Horus Heresy series - Why is Chaos presented as the more reasonable side?

[MvS]

You know, the more I'm thinking about this the more I end up rooting for the "evil" side.
What does the Imperium really has to offer (contrary to what it pretends to offer)?

- Freedom: too many loop-holes....not that there is any freedom to be had for the run-of-the-mill citizen.

To be fair, the Imperium during the Great Crusade was a lot better than the Imperium in 40K. There are multiple examples of this. So freedom for run-off-the-mill citizens would be more possible then than now. Or at least LIBERTY, which isn't quite the same as freedom. Freedom is an illusion.

Also bear in mind that the Emperor is playing a longer game. He is trying to assure that humanity survives while it evolves into a psychic species. He doesn't want humanity to destroy itself (like it came close to doing in the Age of Strife) and he certainly doesn't want humanity to go the same way as the Eldar through Chaos predation. These factors are his 'end game' not just some sort of notional democratic utopia. The Great Crusade was just the second step on a long road 9after the Unification wars).

- While we're at it let's kick ethics and moral codes out right away. They don't have any bearing on survival anyway and are subject to fluid changes.

Not as much as you assume. The fundamentals tend to remain the same regardless of Age or civilisation. However, even if they didn't, respecting the moral codes of the civilisation you wish to conquer or join forces with is vital to any such process - unless of course you want to face endless guerrilla warfare / terrorism from your malcontented subordinate population.

Opportunity for advancing ones station? Not unless you're born into the right family, whereas you can advance on the dark side IF you've got what it takes...of course it'll be like step-dancing in a mine field but Imperial politics are all kinds of deadly,too.

I'll refer back to point one above.

I'll also add that even success through Chaos is slavery. You may have incredible power, but you are subject to the whims of the deity you owe your powers to, or indeed to any greater entity than you. And these entities aren't just other 'people' who can be reasoned with, they are often just conscious emotions and concepts that can't be negotiated with any more than a dictionary can be.

- Survival? Uhu... a lot of human and xenos territories seem to do perfectly fine; they just follow a different set of rules. "Different" shouldn't be confused with "wrong" here!

Only when taken under the wing of those xenos or when they form confederations. Even then this doesn't get past the problem of humanity's slow awakening into a fully and powerful psychic species. There's many a slip between the cup and the mouth.

If the Eldar couldn't manage the darkness that grew within them because of their near limitless power merged with their psychic potential, why assume humanity would do any better if it embraced Chaos?

- What else? Oh yeah, our IMMORTAL SOULS!!1! There's a pretty little fact no-one took into account! The soul of an Emperor-fearing citizen isn't magically saved from the Dark Gods' clutches,

True, but it might be, depending on the strength of the faith of the person in question and the nature of the post-Heresy Emperor.

There is a reason Eldar all wear wraithbone pendands, you know... And why Deldar go on slave raids apart from them just being jerks. etc.

Yes.... they fell to Chaos and now there is a Chaos God who is fundamentally attached to them. A god who their souls automatically go to before any other fate because they actually MADE that god. Slaanesh ownstheir souls and all they can hope to do is pay him off endlessly while massive interest accrues, or else try to cheat Slaanesh by hiding their souls when the bailiffs come to collect.

The Eldar are excellent evidence of the dangers of Chaos to psychic species.

- While being on the Dark Side you might fail upwards 'till you reach daemonhood and/or become immortal; in which case your soul is as save as you can possibly be.

I refer back to point three above.

You may be genuinely immortal, but you are bound to rules that you can't break, stuck 'playing' the Great Game or endlessly trying to break back into Realspace in order to achieve anything meaningful. Or you're absorbed or destroyed by a more powerful entity.

- Besides, I much prefere half-truths to being outright lied to. Just a personal preference, mind.

The difference is one of sophistry.

[Juggernaut101]

To be fair, the Imperium during the Great Crusade was a lot better than the Imperium in 40K. There are multiple examples of this. So freedom for run-off-the-mill citizens would be more possible then than now. Or at least LIBERTY, which isn't quite the same as freedom. Freedom is an illusion.

Also bear in mind that the Emperor is playing a longer game. he is trying to assure that humanity survives while it evolves into a psychic species. He doesn't want humanity to destroy itself (like it came close to doing in the Age of Strife) and he certainly doesn't want humanity to go the same way as the Eldar through Chaos predation. These factors are his 'end game' not just some sort of notional democratic utopia. The Great Crusade was just the second step on a long road 9after the Unification wars).

Absulutely no argument here.

Not as much as you assume. The fundamentals tend to remain the same regardless of Age or civilisation. However, even if they didn't, respecting the moral codes of the civilisation you wish to conquer or join forces is vital to any such process - unless of course you want to face endless guerrilla warfare / terrorism against your malcontented subordinate population.

I would agree with you if this debate would be based on real life.
But in 40k??? The Imperium doesn't give give a damn about indigenous cultures they usurp. They might turn a blind eye towards some of the less questionable cult practices (all is super-duper as long as they can somehow fit it into the creed) and they let the indigs do whatever they want as long as it fits the "Imperial Template" read : worship, tithes, military service and blind obedience.

I wanted to leave morals/ethics (and in the wider sense "civilization") out of the discussion because there already are marked differences between Imperial words alone. Throw "Chaos" into the mix and you have a total quagmire...
These things are based on a culture's POV and its current level of refinement. Seeing that the Imperium is an agglomeration of radically different (as in opposed) cultures, a good number of them will only be able to agree upon the most basic codes like:"Thou shall not eat thy own children unless thy need is most dire!"

I'll refer back to point one above.

