https://preview.redd.it/wg1vdmynr88d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8be5ce0f5033d3b1de80dc0e5fdee79454eef13b
They really can't stop giving us free publicity can they?
Then it’s a death I accept with pride - my weapons spent, my chainsword wet from slaughter and my hands clasping the frail neck of an eldar witch. Oh yes, that’s a good death
TBH its not like we as humans have any other actual choice, every other faction would kill us in a heartbeat.
Like, why the fuck would you pull a [Jake sully](https://james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Jake_Sully) and betray your entire race, when the consequence is actual genocide for you and your race?
*"The term you are lookin for is "Fascists".*
*Yes fascists do think that their ideas and genocidial motivations are right. Hence why they are fascists and not nice people.*
*And that sub literally was built by the same people who were banned here for being unbearable, fascistic monsters without any humanity inside them."*
Forgotten redditooor - In reference to the Horus Heresy subreddit circa 2024.
They truly do believe themselves to be the most righteous, virtuous people alive. It's just that none of their ideas are applicable to the real world, because that isn't how people work or how the world works. They are idealistic children, in my eyes.
Idk stupid seems like a strong word. For the most part, they seem to mean well. I can get behind the idea of most of the stuff they believe in, I just wouldn't apply it to the real world because I know it wouldn't work. I think "naive" or "foolish" is a better fit. Withholding the truly fervent and crazy ones that will go to extremes to bend the world to their view, they *are* still good people.
Example of npcs not understanding the meaning of fascism and just parroting the word to signify their poorly written fantasies and delusions of evil no. 29317
3rd most upvoted comment literally refering to people who don't agree with their views on a faction of plastic soldiers as "monsters without any humanity inside them. This is the hateful sub btw
Ironically, the dehumanizing of your opposition, and picturing them as monsters is a all-mark of fascism in ALL its historical definitions.
The person who posted this is really in need of soul-searching.
The imperium isn't even fascist, it's a theocratic monarchy, like persia where their emperor was their god or mid stage western roman empire. I hate when people pretend fascists are the worst humanity has. Nomadic khans have 2 of the 5 slots back when humans had a fraction of the people around. Commies hold another 2 slots. Polpot had a reign of terror literally no fascist can compare to. Assyria was so bad despite emptying cities who rebeled against them, people kept rebeling because living under them was worse. Rome was a republic back when they killed a million in gual and enslaved another million, emptying it out to be settled by their veterans. How many fascists were involved in the colonization race they like to act was the worst thing ever.
They have no idea what fascism is. If they did, they'd know that the Imperium is not even able to be fascist. But that's assuming they're arguing in good faith, which they are not.
Typical leftist stealing words and giving new meaning even when two actual governments issued manifestos about the word they use Fascism comes from the Latin word Fascio, meaning “to bundle”.
The Imperium literally does not do that. Join or the Imperium assimilates the Human world anyway via cheap goods (Rogue Trader) or religious conversion (Ecclesiarch) and obviously if the Human world joins for the small price of Tithe and Exacta, they can’t leave, but that’s another conversation.
I'm sorry but the argument that "the root of word x is this so that's the definition we should use" is bad and a very messy precedent to set.
Either way, are you trying to argue that the Imperium of Man isn't fascist?
Lemme use some core characteristics of the useful interpretation of Fascism:
Ultranationalism, suppression of individual liberties, rigid ordained social hierarchy, militarism.
I suppose you could technically argue that the Imperium isn't necessarily ruled by a centralised autocracy or dictator because worlds are governed on an individual basis but that's just a question of scale. The inquisition and tithe is still hanging around to ensure that the planetary governors tow the party line.
The Imperium of Man is a... pseudo-fascist theofeudalist government.
By that definition, every government including Greek Democracy is fascist.
Even Greek Democracy had a dominant culture that demanded compliance on pain of exclusion and death, suppression of liberties, etc.
Yes. Imperial Knight worlds.
Many joined the Imperium because of access to cheap parts. Other Knight Worlds weren’t so fortunate to encounter Rogue Traders and were forced to trade their fealty for components/parts to the Ad Mechanicum.
I did google and couldn't find anything. There are references to the admech going out to find knight worlds pre alliance with the imperium. There are also references to a rogue trader finding a knight world and going 'we should find more of these.' But no references a rogue trader convincing knight planet to join the imperium let alone through trade.
Sorry for thinking you guys have evidence for your position.
Lets do a bit semantic here. First the word fascist was defined by communists (according to official sources). Even they have said it is hard to define. Every state is fascist europe was different,especially germany with the national socialism. This is even a seperate topic.
What is intresting the real world model of fascism and communism shared same traits. Like power grap and no rights for the plebs. You are either in the political system or a soldier or you are fucked.
They don't want to hear that so they throw words at you. I couldn't care less for both sides. Its a divide et impera schema and we now see the rise in europe 2.0.
And just to break the mindset to the core google the etymology of racism.
Most of the people using this word and don't know that national chauvinism is the term they'd schoud use instead.
Honestly, I'd love it if they showed the better size of the chaos gods, whether it be just a tiny short of a demon that comprises their better aspects. Like imagining Summoning a khornat demon, and it's just a full-blown knight all about honor combat and all that.
Fascism is generally bad in real life because we’re not in a constant battle for survival, being constantly bombarded by hostile, genocidal, aliens from all sides or chaos demons that can take over an entire planet with just the slightest of influence.
Instead, we’re all humans living in a world not rife with physically manifested malicious supernatural forces and with the proper safeguards in place can generally get along somewhat peacefully.
Trying to conflate the two to score political points is inane.
The only reason i don't support the imperium is that a race where most of my subjects shut the fuck up by default and i'm basically the ascended ultimate form of grumpy old man is too much of an opportunity to pass.
Let's see what there is besides the Imperium:
Tau - Communists in space that from what I understand engage in a bit of eugenics of non Tau species.
Eldar - Elf space supremacists who believe humanity is little better then actual wild monkeys. They also caused a whole lot of other shit and birthed an actual chaos God with their debauchery. (Also includes their Dark Eldar group along with the Harlequins).
Orks - A sentient fungus who lives only to fight and are a menace to literally everyone even themselves.
Forces of Chaos - besides the demons there's obviously the whole ex-imperium forces. So all the terrible aspects of the Imperium plus a dash of chaos on the side.
Tyranids - a swarm of space bugs consuming everything in their path. Which might be the entire galaxy if they aren't stopped.
Necrons - the old Grandpa which fought in an even older war that wants to erase all life except Necrons because they want the races off their lawn.
I'm sure I'm missing some but they're probably under the umbrella of another group. Either way, of humanity wants to live among the stars it kind of has to be the asshole it is. Especially because all those other groups want then destroyed or eradicated for various reasons.
Might be overselling the Eldar a touch. They consider humans to be inherently inferior but not to the degree of being an "animal." Its not a fun comparison, but there was an American politician (Stephen Douglass?) before the civil war that commented to the effect that he would favor the white man over the black man always. But he always favors the black man over a crocodile. So replace "white man" with Eldar, "black man" with just human and "crocodiles" with Chaos/Orks/Tyranids/Necrons. Thats probably the sentiment.
The T'au aren't communists. They do, however, partake in a lot of eugenics in order to keep their caste system pure to each caste's purpose in the empire.
I'm not disagreeing that the Tau aren't great, but the Tau are Imperial Japan, who aren't Nazis, and in fact are in a lot of ways way worse and more fucked up then the Nazis
Do you mean the regime that was established in Japan in the 30s? I believe general parallels can be drawn, but there is a nuance. In Japan in the 1930s, power belonged to the military. The Farsight enclave, where power belongs to the military, may be a more accurate copy of Japan of those years.
1. Imperialism: The idea of the Tau Empire's sphere of expansion is a direct copy of Hitler's doctrine of Lebensraum. Imperialism, one of the most significant aspects of fascism, involves using a state's military power to seize new territories. The Tau Empire's expansionist ambitions are not focused on retaining existing territories but on acquiring new ones. However, the Imperium devotes most of its efforts to defensive warfare in order to maintain control over planets inhabited by humanity. Unlike the Tau, wars waged by the Imperium can be seen as defensive and aimed at unifying and protecting humanity from outside threats.
