terrify the other baddies into surrender and submission" because ratcheting up the scariness is one of the few tools available with that approach if "punch baddies" isn't working); with just about anyone else this wouldn't have achieved very much but because he was a Primarch he was Just That Good enough to actually accomplish a social revolution that way, but that meant every change to the material conditions and incentives he achieved was contingent on him being there to personally punch people (or do something unspeakable to them), his presence was a crucial load-bearing component of everything he'd achieved, so of course as soon as he went away things started reverting to the way they'd been before he showed up.

And yeah, I think there's definite potential in "a tragedy of a lot of the Primarchs was they were freedom fighters before the Imperium showed up but the Great Crusade Imperium liked horrible feudal oligarchies just fine, maybe even kind of preferred them as they were easier to co-opt and manipulate, so the Imperium basically quietly undid a lot of the Primarch-led social revolutions while the revolutionary leaders were busy crusading for Daddy, or in the case of Angron did the equivalent of plucking Luke Skywalker out of his X-wing at the beginning of the Death Star trench run in ANH and then making a treaty with Emperor Palpatine after he'd slaughtered the rebels." Have seen some potential hints in that direction in the backstories of Curze (Nostramo slipping back into something like its pre-Curze condition), Mortarion (mention of emergence of a new brutal elite on Barbarus during the Crusade era), Angron (basically his whole deal), and Lion El'Jonson (part of his Legion turning against him cause conditions on Caliban were deteriorating and he wasn't doing anything about it).
 
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Memphet'ran said:
It would fit with Curze being a grimdark deconstruction of the superhero concept: he wanted to achieve positive change, but had no plan for it besides "punch baddies" (which rapidly turned into "do unspeakable things to baddies to terrify the other baddies into surrender and submission" because ratcheting up the scariness is one of the few tools available with that approach if "punch baddies" isn't working); with just about anyone else this wouldn't have achieved very much but because he was a Primarch he was Just That Good enough to actually accomplish a social revolution that way, but that meant every change to the material conditions and incentives he achieved was contingent on him being there to personally punch people (or do something unspeakable to them), his presence was a crucial load-bearing component of everything he'd achieved, so of course as soon as he went away things started reverting to the way they'd been before he showed up.

And yeah, I think there's definite potential in "a tragedy of a lot of the Primarchs was they were freedom fighters before the Imperium showed up but the Great Crusade Imperium liked horrible feudal oligarchies just fine, maybe even kind of preferred them as they were easier to co-opt and manipulate, so the Imperium basically quietly undid a lot of the Primarch-led social revolutions while the revolutionary leaders were busy crusading for Daddy, or in the case of Angron did the equivalent of plucking Luke Skywalker out of his X-wing at the beginning of the Death Star trench run in ANH and then making a treaty with Emperor Palpatine after he'd slaughtered the rebels." Have seen some potential hints in that direction in the backstories of Curze (Nostramo slipping back into something like its pre-Curze condition), Mortarion (mention of emergence of a new brutal elite on Barbarus during the Crusade era), Angron (basically his whole deal), and Lion El'Jonson (part of his Legion turning against him cause conditions on Caliban were deteriorating and he wasn't doing anything about it).
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You know, that's a thought. What if they ALL rebelled. Most of them were either freedom fighters and/or rulers in their own right before he found them. What if they (and this would entail making a few of them better people than they were in canon) took a good long hard look at the Imperium and said "fuck that, we can do/be better than that monstrosity" and turned the legions against the Emperor.
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
You know, that's a thought. What if they ALL rebelled. Most of them were either freedom fighters and/or rulers in their own right before he found them. What if they (and this would entail making a few of them better people than they were in canon) took a good long hard look at the Imperium and said "fuck that, we can do/be better than that monstrosity" and turned the legions against the Emperor.
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Hm. Hmmmm.

Because I don't actually know the lore of all the Primarchs that well, but all the ones I can think of, off the top of my head, who were absolutely "rebels against a cruel status quo" wound up joining Horus.