I'll also add that even success through Chaos is slavery. You may have incredible power, but you are subject to the whims of the deity you owe your powers to, or indeed to any greater entity than you. And these entities aren't just other 'people' who can be reasoned with, they are often just conscious emotions and concepts that can be negotiated with any more than a dictionary can be.

Well, d'oh!
Of course it is... I'm just saying that with "Chaos" you at least get a chance. Do you honestly think that it is such a big difference to WHOM you actually defer to, be it Emperor or Warp Spawn? Sure the Emperor doesn't smithe you down himself but he has a lot of rather well indoctrinated cronies who are more than willing to do the job. At the end of the day you're toast if you screw up. And I seriously doubt that you can argue with an Arbites before you get your skull caved in by a power maul

Only when taken under the wing of those xenos or when they form confederations. Even then this doesn't get past the problem of humanity's slow awakening into a fully and powerful psychic species. There's many a slip between the cup and the mouth.

If the Eldar couldn't manage the darkness that grew within them because of their near limitless power merged with their psychic potential, why assume humanity would do any better if it embraced Chaos?

I wasn't refering to any human/xenos confederations. I was pointing out that, human and xenos alike, don't cease to exist as a society just because the turned to the warp. There is an old BL book (sry, the name eludes me atm) which portrayed the life of (presumably) humans which lived on a chaos planet for generations when the Imperium attacked the planet. They lived a perfectly "normal" life in a functioning society. They took care of their kids, were totally stoked when one of them received a gift from their god, tilled the land and went to worship regularly (warp deity #7729, the one from the left).
They also had psychers... and those didn't seem to be possessed (IIRC).
But yes, the psychic awakening will pose a problem I just fail to see the problem in turning to chaos. Psychic potential is a great boon for chaos worshippers whereas most of the Imperial ones will be fed to the Emperor if the Black Ships catch them. Being in the good side seems to be at least as lethal as the possibility of possession is for the un-bonded/trained pscher. So you know, at the end of the day chaos at least doesn't impede the evolution.

As far as the Eldar are concerned, the little domestic desaster wasn't just due to them being psychers, although it played a huge part. They also happend to be an utterly degenerate society focusing on nothing but hedonistic pursuit. They really should have known better. Creating a whole new deity was epic on a galactic scale.
On the bright side, the Imperium has pulled genocidal, bigoted, careless, grade-A BS for over 40k years (with an ever growing number of psychers) and we're still good

True, but it might be, depending on the strength of the faith of the person in question and the nature of the post-Heresy Emperor.

True, but there are a lot of assumptions in that post and you know what they say about that one.

Yes.... they fell to Chaos and now there is a Chaos God who is fundamentally attached to them. A god who their souls automatically go to before any other fate because they actually MADE that god. Slaanesh ownstheir souls and all they can hope to do is pay him off endlessly while massive interest accrues, or else try to cheat Slaanesh by hiding their souls when the bailiffs come to collect.

The Eldar are excellent evidence of the dangers of Chaos to psychic species.

I love how you described that, kudos!
Of course there are dangers, grave ones. I just don't ever see humanity pulling such a stunt like the Eldar. As a race we're pretty much free-for-all as far as the warp is concerned. I honestly think humanity would be (largely)ok IF they concentrated more on understanding and handling the gift instead of being scared witless and psychers being treated like lepers. Half the deal is attitude but human psychers have a hard time getting one.

I refer back to point three above.

You may be genuinely immortal, but you are bound to rules that you can't break, stuck 'playing' the Great Game or endlessly trying to break back into Realspace in order to achieve anything meaningful. Or you're absorbed or destroyed by a more powerful entity.

Always two sides to a medal...as you said, freedom doesn't equal liberty. Still better than your soul getting sucked into the warp after you die and made the bee otch of some warp spawn for sure.
But then I've always advocated a fighting chance when one finds himself between a rock and a hard place

The difference is one of sophistry.

LOL, good one, kudos again!

Juggernaut

PS: I think the book I was refering to earlier might have been "Pawns of Chaos". I'm not really sure,though. It has been a while.

[anyone4tea?]

We haven't yet seen the Chaos side. There've been a lot of good reasons to turn against the Emperor, but not a lot of good reasons to turn to Chaos. Lots of traitors, very few heretics - so far.

Surely dancing around on a stage cavorting with daemonettes in between painting pictures of yourself with your own poop and blood is a little insight into the mind of Fulgrim and ultimately... Chaos.

I definitely found Fulgrim one of the best/most disturbing books I've ever read. In fact I would wager reading Horus Heresy is bad for your mental health! Luckily, that's not a commodity I cherish.


Anyone for tea?

[MvS]

The Imperium doesn't give give a damn about indigenous cultures they usurp. They might turn a blind eye towards some of the less questionable cult practices (all is super-duper as long as they can somehow fit it into the creed) and they let the indigs do whatever they want as long as it fits the "Imperial Template" read : worship, tithes, military service and blind obedience.

Ah! I thought we were talking about the Imperium of the Great Crusade in the Horus Heresy series, not the contemporary version. My mistake.

Just to run with that point though, I was thinking more along the lines of how the conversion to Imperial Truth during the Crusade took place and how the populations were after this process had been normalised, rather than suggesting that there was much freedom to choose ideology after Imperial conquest.

So, for instance, the conversion of western Europe to Christianity wasn't by the sword per se, it was by constantly exposing the indigenous cultures to the new ideology at a grass roots level. The persecutions of non-Christians came much, much later after monarchs started to declare themselves divinely mandated and so requiring the enforcement of the 'new' religion and ideology on non believers. The monarch's authority and the new religion became one and the same. I'm not saying that the Imperium only preached changes during the Crusade, they obviously also enforced them very harshly in many contexts. My point was that the approach was multi-tiered, and even then, after conquest and normalisation of the new ideology, the question we need to ask is how the population saw themselves. Did they feel in control of their own destinies within the context of the Imperium? Or, at least, did they feel that they had been treated honourably by their enemies?

