Sympathy for the heretic

[Maugan Ra]

So, first point that I feel is important and isn't talked about much, Mutants and there difference from Abhumans, Abhumans are humans that because of genetic drift and evolution are no longer what we think of as 'human' (Think Ogre's or Squats) whereas Mutants are people that have been corrupted or mutated because of the Warp/Chaos. Mutants are what the Imperium want to kill and exterminate and all that, Abhumans if they don't get killed by a Trigger Happy Admiral are tolerated, if commonly 2nd or 3rd class citizens depending on what world your on. I bring this up because I noticed there were people who were talking about the latter while saying they would be hunted down like the former. (Mutations because of a genetic disease isn't clear in canon, so lets assume that in the more advanced worlds with basic knowledge of genetics treat you as a Abhuman but less advanced worlds treat you as a Mutant)

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While @Simon_Jester's post about the "trigger-happy admiral" is an important point, I think it's also important to clarify that you are... well, wrong, here.

The definition of Abhuman in 40k is "a stable, reproducing variant". Ogryns count because when two Ogryns have a kid, the kid is also an Ogryn. Notably, this means that the first example of a given abhuman breed isn't actually an abhuman - they're a mutant, and its only later when they survive to have kids that there is any evidence to support changing the classification to abhuman.

Mutants, then, are any deviation from the accepted norm that isn't self-reproducing. The vast majority of these are caused by environmental contaminants or other external factors - see for example the Scavvies of Necromunda, or the Twists in Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn novels. They vary wildly in appearance, heritage and health, but are near-universally forced into the position of an oppressed underclass with severely curtailed rights. Hell, the Scavvies are literally exiled to the very bottom of the giant mountain of human society, as far away from the ruling elites on the top as you can go, which as a metaphor is pretty heavy-handed.

 

[BiopunkOtrera]

As far as I can tell and I've read a lot of 40K novels at this point and I don't think I've seen any non-heterosexual characters in it. I think Carl Thonus from the Ravenor books is meant to be gay, but to be honest, the way he acts (foppish and bishy) is not really ever meant to be seen as a positive I don't think.

Anyhow I'm going to say that I don't think it's necessarily bad that the Imperium are bad and unrepresentative and have no queer stuff and are still sometimes the protagonist. I find the trope of inclusive fascism to be kind of wierd and off putting. But I do think it's bad that we have this and Chaos is always far more evil than them, and the only queer coded faction.

If you were to have chaos guys who were as sympathetic as Gaunts Ghosts or Casiphus Cain or the Ultramarines or whatever then it would be a lot easier to put up with the way the setting is built. It's okay that the setting is Grimdark and hopeless, but stop offering me dutiful fascism and telling me it's the only virtue.

 

[The Curious Fan]

Then you get to Navigators, where the line between "genetic engineering" and "random mutation" is very thin. And inbreeding doesn't help at all.

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Ah yes the Navigators, you can almost forgive their brutal crushing of any alternative FTL because you know exactly how they'll be treated if they don't.

 

[ninjakirito6]

They said it for the same reason you just said it:

"Abhumans, if they don't get killed by a Trigger Happy Admiral are tolerated."

Think about what you said there.

It says a lot about the 40k Imperium that admirals can just say "let's blow up all the ogryns on this planet, I'm pretty sure ogryns are actually Khornate mutants in disguise." And then that happens.

And it's treated by the Imperial power structure as a detail, a personal decision on the admiral's part. A valid, if perhaps excessive, policy choice. As if genocidal destruction of groups of people who are in no way harmful or threatening were just normal as long as those groups are somehow "weird," because they have no inherent right to exist, their lives mean nothing in and of themselves.

That is why people talk about the abhuman/mutant distinction being largely meaningless, except as evidence of Imperium hypocrisy. They're just two different sets of mutants (in the normal sense of the word, the one we'd use colloquially if we'd never heard of Warhammer). Except one set of mutants is to be explicitly murdered on sight and failing to murder them makes you kinda sus as far as the Imperium is concerned. While the other is not strictly required to be murdered on sight, though some "trigger-happy" Imperium officials think they ought to be and that's fine, y'know, because it's not as if their lives mean anything.

Which is why Navigators, ogryns, and ratlings are usually not murdered on sight, but otherwise very similar human subspecies who show no particular signs of being a threat are murdered on sight.

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Thats fair, and true but the reason I brought it up was because I got the impression that people were saying that being killed was the only response and I wanted to bring that no, it's not, its unfortunately common to be sure but its not the only way.

...

Then, of course, we have the question of how the Imperium even knows whether any given group has been mutated by Chaos forces or just by random genetics. It's not like you can just wave a Chaos detector over someone to figure out if their physical or genetic anomalies are of Chaos origin. No such thing exists. And believe me, the Imperium would be all over a working Chaos detector like their interior decorators on a skull.