Whereas on Dad's side of the civil war, you have guys like Guilliman who worked their way up, as far as I can recall, very much within the hierarchy on whatever planet they were on. Or who, if they were uniting the planet by force, did so against some kind of external enemy (Vulkan against the Dark Eldar, as I recall) or within a culture of chronic lawlessness where just breathing while being that much of an ass-kicker meant you'd end up uniting the planet by default (Jagatai, Leman Russ).

Now, I could be wrong here, but I think you could make something out of that, even without a significant deviation from what's firmly established in canon. Not that I'd discourage anyone from making that deviation.
 
Memphet'ran said:
It would fit with Curze being a grimdark deconstruction of the superhero concept: he wanted to achieve positive change, but had no plan for it besides "punch baddies" (which rapidly turned into "do unspeakable things to baddies to terrify the other baddies into surrender and submission" because ratcheting up the scariness is one of the few tools available with that approach if "punch baddies" isn't working); with just about anyone else this wouldn't have achieved very much but because he was a Primarch he was Just That Good enough to actually accomplish a social revolution that way, but that meant every change to the material conditions and incentives he achieved was contingent on him being there to personally punch people (or do something unspeakable to them), his presence was a crucial load-bearing component of everything he'd achieved, so of course as soon as he went away things started reverting to the way they'd been before he showed up.

And yeah, I think there's definite potential in "a tragedy of a lot of the Primarchs was they were freedom fighters before the Imperium showed up but the Great Crusade Imperium liked horrible feudal oligarchies just fine, maybe even kind of preferred them as they were easier to co-opt and manipulate, so the Imperium basically quietly undid a lot of the Primarch-led social revolutions while the revolutionary leaders were busy crusading for Daddy, or in the case of Angron did the equivalent of plucking Luke Skywalker out of his X-wing at the beginning of the Death Star trench run in ANH and then making a treaty with Emperor Palpatine after he'd slaughtered the rebels." Have seen some potential hints in that direction in the backstories of Curze (Nostramo slipping back into something like its pre-Curze condition), Mortarion (mention of emergence of a new brutal elite on Barbarus during the Crusade era), Angron (basically his whole deal), and Lion El'Jonson (part of his Legion turning against him cause conditions on Caliban were deteriorating and he wasn't doing anything about it).
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In regards to the backslide my point there was more "Huh, it's strange that one person could personally maintain a campaign of terror across at least one Hive World [across explicitly multiple Hive Cities] but the Administratum somehow was drastically less effective despite the leg work being done for them and implicitly legions of post-humans backing their authority". Compounded by "The official line for why Nostramo backslid was that The Emperor's arrival broke them because, uh, other populations prospered without being in the Night Haunter's shadow"?

When you spend two seconds to think about it the situation really comes off a lot like at best they bumbled the integration and at worst infers this was absolutely a purposeful choice. Presumably since whatever the inefficiencies and inequalities recreating the Noble Houses had they were cheaper, easier, and faster for the IoM than trying to retain such. To say nothing of the awkward questions the populations of Forgeworlds and other Hive Cities might start asking [since once you're at the point that somebody has a functional system that is bleeding over across an entire star system / sector it's probably not going to violently break down if other sectors move to replicate it].

Now to be fair there is the huge caveat that Curze's prosperity at best was still born on the back of horrific atrocities and intimidation. And again later material started to portray him as a "You stole a loaf of bread, your punishment is flaying and death by murder of crows". But that's where I come back to "It sure is convenient all these Imperial Records for an ex-world that has run out of offworlders to gainsay millennia ago conveniently had all these terrible things done and blew up so spectacularly in a way that deprives the IoM and Administratum of even the vaguest inkling of culpability". Likewise "Curze hated his Legion, and his Legion hated him + his Legion" does wonders for allowing people to acknowledge Curze [+ Legion] did terrible things but still. Like. Have some sort of revolutionary aspects to it?