Obviously in the cases on Angron and Curze the answers to these questions are probably 'no', but I think the image we're given of the Great Crusade is that the Imperium of the Great Crusade era went to great lengths to justify itself through both word and deed. So by being consistent with their (non-tainted human) enemies and treating them honourably, so that when these societies were finally conquered they didn't just feel that they had been bulldozed by an evil oppressor who treats them like scum. The idea was a little bit more like the older image of the Tau Greater Good - "we conquer you in order to bring everyone together into the same grand project of collective security and 'enlightenment' - you may not see it yet, but judge us by our works after bringing you in to the Imperial fold, not just by the fact we warred against you in the first place".

I wanted to leave morals/ethics (and in the wider sense "civilization") out of the discussion because there already are marked differences between Imperial words alone.

My point was regardless of these cultural differences, but fair enough.

Of course it is... I'm just saying that with "Chaos" you at least get a chance. Do you honestly think that it is such a big difference to WHOM you actually defer to, be it Emperor or Warp Spawn?

Most definitely!

Whereas we can kind of put ourselves into the place of a human existing within a suppressive totalitarian state, the only way we could possibly come close to understanding what it would be like to get wrapped up with daemons and daemon gods would be to try to put ourselves into the place of people from myths and religions where suffering at every possible level and more is an option, for eternity. In other words we couldn't imagine it.

The horror presented by Chaos to mortals (Mind, body and soul) far exceeds even the most diseased imaginings of the most hardline and insane Inquisitor. That's the point of Chaos as a device in the imagery. It is incomprehensibly dangerous, corrupting and eternal.

But again, I was referring to the discussion about the Great Crusade Imperium versus Chaos, not the horrendous modern Imperium. Crossed wires and all that.

I wasn't refering to any human/xenos confederations. I was pointing out that, human and xenos alike, don't cease to exist as a society just because the turned to the warp. There is an old BL book (sry, the name eludes me atm) which portrayed the life of (presumably) humans which lived on a chaos planet for generations when the Imperium attacked the planet. They lived a perfectly "normal" life in a functioning society. They took care of their kids, were totally stoked when one of them received a gift from their god, tilled the land and went to worship regularly (warp deity #7729, the one from the left).

That would be a rarity though. Seriously. Also, it tells us nothing of what might happen to those people's souls after mortal death. The idea of that writer was an attempt to show the brutality of the Imperium and how the setting isn't just 'goodies vs. baddies', but the danger is to take the example too far and suggest that this is what any Chaos-bound society would look like. It's also worth mentioning that the Chaos Gods don't simply respond to every prayer or act of worship. There are many more Chaos cultists than there are those with magical powers, blessings or contact with their divinities. You really have to impress a Chaos God, or be vital to their plans, in order to attract their attention much.

Granted they want to encourage societies to turn to their worship, but that's because it just broadens the pool of potentially useful (or particularly edible) mortals. To truly serve and attract the Chaos Gods you have to promote and actually live what they embody themselves. So it's hard to live in a society when you want to promote its decay and the disease amongst everyone within it. Or likewise, you can't form much of a society based on fury, rage and blood letting, and so on.

Remember though, the vast majority of peoples and species described as being dedicated to Chaos within the 40K imagery are mutated and/or unutterably corrupted (in terms of the extremity of their actions towards each other).

They also had psychers... and those didn't seem to be possessed (IIRC).

They don't all have to be possessed to be dangerously tainted by Chaos or to act as a beacon to attract dangerous Warp predators. But again, don't judge the whole concept by one writer's (admittedly interesting) idea.

But yes, the psychic awakening will pose a problem I just fail to see the problem in turning to chaos. Psychic potential is a great boon for chaos worshippers whereas most of the Imperial ones will be fed to the Emperor if the Black Ships catch them. Being in the good side seems to be at least as lethal as the possibility of possession is for the un-bonded/trained pscher. So you know, at the end of the day chaos at least doesn't impede the evolution.

This comes back to what I thought we were discussing. Not many within the Imperium know that humanity will one day be entirely psychic (if it survives). The Emperor, while he was still alive, had lived through the horror of the Age of Strife where there had been a massive increase in psykers. Humanity tore itself apart, not just through daemonic possession, but through sorcery and the taint of Chaos more generally - and also through weakness of character. If I can already topple cities with the powers I was born with and if I enjoy doing so, why would I turn my nose up at the possibility of toppling worlds if such a thing was promised to me by a some magical genie (daemon) or benign seeming god?

The Emperor was trying to keep humanity alive through this difficult evolution, but also untainted by Chaos and with an enlightenment that would mean psychic humans didn't all turn into insane megalomaniac dicks. Chaos would certainly aid the development of psykers (amongst many other things), but wouldn't at all be worried about madness or the decay of society, just so long at the souls and emotions that feed the entities of Chaos keep on flooding through.

As far as the Eldar are concerned, the little domestic desaster wasn't just due to them being psychers, although it played a huge part. They also happend to be an utterly degenerate society focusing on nothing but hedonistic pursuit. They really should have known better. Creating a whole new deity was epic on a galactic scale.

I appreciate the levity but it isn't really as simple as that now is it.

On the bright side, the Imperium has pulled genocidal, bigoted, careless, grade-A BS for over 40k years (with an ever growing number of psychers) and we're still good

Are they though? Are they...?

*cue spooky sound effects*

True, but there are a lot of assumptions in that post and you know what they say about that one.

I do, very well indeed!

I just don't ever see humanity pulling such a stunt like the Eldar.

Perhaps, but we can't know that.