So the Imperium just runs around blowing up anyone who looks weird, outside of ahandful of special categories of funny-looking people whose rights and respect from Imperial society begins and ends at "we probably won't murder you just for existing in our presence, unless we feel like it, in which case we'll pull that trigger and all we'll feel about it afterwards is the recoil."

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This is also true, there is no good Chaos detector, but it ignores that they do try, later on in my post I bring up how the Church during their Missions to proselyte new worlds do inspect their genes to determine genetic variance. And it isn't even a small jump from seeing that to "They have ways of classifying Mutants/Abhumans"

Ever heard of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" in the United States military?

That's a 'yes or no' question, by the way, and I'd appreciate a response.

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I've heard of it yeah, haven't had it really explained to me though so I assume it's don't ask, and if someone does ask, don't tell

...

More generally, it's interesting how the "don't be excessive about it" mindset shows up, particularly in young far-right types. They don't want to come out and say "I think gay is bad," but they try to rationalize it as "gay is okay, but just... don't be so weird and blatant about it, okay?" Thus hostility to things like pride parades.

Of course, the real effect of this is obvious. Nobody in a modern society thinks of attacking a man and a woman for kissing in the street. But if two men or two women kiss in the street, they are rolling the dice on whether or not they get assaulted.

Because the definition of what is "excessive" display of personal affection gets selectively altered, depending on whether the affection in question has society's approval or not.

So you'll have to understand, if the LBGTQ community hears you say:

"the real rule is 'you are free to be gay, straight, bi, or whatever as long as you don't make a big point of it.' " ...

And they hear:

This society will oppress you for existing and if you ever attempt to make a public statement about how you exist, you are likely to be attacked and the straight majority will mysteriously shrug it off as "well, what did you expect would happen, you went and made a big point of it!"

Do you see the problem? I'd be curious to hear you reply, yes or no.

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Well, I don't really think I'm far right, more that I'm somewhat sheltered compared to most people. See to me, the rationalization of "gay is bad" to "gay is okay, just don't be weird about it" makes sense but doesn't match me, its more "choose sexuality here is fine" and "But I genuinely don't care". I was raised in a area where people couldn't care less about things like that and I picked up that attitude. But for the latter half of the this part, I see the problem, but I don't really understand it. Though I guess that's more because when I say something, I meant what I said and no more. In this example, if I said that, and thats what they hear I would be pretty confused, because I said what I said, and what I said is what I meant, not, well, not that.

All of this sort of blurs past some important issues:

1) What if you choose to stop worshipping the Imperial Cult, or whatever belief system the Imperial Church chooses to believe is your version of the Imperial Cult? What if you decide to become an atheist, or adopt beliefs that reject the idea of worshiping anything? What if, ironically, you believe the original Imperial Truth promulgated by the Emperor himself at the time of the Great Crusade, as opposed to the Ecclesiarchy's religion based on the writings of literally Fulgrim?

Hint: You get torture-murdered.

So much for freedom of religion.

...

2) Does the Imperial Church actually apply fair and consistent standards regarding tolerance of religions, or do they regularly send inquisitors down who are determined to root out 'heresy' because they feel there is heresy?

Hint: There is a reason that Imperium officials and agents blowing things away for heresy has become a universal meme among the fanbase.

So much for freedom of religion.

...

3) What if you choose to believe something that to an outside observer would seem like the Imperial Cult, but that violates rules the Imperial Church's central hierarchy believes? Suppose, say, that a new sect arises saying "the Emperor is a benevolent and protective god-man but you should not pay tithes to the interstellar Ecclesiarchy." What happens?

Hint: The new sect gets bombed into dust and brutally purged and tortured.

So much for freedom of religion.

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Oh yeah, completely, it's just the main reason I made my post was that people were talking in Absolutes, when the reality isn't absolute. It's pretty close to it, but its not there, and to me, in my head, as long as they aren't absolute they can get better.

There were some other reply's to my post but considering how long it took me to finish this one I'll just say this, I don't have a perfect understanding of WH40K Canon, but I do know some of it, and because I don't have a perfect understanding I have to fill in the gaps with what I do know, and those gaps I fill in might not be what is actually the Canon. But regardless, given how many Canons there are out there, I hope that you guys can understand that when I make assumptions or guesses about something I don't completely know, I'm not pulling it out of my ass, but taking what I do know and applying it there.

 

[Tithed_Verse]

don't ask don't tell was a policy where the military wasnt allowed to ask if you were gay, but if they found out because, for example, you were photographed kissing someone at a pride event and it went on someone's social media you'd be dishonorably discharged.

so long as they found out by ways other then directly asking, you were dishonorably discharged. and not permitted to take advantage of military separation benefits.

so for example if you your marriage breaks up because you're gay, that enters the fact into the governments knowledge, so you're fired. This included both 'old' and 'new' information, should the government become aware of it, and bisexuality was not a defense.

 

[ninjakirito6]

don't ask don't tell was a policy where the military wasnt allowed to ask if you were gay, but if they found out because, for example, you were photographed kissing someone at a pride event and it went on someone's social media you'd be dishonorably discharged.

so long as they found out by ways other then directly asking, you were fired.