Arawn_Emrys said:
You know, that's a thought. What if they ALL rebelled. Most of them were either freedom fighters and/or rulers in their own right before he found them. What if they (and this would entail making a few of them better people than they were in canon) took a good long hard look at the Imperium and said "fuck that, we can do/be better than that monstrosity" and turned the legions against the Emperor.
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When it comes to hypothetical alternate universes this is one of the advantages of controlling Nostramo. Specifically it is explicitly rich in adamantium.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Because I don't actually know the lore of all the Primarchs that well, but all the ones I can think of, off the top of my head, who were absolutely "rebels against a cruel status quo" wound up joining Horus.
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There's Corax, who lead the working class of an industrial moon to rebel against the exploitative planet it orbits. He stays loyal because his legion gets obliterated at Istvaan V. To my knowledge the rebel side never really make an effort to sway him before that, which they obviously could have if it was couched in terms of rebellion against tyranny.
 
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IfIhadaHammer said:
I think that's why everyone wants to rewrite him, because his actions don't exactly jive with his backstory or perspective
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Honestly the whole stuff around the crusade is kinda weak like that? All the characters feel like cardboard cutouts that only acknowledge they're part of the 40k imperium half the time. The black library books made it much worse. It does engage with what the imperium does and doesn't shy away from showing them as genocidal but it doesn't really show what that means about the people who do it and it plays basically no role in rebelling.

Corax didn't get much coverage in those I think? But I have to conclude the reason he didn't join the heresy is that the heresy is clearly Horus's tantrum rather than anything close to addressing the emperor's fascism, and Horusian fascism would be just as bad (even discounting chaos) because Horus is fundamentally not someone who questions the crusade, its aims and its methods. He's just angry daddy fucked off back home to do secretive warp nonsense while leaving civilians in charge rather than leading the genocidal endeavor from the front. Corax spend most of it on his home moon rebuilding his legion through horrible experiments.
 
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Nyvis said:
Honestly the whole stuff around the crusade is kinda weak like that? All the characters feel like cardboard cutouts that only acknowledge they're part of the 40k imperium half the time. The black library books made it much worse. It does engage with what the imperium does and doesn't shy away from showing them as genocidal but it doesn't really show what that means about the people who do it and it plays basically no role in rebelling.

Corax didn't get much coverage in those I think? But I have to conclude the reason he didn't join the heresy is that the heresy is clearly Horus's tantrum rather than anything close to addressing the emperor's fascism, and Horusian fascism would be just as bad (even discounting chaos) because Horus is fundamentally not someone who questions the crusade, its aims and its methods. He's just angry daddy fucked off back home to do secretive warp nonsense while leaving civilians in charge rather than leading the genocidal endeavor from the front. Corax spend most of it on his home moon rebuilding his legion through horrible experiments.
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The contrast between Curze and Corax is something that in a less empty calorie junkfood setting could have books written about it.

On one end you have a revolutionary whose solution to terrific exploitation and gross inequalities was to empower the labor facilitating a popular uprising. Rivers of blood poured through the mines, through which the people reclaimed and enshrined their rights and dismantled the former systems of power. There's also the nuclear mining charge thing, but I think that's post IA so some people might contest its necessity. Whatever the case, the revolution's end came when the people came up against a bloc that could not be overcome by any amount of popular unrest / rebellion without vastly increased manpower. Deliverance may yet be Deliverance, but so too is Kiavahr yet a Forge World.

On the other end you have a vigilante whose solution to terrific exploitation and gross inequality was to terrorize and / or murder the perpetrators and benefactors. Noble lords and petty traffickers alike had their corpses arranged like garlands. The disadvantaged were spared the brunt of the loss of life, but in addition to sharing the terror so too were they reliant on an outside arbitrator. Curze's prosperity ended when the outside arbitrator was replaced by those who cared not for the people but their own personal gain.