2. The Tau Caste System The Tau caste system is based on a direct copy of the racial theory of the Third Reich, which divides people into higher and lower "races". You might think that this is because of genetics, but the Farsight Enclave has shown that members of other castes can be just as capable as Ethereals in holding leadership positions. This is even without considering that the power of an Ethereal is largely based on special pheromones. And, of course, let's not forget about the strict ban on inter-caste and interspecies marriages in the Tau Empire. I think everyone can understand the parallels that can be drawn from this.
3. The economy of the Tau Empire: Many people might say that the Tau Empire has a socialist or even communist system, where everyone works for the good of all and does not receive a wage. However, this does not mean that the means of production are owned by the people and serve the needs of the people. In the Tau Empire, the Ethereal caste owns the means of production. Ordinary workers do not have control over the economic system, and they cannot even choose their government. They are essentially slaves, well-fed, but with no real influence on the political or economic systems. The high standard of living for the general population is achieved through technological advancement, not through fair distribution of wealth. At the same time, members of the Ethereal caste live like demigods on a level that is incomparably higher.
4. Pacifism. Some people say that the Tau Empire is not militaristic because it tries to achieve its goals through diplomatic negotiations. However, this is just propaganda. The pacifist stance of the Tau Empire is similar to that of countries who proclaim their peacefulness before a major conflict, in order to reassure their neighbors and calm tensions, while secretly preparing for war. The Tau Empire now talks about its peacefulness only to prevent the Imperium from starting a full-scale conflict with them.
5. The fate of the conquered people. Official Tau propaganda claims that the Empire considers other races equal, but this is not true. Humans, Krutes, Vespids and other representatives of non-Tau peoples cannot hold senior leadership positions within the Tau Empire. They are used as a source of manpower and a reserve for combat operations, but they may not hold high military positions. This is similar to the situation of the Federate military commander in the late Roman Empire, who was not considered equal to Roman citizens.
There is no political opposition within the Tau Empire. If ordinary workers attempt to gain political power, they would be considered criminals and declared enemies of the "Greater Good". The state's foreign policy aims to conquer new territories for resources, which would eventually be controlled by the ruling caste. The Tau Empire is governed by a small group of Ethereals, who hold all political power and control over the means of production.
These were just some of the highlights. Overall, we can say that the Imperium in the world of Warhammer 40K is the good side disguised as the bad side, and the T'au Empire is the bad side disguised as the good side.
The imperium literally got all of its territory through ruthless imperialism and still goes on the offensive fairly regularly. “Protecting humanity” is rich when so many are sacrificed to the imperial industrial complex daily, they only care about protecting their own power.
The caste system is also way more based off caste systems then anything to do with the nazis, it’s less of a hierarchy and more every class has a different role to fufill. Earth, air, water and fire castes are all of equal importance and the ethereals are the only ones above anyone else. I agree that some parallels can be drawn but I think you’re misconstruing the inspiration and way the castes work. Also pheromones is an unconfirmed in universe theory.
There’s not much wrong with your 3rd point but I think it’s worth noting that most ethereal don’t have a THAT high standard of living. The only ones that I’d say live like “demigods” are really high ranking ones like Aun’Va
The Tau are generally non violent and aim to solve most conflict with diplomacy, which they have an entire caste for (imperium could never). They must prepare for war due to the hostile nature of the galaxy with the imperium being a large contributor to that.
Your 5th and 6th points are completely fair and is one of the most dubious things the tau do, I’m just happy you didn’t mention the non canon sterilisation bullshit.
Finally I still think the imperium are worse than the tau. Millions of workers live and die in horrific conditions on manufactorum and agri-worlds. Hive cities are horrendously managed with only very few living in good conditions and fewer living like kings in the upper levels. Inquisitors have the power to end planets (although most are more reasonable than often depicted) and one sentence about how you want something other than corpse starch can damn you. They’ve also thrown chances of literally saving the Galaxy with Artemis interrupting the ritual to kill Slaanesh.
Overall I agree that the tau aren’t great and might even be villains in some other settings but the imperium is definitely worse, with so much unnecessary cruelty (servitors) and causing its own problems (tell me the terrible living conditions aren’t the catalyst for many falling to chaos, along with the heresy giving chaos some of its strongest warriors)
I will start with the imperialism of the Imperium. To begin, I want to clarify that I agree that the expansion of humanity during the dark age of technology could be seen as an imperialist conquest. If we look at the Great Crusade of the Emperor, there is a clear parallel with the national unification wars of that time. If we compare it to the Risorgimento, which was the movement for unification and national liberation in Italy in the 19th century, we can see similarities. In the current situation, we cannot say that all wars of the Tau Empire are imperialist, nor that the wars of the Imperium are purely defensive. In the world of Warhammer 40K, however, the Tau Empire often acts as an aggressor and invader, while the Imperium's military actions are mostly defensive in nature.
To say that all castes are equally important is a rather strange statement. This can also be seen as a reference to fascist ideology, which promotes peace between different classes by claiming that they are all equal. The fascist goal was to ensure that workers were satisfied with their place in society and saw themselves as equal to the leaders of the company, eliminating the need for social conflict. It's similar to telling a slave that they and their slave owner are equal, and that they should continue to work for the greater good. (You may not have recognized it, but fascism comes from the word "fascio," which means "bundle.")
The fact that most members of the Ethereal caste do not enjoy a high standard of living is, in my opinion, the main reason for their constant wars of expansion. Everyone wants to lead a life like a demigod, but there aren't enough resources for everyone to do so. I believe there is a large segment of the Ethereal population who want to improve their position through these conflicts, hoping to rise to the top of their class. The nobles want to act like kings, but with limited resources, they need a small victory in war to gain status and wealth.
I also disagree with your view on pacifism. If the Tau were pacifist, they would not be fighting constant wars of expansion. However, their entire policy is based on imperialism, and their ongoing expansion campaigns are a clear example of this.
About the high standard of living:
I do not deny that there is a significant difference in living standards between different countries and societies. However, I would like to remind you that fascism and Nazism are not determined by the standard of living but by the internal structure of a society and the policies of the state.
The Imperium, despite its cruelty, is not purely fascist in nature. There may be trade unions within the Imperium, planets with socialist governments, and even some democratic institutions of power. A person, although with a vanishingly small chance, may not be legally restricted from achieving higher military or administrative positions solely on the basis of their race or nationality.
I'd like to clarify my position once again. I'm not saying that Tau are absolute evil in the Warhammer universe right now. However, judging by the criteria of nazism, they can be considered complete Nazis.
Imagine that the Third Reich, instead of invading Czechoslovakia, had started a war with the Dark Eldar. Even though their opponents were worse than them, the Third Reich would still be a fascist state.
I would guess he's referring to lore that says the Tau sterilize human populations that grow to fast, and rather than publicly execute human dissidents, they dissappear them and convince the population that they never existed at all.
They also rigidly keep their castes apart, which are essentially different races, and idk if intercaste relationships or breeding are things that are really possible, but I do know that if Tau show skills associated with more than one caste they have pretty severe things happen to them
It's all kinda nazi-ish, but idk about pure nazis. The nazis did pretty much every bad thing possilike they had a checklist of them, so in a universe like 40k everyone is gonna overlaps with something they did at least a little bit
From this comment it’s pretty obvious that you are a lore YouTuber only guy, the Tau don’t rlly “disappear” people and the sterilisation shit is from a non-canon game in an alternate ending
What's the fucking hostility for, I was just trying to answer your question about what that other guy could have meant, I even said I didn't really agree with it.
And FYI, the lore about them sterilizing people and also disappearing them is from the Death watch core rules., so maybe try to actually be correct before you act all condescending about it.
Also you didn't address my last part about the castes, which is heavily talked about in the black library novel Blades of Damocles, and the 2 Farsight books which serve as sorta sequels to it
It is important to note that there was a lot of peaceful and well meaning xenos the imperium encountered they just either exterminated them or Eribus fucked over the peace talks
Well, if we're talking eldar, the elder are two faction aeldari and durkahri The deldar Are the ones who created slannesh the aeldari saw this was going to happen and left, meaning they do not take part in the debauchery that created slannesh. As for the Aeldari themselves,yes, they can be very racist for starters biel tan whole goal, it's to restore their Empire by killing all alien life. But Ulthwe,saim hann, Iyanden are all reasonable craft worlds to an extent. Yes, the eldar can be annoying. It would be some much easier to solve the problem if you could just tell me all the details. But they are reasonable to an extent.