As a race we're pretty much free-for-all as far as the warp is concerned. I honestly think humanity would be (largely)ok IF they concentrated more on understanding and handling the gift instead of being scared witless and psychers being treated like lepers. Half the deal is attitude but human psychers have a hard time getting one.

Absolutely agree, although learning to handle the gift and live with psykers is different from embracing Chaos, as indeed the stable and sanctioned pykers of the Imperium show.

Always two sides to a medal...as you said, freedom doesn't equal liberty. Still better than your soul getting sucked into the warp after you die and made the bee otch of some warp spawn for sure. But then I've always advocated a fighting chance when one finds himself between a rock and a hard place

Ah yes, but then I think I would prefer a fighting chance as a mortal in control of my own conscience and destiny, even if it's just to try to smuggle myself onto a freighter in the hopes of finding a better life but failing. If I die, if I'm not a psyker my soul will just melt into the Warp (providing I haven't succeeded in dedicating myself to some daemon of another). There's a much greater chance of me upsetting daemons and Gods if I fool around with their spooky hoodoo, and even if I don't upset them and somehow manage to succeed in a life of utter horror until they make me an immortal daemon, then my conscience isn't my own at all. I'm bound to a god. I'm an immortal slave who can't even choose the freedom of my own death.

So there.

LOL, good one, kudos again!

PS: I think the book I was refering to earlier might have been "Pawns of Chaos". I'm not really sure,though. It has been a while.

I think I remember the story.

[Juggernaut101]

[QUOTE=MvS;6256622]

Ah! I thought we were talking about the Imperium of the Great Crusade in the Horus Heresy series, not the contemporary version. My mistake.

Just to run with that point though, I was thinking more along the lines of how the conversion to Imperial Truth during the Crusade took place and how the populations were after this process had been normalised, rather than suggesting that there was much freedom to choose ideology after Imperial conquest.

So, for instance, the conversion of western Europe to Christianity wasn't by the sword per se, it was by constantly exposing the indigenous cultures to the new ideology at a grass roots level. The persecutions of non-Christians came much, much later after monarchs started to declare themselves divinely mandated and so requiring the enforcement of the 'new' religion and ideology on non believers. The monarch's authority and the new religion became one and the same. I'm not saying that the Imperium only preached changes during the Crusade, they obviously also enforced them very harshly in many contexts. My point was that the approach was multi-tiered, and even then, after conquest and normalisation of the new ideology, the question we need to ask is how the population saw themselves. Did they feel in control of their own destinies within the context of the Imperium? Or, at least, did they feel that they had been treated honourably by their enemies?

Obviously in the cases on Angron and Curze the answers to these questions are probably 'no', but I think the image we're given of the Great Crusade is that the Imperium of the Great Crusade era went to great lengths to justify itself through both word and deed. So by being consistent with their (non-tainted human) enemies and treating them honourably, so that when these societies were finally conquered they didn't just feel that they had been bulldozed by an evil oppressor who treats them like scum. The idea was a little bit more like the older image of the Tau Greater Good - "we conquer you in order to bring everyone together into the same grand project of collective security and 'enlightenment' - you may not see it yet, but judge us by our works after bringing you in to the Imperial fold, not just by the fact we warred against you in the first place".

Yeah,sorry I got carried away with that one.
But it takes us straight back to "it depends"... Is it ethical (=good) for a conqueror to impose his norms on the conquered? There are similarities between the crusade and our colonial times. The difference is the incredible propaganda machine the crusade was bringing to bear.
Unless the newly discovered lost colony was clearly opposed to reunification (or the part of the crusades was led by one of the less stable primarchs) the propaganda department could go to work and show the indigs just how great the Imperial Truth was. And back then it had a lot to offer: enlightenment, technology, security and most important of all the knowledge that you aren't alone any more. Some raiders might be willing to attack a lone world but taking on an empire is out of the question. The only thing they had to do was to defer to Imperial authority and form a few regiments to help with enlightening the galaxy. Of course they did that gladly; I mean their new leader was a super-human, what could possibly go wrong?
The problem stems from all the worlds which did great by themselves. They didn't need or want some super empire to rule them. They were all annihilated because even then the Imperium had a clear black and white view on things. You are with us or you are against us. Utterly stupid in my book. The amount of knowledge lost must have been mind boggling. Sure, some of those societies were outright incompatible with the Imperial Truth but others just wanted to be left alone. Did the empire try to form some kind of coalition with them (read: assimilation through a prolonged co-existence and outright infiltration)? No, they were just curb-stomped. Kinda hard to justify that in my book...

That would be a rarity though. Seriously. Also, it tells us nothing of what might happen to those people's souls after mortal death. The idea of that writer was an attempt to show the brutality of the Imperium and how the setting isn't just 'goodies vs. baddies', but the danger is to take the example too far and suggest that this is what any Chaos-bound society would look like. It's also worth mentioning that the Chaos Gods don't simply respond to every prayer or act of worship. There are many more Chaos cultists than there are those with magical powers, blessings or contact with their divinities. You really have to impress a Chaos God, or be vital to their plans, in order to attract their attention much.

Granted they want to encourage societies to turn to their worship, but that's because it just broadens the pool of potentially useful (or particularly edible) mortals. To truly serve and attract the Chaos Gods you have to promote and actually live what they embody themselves. So it's hard to live in a society when you want to promote its decay and the disease amongst everyone within it. Or likewise, you can't form much of a society based on fury, rage and blood letting, and so on.

Remember though, the vast majority of peoples and species described as being dedicated to Chaos within the 40K imagery are mutated and/or unutterably corrupted (in terms of the extremity of their actions towards each other).

I agree...from the Imperial POV :-)

They don't all have to be possessed to be dangerously tainted by Chaos or to act as a beacon to attract dangerous Warp predators. But again, don't judge the whole concept by one writer's (admittedly interesting) idea.