What happens to a popular revolution when it runs into something with more guns and less morals? What happens when the just ('just') ruler is replaced by a person or polity that lacks such goals? Do you think that they ever discussed such things? Perhaps more importantly, how did each of their peoples feel about such methods? Were there miners whom saw their brothers and sisters and family and friends die who bemoaned Corax for not personally carrying more than just logistical weight? Are there Nostramans who curse Curze for carrying the planet's transformation on his back and abandoning them to the Administratum?
 
Nyvis said:
There's Corax, who lead the working class of an industrial moon to rebel against the exploitative planet it orbits. He stays loyal because his legion gets obliterated at Istvaan V. To my knowledge the rebel side never really make an effort to sway him before that, which they obviously could have if it was couched in terms of rebellion against tyranny.
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Corax was never in play, hated Horus too much such that he'd always find a way to take the other side.
 
Kaiya said:
As someone who loves 40k and has done so for literally half her existence, I'm very, very comfortable saying you are very, very wrong.
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Ct613hulu said:
There are several fanfics and quests here on sufficient velocity and on space battles that seem to have done a reasonably good job of avoiding the fascist mindset. They don't have a perspective that glorifies fascism or treats it as the only solution to the challenges of the Warhammer setting.

The completed Quest "Suffer Not - The Story of Inquisitor Joanyn Praxis" is one excellent example.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Suffer Not ≡][≡ 40k Inquisition Quest Archive - Mature

A 40k quest.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com

You can find more by simply doing a tag search. I would recommend starting out with Dragoncobalt's work as he has a particular humorous (and occasionally pornographic) method of challenging setting assumptions.
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Ct613hulu said:
I was referring to the idea that you have to embrace the fascist mindset to enjoy 40k. I think that Suffer Not demonstrates that this is not the case by having the protagonist be an admirable and noble figure who fights against their fascist society rather than embracing it. Much of the narrative is explicitly centered on deconstructing the idea that fascism is somehow a necessity for survival against the threats faced by the Imperium.

Fascism is treated as a pervasive enemy that needs to be opposed rather than a necessary evil or source of strength as is the traditional approach that many people (myself included) dislike.
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I haven't read that quest so I obviously can't comment on how well it escapes the fascist mindset, and I'm far too burnt out on 40k to be willing to start reading it for this disagreement.

That said, I don't think giving us a nice Inquisitor who doesn't buy into fascist ideology is inherently a rejection of the setting's structural fascism anymore that canon giving us nice Space Marines or putting Guilliman in charge & having him start trying to reform the Imperium. "The system can be internally made more moral and less inefficient by putting the right people in power" is not a message which is inimical to fascism.

All it does is soften the fascism, make it seem like it's not all that bad. 'See look, they aren't evil there's real heroes in here!' It's the reason I dropped the Imperium Regent quest. Couldn't not see it as making Fascism With A Human Face, even if that's not what it was supposed to be. One of the only good things TNO ever did was subvert the Speer path.

Anyway, I'm getting a little sidetracked. I still don't think 40k canon had anything to offer other than: a) a setting where the fascist worldview is objectively correct and so you can shamelessly embrace it; b) deep lore for dumb internet nerds to enjoy (Hello Pot, I'm Kettle); and c) some poorly-written family drama epic. 40k fanon might be able offer something else, but in doing so it is just as much a repudiation of 40k as it is an celebration of it.
 
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Geedubs said:
I haven't read that quest so I obviously can't comment on how well it escapes the fascist mindset, and I'm far too burnt out on 40k to be willing to start reading it for this disagreement.

That said, I don't think giving us a nice Inquisitor who doesn't buy into fascist ideology is inherently a rejection of the setting's structural fascism anymore that canon giving us nice Space Marines or putting Guilliman in charge & having him start trying to reform the Imperium. "The system can be internally made more moral and less inefficient by putting the right people in power" is not a message which is inimical to fascism.

