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> With all that said it is very amusing to see the British govt create a series of stamps that commemorate a game setting that could be summed up as "religious

• mustacheemperor 3y ago
  It certainly isn't, and that's especially obvious considering the origin of some of the lore figures like the "Dark Angels" led by "Lion El Johnson," or the heroic stronghold planet of "Caliban" being named after a gay club located down the street from the pub where the setting's original creators would hang out. Part of the point of 40k (which certainly DOES go over the head of some of the fanbase) is that the humans really are the bad guys. I mean, so are lots of other factions, but that's the dark future of the 41st millenium for you.
  • justrealist 3y ago
    > is that the humans really are the bad guys Ehhh... maybe that was the satirical intent in the 80s, but it's pretty clearly not true anymore. The Imperium as a whole kinda sucks, but Roboute Guilliman is simply a protagonist, there's no subtlety that the fanbase is missing.
    • bart_spoon 3y ago
      What's your point? Just because not every individual member of the faction is not evil doesn't make the faction not evil.
      • justrealist 3y ago
        "humans are the bad guys" is not accurate? But as a stronger statement, I don't think the Imperium is even presented as an evil faction anymore. The Inquisition is the darkest traditional faction, but look at their presentation in something new like Darktide. It's at worst morally comparable to a "grey" protagonist like the Punisher in other media.
        • LanceH 3y ago
          The empire of man is cruel in its indifference to individuals and humanity's future is certainly grim. But the work is ostensibly being done to preserve the existence of man.
        • mrguyorama 3y ago
          Humanity is "benevolent oppressive facism" (the "oppressive" part is NOT redundant) AT BEST
          • kergonath 3y ago
            It is not benevolent at all. The rulers have no qualm sacrificing entire stellar systems. There are strong “kill them all, God will know his own” vibes, and the Inquisition is nobody’s idea of the good guys.
          • justrealist 3y ago
            I feel like we're just playing with words here. "In newer 40k media, you are intended to root for humans working on behalf of the Imperium" is a true statement IMO. That makes them "the good guys", even if overall kind of crappy.
            • mrguyorama 3y ago
              Do you mean protagonist? The protagonist is not always the good guy
        • kergonath 3y ago
          > “humans are the bad guys" is not accurate? “Humans are the bad guys” does not imply that all humans are bad. Just that overall they are really not good. So pointing out one archetypal white knight type is not a refutation of the point.
          • ilyt 3y ago
            It's not accurate. Imperium is bad guys is more accurate. There are humans outside the Imperium too.
    • devjab 3y ago
      One of the first things the Rowboat does after coming out of his princess Aurora sleep is to dissolve democracy and replace it with a military dictatorship because he gets sick of free people not just following his opinion. This happens in the plague war trilogy by the way, and don’t worry, it’s not a major spoiler in any way. I guess some people can paint that as a good thing, but I think that for most people its pretty evil. It also plays a small part, however, with the bigger points of sarcasm and critical tone moving on to things like organised religion, fake news and manipulation of hearts and minds. I do agree that some, maybe even most, of the sarcasm targeting Reaganism that was the foundation for the lore back in the 80ies is weaker in the new official lore. But I think that is just because the current writers are moving on to make fun of more modern things like the anti-intellectuals you see on the far-right today. I do think they are much more successful with that in Age or Sigmar than in 40K, but I don’t think they are writing the imperium to be the good guys either. Sure some people will see “humans” as the good guys, and sure, a lot of the anti-fascism is going to be lost on some people, but it honestly always has been.
    • ilyt 3y ago
      Sure the particular units might not be considered evil but what Imperium does pretty much is. Xenos ? Purge without question, even if they are peaceful Human colony wanting to be just left alone ? Nope, can't have that, conquer and make them pay tribute. Mutated in wrong way ? Probably chaos, purge just in case. Human rights ? Only human right is to sacrifice life for Emperor. Sure the world requires such level of sacrifice just to survive the threats from rest of the universe but that doesn't make Imperium not evil Then again, every other major faction is too... maybe except Tyranids, they just hungry
  • gilleain 3y ago
    The only character in Warhammer who is unambiguously good is of course Kremlo.