I don't but it offers an interesting angle on things.

This comes back to what i though we were discussing. Not many within the Imperium know that humanity will one day be entirely psychic (if it survives). The Emperor, while he was still alive, had lived through the horror of the Age of Strife where there had been a massive increase in psykers. Humanity tore itself apart, not just through daemonic possession, but through sorcery and the taint of Chaos more generally - and also through weakness of character. If I can already topple cities with the powers I was born with and if I enjoy doing so, why would I turn my nose up at the possibility of toppling worlds if such a thing was promised to me by a some magical genie (daemon) or benign seeming god?

The Emperor was trying to keep humanity alive through this difficult evolution, but also untainted by Chaos and with an enlightenment that would mean psychic humans didn't all turn into insane megalomaniac dicks. Chaos would certainly aid the development of psykers 9amongst many other things), but wouldn't at all be worried about madness or the decay of society, just so long at the souls and emotions that feed the entities of Chaos keep on flooding through.

Very true. I just never understood what big E had planned. Enlightening his subordinates to cold science as opposed to religious bogus was a great step into preventing humans from being totally overcome with primal fear when s.o. screems DAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!! A lot of their power stems from the primal reaction to them; it would be diminished if the reaction to them would be more along the lines of:" Oh, an extra- dimensional being! Fascinating...now go away."
Of course all that went down the drain when the Emperor "died". Sigh.

But then he DID try to get access to the webway, that would have helped things along quite nicely I imagine.

I appreciate the levity but it isn't really as simple as that now is it.

No it isn't and I would really love to know what happened exacly. But are those ******* telling us? No, they whine all day long instead of doing something usefull for once. If humanity goes nuclear some day (psyker wise) then I really hope these annoying brats are still around so that we can rub it in

Are they though? Are they...?

*cue spooky sound effects*

Haha, classic.

Perhaps, but we can't know that.

And that's why I really want to know WHAT happened. Still, (IMHO) we aren't the biggest screw-ups in the galaxy...for now.

Absolutely agree, although learning to handle the gift and live with psykers is different from embracing Chaos, as indeed the stable and sanctioned pykers of the Imperium show.

Yes but the Imperium burns through psykers faster than most of them can spread their genes. See the problem?

Ah yes, but then I think I would prefer a fighting chance as a mortal inc control of my own conscience and destiny, even if it's just to try to smuggle myself onto a freighter in the hopes of finding a better life but failing. If I die, if I'm not a psyker my soul will just melt into the Warp (providing I haven't succeeded in dedicating myself to some daemon of another). There's a much greater chance of me upsetting daemons and Gods if I fool around with their spooky hoodoo, and even if I don't upset then and somehow manage to succeed in a life of utter horror until they make me an immortal daemon, then my conscience isn't my own at all. I'm bound to a god. I'm an immortal slave who can't even choose the freedom of my own death.

So there.

I didn't take soul-diffusion into accountt when I thought about that, mea culpa. Though my arguement still stands as far as psykers are concerned.

Juggernaut

[ashmanq]

After reading through this thread I thought I'd give my thoughts on the matter.

One thing I feel about the warhammer 40k world and the time during the Horus Heresy is that at first it seems clear who the good and bad guys are but then things start to get blurred the more you find out. You get hints that the Emperor is not the nice guy he portrays himself to be (in "Legion" the human in the cabal momentary seeing the emperors thoughts and the thunder warrior in "The Outcast Dead" talking of how the emperor had all the thunder warriors killed so that it looked like he won the final unification war single handedly).

I'm sure I read somewhere (Wiki?) that the emperor originates from the ancient shaman of earth who were able to manipulate the warp (ancient psykers?) and it was they who saw the warp being affected by the negative emotions of humans and they were loosing their powers so they commited mass group suicide to reincarnate all of themselves into what is now known of the emperor. Looking at things from that point of view the emperor has lived for many millenia seeing how the world has progressed without taking a pivotal role (probably manipulating things from the sidelines) and it was only after the Age of Strife that the emperor decided to take a leading role in shaping humanities future feeling that things were going so badly he had to.

If his sole purpose is to ensure the survival of humanity and stopping its slow fall to chaos (accelerated due to humanities eventual evolution to psykerness) then its understandable why he would go to extreme lengths that are morally questionable (to say the least) to ensure this. The crushing of all religious groupsand any belief in anything supernatural seems like a natural thing to stop the masses from getting embroyled in the likes of chaos. You will enevitably get random cults and the odd uncontrollable psyker but these are easier to control (with brute force) than a whole race open to the predations of the chaos.

Enforcing brute force ensures his goals in a way that is controllable. You cant control freedom or people who have freedom. The emperor also seems to be a xenephobe in that he doesnt tolerate those cultures that collaborate extensivley with aliens. Its like you have given a being who has an unexhaustable desire to ensure humanities existence in the galaxy the power of a God. He may be forgiving, caring, open minded, unmatched in intelligence and charisma but when it comes to something...anything that could possibly affect humanities survival in the short or long term he destroys it with extreme prejudice. I guess this might be because of his knowledge of chaos and that it is so powerful that it is almost certain that in the end chaos will win. Combining this knowledge with a fierce desire to ensure humanities eternal survival makes for a pretty determined if not paranoid person.

The emperor and chaos seem to be playing for the end game they are both immortal atleast the emperor potentially can live forever and both have existed for a very very long time. In some BL books I have read of chaos posessing people and making them to be saints to the people...contrary to what people would think..all because it serves and end purpose that might be tens/hundreds/thousands of years in the future. So when it comes to things like primarchs not being happy with their daddy the emperor isnt too concerned though things like that have ended up helping the foundations of civil war take route which i would have thought the emperor would have foreseen.