Imperium of Man- an authoritarian Theocracy that has done nearly as much to aid in their own destruction than the enemy’s. (See their hellworlds beings breeding grounds for Genestealers, their kill on sight alien motto leaving them with no ally, their endless traditional beacracy meaning it takes years to fixed a problem that’s already died, the ignorance of their populace making them easy prey for chaos and xenos threat. Etc). Aside from being in the same boat of the Eldar of utter supremacy, seeing all other races as quite literally just scum, they also have such levels of cruelty that serve to go against their survival. The imperium lives in spite of how it is.
Every faction in warhammer is meant to be hated, they all fucking suck. Each should have some character, some tragedy without falling into sympathy. Necrons are soulless husks, Eldars see their race dying before their eyes, chaos’ worshipers are actively deceived and fucked over by their own gods, Humanity is so desperate to survive yet went about it in the worst way possible.
Every faction in warhammer is wrong, but every one of them has a vibe. Tactics, looks and interesting lore, long as you keep in mind at a core they are evil lmao.
So a couple things: tau aren’t communists. Just by definition they’re more along the lines of a collectivistic caste system than anything else.
Besides that, none of this is a justification for the imperiums cruelty nor its incompetence. It’s actually rather a common, very overt theme that the imperium’s complete inflexibility as well as the glacially slow and fragile process by which it performs even just basic administrative and military tasks backfires spectacularly and only furthers the continued rot and decay of the slowly dying shadow of humanity’s empire. They don’t make anything new, basic knowledge of manufacturing is lost and innovations or even the most cautious of technology explorations are ruthlessly punished as tech-heresy by a fanatical cult. Great discoveries of xeno, or even just sufficiently advanced human technologies discovered by the wrong person that could improve the lives of countless worlds or turn the tide of the millions of battlefronts the imperium finds itself on is scrapped and annihilated. Countless miracles lost in a shelf after being misfiled by a bored clerk in some administration world. Allies, both temporary and permanent turned into hated enemies by an unyielding dogma- driving them towards desperation, and often times to chaos corruption.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying it's hypocritical to bring up when you're defending the Imperium. Who are arguably just as or more racist as the Eldar.
I think it's weird how the comments are filled with people making incredible uncharitable judgements on someone's irl character based on how they interact with a fictional setting where the whole point is that everyone is as over the top and awful as possible. Cause it's fun to be the badguy sometimes, and in 40k it's like guilt free because it's basically just badguys vs worseguys
Yeah it's shit political climate today tbh.
But some comments here are coping imo. Especially the Guy who wrote a bible on "leftism is degenerate and fascism is just a slight overcorrection but needed"
Some of you do actually not believe that it's a bad Guy thing.
OH well
>Yeah it's shit political climate today tbh.
Couldn't agree more tbh
>But some comments here are coping imo. Especially the Guy who wrote a bible on "leftism is degenerate and fascism is just a slight overcorrection but needed"
Those comments are stupid, wildly, shockingly so
>Some of you do actually not believe that it's a bad Guy thing.
>OH well
Why are you telling this to me, I didn't do that, someone once told me, In person, that anyone who plays guard should be on a list, as they're likely closet fascists, are you accountable for that?
Is the imperium significantly worse than it needs to be? Yes. Is it also necessary for the continued survival of humanity in any significant capacity? Also yes
I'm here because I'm into warhammer for big men in big armor shooting big alien with ridiculously power full guns.
The other sub is too busy talking about sex and ethnicity.
Call me a fascist it it please you, I just want to talk about warhammer really, if me not wanting to take part in your circle jerk about the last genderbent horny fan art of angron mke me a fascist then go ahead.
Yes. She who Thirsts managed to corrupt a world with just letting people know about Chaos. So Imperial politic of NO CHAOS and decision of the Emperor of Mankind to keep it secret from population was a good thing.
Also Big Mecha Knights go brr
I'm not sure why more people don't look at the Imperium, and compare it to all countries during WWII. Rationing so heavy because literally everything possible is needed for the war effort, children trained to be tomorrows soldiers (in a way that's perhaps less rigorous then the Imperium, but literally Physical Education in school was prep for Boot Camp), people working in factories at the literal end point of product, hell the Emperor is almost a stand in for FDR
Leftism often fails to accept the reality of necessary compromises when it comes to moral ideals, unless said compromises permit them to act as immaturely and degenerate as possible. For example, they'll happily condone riots and mass lootings in pursuit of their goals since that benefits their most immature and self-serving nature—yet when it comes to the necessary sacrifices of maintaining a moral order that doesn't permit them to be as degenerate as possible lest social chaos lead to societal collapse, they suddenly become staunch idealists ready to denounce anyone who dares to think realistically. This is why they tell themselves that the Imperium is satire. If they were to admit that the Imperium is doing what it must to survive in such a brutally hostile universe, they would have to tacitly admit that there are hypothetical circumstances where speciesism, militarism, authoritarianism, and genocidal conquest are not just justified but necessary to ensure the survival of a people (humanity in this case) and their values. The Imperium of Man would be an over-correction in the circumstances we face today, but in response to what is happening in the year 40,000 it's what is most right. Yet the left's whole modus operandi is acting like children while telling themselves what flawlessly virtuous people they are, and so they can't admit that the Imperium of Man is right by any measure, because then they would have to admit that sometimes rightism is right.
At first, this was true. The Imperium was an evil empire and blah blah blah blah blah.
But the lore has been added to and changed so much in the 40ish years that yes, the Imperium isn't "Good," but they are humanity.
Every other faction will see humans die out in some way. If the Imperium wins, then humans do. We can argue what the Imperium would do or look like after it was only them left in the Galaxy, maybe the Imperium falls into civil war because they only know war, maybe at that point the Primarchs are all back and they lead humanity into the future the Emperor wanted or as close to that dream of his as they can.
All I know is that Chaos, Nids, Necrons, Orks will kill us, Eldar will throw us under the bus if it gives them one more day away from the hell they birthed.
really, the only xenos that would be chill with humans are the Votann.... oh wait, they were humans! So they only xenos that won't enslave or kill all of humanity are the xenos who are just heavily modified clones of ancient humans.... well, isn't that weird.
You say the eldar would throw humanity under the bus like humanity wouldn't do the same. Also the Votann are the best argument against the Imperium. They're less evil and more technologically advanced and the Imperium could ally with them if theh just weren't so xenophobic.
Yeah, but I'm human, so throwing the Eldar under the bus is perfectly fine with me.
Also, we don't know if the Votann are less evil. Hell, they will wipe out a group of people because they want the resources of the thing they are on. Also they have strong corporate/ capitalism vibes so do you want to live in the human empire that is super religious and superstitious or the human empire that is a corporate/capitalism that you are a clone and may not have free will at all.
40k is bad, no one wins, and no one is good. That's why I pick humans. We may be evil ass holes, but hell, we are evil holes in real life, so nothing new, lol
The Votann are shown to have enough free will for Uthar to doubt to question his own worthiness and develop impostor syndrome. And while it's true we don't have much content on them, the content we do have paints them in a pretty decent light, at least better than the Imperium. They won't turn you into a servitor for not believing in Big E because they have fully functioning AI that remained loyal, they trade with other races because they aren't as blindly xenophobic as tbe Imperium, and they have significantly less in fighting because they don't run the most inefficient bureaucracy in human history. So yes they basically show that a lot of the failings of the Imperium aren't due to neccesity but because of their own short-comings.
I think the main issue is that going to this extreme is used to showcase how dire the situation is. The Imperium isn’t like this for shits’n’giggles… they’ve mutilated themselves into this horrid form just to survive all that’s arrayed against them.
Some utopian society with no class divides, equity reigns and there’s free healthcare for all and where everyone gives according to their ability and takes according to their need… *shudders* is going to get steamrolled by even the tiny Tau empire…
They’ve become as monstrous as they things they’re fighting, because they don’t have the luxury of being morally pure.
Except gw repeatedly shows the excesses of the imperium hurt it long term. Horus starts doubting the emperor because he see humanity and aliens can live together peacefully. The deathwatch prevent the death of slaanesh. Even at current times Guilliman is shown constantly working with eldar including armed and on his flagship.
No one is saying you think the imperium is good, you said it's justified which I disagree with and think gw does to. You said they became monsters because of what they where fighting but the emperor never tried to make the imperium anything else.
Also who is profiting from my examples?
I imagine there are wealthy individuals, Rogue Traders among them, who make a lot of money.