  • bee_rider 3y ago
    IMO the fact that everyone is a bad guy, essentially, in 40k makes the satire less obvious. Because it is just a crap sack universe, the bad guy stuff they the Imperium does is too easy to write off as just necessary. IMO they should have made the Tau not evil (make the mind control vibes just imperial propaganda that is the result of actually encountering people motivated to do good). As it is, the Orks seem to be the least evil faction.
    • dataduck 3y ago
      I see where you're coming from, but... A lot of the stuff the Imperium does is not just evil but also stupidly counterproductive. Planets starving due to rounding errors in the filing system is hard to take as an endorsement. And I couldn't disagree more with the Tau, if anything I wish they had made them more sinister. Having a whole faction of non-tragic good guys in the setting really spoils the vibe. But the Orks - agree so hard. There's a quote in a Codex somewhere from an Eldar philosopher waxing on the point that the Orks are thriving and living their true lives, while the Eldar are decaying as a result of their own corruption and therefore the Orks are morally superior, and it rings quite true.
    • ilyt 3y ago
      > IMO the fact that everyone is a bad guy, essentially, in 40k makes the satire less obvious. Because it is just a crap sack universe, the bad guy stuff they the Imperium does is too easy to write off as just necessary. Well, it is written off like that in lore too. "We do bad things because war machine needs to be fed, because our entire existence depends on it" is recurring theme. Even the "good" Tau are pretty fucking bad when you start looking into their practices of casual eugenics... Frankly only non-evil-at-core one would be Tyranids which are only hungry
    • twic 3y ago
      According to their creator, the Tau are basically Tony Blair in space [1]: > As a bit of an analog for late 20th century / early 21st century western interventionist culture I've always assumed that the Greater Good is ultimately for the benefit of the T'au and if others get something out of that's just a bonus. The fact that they are even willing to work with other species is pretty unique and progressive among the factions of 40K, rather than rampant genodical, xenophobic armies. The thing about the Great Good is that it is, in the long term, as inflexible and authoritarian as the Imperial Creed or the all-consuming Tyranids. It still comes down to the Greater Good or Death (tm). I've tried not to make it too sinister being within the T'au sphere, though in the original Apocalypse book I introduced a variety of NATO-style innocuous three-letter-acronym formations, like Mobilised Hunter cadre, Dispersed Retaliation Cadre and Forward Commitment Contingent. None of them say 'battle' or 'war'... I cazn imagine the news back home is quite a sanitised version of the reality - like when we watched videos of 'smart' bombs and gun cameras blowing up stuff in Iraq but were totally unaware of what was really happening on the ground. You're right about the Orks, of course. They're just out there living their best life! #GreenBoySummer [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/b3pc01/qa_with_gav_thorpe/ https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/b3pc01/qa_with_gav...
  • tomatotomato37 3y ago
    Are there even any good factions in 40k, like at all? Closest I can see are the Tau, and even they have some weird caste eugenics shit going on.
    • atdrummond 3y ago
      I would argue Nurgle is chaotic neutral.
    • ilyt 3y ago
      Unironically Tyranids, while their creation was probably evil, in the end they are animals wanting to feed. Tau would be pretty fascist too
    • twic 3y ago
      Whole factions you can play as an army, no. But there are the Jokaero, who are techno-savant orang-utans who float about the universe in inexplicable spaceships making gadgets.
  • javajosh 3y ago
    40k was intentionally a satirical setting by the authors. Even so it's legitimate to ask why so many people (including those who understand it's satirical/critical nature) enjoy dwelling in a fantasy world of this sort. It is clearly very appealing - there are books and video games, and many people don't even play the table-top game but still collect and build the figures. Why? What is so appealing about theocratic fascism that people would choose to spend their free time and disposable income to dwell within it? IMHO it's no coincidence that the first human civilizations were autocratic. It's basically the default form of government. This is a very important, if uncomfortable truth. Too often liberal societies fool themselves into thinking that liberty "just happens" and is "inevitable", a feature of the natural world, requiring no effort from the individuals that compose it. This is not just foolish but destructive. It is why, for example, that fascism rises in democracies like the US even though the vast majority do not support it: the majority doesn't bother to vote, thinking they don't have to.