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Well that's fucked up

 

[Tithed_Verse]

Well that's fucked up

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it was progressive for its time. up until it was enacted the military recruitment forms asked if you were homosexual in writing, and if you answered that you were you were barred from service. if you answered that you were not and the government found out that you were they charged you with perjury, a felony, which meant that from then on you were a convicted felon too.

the republicans and democrats both wanted to repeal don't ask don't tell. in different directions.

Although one should keep in mind that in many cases a dishonorable discharge is just as bad for your future prospects as a felony conviction. Both is something of a death knell for your future.

And it was still treated as felony perjury if you became aware that you were homosexual or bisexual later.

 

[prometheus110]

As far as I can tell and I've read a lot of 40K novels at this point and I don't think I've seen any non-heterosexual characters in it. I think Carl Thonus from the Ravenor books is meant to be gay, but to be honest, the way he acts (foppish and bishy) is not really ever meant to be seen as a positive I don't think.

Anyhow I'm going to say that I don't think it's necessarily bad that the Imperium are bad and unrepresentative and have no queer stuff and are still sometimes the protagonist. I find the trope of inclusive fascism to be kind of wierd and off putting. But I do think it's bad that we have this and Chaos is always far more evil than them, and the only queer coded faction.

If you were to have chaos guys who were as sympathetic as Gaunts Ghosts or Casiphus Cain or the Ultramarines or whatever then it would be a lot easier to put up with the way the setting is built. It's okay that the setting is Grimdark and hopeless, but stop offering me dutiful fascism and telling me it's the only virtue.

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GW has made an effort to include LGBTQ+ characters in their new novels. Mike Brooks had a gay administratum clerk play a reasonably large role in Rites of Passage and I recall hearing about a non-binary character recently, though I can't recall the book in question.

 

[Simon_Jester]

While @Simon_Jester's post about the "trigger-happy admiral" is an important point, I think it's also important to clarify that you are... well, wrong, here.

The definition of Abhuman in 40k is "a stable, reproducing variant". Ogryns count because when two Ogryns have a kid, the kid is also an Ogryn. Notably, this means that the first example of a given abhuman breed isn't actually an abhuman - they're a mutant, and its only later when they survive to have kids that there is any evidence to support changing the classification to abhuman.

Mutants, then, are any deviation from the accepted norm that isn't self-reproducing...

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Hm. that's actually quite interesting. I hadn't heard that definition being formalized. You're sure?

Thats fair, and true but the reason I brought it up was because I got the impression that people were saying that being killed was the only response and I wanted to bring that no, it's not, its unfortunately common to be sure but its not the only way.

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Does it matter whether "the only response" the Imperium has to weird-looking people is to murder them, or whether it sometimes grudgingly tolerates the continued existence of a group of weird-looking people until or unless some Imperium official gets a bug up his ass and decides to murder them anyway?

Like, does this make the Imperium better in a significant way, or are you just trying to score rhetorical points in the Imperium's favor on general principles?

This is also true, there is no good Chaos detector, but it ignores that they do try...

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Because it doesn't matter that they "try" if their methods of "trying" are fundamentally bullshit. If they lack the tools to figure out whether a local colony has webbed feet because of mutagenic chemicals in the water or because of Tzeentch, then they're basically just blowing up weird-looking people at random.

It doesn't matter that they say they are doing a scientific study of which weird-looking people are Chaos mutants to be murdered and which are sometimes-tolerable abhumans. For all we know, they're basically just doing phrenology or some bullshit like that, something with no scientific basis whatsoever and that is far more likely to kill random innocents while letting actual servants of the Ruinous Powers slip through the security system.

It doesn't matter that the Imperium is "trying" if they cannot succeed, know they cannot succeed, and commit the same atrocities anyway while patting themselves on the back for how good and righteous they are for "trying" in a way that always only ever reinforces their own biases.

I've heard of it yeah, haven't had it really explained to me though so I assume it's don't ask, and if someone does ask, don't tell

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See @Tithed_Verse 's point.

To summarize, there is a longstanding and strong pattern of LBGTQ people being oppressed, and in the modern day this oppression tends to involve people who say "I'm not homophobic but I don't want to see too much overt gayness in public." The same thing happens to other minorities: "I'm not racist but gee there sure are a lot of people around who speak Spanish, it bothers me." Or "I'm not sexist but I feel henpecked taking orders from all these female supervisors."

Having lost the public argument for "society should be allowed to discriminate against groups it does not like," the nasty types have fallen back on "okay, we'll officially tolerate these groups but quietly crush them if they are 'too much' or 'too obvious,' and expect them to keep on hiding and walking small so we can pretend they don't exist and so they know they're still in a subordinate place."

"You have a right to exist as long as we don't feel ilke you're existing too hard and too much" isn't good enough to be satisfactory for LBGTQ rights or representation anymore. Because straight/cis people don't have to walk small and pretend not to be "blatant," so why should queer/trans people?

