that’s odd because I’d actually been told that the Emperor is super not on board with how awful the Imperium became after his death, as he intended it to feature all the good parts of humanity: education, tolerance, all that good stuff
but that might just be old lore now? i’m not sure, i’ve never been super into 40k, I read more about the fantasy
that aside, my favorite stories are of the people who insist that the imperium of man is not in fact fascist and are the good guys
40k is what they call a crapsack universe, in which everything is terrible and there are no good guys. In universe, lots of people are well aware that the systems in place are awful and oppressive, but if they took the time and effort to overthrow the existing regime and set up something better then during the interim humanity’s defences would buckle and they’d be eaten by tyranids/scoured by necrons/enslaved by chaos.
But yes, I’ve seen the unfortunate cases of, erm, national socialists in the gaming scene, but it’s been a while. Last time was ten? Maybe fifteen? Years ago. I was at a tournament back when I did that sort of thing, and was up against a guard army. First turn I notice that all of the infantry in the front are painted with darker skin than the rest of the army. The army guy that was my opponent saw me eyeing that and told me matter of factly, “Oh yeah, I put the -expletive deleted- in the front to eat the bullets for the guys that are worth keeping alive.”
Only time I’ve ever packed up my army and left mid tournament, but I can take solace in the fact that apparently after I told the tournament organizer on my way out, said player was ejected from the tournament.
Maybe the Emperor doesn’t like the Imperium, but that’s probably because it’s a failed theocracy, and not because it’s a cruel, genocidal, evil, fascist regime. The Emperor was not a beacon of knowledge and enlightenment during his life, he was the end of it. I know of two human civilisations that his Space Marines snuffed out during his reign that exemplify this most of all, the Interex and one that I don’t remember the name of.
The first, the Interex, were the Anti-Imperium. There were small, only one system large, and they had knowledge at their forefront. They spread the knowledge of Chaos and the Ruinous Powers and how to deal with them amongst their citizenry, treating Psykers and other Warp or Warp-adjacent entities as scientific problems. Through this, they were nearly incorruptible. Chaos could not get a strong hold on them, because the citizens knew - “If you start manifesting otherworldly powers, and strange voices whisper to you, you’re a Psyker, you need to get help, you’re going to be okay but you can’t listen to them, they’re evil.” It was efficient and it worked. The Interex had incredibly useful technology left over from the Dark Age of Technology, as well, and could easily have rivalled the Imperium if they decided to expand. They did not, instead seeking inward perfection and scholarly pursuits. When I think Lorgar and Horus found them, they slaughtered the Interex and snuffed the light out of a far brighter civilisation.
The second, which I don’t remember the name of, was a fleet-bound society. They were peaceful and were a mix of human and alien populations. They did not want to go to war with the Imperium, and simply wanted to continue their nomadic lifestyle. Because they were full of aliens, however, the Imperium could not allow this. They purged their way through their ships, slaughtering them all until they came upon the leader of the civilisation who I recall having his last words be “We only wanted to be left alone.”
This is leaving out the time when the Salamanders, during the Great Crusade, baptised a world in fire because Eldar Exodites and humans worked together against the Dark Eldar. This is leaving out his anti-theist slaughtering of anyone who kept even harmless religions. The Emperor, I believe, would hate the Imperium. He wouldn’t hate it for the xenocides, for the oppression, for its authoritarian nature or the vile, twisted, evil things it does on a day to day basis, he would hate it because it was a theocracy. That’s it.
I don’t believe the Emperor is good. He was a fascist monster from the moment he crawled out of whatever pit on Earth he came from. He doomed the entire Galaxy to ten thousand years of mindless slaughter. I don’t believe he intended to have what’s best for humanity, either. Maybe in his weird god-mind he thought he was making things right, but I think the narrative is meant to (or should) portray him as wrong, because his methods were genocide and if he isn’t wrong, then that implies that genocide is okay, sometimes.
Sorry if I come off as hostile. This is something I’m really passionate about, because I’ve loved 40K ever since I was very young, and it pains me to see people, not you, but many people, who look at the Imperium and say “That. I want that. I want this.” even though it’s meant to be “the darkest and bloodiest regime imaginable”.
The simplest way to describe the Imperium and the Spesh Mah’rheens is that while they are the Protagonists, they are not the Heroes.
Good lord Blizzcon really has been cancelled! We’re talking about entirely different game universes! 
hey sarestha want to hear about my chaos space marine warband?
I’m here for the fantasy, not the science fiction! You can’t do this to me!
yeets self out of this thread
We can talk about Warhammer Fantasy instead then.