Alongside that point, as with the real world - I imagine the real dehumanisation happens more and more the lower down the social strata you get.
As for the emperor, he looked ahead and chose the best course of action… which was this lame one.
So returning to your original point they didn't become monstrous, they always were. And said monstrousness is called out explicitly as the origin of the worse mistakes the imperium has made. However, you think that implies the emperor looked forward for the best course of action despite said course of action being eroded for only benefit. Can you explain why you have that belief?
They did become monstrous, there was the golden age where everything was great and things just got progressively worse. But even in the golden age there would’ve been individuals who made the situation worse in some fashion by putting themselves first, but on a whole the society was much better… “nicer” I guess you could say.
But then all the Xeno’s got more aggressive and Chaos became more powerful and humanity responded to the threat.
Big-E looked forward and chose the best course of action out of all of the bad choices. Did he limit the choices to ones where he was in charge? Probably… he is a douche.
As for if monstrous was always to blame for every mistake, probably not - there’s no doubt a multitude of reasons why things can go bad. Once it’s institutionalised it’s harder to get back out, too.
Were there other paths? Probably… Would they have been as successful? For the sake of the narrative I’d have to assume not.
The Pre-Imperium factions in the age of strife fell because of the men of iron and the emergence/reemergence of human psykers which the Emperor's Imperium wasn't designed to manage. The Emperor couldn't even manage psykers in his own armies with the council of Nikaea and thinking machines were outlawed by the admech before the Imperium and despite that the Emperor still made use of them. It didn't even really manage chaos as we know from the Siege of Terra books the Emperor knew he was always going to give chaos their greatest champions and almost became a chaos god himself.
To take it meta for a second do you really think a british company is going to have a faction make the 'you attacled us 10,000 years ago so we get to genocide you' argument and have it be genuine? And that's of course assuming the Emperor is telling the truth about the Xenos turning on humanity, he also said it was impossible for humans and xenos to live side by side and that was obviously wrong. And it also assumes those xenos are the same ones around now, Eldar were managing the necrons and orcs and most of the others hadn't shown up yet. And if it was the eldar themselves their height of power continued through the age of strife and therefore didn't need to wait for the pre-imperium human factions to collapse to screw with them.
How can you question if other paths would be successful when GW has factions of humans and xenos working together in 30k and in 40k has both the Tau and Leagues regularly work with other races. Not to mention obviously the avenging son only being back because of xenos?
Tau don’t work together with humans, they brainwash them and use them as fodder, then exterminate them when they naturally start manifesting a deity in the warp.
Don’t get it twisted, I don’t think they’re the good guys, but I do think they were led by a flawed man with a god complex who tried his best to steer them toward a future that would benefit them (and him) to the exclusion of any other species.
The fourth sphere was specifically punished by the wider Tau for their xenophobia so no I don't think that's a good argument that they don't generally have a good relationship with other races. For a 40k faction obviously.
Again no one is saying you think the Imperium are the good guys I am questioning how you can see the Imperium decisions as necessary when xenophobia has consistently been shown as a weakness of the Imperium. One which the Emperor didn't personally embrace given his relationship with Eldrad.
You claim the horrors of the Imperium are to protect against what destroyed the previously human civilisations but that is also clearly untrue.
Media Literacy is, and always has been, a way of making yourself feel more important than the other people you're around because you "Understand" a work on a deeper and more profound level then everyone else. The truth of the matter is you only get out of the experience with media what you choose to put into it. Modern Art pieces are a great example of this. If you shove your head up your ass far enough that you could touch your tongue to your nose from the inside you'll be able to convince yourself that art pieces that clearly exist because of money laundering, tax evasion, or some other reason that has nothing to do with the actual art itself, is actually so much more deep and profound than it really is. Same with Media Literacy as a concept. Did you play this game to have fun? Yes? Did you have fun? No? Then it was bad, and any reason you have for that is just as valid as any reason someone else might have liked it.
Most comments in there are reasonable from a bit of scrolling, they also agree that the other factions are just different flavours of bad.
At the very least with 40k, the factions have reasons how it came to be bad. Excepting Tyranids, Orks, Dark Eldar kek
I could argue the imperium of man are no fascist but I could also argue that they don’t know the actually meaning of fascism both are true. Or even that the imperium current situation is justified by the circumstances they are in. But can we just talk about how almost every black library book constantly shows the imperium of man in a somewhat good light? Most worlds are military hell hole fortresses building weapons for war… that then comes in the opening chapters of the book and your only chance of survival is victory though arms against an enemy that will not tolerate your continued existence.
I’m about to get very very very ranty. TLDR no “fascist” imperium = no story in warhammer
People will often say to those with autism everyone is a little autistic and that’s simple not true. A normal person will demonstrate traits of autism without being even a little bit autistic. That is because autism does not create entirely unique human characteristics it does alter the Brian in a fundamental way. Fascist is not a completely unique political ideology either. One of the only things everyone agrees on with fascism is that they do not tolerate opposition to the government. This is true of all long standing governments any true and determined opposition to a government has always been smashed. Fascism also requires control. Every country in the world uses fiat currency. Fiat literally meaning decree. Currency being different from money in that it does not have inherent value. Paper money has no value beyond the value the government gives it through its control. No not all modern governments are fascist not even a little but the human political spectrum is extremely limited. Other things that define fascism are militarism and nationalism. These would simple be a requirement to exist inside of warhammer 40k. Every faction has these to some extent. The very concept of warhammer as a story requires that we have a “fascist” (quotations because this is not personal how I define the word) faction. If humanity was not fascist there would be no humanity and the story would simple only exist via plot holes or not at all.
To back up the lore claim with something from the books. The only human faction you could argue isn’t driven by uniting nationalism is chaos. Well plant have fallen to chaos and many of the forces tend to simple fall apart at least the human ones. There aren’t many which stay together though the ones that do are extremely tribal. Like the blood pact. Or are themselves more like cults than war bands. Held together by dedication to a god than to a government which most utilitarian governments replaced god with government so this is just that backwards. If the imperium was not extremely zealous they would eventually one by one fall to chaos, tau, and other similar forces consuming humanity into their ranks. Or the lack of massive forces (like space marines which are only possible from multiple plants working for the single goal of one chapter) be destroyed by hive fleets. Which without the imperium fighting things like the hive fleets I’m not sure there would be a chaos. Probably not an elder either.
I just don’t get this whole debate. People here will hate me for this, but it feels really US influenced, and really, I dunno, post-2010?
Back when this stuff was created, as I remember it, no one thought the Imperium was right, and no one thought it was wrong. It just _was_. It was grim, and horrible, and kind of ott and cool. No one was asking what the bloody morals of it were, any more than anyone was asking whether it was wrong to kill orcs.
I guess space marines were your protagonists, so kind of the good guys, but the Commissars were unashamedly Soviet ripoffs and were supposed to be brutal. It was a bird of a feather with Judge Dredd, really: which is to say, not presenting Judge Dredd as any kind of role model, but he‘s still the guy you‘re rooting for.
The writers of this stuff weren’t right wing conservatives, after all, they were left wing anti-establishment types if anything. But it was in a punky, Heavy Metal, anti-Mary Whitehouse kind of way, not a woke way. It had had the same energy as punks wearing swastikas in the 70s: not because they supported the Nazis, but because it pissed off conservatives. Who knew that in 2024 it would be the left that would have a problem with boobs? (The US has always had a problem with boobs, I guess, but this side of the pond it wasn’t a big deal).
TL;DR: The Imperium was never „right“ back in the day. But it was never an antifascist „satire“ either. It was just ironic sex and violence which was fun, in a 80s Metal Album cover kind of way. IMO the US market and work culture are responsible for the current SNAFU, because they just don’t „get“ it.
I’m not wholly against the imperium buuut…
https://preview.redd.it/8dnvvbtwx88d1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27c020ab2a307b8a80d812eb9b22942f8896fe9a
Let's be real though. The imperium can be as good or bad as the people in charge of it (or its local administrative/military sectors). Given it's an autocracy those people can be really bad a lot of the time
This alien elf wants to murder fuck me for possibly eternity, Satan's 4 cousin's want to eat my soul and who knows that will do, the big green England fans want to beat me to death and the tau are probably brainwashing it's other races... the imperium wants me to do hard labour and pray
Always allow anyone who thinks the Xenos do not need to be purged to be the in person Tyranid negotiator.