    • pigeons 3y ago
      Check out David Graeber and David Winslow's book, The Dawn of Everything regarding the autocratic default form of government assumption. Of course the books suggestions and conclusions are arguable, but I found it interesting.
    • robertlagrant 3y ago
      Check out Konstantin Kisin's a Love Letter To The West, for a perspective from someone who grew up under Socialism.
    • mortenjorck 3y ago
      For the most part, it's likely just the allure of roleplaying as the black hat, same as the GTA games. When some friends and I were really into Dawn of War for awhile, we often had a good laugh speaking to each other in the absolutist language of the Imperium. Perhaps there is also something a bit alluring in the fantasy of being a zealot, though. To be untroubled by the nuances of a complicated world, serving only as an extension of the Emperor's glorious might, has a certain perverse simplicity to it.
    • 3y ago
  • kergonath 3y ago
    > the humans really are the bad guys The fact that the Salamanders are praised because they think of the people before nuking a planet really does tell you quite a lot about the shining beacon of Humanity that the Adeptus Astartes are supposed to be. > I mean, so are lots of other factions, but that's the dark future of the 41st millenium for you. Basically, it’s a setting where there are no good guys. Except maybe the Tau, but nobody likes them anyway. The fact that humans are actually quite terrible from a moral perspective, and that most other factions have aspects you can sympathise with is actually very interesting, and makes the universe compelling. For example Nurgle followers really are benevolent good guys from their perspective, and that is very well documented. There is basically only the Drukhari (and tyranids, but that’s different because they have no moral compass whatsoever) that are really purely evil, even from their point of view.
  • twic 3y ago
    > the heroic stronghold planet of "Caliban" being named after a gay club located down the street from the pub where the setting's original creators would hang out This appears to be an urban myth. Nobody has ever managed to find any evidence that there was a gay club called Caliban or The Rock in Nottingham, or that anything was named after one. Lion El'Jonson, though, definitely: https://www.poeticous.com/lionel-johnson/the-dark-angel-dark-angel-with-thine-aching-lust https://www.poeticous.com/lionel-johnson/the-dark-angel-dark...
  • ilyt 3y ago
    > which certainly DOES go over the head of some of the fanbase Most times it's played as a joke. I mean I doubt there is a single living being that goes "yeah 40k imperium is such nice place to live as a normal human".
• colonelpopcorn 3y ago
  Sort of like how the second half of The Wall album by Pink Floyd isn't supposed to endorse national socialism, but Roger Waters was recently investigated for inciting hatred, so...ya know.
• mrguyorama 3y ago
  Some people actually get pretty invested in fictional facism and real Facists sometimes get invested in fictional facism because of the Facism. There are people for example on /empiredidnothingwrong that take it seriously. Artists can put significant effort into showing an ideology or something as "clearly the bad guys" and people will choose to ignore that. See for example, all the people yelling that Tom Morello is "getting political" and how the original star wars film was intentionally an anti-vietnam film.
  • ilyt 3y ago
    As every satire someone will take it as something genuine... Most are probably just roleplaying bad guys for fun but there is always someone that doesn't...
• babypuncher 3y ago
  It's a Starship Troopers problem. Most people recognize it as satire and have fun with it. A few loud people don't, and end up occasionally making the whole fanbase look bad as a result.
  • Vecr 3y ago
    I think the humans in Starship Troopers (even in the (first) movie) are the good guys. What do you expect a humanity fighting an existential war to look like exactly? Current-day Ukraine under what is pretty much martial law is not exactly a liberal utopia.
    • babypuncher 3y ago
      My reading of the film was that the aliens did not pose an existential threat to humanity, UCF propaganda just made it seem that way. Verhoeven draws clear parallels between Earth's military government and Nazi Germany throughout the movie.
• Barrin92 3y ago
  Endorsement always happens at the aesthetic level, there's never anything explicitly political about fascist work. Take Fight Club which you're 'supposed to' take as criticism of explosive violence but it still basks in it. Or superficially anti-war movies like Black Hawk Down which are basically war porn aesthetically. The Young Pope is another good recent example. Superficially it's satire but on every other level obviously sympathetic to what it portrays.
• slickrick216 3y ago
  In the grim darkness of the present no one gets the context.