...

So there's a long history of LBGTQ people being told "you can do what you like but don't be too blatant about it" as a means of continuing the oppression after it stops being legal to just randomly murder LBGTQ people spontaneously.

As a result, no LBGTQ person is likely to take you seriously when you say "the Imperium's perspective on sexuality is that it's allowed as long as you're not too blatant about it." It's like telling a black person that segregation is fine as long as the facilities are "separate but equal." Everyone already knows it's a fiction, and knows what the fiction means.

And frankly, in this case i think you're just repeating the fiction uncritically, and without realizing that it is a fiction, because you're too accustomed to taking these things at face value. Even if you, personally, are not homophobic, it doesn't mean you can't be taken in by a disguised homophobic argument that LGBTQ people will recognize for what it is and that you do not.

Well that's fucked up

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Yeah, I know, right?

So I hope you understand why LBGTQ people, and people who are not themselves LBGTQ but know the history, aren't very sympathetic to something like:

"The Empire isn't anti-gay, it's just opposed to gays being too obvious and visible about that."

 

[Tithed_Verse]

Oh, I forgot to mention the most horrifying part of Don't Ask Don't Tell. It wasn't a common occurrence, but occasionally people would lose their veteran's benefits after leaving the military if they were photographed at Pride events. They could (essentially) retroactively make your honorable discharge dishonorable if evidence was presented to the government that you were gay.

This wasn't common. For the most part, when someone parted with the service the service stopped caring. But you could never be certain that a vindictive ex-commanding officer, or just some homophobic cunt civilian, wouldn't forward relevant evidence to the relevant authorities and have you stripped of your benefits and future.

 

[Amazing Abzan]

As far as I can tell and I've read a lot of 40K novels at this point and I don't think I've seen any non-heterosexual characters in it. I think Carl Thonus from the Ravenor books is meant to be gay, but to be honest, the way he acts (foppish and bishy) is not really ever meant to be seen as a positive I don't think.

Anyhow I'm going to say that I don't think it's necessarily bad that the Imperium are bad and unrepresentative and have no queer stuff and are still sometimes the protagonist. I find the trope of inclusive fascism to be kind of wierd and off putting. But I do think it's bad that we have this and Chaos is always far more evil than them, and the only queer coded faction.

If you were to have chaos guys who were as sympathetic as Gaunts Ghosts or Casiphus Cain or the Ultramarines or whatever then it would be a lot easier to put up with the way the setting is built. It's okay that the setting is Grimdark and hopeless, but stop offering me dutiful fascism and telling me it's the only virtue.

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I agree that making the Imperium visibly supportive of LGBT rights isn't the way to go. Even the way it is now, with occasional lip service paid to the idea that they don't have a problem with people being gay, strikes me as a bizarre attempt to rehabilitate fascism. I'd frankly prefer if the Imperium was as openly homophobic as it is xenophobic and ableist, because that'd be a more honest representation of what fascism is.

You don't need the Imperium to support queer rights in order for there to be queer characters though. In fact, you could probably get some pretty compelling stories by showing how the Imperium's oppression affects the LGBT people who live in it. Or you could just say fuck the Imperium and have a gay Farseer or something. The point is that Chaos should not have a monopoly on queerness, even if they are the only faction that's explicitly queer coded. I'm all for giving them some sympathetic characters, but if you relegate every gay or trans character to a Slaaneshi cult then you're implicitly reinforcing the idea of queerness as some sort of spooky, invasive other that's seeking to infiltrate and corrupt.

 

[Adloquium]

As far as I can tell and I've read a lot of 40K novels at this point and I don't think I've seen any non-heterosexual characters in it.

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Magot and Grifen from the Ciaphas Cain books?

 

[ninjakirito6]

Hm. that's actually quite interesting. I hadn't heard that definition being formalized. You're sure?

Does it matter whether "the only response" the Imperium has to weird-looking people is to murder them, or whether it sometimes grudgingly tolerates the continued existence of a group of weird-looking people until or unless some Imperium official gets a bug up his ass and decides to murder them anyway?

Like, does this make the Imperium better in a significant way, or are you just trying to score rhetorical points in the Imperium's favor on general principles?

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I would say it matters, because since doing the right thing and not killing them isn't so unheard of and rare means that they are capable of bettering themselves and not being so evil despite it being so easy to turn to those evil and easy choices of just killing them. And though this next part is just speculation, that they are capable of doing such a thing, even if they don't do it much, means that despite their xenophobic and genocidal tendencies they can do good things, and that if they were given hope and reason to believe that the average person won't get horribly killed instead of living a peaceful life they would get better, and stop being so evil instead of "meh, did my good dead of the century".

Because it doesn't matter that they "try" if their methods of "trying" are fundamentally bullshit. If they lack the tools to figure out whether a local colony has webbed feet because of mutagenic chemicals in the water or because of Tzeentch, then they're basically just blowing up weird-looking people at random.