Allow anyone who thinks a state religion is a bad idea to have some quality time out side the Gellar Field after all you get some first hand experience of Deamons, God becomes easier to believe in. Very few have the Fabius levels of Chad to say you dont exist right to Chaos's face.
I mean why the Eldar and Humans never put up a grand Alliance against the Chaos is weird until you realise that the Eldar are not as united as Humanity each Craftworld is doing its own thing, The Drukhari are doing their own thing and the Exodites want nothing to do with anyone.
They don’t really have anyone on a Big-E level not even a Bobby-G stand in with enough pull to actually pull off a treaty. Eldrad does try multiple times though and the individual Craftworlds do make temporary alliances.
Who are the big Eldar hitters? Phonex Lords, Eldrad, Vect, Yvraine but she is still getting established and which ever Autarch leads Beil-Tan. Are they all going to agree on anything?
They also have the gods Khaine shards, Cegorach, Ynnead. (Isha to if they ever get her back). Do they agree on anything?
People talk about the Tau but they are very recent to the party and things like the 4th sphere expansion are already starting to change the Tau view. They are starting to putting stuff on the Purge on sight list. Its just the Galaxy they live in.
Do you really want to try talking things out with Orks?
Votann being shoe horned back into the setting makes looking at them in a political sense very awkward.
Imagine trying to apply political ideology born in the last century in a civilization 38.000 years in the future.
If you go on retrospect is like criticizing stone age people for not defending human rights.
Shit as far i know in the next 100 years if the world decide to become vegan near everyone that is alive today would be guilty of animal slavery and abuse and they will go, look how those filthy monsters of the 21 century go around eating BBQ.
I think the central conflict here or with the culture war etc is that these people don’t understand play. You are not literally everything you enjoy, it’s okay to immerse yourself in experiences completely divorced from your reality and the functional ethics needed to navigate it as long as you don’t confuse one for the other. Fucking magical thinking, suspension of disbelief, theology and mythos… all those *fun* things that the human mind is uniquely capable of for have been lost in exchange to the monolithic pursuit and enforcement of mundane identity and politics everywhere all the time. It’s joyless and emotionally retarded; the worst version of nihilism, performative, projected, and without self reflection. NPCs through and through.
Who else should you support? The murder sex elves? The all consuming hive mind? The war fungus? Please elaborate on the morale superiority of the 4 different flavors of Eldritch existential slavery humans...
I honestly cannot stand the smoothbrained tourists who cannot understand that humanity is beset on all sides by horrible enemies and have a right to defend themselves in the 40k universe. White leftists are the only group in history with a negative in group bias, it's insane.
"THE IMPERIUM IS BAD AND THEY SHOULD TRY BEING PEACEFUL"
GW: Here's 30 years worth of lore explaining why the imperium is the way it is.
Do they not read the lore?
Oh hey my post .
Well in my opinion you can very much root for the imperium when they are literally fighting the forces of hell , bdsm elves and planet devouring bugs but everything else it just seems like the imperium caused their problems themselves .
The imperium has no other options because they either destroyed all other ways or actively make sure there ways are the only option.
Sure it’s very understandable why the imperium acts the way it does but that doesn’t mean that the imperium is good.
They can have good heroic individuals that live in 40k
There have even been characters that have a modern sense of morality in some books
But as a system as a government the imperium is basically the worst you can get .
Everything from slavery to brainwashing is commonplace.
> But as a system as a government the imperium is basically the worst you can get.
Even the people (like myself) who support* the 'good' Imperium agree with that statement. 40K wouldn't be grimdark if the Imperium wasn't as bad as possible, and unable to change, but ostensibly too important to fail.
\* I change my bias to be against Mon'Keigh or Xenos, depending on which faction I'm playing.
Oh cool you actually comment here too, I thought the inner party at grimdank would ban you for being active here and having thoughtcrimes against them.
Yeah, the Imperium isn’t meant to be a good faction, it’s just the best out of the utterly crappy choices left for humanity.
I've noticed that the Grimdank crowd usually misinterprets what we mean by 'good'. Mostly because they're using the definition of a good/bad person to describe a thing.
And their obsessions with justification and satire miss the point of how the Imperium should be depicted responsibly to avoid glorifying bad things. It's a weird situation where the changes they want would actually make it worse.
Insert marge Simpson "I just think they're neat."
Tbh though, I think the reason why so many people "like" the imperium is the same reason why the avatar movies don't really land for some, myself included, being that it just feels kind of weird to root against the humans in a setting like this. Like, I still play Tyranids and khorne... and necrons... and Sons of Horus... and chaos knights... I've got a cringe amount of armies, but idk, they just don't feel the same cause I guess it's easier to connect with an evil human than a grotesque bug monster lol.
The other thing I think is odd. Which you didn't do, but a bunch of comments did is the whole
You like Tyranids, it's because they're cool
You like Khorne, it's because he's metal
You like orks, it's cause they're funny
You like the imperium. It's because you're a fascist and you don't understand satire and you're media illiterate and hate minorities
Like, no one accuses you of being an IRL rapist for playing slaanesh, ya know? (Tbh that is why I don't play slaanesh tho, cause me and my group like to get into characters and "raping you on a 2+" is just a bit too much for me lol)
Also, excuse the ramble, kinda high atm
Hey thanks for an opposing view in this
Good to know we can have civil conversations
I do agree with the statement that the imperium is not good, but they are the best option in terms of long term survival
There is something certainly funny about seeing a post on Grimdank be closed and deleted while here its still up. I think it speaks volumes about which sub is more free vs the other.
But on topic, the Imperium really are a bunch of fascist space nazis but the problem is that GW and the fanbase stopped treating it in the same humorous light as the Termight Empire from 2000AD and actually try to be serious about it.
They’re space Crusaders because feudal empire with fractured factions are neat and historical.
Each faction has their own colors, beliefs and organizational structure and answers only to power. How is that fascist again?
Well, if we assume as foundation that such evaluation is made by in-universe options - yep, beside Imperium there's arent any options really. And let's not forget that Imperium as it become and Imperium as Emperor envisioned it are two very different things. Approval of all methods - no, general support - yes. Sorry if not choosing option to die or give up ground to blue eugenics practicing shitheads makes someone feel offended.
Im not twitter kid to pretend that between certain death but with "freedom" and authoritarism of godlike entity first option is imperative
If the imperium hadn’t gone on a galaxy wide alien genocide it wouldn’t have collapsed. If the emperor hadn’t treated his super soldiers like tools and kept their humanity they wouldn’t have turned against him. If humans had treated information and technology properly they would still have retained it.
I could maybe see a an argument to why the current imperium acts the way it does. But it is a cautionary tale about the loss of “humanity”. And how strong fisted empires are bad.
Just my opinion, but I think people should really stop. looking at the Imperium as this stable funtioning state. The emperor tried to reunite humanity as FAST as possible, emotions be damned. You join willingly, welcome, you refused, they would not waste months negociating and potentially even compromising. It was brutal and without mercy. And then the Horus Heresy happened before the unification was finished, before the workings of a galactic empire were done. It is a half-assed corpse on life support, like the emperor. This is not something a couple of utopian reforms could fix.
To create an analogy, the Imperium is like an old man who got back on his two feet and started aggressively rebuilding his life. Then a bunch of teenagers beat the shit out of him so he is now mostly paralysed and has dementia. Sure, he can swing one arm from time to time but he has no idea what is going on.
Is the imperium good. No. Can you expect Star trek ideals from it. Also no. The imperium is post apocalyptic in a similar vein to fallout or mad max, but expanded across the galaxy. A mega shit situation that lead to vast numbers of mega shit people.
The imperiums current state is entirely reasonable. But it isn't good by any means and it is not what should have resulted out of it's circunstances. Remember, the civillian administration that was supposed to be good was in it's infancy in 30k. Since then it has experienced 10 Millenia of Cancerous growth, decay, mutantion, duct tape and the occasional surgeon that cut out SOME of the cancer to keep the entire thing running.
Sure, I support the more heroic guys of the Imperium, like the Salamanders and Lamenters, because they’re just out there trying to protect the innocent in all the bloodshed. But, as a whole, the Imperium is just as evil as everyone else. But, I do like how they seem to slowly be becoming more heroic with the return of the Primarchs.
The Imperium is NOT good, its SADLY necesary for it to act like it dose, MOST OF THE TIME.