In the end I personally think neither chaos nor the emperor care as much for the individual person and just want what it is they desire. The emperor demanding the survival of humanity and chaos wanting infinite food for the chaos gods of the warp. The primarchs, astartes and humanity as a whole are just pieces on a chess board in a game between gods. There is no good or bad side as such just war because even if the crusade was successful and the emperor did manage to tap the eldar webway the chaos gods of the warp would still exist. Chaos will always exist and so to exist would be to continously have to fight against Chaos even if they hadnt sparked the horus heresy.

[Phoebus]

Hi all.

I've been reading the Horus Heresy avidly. However, I'm curious.

In almost every instance I can think of, the primarchs who support the forces of Chaos are depicted as more reasonable and rational than the servants of the Empire.

I disagree with this basic premise. See below.

The deamons that appear to them always appear open, honest and reasonable. I know they are supposed to appear so, but usually they seem to be actually telling the truth - That the Emperor has lied about the nature of the warp, that the Emperor would probably dispose of the Primarchs and SMs once the galaxy was won and hand control back to mortal humanity.

But that's only half the story. Erebus, for instance, orchestrates an elaborate series of deceptions and traps that result in Horus being lured into a trance. In it, he is convinced to turn against the Emperor by being shown a future that's implied to be the Emperor's doing... but is in fact exactly what will result if Horus rebels. That Erebus probably doesn't know that this is the case makes it even more hilarious.

The servants of the Emperor always seem like a bunch of idiots. Russ, who is easily manipulated and blindly destroys a misguided but loyal legion, driving them to really rebel; The Lion, who has the empathy and people management skills of your average spoon; Dorn, who can't stop worrying about things - ever (You're a primarch, 'man' up, for Emperor's sake...). Guiliman seems ok, but a bit superior. The rest, easily suckered in by all and any plot against them. Even the Emperor seems to have only the vaguest clue as to what he is doing - all powerful, but in serious need of a vist from Super Nanny.

And by contrast, you have:

1. Fulgrim, who was manipulated by a daemon captured within a sword.
2. Perturabo, who is also hinted as having been manipulated by a tainted weapon, and who was by no means "more personable" than the Lion.
3. Night Haunter, who was a sociopath.
4. Angron, who was broken beyond repair by the Butcher's Nails.
5. Mortarion, arguably an X factor but in no way "better" than most of the Loyalist Primarchs.
6. Magnus, who didn't even want to turn against the Emperor.
7. Horus, who needed to be manipulated into turning against the Emperor.
8. Lorgar, who was the arch-manulator of them all.
9. Alpharius and Omegon, who ostensibly didn't even buy into Chaos (to begin with, at least).

Only in Fulgrim did I feel any sort of sympathy for a character being manipulated into descending to Chaos. For everyone else, it's actually been written as if it was entirely justified. Not that the character is made to feel justified, blind to what we, the reader, can see is the truth, but that they REALLY are justified.

How on earth so?

In "Prince of Crows", finally we have someone standing up to the Night Haunter and saying what should be blatantly obvious for anyone who ISN'T a sociopath - that his terror tactics were absurd. Angron was a butcher and a genocidal maniac before anyone sought to combine his desires with a religious calling. Even if you somehow believe that the Emperor was wrong to knock him unconscious following Angron's unprovoked attack (see "After Desh'ea") and rescue him from certain death, there's no way you can justify Angron's murder of entire planetary populations on account of his "daddy issues". Where Mortarion is concerned, you can't say he's justified because we don't even know why he turned yet.

Add to that that all the Primarchs seem a bit numpty-ish, what ever side they are on. The architects of the Heresy actually seem to be Kor Phaeron and Erebus, with Lorgar (and in turn Horus et al) manipulated very successfully by them, effectively pulling the wool over the eyes over the eyes of the supposed greatest minds in all humanity save the Emperor himself. Who seems to not have been to aware of what was going on anyway...

You realize that this kind of sinks the whole notion of Chaos being "reasonable", right?

By those standards, Hitler was reasonable all the way up to the fall of 1939. Sure, he was selling ridiculous lies to England, Russia, and France (about the natural need for the enlargement of Germany, etc.), but it sounded good, right?

So, my question is this; am I alone in finding it hard to be sympathetic with the 'good guys'?

At the end of the day, it's kind of hard to sympathize with many of the Primarchs - on both sides. For instance, I got done reading "Feat of Iron" by Nick Kyme and I found it impossible to like Ferrus Manus (absent a couple of paragraphs describing his reminiscing) and his Iron Hands. The thing is, though, most of these guys are supposed to be flawed warlords. Very few of them are able to be plausibly noble because very few of them had a chance to be that man. A few more were able to become something more than their adopted homeworld gave them a chance to be. And some of them combine the good with the bad.

So you have the Lion, who is distant and unable to always understand his fellow mortal man... but who nonetheless strives for good and believes in the tenets of honor. You have Dorn, who is capable of great rages, but who is the soul of loyalty and who is driven by love for his father and brothers. You have Sanguinius, who is described as "the best" of the Primarchs - a warlord capable of grave and terrible things, but nonetheless one who possesses a good soul, a conscience, and who does what he does out of a desire for a better future for his species. You have Guilliman, who certainly embodies the benevolent, just, and fair "dictator" (without the modern connotations of the word). You have Vulkan, who has always been described as being a friend to man and a defender of those weaker than he. You have Corax, whose very being was shaped by the struggle for freedom against one's oppressors.

With that in mind, I think it's kind of hard to say that the Loyalists are defined by Russ, the Khan, or Ferrus Manus (I name those three because I don't share your opinions of the Lion, Dorn, etc.)... especially when you're also asking me to ignore the decidedly unsympathetic, unreasonable, etc., Primarchs among the Traitors.