It doesn't matter that they say they are doing a scientific study of which weird-looking people are Chaos mutants to be murdered and which are sometimes-tolerable abhumans. For all we know, they're basically just doing phrenology or some bullshit like that, something with no scientific basis whatsoever and that is far more likely to kill random innocents while letting actual servants of the Ruinous Powers slip through the security system.

It doesn't matter that the Imperium is "trying" if they cannot succeed, know they cannot succeed, and commit the same atrocities anyway while patting themselves on the back for how good and righteous they are for "trying" in a way that always only ever reinforces their own biases.

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Well, I guess this must be where our interpretation of Canon differs, I believe that since they do try, and don't kill every mutant or abhuman they encounter means that whatever there doing works, or at least, works well enough that in the thousands of years of doing it they haven't stopped doing it.

See @Tithed_Verse 's point.

To summarize, there is a longstanding and strong pattern of LBGTQ people being oppressed, and in the modern day this oppression tends to involve people who say "I'm not homophobic but I don't want to see too much overt gayness in public." The same thing happens to other minorities: "I'm not racist but gee there sure are a lot of people around who speak Spanish, it bothers me." Or "I'm not sexist but I feel henpecked taking orders from all these female supervisors."

Having lost the public argument for "society should be allowed to discriminate against groups it does not like," the nasty types have fallen back on "okay, we'll officially tolerate these groups but quietly crush them if they are 'too much' or 'too obvious,' and expect them to keep on hiding and walking small so we can pretend they don't exist and so they know they're still in a subordinate place."

"You have a right to exist as long as we don't feel ilke you're existing too hard and too much" isn't good enough to be satisfactory for LBGTQ rights or representation anymore. Because straight/cis people don't have to walk small and pretend not to be "blatant," so why should queer/trans people?

...

So there's a long history of LBGTQ people being told "you can do what you like but don't be too blatant about it" as a means of continuing the oppression after it stops being legal to just randomly murder LBGTQ people spontaneously.

As a result, no LBGTQ person is likely to take you seriously when you say "the Imperium's perspective on sexuality is that it's allowed as long as you're not too blatant about it." It's like telling a black person that segregation is fine as long as the facilities are "separate but equal." Everyone already knows it's a fiction, and knows what the fiction means.

And frankly, in this case i think you're just repeating the fiction uncritically, and without realizing that it is a fiction, because you're too accustomed to taking these things at face value. Even if you, personally, are not homophobic, it doesn't mean you can't be taken in by a disguised homophobic argument that LGBTQ people will recognize for what it is and that you do not.

Yeah, I know, right?

So I hope you understand why LBGTQ people, and people who are not themselves LBGTQ but know the history, aren't very sympathetic to something like:

"The Empire isn't anti-gay, it's just opposed to gays being too obvious and visible about that."

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Ah, I think that there is a misunderstanding going on, and looking at my original post it's my fault so my apologies for that. I can understand and I'm sorry that that is what was sent, but if I can clarify further on want I meant it would be less "Don't be obvious or visible about that" and more "You can feel for and have sex with whoever, but don't have too much sex" I do want to thank you guys for explaining more about this kinda stuff since I don't have a good understanding or awareness of it other than "It exists"

 

[Simon_Jester]

I agree that making the Imperium visibly supportive of LGBT rights isn't the way to go. Even the way it is now, with occasional lip service paid to the idea that they don't have a problem with people being gay, strikes me as a bizarre attempt to rehabilitate fascism. I'd frankly prefer if the Imperium was as openly homophobic as it is xenophobic and ableist, because that'd be a more honest representation of what fascism is.

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The problem then is that it's really difficult to write the Imperium as universally and openly homophobic without, in effect, convincing your misaimed fandom of millions to become more homophobic.

Like, you and I would get it, would get that the Imperium is a bunch of parodic bad guys and not role models. But if Games Workshop did as you suggested, they would probably be directly, causally responsible for an increase in homophobia and transphobia among 40k fans. Not a decrease.

Or you could just say fuck the Imperium and have a gay Farseer or something.

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This part is better.

Magot and Grifen from the Ciaphas Cain books?

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Yes. Yes they are!

[nods]

I would say it matters, because since doing the right thing and not killing them isn't so unheard of and rare means that they are capable of bettering themselves and not being so evil despite it being so easy to turn to those evil and easy choices of just killing them.

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Does it? Does it really?

One of the core premises of the setting is that the Imperium cannot meaningfully improve itself. One can idly fantasize about it, but the Imperium is very much a declining state in almost every respect imaginable. It is hideously inefficient. Its bureaucracy and ecclesiarchy and inquisition crush nearly any attempt at reform by labeling it as rebellion and bombing it from orbit. The individuals who might have the talent to do anything to fix the system are all either corpses on life support or die of old age just trying to fix a single sector while the overall situation continues to go to shit.

The Imperium has been declining, in many ways, for millennia.

The occasional instances where they are less than maximally appalling do nothing to change this.

Unless, of course, one is starting from the viewpoint of stanning for the Imperium and needing to find a way to rehabilitate it.