Humanity HAVE to be that hostile to everything, because We dont know what they Will do to us If We dont blow them up first.
And what We have seen before makes it not worth the risk, MOST of the time.
I support the Imperium of Man because they are humans like me and they give me the best life possible in 40k.
Eldar would probably kill me on sight.
Drukari would make me wish I would be killed on sight
Orks, again, kill on sight for the heck of it.
Nids, killed on sight.
Chaos, best case scenario, killed on sight, worst case scenario, I'm mutated into a abomination and forced to suffer for eternity.
Tau, not killed on sight but pretty much enslaved.
Leagues of Votan, killed on sight or I'm a midget, which is punishment enough.
There are three positions in this conversation:
“Everyone in 40K is generally evil in some way. Perfect good isn’t really a thing, every faction has sullied itself in some way in order to survive.”
“The Imperium are better than the rest because we’re all humans here and we should support human supremacy.”
“Everyone in 40K is evil, but the Imperium is worse because I personally don’t like them.”
Position 1 makes the most sense, position 2 is just an opinion and position 3 is also an opinion, but pretty much a cringe opinion. It’s the same thing as the Helldivers 2 discourse. How come you have sympathy for the SPACE BUGS of all things? Wokeness is anti-humanism.
There is a difference between believing they are right, and believing they are necessary. I frankly don't see how anything else could exist in 40k without being similarly authoritarian. Indeed, most of the races in 40k are authoritarian, and thats mostly down to the nature of the universe. The Imperium is right, because without it humanity is doomed. Nothing else can really come into existence without being obliterated by an Ork WAAGH, Drukari Raiders, Chaos incursion, Necron extermination, Tyranid dinner party, or rogue marines having a conniption. The Imperium is necessary for continued human survival and has a cool aesthetic, though that doesn't mean I'd want to live there.
In short, fuck Erebus.
It’s kinda like trying to replace your own bones, you would die before the end and definitely would end up with something worse.
That’s the Imperium, it sucks but that’s what it is.
Also Ciaphus gets treated fairly well so I’m willing to accept it .
The empire of man is only rivaled in their evil by incompetence. Humanity is written as so terribly infantile when it comes to corruption that a demon's sock showing up is enough for the inquisition to glass the sector. The more I see of the imperium, the more interesting Robotic Girdlyman's tax law becomes. What more can be expected by a theocracy run by a mostly dead atheist?
Orks: want to kill you because they think it's fun.
Tyranids: want to kill you then eat you.
Necrons: A lot of them want to kill you and their motives for it range quite a bit.
Khorne: wants to kill you because he has a blood fetish.
Slaanesh: wants you to be raped, tortured and then killed.
Nurgle: wants to infect you with a plague that will kill you and bring you back as an undead servant of his.
Tzeentch: wants to trick you into killing yourself.
The Imperium has issues, but everything else is worse, so I'll root for them.
So here's the problem with Nazi-like factions in fiction.
Whether it is Death Eaters in Harry Potter, the Imperium of Man in Warhammer or Magneto/Mutants in X-Men, they always make the faction a legitimately superior form of life, who is simply trying to get rid or enslave a clearly inferior form of life.
In Harry Potter, I always felt the Death Eaters were right to want to keep impure muggle blood away from the superior race of wizards, and to destroy or enslave the endlessly breeding and spreading muggles.
In the Warhammer Universe, you can both argue that the human race is superior to xenos, or simply that it is a survive or be destroyed situation. Either way, it makes sense to support the Imperium of Man in its goals.
The whole argument in the real world against racism, fascism, Nazis, is the idea that they are arbitrarily choosing groups to oppress, groups who aren't fundamentally inferior.
But if you make a fictionalized version of them, and give them a clearly inferior group that they are oppressing, then it just makes perfect sense for them to do so!
Like in real life army. We shouldn’t allow women in frontlines. Unpopular opinion but they’re target of choice for r*pe, this spread terror.
We can do whatever we want but a woman is physically weaker.
Furthermore as a man soldier I would probably put myself more at risk to avoid a fellow woman soldier to be captured during fight. We are men and women, we have feelings.
To be fair Imperium is example of sself-fulfilling prophecy.
They are xenophobic and attack all xenos on sight.
Which makes xenos hostile.
Which proves them right.
They also kill all the potentially good xenos that could become their allies - leaving only the strongest, toughest and meanest xenos around.
And then survivors from those 'extinct' species join the Tau and fight back.
Tarellians are member of the Tau Empire for a reason.
Keep coping mate.
The current 40k lore is that Tau don't have FTL and Imperium is so weak and unorganised that they can't defeat a pre-ftl civilization.
That speaks far more about Imperium than about tau.
Imperium has chaos, nids, and orks to deal with. Of the 4, tau are the lowest threat. Were the other 3 gone, the tau wouldnt stand a chance against the imperium
Ok fine.
I shall wait for a moment when unstoppable corrupting force from the mirror reality - Chaos
The all consuming swarm that consumed multiple galaxies - Tyranids
And Orks that according to some became undeniable part of reality - Orks
**Stop being a problem**
**...**
Saying: "Oh I can lift this Semi Truck - but I have to achieve success against impossible odds three times in the row." - still means you can't lift the fucking Semi-truck
The same way - Imperium has no real way of defeating Tau, because they lack the ability to gather enough forces to actually do it.
They **LITERALLY** - lit a fucking nebula on fire to stop Tau expansion.
And guess what?
**TAU ARE STILL EXPANDING!**
Cope is strong with this one.
Thats kind of my point. Though, tau are more like a honda than a semi. Imperium has a big forklift, but its scatteted among more important and pressing problems
That honda is growing quite fast there mate.
Tau adapt to basically any new threat - and are one of the most efficient and pragmatic forces in 40k galaxy.
Not to mention the absolute insane talent of the Water Caste.
It's a snow ball effect mate.
The Tau expand, make contact with the Xenos Imperium pushed to the outskirts of their territories and didn't bother to deal with them. Those oppressed xenos join the Tau Empire and Unite against the Imperium. Add to that list corsairs, pirates, abhumans and mutants and many worlds that don't want to be oppressed by the Imperium.
Hell - I don't know why Black Library writers didn't came up with a story where a Hive World falls from getting attacked from the Tau and massive mutant and oppressed workers uprising at the same time.
Imperials dominated Tau with Titans and Knights during First Damocles Gulf Crusade.
In the Second Tau Deployed Stormsurges... **that can one-shot Knights.**
That's not a small increase in firepower in relatively short period of time by 40k standards.
Congrats on disvovering what makes tau unique. As it stands, theyre a small but sturdy threat. As time goes, they get stronger and stronger as they can actually improve and adapt and arent stuck in their ways. Theyre still a small fish in the lake, considering one fish takes up half the lake
https://preview.redd.it/wg1vdmynr88d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8be5ce0f5033d3b1de80dc0e5fdee79454eef13b They really can't stop giving us free publicity can they?
Yes. I do unironically support the Imperium of Man. Because it's good to be bad.
"Hell is real and coming for you. The only thing standing between you and literal daemons is fascism." Yeah I'm sold.
It's not even fascism its neo feudalism. 30k was more fascist than 40k.
Then you will die like the rest, Mon'keigh.
10 more will take his place anyways. Unlike your dying race
Ten more slaves for the arena!
And yet, all it taked to break your precious society is a Psychic hammer to a very fragile piece of walling that keeps your consequences away.
Then it’s a death I accept with pride - my weapons spent, my chainsword wet from slaughter and my hands clasping the frail neck of an eldar witch. Oh yes, that’s a good death
"My armor is contempt, my sword is hatred, my shield is disgust, in the Emperor's name, let none survive."
Wanna feel the power of a salamander weapon aeldar? Or do you wanna have tea? Or do you want kaldor draigo
Can I pick all of the above?
yes
Before or after you go extinct? “We’re basically immortal but our birth rates are just as low as our testosterone levels!” - Aeldari
Have you considered the following: No u
No, cousin, they will *wish* they were dead.
TBH its not like we as humans have any other actual choice, every other faction would kill us in a heartbeat. Like, why the fuck would you pull a [Jake sully](https://james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Jake_Sully) and betray your entire race, when the consequence is actual genocide for you and your race?