All it does is soften the fascism, make it seem like it's not all that bad. 'See look, they aren't evil there's real heroes in here!' It's the reason I dropped the Imperium Regent quest. Couldn't not see it as making Fascism With A Human Face, even if that's not what it was supposed to be. One of the only good things TNO ever did was subvert the Speer path.

Anyway, I'm getting a little sidetracked. I still don't think 40k canon had anything to offer other than: a) a setting where the fascist worldview is objectively correct and so you shamelessly embrace it; b) deep lore for dumb internet nerds to enjoy (Hello Pot, I'm Kettle); and c) some poorly-written family drama epic. 40k fanon might be able offer something else, but in doing so it is just as much a repudiation of 40k as it is an celebration of it.
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I think are underestimating the quality and intentions of the author. They do far more than have their protagonist be the "nice" Inquisitor and it doesn't soften fascism at all. Deconstructing and challenging the Fascist paradigm is very much a key element of the quest. This is something that gets more fully developed as the quest continues but it is always present to some extent from the start. It is similar with the various 40k works by Dragoncobalt.

I do agree with your take on Canon as I disliked pretty much all of the novels with the notable exception of the Ciaphas Cain series.
 
All of that does still make me wonder.

Has anyone out there tried to write a version of Warhammer 40k where the Imperium just... doesn't exist? Not "weaker", not "not relevant to this particular story" but just flat out doesn't exist.

There are plenty of other factions you could make use of. What would such a version of the setting look like?
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
You know, that's a thought. What if they ALL rebelled. Most of them were either freedom fighters and/or rulers in their own right before he found them. What if they (and this would entail making a few of them better people than they were in canon) took a good long hard look at the Imperium and said "fuck that, we can do/be better than that monstrosity" and turned the legions against the Emperor.
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I think part of the appeal of the setting is that things are so bad the facist/theocratic/horde empire is the less bad option

If you change that,it turns into star wars (at wich point i just go watch star wars),and it can be fun for what if quests or stuff like that,but i wouldnt change it in tje core identity of the setting

At least my take on the setting is that "end justify the means" but the emperor failed and because of that his means werent justified

Portraying this "shit is gradually getting worse by our own choices" rather than chaos of external factors,can still play the imperium as the lesser shade of evil (comapratively) to chaos while still showing they are also self sabotaging all the time by their own nature
 
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armentho said:
I think part of the appeal of the setting is that things are so bad the facist/theocratic/horde empire is the less bad option

If you change that,it turns into star wars (at wich point i just go watch star wars),and it can be fun for what if quests or stuff like that,but i wouldnt change it in tje core identity of the setting

At least my take on the setting is that "end justify the means" but the emperor failed and because of that his means werent justified

Portraying this "shit is gradually getting worse by our own choices" rather than chaos of external factors,can still play the imperium as the lesser shade of evil (comapratively) to chaos while still showing they are also self sabotaging all the time by their own nature
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This thread is all about making it not the only/best option and making rebellion against fascism be objectively the better choice than supporting fascism. If that's not your taste, then this is not the thread for you.
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
This thread is all about making it not the only/best option and making rebellion against fascism be objectively the better choice than supporting fascism. If that's not your taste, then this is not the thread for you.
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Dont get me wrong, im not a simperial that goes around saying that the emperor did nothing wrong,and for the most part im a avid participant of "imperium bad" style of quests and fiction work

But most rebellion ideas seem to be basically just making star trek with a slight 40k paint job,wich honestly doesnt disprove the "the imperium is right" idea,if you need to basically take the 40k out of 40k,to make your rebellion work,then you are implicitly surrendering and acepting that as far canon goes the imperium is the only option

A setting where there is a understandable (wich is different from justified) motivation that pushes people towards this authoritarian models and how can you actually work around the setting limitation to get as close as possible to a good ending seems more stimulating to me than basically lobotomizing most of the setting

The road not taken quest for example,never once tries to portray the imperium as a good idea but you understand why people cling to it,and there is chaos corruption and risks,but gradually is worked around and pushed

Wich basically pushes the theme/idea that even in a more canon compliant timeline,the imperium still sucks and still isnt the only option

And there is factions for it in the form of votann and tau
 
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DestinyPlayer said:
All of that does still make me wonder.