[ryng_sting]

I don't think many would describe Angron, Kurze, post-Laer Fulgrim or Lorgar as either 'rational' or 'reasonable.'

[Palvinore]

The freedom that Chaos offers is the freedom of the jungle. It is the freedom to starve or be exploited and preyed upon by those stronger, faster, or more cunning. It can be the freedom to do the same to others. In that sense it can be both good or bad. For societies though, it would be bad for all except those that claw their ways to the top of the pyramid, and chances are most people are not going to be there but be among the downtrodden. The daemon world societies we get glimpses of seem to be a simple might makes right, with often Chaos Space Marines forming a privileged class led by their various champions.

Compared to the Imperium though, there is that remote fleeting chance at soaring to power and even immortality, albeit then joining the pyramid of power of a Chaos god's daemonic minions. Or perhaps one could be a minor free agent as an unaligned daemon prince.

Ultimately however I disagree with those that claim Chaos would mean definite death and annihilation of humanity. As shown by the existence of Chaos dominated societies within the Eye of Terror, the RPG Black Crusade, or the BL novel Pawns of Chaos, Chaos societies still can exist. They might have higher acts of mayhem and destruction and more insane and bizarre events occur, but at some level they still exist and perpetuate themselves generation after generation which means enough humans must still be surviving to reproduce. The Chaos gods want emotions, worship, and souls. That would dry up if they simply killed everyone. Chaos wants to enslave and dominate humanity, and that domination is what the Imperium and non-Chaos aligned humans are fighting back against. Humanity dominated by Chaos would likely be harsh, brutal, and unfair, but humanity would still exist after a fashion. Now if you want to talk about annihilating humanity, think Tyranids.

[MvS]

Chaos really does offer an illusion of absolute freedom - where societies with their laws and norms can only really supply us with liberty (freedom with limitations) at best. Most times, and especially within the 40K / 30K setting, the human socieities can't even offer much by way of liberty either.

Chaos, though, when it doesn't manifest as nightmares of mind-bending insanity, can attract those who see themselves as 'true' libertarians, anarchists, 'freedom fighters' against oppressive governments, ground-breaking and politically challenging artists and emancipatory philosophers of all kinds. This is because Chaos can give a vision of life completely without restrictions, of limitless possibilities, of a world where you have an opportunity to make real whatever you are clever, curious, determined, strong or passionate enough to pursue.

Of course this freedom is more a self-centred one, so your achievements are not predicated upon compromises and ultimately benefit you or what you think is 'correct' more than it does society at large. Also, there are hidden prices with Chaos. You may not realise until it's too late that the price of failure doesn't just mean having human authorities tracking you down, but can mean the agony and loss of self that is Spawndom. Worse, you can become a daemon's plaything for all eternity, which is a worse fate than any other imaginable. But then the future always seems so far away when we're enjoying the 'now', and without informed consent humans all to often think they can handle whatever badness is on the horizon - hence the reason so many of us smoke or drink to much, or take dangerous narcotics.

To a degree, we humans are built to ignore risks (in an emotional sense). We may understand them logically, but we don't always empathise with what they will mean in practical terms when they finally hit us. Chaos in the 40K setting is one of the products of this fact and also one of the main capitalisers of it. Yes I could end up damned for eternity, but that will be after I die and right now I have the powers of a demigod and a guaranteed life of 10,000 years because of the deal I just struck. I'll figure something out.

The Primarchs are even more prone to this way of thinking. They were already demigods when Chaos came a calling. Yes some of them rejected the more obvious blandishments of Chaos, but ultimately, all of those who rebelled against the Emperor were content to use Chaos in some way or another to forward their goals - even if this use was only to not reject allies who had already embraced Chaos fully. To some degree or another they all though that they could use Chaos and the Daemon Gods to fulfill their own potential / as a weapon to help overthrow an unjust government / to punish the wilfully blinkered and hubristic / emancipate humanity with 'the truth', because truth is power / to save humanity from is ultimate doom under the claws of aliens and Chaos unchecked / so that they could use Chaos against Chaos and thereby ultimately defeat it.

These Primarchs aren't more reasonable than those who stayed loyal, but then again neither is their logic and personalities necessarily irrational either. One can be selfish and still rational. One can be blinkered and possessing only some of the facts and still be rational. One can even be emotionally scarred and still be rational, largely speaking. It isn't an all-or-nothing game. The HH series is trying to show that the fallen Primarchs weren't just cartoon villains - that they felt they had good reasons to do what they did (at least initially).

[Vegeta365]

And by contrast, you have:

1. Fulgrim, who was manipulated by a daemon captured within a sword.


Only for him to find his way back and come back as a total bad ass though

[TK-421]

The only person I feel sorry for in the heresy was Magnus the guy couldn't catch a break and if anything from the book A Thousand Sons I got the impression he was the most loyal (although far from cautious) and the prim arch who could relate to the Emperor best

[kafrique]

The only person I feel sorry for in the heresy was Magnus the guy couldn't catch a break and if anything from the book A Thousand Sons I got the impression he was the most loyal (although far from cautious) and the prim arch who could relate to the Emperor best

I strongly disagree. What I got from ATS is that Magnus struck a deal with Tzeentch long before the Emperor's decree against sorcery, and that in his arrogance, he never believed that his use of the warp could bite him back. He understood the danger, but not that HE was at risk. He didn't set out with betrayal in mind, but he did bring damnation upon himself.

That's generally the view I get from the HH books- I think people see chaos as sympathetic because they want to. They justify it by saying "the Emperor did bad things too", but that's like saying the Holocaust was ok because the allies bombed civillian targets. Bad vs. horrendous.