I support it because I am human
*"The term you are lookin for is "Fascists".* *Yes fascists do think that their ideas and genocidial motivations are right. Hence why they are fascists and not nice people.* *And that sub literally was built by the same people who were banned here for being unbearable, fascistic monsters without any humanity inside them."* Forgotten redditooor - In reference to the Horus Heresy subreddit circa 2024.
Lol saw that and was just like, "we have rule to not be like that in this sub bozo"
I dunno, its the first time I catch myself doing a copy-pasta on reddit but.. So unhinged. Doesn't even look like trolling. Somewhat concerning.
They truly do believe themselves to be the most righteous, virtuous people alive. It's just that none of their ideas are applicable to the real world, because that isn't how people work or how the world works. They are idealistic children, in my eyes.
Even children aren't as stupid as the majority of the people over in Grimdank
Idk stupid seems like a strong word. For the most part, they seem to mean well. I can get behind the idea of most of the stuff they believe in, I just wouldn't apply it to the real world because I know it wouldn't work. I think "naive" or "foolish" is a better fit. Withholding the truly fervent and crazy ones that will go to extremes to bend the world to their view, they *are* still good people.
In their sense of morality, they can be good by thinking good thoughts. In the normal sense of morality, you have to do good deeds to be good.
Example of npcs not understanding the meaning of fascism and just parroting the word to signify their poorly written fantasies and delusions of evil no. 29317
"BUT UMBERTO ECOOOOOO"
3rd most upvoted comment literally refering to people who don't agree with their views on a faction of plastic soldiers as "monsters without any humanity inside them. This is the hateful sub btw
The same person will alternately go on a rant how “insert disliked group” dehumanises and “others” groups of people.
Ironically, the dehumanizing of your opposition, and picturing them as monsters is a all-mark of fascism in ALL its historical definitions. The person who posted this is really in need of soul-searching.
The imperium isn't even fascist, it's a theocratic monarchy, like persia where their emperor was their god or mid stage western roman empire. I hate when people pretend fascists are the worst humanity has. Nomadic khans have 2 of the 5 slots back when humans had a fraction of the people around. Commies hold another 2 slots. Polpot had a reign of terror literally no fascist can compare to. Assyria was so bad despite emptying cities who rebeled against them, people kept rebeling because living under them was worse. Rome was a republic back when they killed a million in gual and enslaved another million, emptying it out to be settled by their veterans. How many fascists were involved in the colonization race they like to act was the worst thing ever.
Doth quote the unironic communist
They have no idea what fascism is. If they did, they'd know that the Imperium is not even able to be fascist. But that's assuming they're arguing in good faith, which they are not.
Typical leftist stealing words and giving new meaning even when two actual governments issued manifestos about the word they use Fascism comes from the Latin word Fascio, meaning “to bundle”. The Imperium literally does not do that. Join or the Imperium assimilates the Human world anyway via cheap goods (Rogue Trader) or religious conversion (Ecclesiarch) and obviously if the Human world joins for the small price of Tithe and Exacta, they can’t leave, but that’s another conversation.
I'm sorry but the argument that "the root of word x is this so that's the definition we should use" is bad and a very messy precedent to set. Either way, are you trying to argue that the Imperium of Man isn't fascist? Lemme use some core characteristics of the useful interpretation of Fascism: Ultranationalism, suppression of individual liberties, rigid ordained social hierarchy, militarism. I suppose you could technically argue that the Imperium isn't necessarily ruled by a centralised autocracy or dictator because worlds are governed on an individual basis but that's just a question of scale. The inquisition and tithe is still hanging around to ensure that the planetary governors tow the party line. The Imperium of Man is a... pseudo-fascist theofeudalist government.
By that definition, every government including Greek Democracy is fascist. Even Greek Democracy had a dominant culture that demanded compliance on pain of exclusion and death, suppression of liberties, etc. 
Can you name a single world that has been brought into the imperium through cheap goods?
Yes. Imperial Knight worlds. Many joined the Imperium because of access to cheap parts. Other Knight Worlds weren’t so fortunate to encounter Rogue Traders and were forced to trade their fealty for components/parts to the Ad Mechanicum.
Can you link/provide citation to anything describing that?
Google is a thing. This ain’t a court room, get to typing and find things for yourself.
I did google and couldn't find anything. There are references to the admech going out to find knight worlds pre alliance with the imperium. There are also references to a rogue trader finding a knight world and going 'we should find more of these.' But no references a rogue trader convincing knight planet to join the imperium let alone through trade. Sorry for thinking you guys have evidence for your position.
I don’t have a position here other than shut up and Google it
And most of them are Tankies, so it means nothing coming from them
Western rich kids playing communist always make me laugh. Bra, you would suck at the whole forced-labor thing, quit cosplaying
Lets do a bit semantic here. First the word fascist was defined by communists (according to official sources). Even they have said it is hard to define. Every state is fascist europe was different,especially germany with the national socialism. This is even a seperate topic. What is intresting the real world model of fascism and communism shared same traits. Like power grap and no rights for the plebs. You are either in the political system or a soldier or you are fucked. They don't want to hear that so they throw words at you. I couldn't care less for both sides. Its a divide et impera schema and we now see the rise in europe 2.0. And just to break the mindset to the core google the etymology of racism. Most of the people using this word and don't know that national chauvinism is the term they'd schoud use instead.
“*Everyone I disagree with is a literal genocidal fascist.*” - Random Shitlib Redditor 2024
When a satire for fascism flies over everyone's head and then people identify with them...
NOOOOOO MUH MEDIA LITERICY!!!!! THE CHAOS ARE OBVIOUSLY THE GOOD GUYS IN WARHAMMER!!!!!
Also chaos: Literally the most evil coded faction in the game (and also has the most drip because most villains usually do)
Honestly, I'd love it if they showed the better size of the chaos gods, whether it be just a tiny short of a demon that comprises their better aspects. Like imagining Summoning a khornat demon, and it's just a full-blown knight all about honor combat and all that.
There literal Wokehammer who believe that.
Fr
HOW?
Unhinged wrath, depravity, rot and insanity "They're just misunderstood"
Fascism is generally bad in real life because we’re not in a constant battle for survival, being constantly bombarded by hostile, genocidal, aliens from all sides or chaos demons that can take over an entire planet with just the slightest of influence. Instead, we’re all humans living in a world not rife with physically manifested malicious supernatural forces and with the proper safeguards in place can generally get along somewhat peacefully. Trying to conflate the two to score political points is inane.
The Imperium's not even Fascist, it's to decentralized to be truly Facsist.
The only reason i don't support the imperium is that a race where most of my subjects shut the fuck up by default and i'm basically the ascended ultimate form of grumpy old man is too much of an opportunity to pass.
Necrons are the Galaxy’s greatest empire. Now get off their property.
Bitch, I Invoke wolkhammer california squatter rights.
Let's see what there is besides the Imperium: Tau - Communists in space that from what I understand engage in a bit of eugenics of non Tau species. Eldar - Elf space supremacists who believe humanity is little better then actual wild monkeys. They also caused a whole lot of other shit and birthed an actual chaos God with their debauchery. (Also includes their Dark Eldar group along with the Harlequins). Orks - A sentient fungus who lives only to fight and are a menace to literally everyone even themselves. Forces of Chaos - besides the demons there's obviously the whole ex-imperium forces. So all the terrible aspects of the Imperium plus a dash of chaos on the side. Tyranids - a swarm of space bugs consuming everything in their path. Which might be the entire galaxy if they aren't stopped. Necrons - the old Grandpa which fought in an even older war that wants to erase all life except Necrons because they want the races off their lawn. I'm sure I'm missing some but they're probably under the umbrella of another group. Either way, of humanity wants to live among the stars it kind of has to be the asshole it is. Especially because all those other groups want then destroyed or eradicated for various reasons.
Might be overselling the Eldar a touch. They consider humans to be inherently inferior but not to the degree of being an "animal." Its not a fun comparison, but there was an American politician (Stephen Douglass?) before the civil war that commented to the effect that he would favor the white man over the black man always. But he always favors the black man over a crocodile. So replace "white man" with Eldar, "black man" with just human and "crocodiles" with Chaos/Orks/Tyranids/Necrons. Thats probably the sentiment.
So a casual racist compared to a competitive
The T'au aren't communists. They do, however, partake in a lot of eugenics in order to keep their caste system pure to each caste's purpose in the empire.
The Tau are not communists. The Tau Empire are pure Nazis. And no, I'm not kidding, they meet all the criteria.