Well, I guess this must be where our interpretation of Canon differs, I believe that since they do try, and don't kill every mutant or abhuman they encounter means that whatever there doing works, or at least, works well enough that in the thousands of years of doing it they haven't stopped doing it.

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Consider what the definition of "works well enough" is.

It's "works well enough for the Ecclesiarchy, the bureaucracy, and the inquisitors."

Those guys lose nothing from committing "too many" genocides instead of just "enough" genocides. Why would they need a system that actually works? What incentive do they have to be good at their jobs?

I mean, the literal Nazis had institutes of "race science" who would do bullshit like measure your skull and proclaim whether or not you were Aryan enough. Did that somehow make their willingness to kill or enslave insufficiently-Aryan people better somehow because they were trying to distinguish between people who did or did not 'deserve' to be killed/enslaved?

Ah, I think that there is a misunderstanding going on, and looking at my original post it's my fault so my apologies for that. I can understand and I'm sorry that that is what was sent, but if I can clarify further on want I meant it would be less "Don't be obvious or visible about that" and more "You can feel for and have sex with whoever, but don't have too much sex" I do want to thank you guys for explaining more about this kinda stuff since I don't have a good understanding or awareness of it other than "It exists"

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I get what you meant, but the message sent by the Imperium taking the stance you describe is... effectively identical.

"We don't officially hate you, but if we catch you doing 'too much' or 'too weird' we will kill you."

And the way Slaanesh operates may justify that particular attitude... but that is in fact precisely the complaint LBGT people are throwing here. The problem is that this is one of the worst, nastiest, most common anti-LBGT stereotypes in existence. LBGT people constantly get accused by homophobes and transphobes of being "the cult of perverted weirdos who seek to infiltrate society and corrupt everyone with their wild excessive ideas about sex other than vanilla sex within marriage for purposes of procreation and using the missionary position only."

And Slaanesh runs exactly such a cult in 40k, and they are regularly portrayed as being 'the gay faction' or 'the genderbending faction.'

The fact that such a faction exists in the setting just authorizes and reinforces a very common pattern of prejudice, creating excuses for acting on it in-setting and excuses to ignore criticism of the implications in-setting.

 

[Tithed_Verse]

The problem then is that it's really difficult to write the Imperium as universally and openly homophobic without, in effect, convincing your misaimed fandom of millions to become more homophobic.

Like, you and I would get it, would get that the Imperium is a bunch of parodic bad guys and not role models. But if Games Workshop did as you suggested, they would probably be directly, causally responsible for an increase in homophobia and transphobia among 40k fans. Not a decrease.

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Southpark tried something like this to show how stupid prejudice is and essentially created massive bigotry against gingers overnight.

I mean, prior to south park there were stereotypes about red-heads yeah (mostly relating to their temperament), just like there were about blondes. But 'Gingers have no soul' was something else, something above and beyond, and it spread to highschools and elementry schools as part of bullying campaigns almost immediately.

 

[Amazing Abzan]

The problem then is that it's really difficult to write the Imperium as universally and openly homophobic without, in effect, convincing your misaimed fandom of millions to become more homophobic.

Like, you and I would get it, would get that the Imperium is a bunch of parodic bad guys and not role models. But if Games Workshop did as you suggested, they would probably be directly, causally responsible for an increase in homophobia and transphobia among 40k fans. Not a decrease.

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Well, yes, but that's because GW is hilariously bad at parodying fascism, to the point where 40k verges more on fascist propaganda than satire. Fixing that takes a hell of a lot more than just making the Imperium homophobic. That's part of the solution, definitely, but it's a very small part that can't be done in isolation.

Unless you go the Springtime for Hitler route and just completely strip away any seriousness and subtlety, you're not going to make a parody of fascism that fascists won't unironically enjoy. You can, however, make something that doesn't bend over backwards to support them like 40k does.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Well, yes, but that's because GW is hilariously bad at parodying fascism, to the point where 40k verges more on fascist propaganda than satire. Fixing that takes a hell of a lot more than just making the Imperium homophobic. That's part of the solution, definitely, but it's a very small part that can't be done in isolation.

Unless you go the Springtime for Hitler route and just completely strip away any seriousness and subtlety, you're not going to make a parody of fascism that fascists won't unironically enjoy. You can, however, make something that doesn't bend over backwards to support them like 40k does.

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There's a whole wave of stuff you'd have to do first before "make the Imperium actively homophobic" would even begin to be a good idea.

 

[Amazing Abzan]

There's a whole wave of stuff you'd have to do first before "make the Imperium actively homophobic" would even begin to be a good idea.

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I agree. I even said so, although admittedly my phrasing might not have been clear.

Fixing that takes a hell of a lot more than just making the Imperium homophobic. That's part of the solution, definitely, but it's a very small part that can't be done in isolation.