I see Chaos as an evil tempation: you sympathize with the traitors at first, but as the full measure of Chaos' evil is revealed, you realize just how awful it is. By then, though, the traitor characters are either corrupted or too far in to back out. Thus, the Word Bearers who built up so many beautiful worlds become horrendous tyrants slaughtering slaves in limitless numbers. The beautiful and artistic Emperor's Children become so obsessed with sensation that they mutilate and drug themselves into abomination. Haughty Magnus is forced to make good on the debt he swore to Tzeentch. For each traitor, some combination of pride, arrogance, hatred, and spite led them to fall, and even if they had reasonable grievances at first, the horrors that are revealed show that ultimately, Chaos is evil, and so are its followers. Even the Night Lords, even the Iron Warriors, even (maybe) the Alpha Legion.

[TK-421]

I strongly disagree. What I got from ATS is that Magnus struck a deal with Tzeentch long before the Emperor's decree against sorcery, and that in his arrogance, he never believed that his use of the warp could bite him back. He understood the danger, but not that HE was at risk. He didn't set out with betrayal in mind, but he did bring damnation upon himself.

That's generally the view I get from the HH books- I think people see chaos as sympathetic because they want to. They justify it by saying "the Emperor did bad things too", but that's like saying the Holocaust was ok because the allies bombed civillian targets. Bad vs. horrendous.

I see Chaos as an evil tempation: you sympathize with the traitors at first, but as the full measure of Chaos' evil is revealed, you realize just how awful it is. By then, though, the traitor characters are either corrupted or too far in to back out. Thus, the Word Bearers who built up so many beautiful worlds become horrendous tyrants slaughtering slaves in limitless numbers. The beautiful and artistic Emperor's Children become so obsessed with sensation that they mutilate and drug themselves into abomination. Haughty Magnus is forced to make good on the debt he swore to Tzeentch. For each traitor, some combination of pride, arrogance, hatred, and spite led them to fall, and even if they had reasonable grievances at first, the horrors that are revealed show that ultimately, Chaos is evil, and so are its followers. Even the Night Lords, even the Iron Warriors, even (maybe) the Alpha Legion.

You make a good point I must say but I still don't believe any of them can be inherently evil and in the case of Magnus he was just doing anything possible to save his legion from the flesh change. Whilst he may be foolish you can't say he set out to be evil pr a traitor

[MvS]

The point is a good one though.

Even if we can say that the traitor Primarchs were more reasonable characters (and let's be honest, not all of them were, even if they weren't necessarily 'evil' per se), the taint of Chaos strips away this reasonableness. However they start out, they end up utterly monstrous. That's the point - the true horror - of Chaos, and the reason why the Emperor was so cagey, nervy and a bit blinkered when it came to how much he wanted to deny Chaos. It is so incredibly subtle and dangerous that he would risk almost anything, even committing horrors himself, in order to keep humanity's contact with Chaos to an absolute minimum - if not cut out all such contact completely.

[BooTMGSG]

I think the big charge against the Emperor is that he let his kids run around with scissors while his mind was on the conquest of the Galaxy.

Yes the Primarchs that fell had varying excusses for falling, some better than others, but I feel that the Emperor made it easier for Chaos to get a foothold.

Angron: ok perhaps he couldn't have healed the Butcher's Nail (though I find this doubtful), but why did he then unleash him onto the Galaxy? Surely this is going to go wrong, but no Conquest comes first.

Magnus and Lorgar: Why didn't he have a private chat with them? With Magnus, keep him close and give him a true lesson in the nature of the warp. WHy did he not send some custodians to prospero like he did with the wordbearers? Why did he publicly humiliate both of them? Was wiping out a nation necessary to prove a point to Lorgar? Was wiping out a nation a good way of ensuring Lorgar took the right lesson from this confrontation?

Again and again, the Emperor has failed to protect his sons from Chaos. Yes the sons played their part, but they were largely ignorant of Chaos. The Emperor wasn't.

[MvS]

I very much agree with you. The Emperor's intentions may have been reasonable - Chaos really is the worst thing imagineable - but the way he went about 'protecting' humanity and his sons from Chaos wasn't that great.

Why didn't he have a series of quiet one-on-ones with Lorgar and Magnus? Why didn't he personally train Magnus and keep a close eye on him, and why did he think abusing Lorgar, the most passionate and temperamental of his sons, was the best way to make everything 'better'? Why didn't he use his amazing powers to at least try to cure Curze of his growing madness? If Curze's creeping insanity and were Angron's 'nails' really so impossible to remove or ameliorate, why keep them around and give them access to the most lethal things in the Imperium's arsenal - a Astartes Legion?

The Emperor was perhaps too lost in the 'Big Picture' to pay enough attention to the Medium and Small Pictures right in front of him.

[nosebiter]

The emperor made huge mistakes and was abit naive because he had to be to make the story creep along. Problem is GW made this allmighty powerfull super being, and then needed to make him less so. Alot of the emperors actions before and during the HH makes little sense, in part because if he was to bright the HH would have draged on for too long and ruined any chance of there being anything left to build on afterwards.

[The Arch Heretic]

It just adds credibility to the idea that the Emperor has some much bigger end-game in plan,has seen all this come to pass and so has allowed it to progress as it must in order for his final goal (ascendency?) to be reached. I was never that convinced by the 'holy-of-holies' that he was made out to be years ago......

[underscore]

I always took it that the need for The Emperor to stay at home and build the Throne was what started the fall. If he'd been able to stick around he could probably deal with the Primach squabbling through sheer force of personality.

That Chaos managed to occupy and isolate him so much was what allowed them to take advantage of the unsupervised Primarchs. The poor babies were just left too long without a sitter!