Has anyone out there tried to write a version of Warhammer 40k where the Imperium just... doesn't exist? Not "weaker", not "not relevant to this particular story" but just flat out doesn't exist.
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Short and incomplete, but Tyranids "R" Us [40k Tyranid Hivemind SI] comes to mind; it starts long before the Imperium is even founded and goes a wildly different direction than canon.
 
Avernus said:
Short and incomplete, but Tyranids "R" Us [40k Tyranid Hivemind SI] comes to mind; it starts long before the Imperium is even founded and goes a wildly different direction than canon.
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Because the Tyranid Hive Mind has the personality and morals of a 21 century western human and is a SI. Even there it was drift. And considering he was working hand in hand with the Emperor there to make both the Galaxy and DAOT better I don't think it will be your story. Cannon Hive Mind will be game over for most species, and you will root for the Pre fall Eldar to kill it.
 
Drachyench said:
The contrast between Curze and Corax is something that in a less empty calorie junkfood setting could have books written about it.

On one end you have a revolutionary whose solution to terrific exploitation and gross inequalities was to empower the labor facilitating a popular uprising. Rivers of blood poured through the mines, through which the people reclaimed and enshrined their rights and dismantled the former systems of power. There's also the nuclear mining charge thing, but I think that's post IA so some people might contest its necessity. Whatever the case, the revolution's end came when the people came up against a bloc that could not be overcome by any amount of popular unrest / rebellion without vastly increased manpower. Deliverance may yet be Deliverance, but so too is Kiavahr yet a Forge World.

On the other end you have a vigilante whose solution to terrific exploitation and gross inequality was to terrorize and / or murder the perpetrators and benefactors. Noble lords and petty traffickers alike had their corpses arranged like garlands. The disadvantaged were spared the brunt of the loss of life, but in addition to sharing the terror so too were they reliant on an outside arbitrator. Curze's prosperity ended when the outside arbitrator was replaced by those who cared not for the people but their own personal gain.

What happens to a popular revolution when it runs into something with more guns and less morals? What happens when the just ('just') ruler is replaced by a person or polity that lacks such goals? Do you think that they ever discussed such things? Perhaps more importantly, how did each of their peoples feel about such methods? Were there miners whom saw their brothers and sisters and family and friends die who bemoaned Corax for not personally carrying more than just logistical weight? Are there Nostramans who curse Curze for carrying the planet's transformation on his back and abandoning them to the Administratum?
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I think Corax is somewhat helped by the threat being external. The moon is colonized, not just the under class. Corax didn't have to build a complex social theory of the exploitative system he was trying to fix because the exploitation was largely due to the planet's force projection over the moon and he could aim the moon's people at it. It's a bit more complicated when the exploitation is inwardly directed, I feel.

Through history, the best example of this is the way national liberation and anticolonial movements can afford to be less coherent broad fronts until they win their independence wars. They have such a clear and overwhelming outside enemy, none of their internal struggles matter until that factor is removed, at which point it often explodes in their face, they purge the people interested in tackling inward exploitation and degenerate into conservative corruption while the exploiters come back through neocolonialism to take advantage of their newfound division.

I feel like Deliverance probably escapes this fate because it gets to remain a space marine fortress world and that's easily as much political weight as a forge world, even if that's less economic weight. But it would be interesting to explore if the codex reforms split the Raven Guard successors around disagreements about the role of the national liberation movement and their responsibilities in a very much unfree imperium.

In the same way, I feel Nostramo could have been fine (for a police state) if Curze had made his burden one for his whole legion to bear. But not being able to work with others is central to the character archetype he's embodying so it fits.
 
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