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I didn't suggest making the Imperium homophobic because it's in my top ten list of needed setting changes or something, I just brought up the idea because we were talking about queerness in the setting and how the Imperium relates to that. I obviously wouldn't advocate making the Imperium homophobic while still presenting them as the nominal "good guys" like the setting currently does.

 

[ninjakirito6]

The problem then is that it's really difficult to write the Imperium as universally and openly homophobic without, in effect, convincing your misaimed fandom of millions to become more homophobic.

Like, you and I would get it, would get that the Imperium is a bunch of parodic bad guys and not role models. But if Games Workshop did as you suggested, they would probably be directly, causally responsible for an increase in homophobia and transphobia among 40k fans. Not a decrease.

This part is better.

Yes. Yes they are!

[nods]

Does it? Does it really?

One of the core premises of the setting is that the Imperium cannot meaningfully improve itself. One can idly fantasize about it, but the Imperium is very much a declining state in almost every respect imaginable. It is hideously inefficient. Its bureaucracy and ecclesiarchy and inquisition crush nearly any attempt at reform by labeling it as rebellion and bombing it from orbit. The individuals who might have the talent to do anything to fix the system are all either corpses on life support or die of old age just trying to fix a single sector while the overall situation continues to go to shit.

The Imperium has been declining, in many ways, for millennia.

The occasional instances where they are less than maximally appalling do nothing to change this.

Unless, of course, one is starting from the viewpoint of stanning for the Imperium and needing to find a way to rehabilitate it.

Consider what the definition of "works well enough" is.

It's "works well enough for the Ecclesiarchy, the bureaucracy, and the inquisitors."

Those guys lose nothing from committing "too many" genocides instead of just "enough" genocides. Why would they need a system that actually works? What incentive do they have to be good at their jobs?

I mean, the literal Nazis had institutes of "race science" who would do bullshit like measure your skull and proclaim whether or not you were Aryan enough. Did that somehow make their willingness to kill or enslave insufficiently-Aryan people better somehow because they were trying to distinguish between people who did or did not 'deserve' to be killed/enslaved?

I get what you meant, but the message sent by the Imperium taking the stance you describe is... effectively identical.

"We don't officially hate you, but if we catch you doing 'too much' or 'too weird' we will kill you."

And the way Slaanesh operates may justify that particular attitude... but that is in fact precisely the complaint LBGT people are throwing here. The problem is that this is one of the worst, nastiest, most common anti-LBGT stereotypes in existence. LBGT people constantly get accused by homophobes and transphobes of being "the cult of perverted weirdos who seek to infiltrate society and corrupt everyone with their wild excessive ideas about sex other than vanilla sex within marriage for purposes of procreation and using the missionary position only."

And Slaanesh runs exactly such a cult in 40k, and they are regularly portrayed as being 'the gay faction' or 'the genderbending faction.'

The fact that such a faction exists in the setting just authorizes and reinforces a very common pattern of prejudice, creating excuses for acting on it in-setting and excuses to ignore criticism of the implications in-setting.

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Look, I believe that even though the Imperium aren't good people they can become good people. Its so easy for them to do these evil things all the time, and yet they don't do those evil things all the time. Maybe I've read to many quests or fiction where they become good, or at the very least not evil people and maybe the 'recent' canon with Guilliman is giving me false hope. But with how many different canons there are and with how as you said you get what I meant, plus with the fact that "Choose your own canon" is such a big thing considering how many times GW make contradicting events I don't really understand the hostility. Like, I believe that we just have fundamentally incompatible views of how much the Imperium commits these evils and their capacity to become better. At this point, this is all I can say because our core assumption is differing in that I believe "They can do this" while your is "They cant/wont do this" and the rest of our arguments operate on those assumptions. For the IRL stuff I straight don't know enough about LGBT to talk, and considering the complaints about the Imperium and how many different 'versions' of them I can only say that I'm sure that neither the people who make Warhammer 40k made Slaannesh with the intent or mind to make the "Evil LGTB cult" and I'm sure the general community doesn't believe that either and I'm sorry that the Nazis and Fascists have gained enough of a foothold that their views have started ruin your enjoyment of WH40K or prevented you from being able to enjoy WH40K in the first place.

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

Look, I believe that even though the Imperium aren't good people they can become good people.

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They've had thousands of years to potentially get better. I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[Avernus]

Look, I believe that even though the Imperium aren't good people they can become good people.

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In theory, probably. The problem is that thousands of years of them just getting worse indicates that them getting better is really, really unlikely.

An individual Imperial, sure. But as a culture it's clear that they've become very good at not getting better. No real life human society after all has succeeded in staying so bad for so long.

EDIT: Thinking about it, the most plausible way to write a "redemption of the Imperials" scenario would be a story where a planet of them was somehow isolated from the greater Imperial society; cut off by Warp storms, dropped in another universe or whatever. Then they could actually reform themselves without getting fried for heresy from orbit. But unless the isolation was permanent they'd still get stomped on when it ended.