Anyone else amused that Age of Sigmar flopped so hard they basically undid / postponed the End Times so people could keep enjoying and making games in the OG universe and just treat that “End of All Things” majigger on the horizon as a minor nuisance to be dealt with at best?
I think the theory is that the ol’ Kingface Shinypants had the preservation of humanity as a whole as his end goal, and his methods were just the worst, so it didn’t turn out well. Also he’s a terrible dad.
i mean i guess but even if that’s true, sargeras had the preservation of the universe as a whole as his end goal but you don’t see people going around talking about how great he was
That’s true! But Blizzard never went about claiming that he was a good guy, even ironically or tongue in cheek, whereas Games Workshop has all sorts of in universe blurbs talking about how the Emperor should be worshipped or whatever. People get really attached to their armies after spending so much time and money on them and end up identifying with them, so if their Black Templar’s are all about ENDLESS ZEAL, WORSHIP HIM ON TERRA, then they might start repeating that kind of thing.
With Sargeras we just beat him up and take his stuff.
It’s a nice sentiment - and a primary component of the Emperor’s character in the fan made parody series “If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device” - but sadly it’s now who the Emperor is.
If you can, track down “The Last Church” for one of the rare stories that gives us the Emperor’s perspective from his own mouth. Whatever else the Emperor is (and he is a LOT in the 40k setting), a paragon of virtue he is not.
But that’s part of the hook of the setting really. A bunch of flawed protagonists raging against the dark, refusing to just meekly surrender to the inevitable. That if they are going down, then by the God Emperor they will make sure the enemies that brought them low remember them.
The setting is equal parts hopeless and yet still very much hopeful. And you have some amazing writers like Josh Reynolds, Dan Abnett, and Chris Wraight who can also inject a lot of honest humor into the tales about genetically engineered supermen.
As for those who argue the Imperium is a stand up sort, the opening blurb of EVERY story mentions that it is the cruelest and most repressive regimes of the whole of Human history.
Lorgar wasn’t involved in the Interex, save for Erebus (may his name forever be cursed) being the one who kicked off the war between Horus’ forces and the Interex by stealing the Anathema Blade from the Interex that would go on to wound Horus and cause his fall to the Ruinous Powers.
I’ll give Blizzard props for one thing. When it came to the slide of a noble son of a ruler falling to darkness, Arthas’ slide was far more natural and compelling than Horus’. Who literally rebelled after seeing a vision of the 41st Millenium and realizing there were no statues to HIM present (Also the Emperor was worshiped as a god).
Age of Sigmar has actually been wildly successful for Games Workshop, and after a very shaky start has actually started being a very compelling setting in its own right - though of a markedly different tone from the original Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
But really, after the successes of games like Total War Warhammer and Vermintide, they kind of had to bring back The World-That-Was just by popular demand. And also because even those of us who don’t treat Age of Sigmar as some kind of abomination understand that the End Times Event itself was just total and complete garbage with nothing redeeming about it.
The problem is, all we’ve seen of the Old World setting so far concept wise has come from Games Workshop’s Forgeworld artists. And if you thought the price of entry into the regular stuff was high…if The Old World ends up being Forgeworld’s Fantasy game (kind of like how they run the Horus Heresy tabletop game for 40k), then I’m fine with Total War Warhammer for my Fantasy fix.
Dan Abnett has some good thoughts on it I think. In 40k everyone has failed. The entire story of the setting is as advertised “grimdark” there’s no good guys as far as factions goes (Except maybe Ultramar and the Salamanders) only the odd example in the fluff material of heroic action that is ultimately futile. It is the galaxy’s slow, blood soaked march to oblivion.
The sort of oppressive hopelessness is sort of the appeal of the setting in a genre of Star Trek and Star Wars, it is a setting of superstition, fanaticism and fairly universal human misery. Abnett’s books define the setting really well in the human point of view, the Eisenhorn trilogy is what I would consider essential reading for anyone who wants to see how people actually live in the setting. His Gaunt’s Ghosts books are pretty good from the rank and file Astra Militarium point of view as is Double Eagle.
As for any experience or IRL extremists in the hobby, I have been to quite a few local clubs and stores and I have never seen anything like that. I have seen the occasional bone head LARPer on meme pages but I am not going to let some idiot ruin something that I enjoy, I just block them and get on with my life.
yeah don’t worry about it, I did not take it as hostile at all. Most of my 40k knowledge is second-hand so it’s good to hear the perspective of someone else passionate about the universe, but fortunately I was already certainly aware that the Imperium are bad guys.
