View Single Post

Thread: If WH40K got the Bioware Treatment...

  1. - Top - End - #95
    Titan in the Playground
     
    LCP's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    UK

    Default Re: If WH40K got the Bioware Treatment...

    Okay, it's fairly clear that whenever I go outside the dedicated 40K Fluff thread, there aren't too many people who are aware how WH40K 'verse actually works.
    However, as some have pointed out - correctly, too - it is possible to do illegal things, without actually touching Chaos specifically. However, there are problems with this idea and no Black Library author to date is yet to get it right (and it's highly unlikely that we can either, here) without coming across as "Yeah, but my character is special". Because, as I said, when you do something that is wrong, and you know it's wrong...Chaos claps it's hands, and it will always bite you in the end. This is how the Universe works.

    Furthermore, when somebody says that they don't believe in the Emperor, or they don't believe he's a God. That is Heresy. And Heresy = Chaos. And, by not having the Emperor in your soul (remember that thing?) Chaos gets to you.
    Bollooooooooocks.

    First up: Chaos != Evil. It's not actions which are "morally wrong" that feed Chaos, it's actions that take people to psychological and emotional extremes. People who are given over to Chaos commit "evil" deeds because they chime with those extremes, not the other way round. Liber Chaotica has tons of great stuff on this.

    Secondly, Illegal != Evil. Under any moral code, it's possible to have a situation where the most moral choice is illegal; you just have to live under the wrong government. The Wrong Government is also a great description of Imperial rule in many cases.

    Two examples:
    • As portrayed on most planets, Imperial attitudes to social justice and property rights are horrendously backward and feudal. There is no clear rationale to this in terms of supporting the Imperial faith/war machine: the rich nobles/merchants who profit from this state of affairs seem just as liable to corruption and personal profiteering as the peasants whose faces they grind in the dirt. Breaking laws to redress these wrongs (say, doing some "creative" accounting) would usually be seen as morally right, and has little for Chaos to snack on.
    • The Imperium's overriding xenophobia is a precautionary principle, not an inherent moral value. There is nothing morally wrong (and nothing Chaotic either) about asking an Eldar for the time of day, but you would probably be shot for it.


    Thirdly, the galaxy is teeming with non-human races, major and minor, which don't implode into Chaos-tainted anarchy just because they don't worship the Emperor (not to mention human planets that survive in isolation from the Imperium). The Cult of the Emperor is the Imperium's way of keeping peoples' thoughts along party lines, for many reasons including but not limited to mitigating the influence of Chaos on society.

    The average Imperial citizen does not literally have some supernatural presence of "the Emperor in their soul"; they just have a set of beliefs. If the former was uniquely necessary as you portray it, then factions like the Craftworld Eldar would not exist. They'd just be gibbering collections of Chaos Spawn by now.

    You clearly have your own very hard-line interpretation of the metaphysics of Chaos, which is fine, but it's a bit much to tell the rest of us that we don't know what we're talking about and are doing it wrong because our interpretation differs. And I want to stress, "interpretation" is definitely the right world, because even the published materials are presented as subjective, in-universe sources. You yourself mention Black Library authors not "getting it right". Everybody has their own picture, and I think people would appreciate it if you didn't belittle them because their picture doesn't match every detail of yours.
    Last edited by LCP; 2012-10-22 at 05:49 AM.
    Spoiler: My Games
    Show

    WFRP 2E - Tales of Perilous Adventure
    The Hour After Midnight
    The Lord of Lost Heart
    Ill Met By Morrslieb

    Dark Heresy 1E - Wake of the Byzantium
    Episodes: I, II, III, IV, V

    WFRP 2E - The Bloody Crown
    Threads: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X