 

[Amazing Abzan]

For the IRL stuff I straight don't know enough about LGBT to talk, and considering the complaints about the Imperium and how many different 'versions' of them I can only say that I'm sure that neither the people who make Warhammer 40k made Slaannesh with the intent or mind to make the "Evil LGTB cult" and I'm sure the general community doesn't believe that either and I'm sorry that the Nazis and Fascists have gained enough of a foothold that their views have started ruin your enjoyment of WH40K or prevented you from being able to enjoy WH40K in the first place.

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If you're interested in learning more about why queer people find Slaanesh troubling (as well as why nazis and fascists have gained such a foothold in this specific fandom), this essay is pretty informative. It also contains examples of actual, real-life fascists using the language of 40k and directly comparing LGBT people to Slaaneshi demons, which aptly demonstrates that there's a legitimate problem here.

 

[ninjakirito6]

In theory, probably. The problem is that thousands of years of them just getting worse indicates that them getting better is really, really unlikely.

An individual Imperial, sure. But as a culture it's clear that they've become very good at not getting better. No real life human society after all has succeeded in staying so bad for so long.

EDIT: Thinking about it, the most plausible way to write a "redemption of the Imperials" scenario would be a story where a planet of them was somehow isolated from the greater Imperial society; cut off by Warp storms, dropped in another universe or whatever. Then they could actually reform themselves without getting fried for heresy from orbit. But unless the isolation was permanent they'd still get stomped on when it ended.

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Yeah, but all it takes is a planetary or a sector governor to become a good person, or at least a better person and with every one of them that become better its easier for the rest to do so. Either Humanity and the Imperium become extinct (more likely option as they are now) or they are able to hold out and survive long enough for the majority to become good. I guess it's a win-win because either a awful group dies or they stop being awful, but the extinction of the human race is something I would prefer not to happen, even if its in fiction.

 

[Memphet'ran]

Fascists can't stand looking stupid, weak, or being an object of humor, so something that mocks fascism as pathetic probably won't get picked up by fascists. But Warhammer 40k never really leaned into parodying fascism this way. Much like the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, no matter how evil you make a group it can still attract fans if the story in question takes it seriously.

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40K definitely includes stuff that lends itself to making the Imperium look stupid. Tank regiments being forced to march thousands of kilometers on foot and fight as infantry because their fuel got sent to the wrong planet because of a bureaucratic mix-up and all that. It's definitely a theme that the Imperium is full of tragicomic pointless waste and inefficiency and much of the suffering in it doesn't even serve any purpose. I think to make it less appealing to right-wing authoritarians it might help to lean less into "but isn't it kind of awesome that they're marching across a thousand miles of hell-waste on foot to stab Orks with bayonets?" and more into depicting the experience of the average Imperium soldier as basically Grimdark Dilbert where half the time the tragicomic cluelessness and petty interpersonal politics of your pointy-haired bosses is as dangerous to you as the malice of the Orks and Tyrannids and Chaos Marines and whatnot.

I think something like Tau done as more properly heavyweights or that breakaway Ultramarine faction in the Dornian Heresy might work to highlight this; show what a faction with approximately the Imperium's mindset, goals, and environment but without all its stupid cruft might look like, and thus implicitly show how much the Imperium's nature actually makes it weaker.

I agree that making the Imperium visibly supportive of LGBT rights isn't the way to go. Even the way it is now, with occasional lip service paid to the idea that they don't have a problem with people being gay, strikes me as a bizarre attempt to rehabilitate fascism. I'd frankly prefer if the Imperium was as openly homophobic as it is xenophobic and ableist, because that'd be a more honest representation of what fascism is.

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Yeah, all things considered it feels more honest if the Imperium's relationship to most familiar forms of difference (queerness, disability, etc.) is, uh, problematic. I'm not enamored with the idea of just giving them all the same prejudices as IRL right-wing authoritarians cause I generally find that approach kind of anvilicious and boring, but the Imperium definitely seems like somewhere that logically would not be a good place to be the sort of person likely to be thought of as deviant or unproductive.

I think for stuff like that I'd probably lean into the idea of the Imperium as a big sandbox with lots of variation by region, faction, subculture, and class. Like, e.g. high-status trans and openly gay people could exist, but their ability to just go anywhere without fear of being hate crimed would be a function of their class privilege, their difference would likely be a potential point of vulnerability, and the lower down the hierarchy they'd be the more contingent decent treatment would be on having won the Imperium's equivalent of the zip code lottery.

 

[Tithed_Verse]

I also think it would be a good idea to make chaos less vantablack. They kinda have a little bit of that.... Tzench is the god of hope. Nergel is the god of acceptance. Korn is the god of standing up for yourself. Slanesh is the god of being true to yourself.

But, like, they twist that into a darkness so dark that only Anish Kapoor is allowed to use it.

I honestly think that the first step to fixing GWs facist problem is to make it so that some chaos isn't bad. So that there are some chaos cultists who are goodish guys, or at least better than the imperium. Maybe even throw in a few unambigiously good chaos sorcerers who live in the uncivilized parts of human space.