Been hearing a lot of rumblings from normal people in the warhammer community they are tired of fascists worshipping the imperium of man in their community.
is it like a human supremacist group in the lore or something like the empire in Star Wars?
Been hearing a lot of rumblings from normal people in the warhammer community they are tired of fascists worshipping the imperium of man in their community.
is it like a human supremacist group in the lore or something like the empire in Star Wars?
It really doesn’t help that GW constantly oscillates between “the theocratic fascism is really self-destructive and stupid and is why the imperium is a decaying wreck, and having an autocrat and his large adult sons in charge of everything totally fucked it all up in the first place”, “the fascism isn’t great but it’s necessary and justified because it’s the only thing saving humanity from unimaginable horrors that vaguely resemble whatever ethnic group you’re most afraid of”, or “the space marines are unambiguously good heroes with honour and piety who keep everyone safe, yay for the good guys”
if you read like any of the popular W40k novels everything about the Imperium of man seems like unfettered dogshit
the majority of the people live in decaying hovels eking out a miserable agricultural existence or in enormous planet sized slums that have all sorts of issues (rampant crime, gangs, mutants, etc.)
if you're part of the actual government you are like an undying heavily bio augmented freak with an incredibly long lifespan (iirc Inquisitor Ravenor is like 300 years old lmfao) stemming back a tide of literally incomprehensible horrors that you aren't fully equipped to deal with
like in Caiphas Cain the entire point of the series is that he's a regular commissar who frequently stumbles into absolutely insane, fucked up situations and spends most of his time trying to run the fuck away because getting turned into some mutant freak by Tyrannids is in no way cool or exciting
god help you if you're part of the regular ass army
ive read way too many 40k novels lol (yeah i read theory) and theres a huuuuuge disconnect between the different writers. youre absolutely right that the eisenhorn/ravenor books in particular are all about how incredibly dogshit the imperium is, and other books do make this clear as well
but with a lot of the space marine focused ones you can just feel the authors jerking themselves off as they write (someone should compile all the bits from the horus heresy novels where they first describe each of the primarchs in particular lol) and they are often really uncritical or apologetic about not just the space marines but the imperium itself
and of course the video games mostly go no deeper than "yay space marines"
I like the Grey Knights novels because everything they deal with is shown to be a nightmarish shitshow lol, I couldn't get into the Horus Heresy books
also the moment in Gaunts Ghosts where the Chaos Space marines get fucking merc'ed by the indigenous people of a planet because they were too full of pride and hubris to wear helmets is 10/10 writing
yeah youre not missing much, apart from a couple of the dan abnett ones (this is a recurring theme for 40k novels) the horus heresy novels are unadulterated dogshit
and lol that sounds awesome
Unironically Angel Exterminatus is a fantastic novel, like in the classical sense
53 books you’re bound to hit gold
I think they make sense and are fun if you think about them less as a historical archive, and more like a space opera propaganda piece, with big men with big feelings that they can't deal with. Its like watching Riverdale but with more violence.
Which books are good to start with? I've heard Eisenhorn is pretty good.
none of them are anything remotely approaching good literature, but a good rule of thumb is that dan abnett and aaron dembski-bowden (sp?) are their two decent authors and everything else is complete and utter garbage
yeah eisenhorn is probably a pretty good place to start and probably the best of the ones ive read, i think its a much more interesting portrayal of the imperium than the ones that are just 200 pages of space marines shooting at things
edit: another series i would recommend are the aaron dembski bowden ones about the night lords - they always seemed like the most teenage edgelord chaos marines but their portrayal in these books is really interesting
kind of What other people told me upon further investigation is that Dan and aaron are the only two people writing for them worth a damn.
Thanks
Yeah I draw a line between Dembski-Bowden/Abnett and whatever the other guys are doing.
I think a better discussion would be who is the worst of them, I nominate Gav Thorpe.
I tried reading some WH40k books but yeah, the comment about 200 pages of space marines shooting things is apt. Even the Caiphas Cain books, while holding some interesting material was full of mostly combat.
I can't put my finger on why but even the first book of the Horus Heresy written by Dan Abnett (I think?) was too dull to continue and I'm not sure if it was combat intensive (ironically if I'd read it as a kid I probably would've loved it as I found these action scenes cool; now I just want a good story).
I want to take an opportunity to recommend the only Warhammer books that can count as good literature - everything written by Peter Fehervari.
glad to hear I'm reading the "better" books
And then there's C.S. Goto...
Though the problem with the Guard books is that it shows ordinary people living somewhat fucked up but mostly ordinary lives. The Ghosts series makes it seem if the Imperium is just taxes and the church for 98% of the population and absurd horror only on the edges.
Fascism has an appeal for a reason. And while GW is run by dorky military worshipping man-children, I think they at least peg the vibe that drives fascism's appeal.
You can't really expect a successful war game franchise to just paper over why people love war. It's revealing, even if unsettling.
I really feel like a Leninist WH40k universe could still be badass, and it's inherent inclusive nature and desire to help make people's lives awesome would make for a great jumping off point to make people ask about the principles behind it. Clearly WH40k as a satire of fascism is going over people's heads, so may as well embrace the style and make our own.
We have that now. It's just Star Trek, circa Deep Space Nine.
But yes, you could absolutely make a WH40k universe in which the Galactic Soviet has carved out a utopian inner core of worlds caught in the politics created by the weirdness of an alien hostile cosmos. Meanwhile the periphery struggles with threats both immediate and existential, far from the endless bounty of the core worlds, as they seek to bridge the gap between their homeworlds and the frontier.
But I don't know if you'd want to make that a strictly military tactics game. Its going to look more like a 4X - a Twilight Imperium or Civilization style game - than the current setup.
Like so many other corporate media brands, once the writers start drinking their own kool-aid you just end up with context and nuance stripped away to make room for more Kick-ass Awesome Idealism. I don't think this is even so much that its going over people's heads as it is the GW writers' room has made juicing the setting with Super Space Marine Power Creep more of a priority than a coherent and continuously developed storyline.
Lancer RPG
ooh! don't forget gender or sexual minority either! scary gender-indeterminate slaanesh demon :cri:
And don't forget, Slaanesh was created by the Eldar having crazy sex. Sounds exactly like fascist allegory, saying that "removed" will destroy society... somehow.
slaanesh as a monsterous evil always made me really uncomfortable, and what makes it quadruple uncomfortable is how apparently one of the evil things they can do is make you enjoy fighting which is evil in a world where people fight all the time (???????)
like theres no actual philosophical critiques of hedonism inherent to slaanesh, its just ":le-pol-face: pleasure bad"
They've tried to change it recently, by making Slaanesh more a "god of perfection and artistic obsession" but really that's just a way of making the drugs and the rock and roll cover up all the sex.
lmao that's not even like what that's actually better
like actual, selfless monks are perfectionists that do artistic expression
Slaanesh is said to be a god of excess. So if anything, Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk would embody Slaanesh more than orgies.
then why did orgies summon Slaanesh and not capitalism
shrugs Ask the writers at GW, not me, why orgies are more excessive.