The End Times were, uh… silly, to say the least. Didn’t they forget about Skarsnik? And don’t even get me started on the Brettonian ending or the Elf story. Age of Sigmar is neat but I wasn’t a huge fan of just making Fantasy’s own version of Space Marines.
Consider me educated. I clearly have lingered too long in a bubble of my own making because everyone around me who still tabletops says AoS might as well be dead. That said, I imagine when your hobby involves you finding venues for things, it may just be dead around them.
I’d take your word for it instead.
I remember a lot of the big hostility towards AoS was connected to Tomb Kings. Not a fantasy fan or player but GeeDubs had just come out with them, people bought hundreds of dollars worth of books and models only for them not to be supported in AoS
Clamors in background with Warhammer Fantasy settings before the Age of Sigmar event
You’ll never take me alive! I will be like that one Japanese holdout guy still fighting for Warhammer Fantasy thirty years after the war is over!
Globba died and Skarsnik spent the End Times crying about it in a cave.
I didn’t even get into Fantasy at all until playing Total War Warhammer and that factoid makes me irrationally angry since Skarsnik is by far my favorite Greenskin Lord.
The Stormcast really aren’t Sigmarines though, beyond superficial details. The Stormcast live full, mortal lives before being reforged. Compared to the Space Marines who are conscripted as literal children, barely even reaching double digits before being geneforged.
There’s also the fact unlike Space Marines, Stormcast are functionally immortal, since every time they die (barring certain weapons/situations), their souls return to the Forge to be re-crafted. It’s just they lose a piece of their humanity (could be a memory, or a piece of their personality) every time.
Really, the Stormcast bear more similarities to the Aeldari Wraith units than Space Marines.
I think (Still eyeing getting into AoS proper, myself. Can’t decide on an actual army. The Lumineth Realm-Lords are neat but enough time has passed without a whiff of release date that enthusiasm has cooled) the Tomb Kings model line has rolled into the Armies of Nagash “blanket” (Much in the same way Empire, Dwarf, and Elvish lines rolled into the Cities of Sigmar army). But yeah, you can’t really play them AS Tomb Kings any longer (And background fluff has Settra existing as a Stormcast now) so it is a bit skeevy.
But that’s Geedubs in a nutshell, really. I love the fact their big 40k “event” still has three books yet to go and they’ve gone an announced a brand new edition. Sure, the rules are going to translate up but still…really poor timing on their part.
I’ll be honest, when it comes right down to it I prefer the old Fantasy universe as opposed to Age of Sigmar. AoS is very High Fantasy and while the lore’s gotten better, WFB had 30 years worth of world building put into it compared to the five years AoS has.
Gripes about how the End Times were handled aside, Fantasy was definitely my favorite because things could be bleak in the setting without “throw your bodies against the futility of inevitability” levels of pointless. I actually got into the setting via Shadow of the Horned Rat which had clear stakes, amazing backdrops, relatively faithful mechanics for a PC game conversion and a cohesive story of world threatening proportions.
But that was it, you saved the day and went home. You didn’t save the day but oops the world still exploded lawl kek. I like a bit of gritty realism in my fantasy from time to time but the, say, “everything is doomed to fail and all victory is fleeting at best” model of Warhammer 40K and the End Times event is like trying to get into a book or movie when someone already told you the ending in detail. Sure I can appreciate a nice action scene now but none of your twists or character development matter when everyone’s going to just dissolve at the end of it.
Especially for anything that has an associated recurring cost. I’m down for Vermintide because I bought it once and I get to kill rats, chaos boys and horn-lads whenever I want but if (not snarking about the fate of WoW) someone told me they were planning on completely destroying the world after Shadowlands why the hell would I pay for the two years of leading up to it. I can’t immerse in that, and that’s how 40K feels for me in regards to doing anything other than firing up Dawn of War now and then or a kitchen table game with a friend using their minis.
I almost have this problem with Elder Scrolls Online as well, since it is effectively “Game Zero” for the series but the fact the Interregnum is just this giant mass of jumbled text whenever anyone tries to document it, I may know that ultimately some of these characters from Morrowind end up dying or being huge dookholes but I’m pretty free to have my experience during this tenure of broken time be whatever I want it to be.
I’m not really bummed since I’ve found the non-expansion annoucement cycles of Blizzcon to be usually boring or just hyping up content that’s usually been previewed on alpha/beta but some of the other games like Overwatch 2 development I’d like to hear more about.