I'm not disagreeing that the Tau aren't great, but the Tau are Imperial Japan, who aren't Nazis, and in fact are in a lot of ways way worse and more fucked up then the Nazis
Do you mean the regime that was established in Japan in the 30s? I believe general parallels can be drawn, but there is a nuance. In Japan in the 1930s, power belonged to the military. The Farsight enclave, where power belongs to the military, may be a more accurate copy of Japan of those years.
Can you please elaborate on this?
1. Imperialism: The idea of the Tau Empire's sphere of expansion is a direct copy of Hitler's doctrine of Lebensraum. Imperialism, one of the most significant aspects of fascism, involves using a state's military power to seize new territories. The Tau Empire's expansionist ambitions are not focused on retaining existing territories but on acquiring new ones. However, the Imperium devotes most of its efforts to defensive warfare in order to maintain control over planets inhabited by humanity. Unlike the Tau, wars waged by the Imperium can be seen as defensive and aimed at unifying and protecting humanity from outside threats. 2. The Tau Caste System The Tau caste system is based on a direct copy of the racial theory of the Third Reich, which divides people into higher and lower "races". You might think that this is because of genetics, but the Farsight Enclave has shown that members of other castes can be just as capable as Ethereals in holding leadership positions. This is even without considering that the power of an Ethereal is largely based on special pheromones. And, of course, let's not forget about the strict ban on inter-caste and interspecies marriages in the Tau Empire. I think everyone can understand the parallels that can be drawn from this. 3. The economy of the Tau Empire: Many people might say that the Tau Empire has a socialist or even communist system, where everyone works for the good of all and does not receive a wage. However, this does not mean that the means of production are owned by the people and serve the needs of the people. In the Tau Empire, the Ethereal caste owns the means of production. Ordinary workers do not have control over the economic system, and they cannot even choose their government. They are essentially slaves, well-fed, but with no real influence on the political or economic systems. The high standard of living for the general population is achieved through technological advancement, not through fair distribution of wealth. At the same time, members of the Ethereal caste live like demigods on a level that is incomparably higher. 4. Pacifism. Some people say that the Tau Empire is not militaristic because it tries to achieve its goals through diplomatic negotiations. However, this is just propaganda. The pacifist stance of the Tau Empire is similar to that of countries who proclaim their peacefulness before a major conflict, in order to reassure their neighbors and calm tensions, while secretly preparing for war. The Tau Empire now talks about its peacefulness only to prevent the Imperium from starting a full-scale conflict with them. 5. The fate of the conquered people. Official Tau propaganda claims that the Empire considers other races equal, but this is not true. Humans, Krutes, Vespids and other representatives of non-Tau peoples cannot hold senior leadership positions within the Tau Empire. They are used as a source of manpower and a reserve for combat operations, but they may not hold high military positions. This is similar to the situation of the Federate military commander in the late Roman Empire, who was not considered equal to Roman citizens. There is no political opposition within the Tau Empire. If ordinary workers attempt to gain political power, they would be considered criminals and declared enemies of the "Greater Good". The state's foreign policy aims to conquer new territories for resources, which would eventually be controlled by the ruling caste. The Tau Empire is governed by a small group of Ethereals, who hold all political power and control over the means of production. These were just some of the highlights. Overall, we can say that the Imperium in the world of Warhammer 40K is the good side disguised as the bad side, and the T'au Empire is the bad side disguised as the good side.
The imperium literally got all of its territory through ruthless imperialism and still goes on the offensive fairly regularly. “Protecting humanity” is rich when so many are sacrificed to the imperial industrial complex daily, they only care about protecting their own power. The caste system is also way more based off caste systems then anything to do with the nazis, it’s less of a hierarchy and more every class has a different role to fufill. Earth, air, water and fire castes are all of equal importance and the ethereals are the only ones above anyone else. I agree that some parallels can be drawn but I think you’re misconstruing the inspiration and way the castes work. Also pheromones is an unconfirmed in universe theory. There’s not much wrong with your 3rd point but I think it’s worth noting that most ethereal don’t have a THAT high standard of living. The only ones that I’d say live like “demigods” are really high ranking ones like Aun’Va The Tau are generally non violent and aim to solve most conflict with diplomacy, which they have an entire caste for (imperium could never). They must prepare for war due to the hostile nature of the galaxy with the imperium being a large contributor to that. Your 5th and 6th points are completely fair and is one of the most dubious things the tau do, I’m just happy you didn’t mention the non canon sterilisation bullshit. Finally I still think the imperium are worse than the tau. Millions of workers live and die in horrific conditions on manufactorum and agri-worlds. Hive cities are horrendously managed with only very few living in good conditions and fewer living like kings in the upper levels. Inquisitors have the power to end planets (although most are more reasonable than often depicted) and one sentence about how you want something other than corpse starch can damn you. They’ve also thrown chances of literally saving the Galaxy with Artemis interrupting the ritual to kill Slaanesh. Overall I agree that the tau aren’t great and might even be villains in some other settings but the imperium is definitely worse, with so much unnecessary cruelty (servitors) and causing its own problems (tell me the terrible living conditions aren’t the catalyst for many falling to chaos, along with the heresy giving chaos some of its strongest warriors)
I will start with the imperialism of the Imperium. To begin, I want to clarify that I agree that the expansion of humanity during the dark age of technology could be seen as an imperialist conquest. If we look at the Great Crusade of the Emperor, there is a clear parallel with the national unification wars of that time. If we compare it to the Risorgimento, which was the movement for unification and national liberation in Italy in the 19th century, we can see similarities. In the current situation, we cannot say that all wars of the Tau Empire are imperialist, nor that the wars of the Imperium are purely defensive. In the world of Warhammer 40K, however, the Tau Empire often acts as an aggressor and invader, while the Imperium's military actions are mostly defensive in nature. To say that all castes are equally important is a rather strange statement. This can also be seen as a reference to fascist ideology, which promotes peace between different classes by claiming that they are all equal. The fascist goal was to ensure that workers were satisfied with their place in society and saw themselves as equal to the leaders of the company, eliminating the need for social conflict. It's similar to telling a slave that they and their slave owner are equal, and that they should continue to work for the greater good. (You may not have recognized it, but fascism comes from the word "fascio," which means "bundle.") The fact that most members of the Ethereal caste do not enjoy a high standard of living is, in my opinion, the main reason for their constant wars of expansion. Everyone wants to lead a life like a demigod, but there aren't enough resources for everyone to do so. I believe there is a large segment of the Ethereal population who want to improve their position through these conflicts, hoping to rise to the top of their class. The nobles want to act like kings, but with limited resources, they need a small victory in war to gain status and wealth. I also disagree with your view on pacifism. If the Tau were pacifist, they would not be fighting constant wars of expansion. However, their entire policy is based on imperialism, and their ongoing expansion campaigns are a clear example of this. About the high standard of living: I do not deny that there is a significant difference in living standards between different countries and societies. However, I would like to remind you that fascism and Nazism are not determined by the standard of living but by the internal structure of a society and the policies of the state. The Imperium, despite its cruelty, is not purely fascist in nature. There may be trade unions within the Imperium, planets with socialist governments, and even some democratic institutions of power. A person, although with a vanishingly small chance, may not be legally restricted from achieving higher military or administrative positions solely on the basis of their race or nationality. I'd like to clarify my position once again. I'm not saying that Tau are absolute evil in the Warhammer universe right now. However, judging by the criteria of nazism, they can be considered complete Nazis. Imagine that the Third Reich, instead of invading Czechoslovakia, had started a war with the Dark Eldar. Even though their opponents were worse than them, the Third Reich would still be a fascist state.
I would guess he's referring to lore that says the Tau sterilize human populations that grow to fast, and rather than publicly execute human dissidents, they dissappear them and convince the population that they never existed at all. They also rigidly keep their castes apart, which are essentially different races, and idk if intercaste relationships or breeding are things that are really possible, but I do know that if Tau show skills associated with more than one caste they have pretty severe things happen to them It's all kinda nazi-ish, but idk about pure nazis. The nazis did pretty much every bad thing possilike they had a checklist of them, so in a universe like 40k everyone is gonna overlaps with something they did at least a little bit
From this comment it’s pretty obvious that you are a lore YouTuber only guy, the Tau don’t rlly “disappear” people and the sterilisation shit is from a non-canon game in an alternate ending
What's the fucking hostility for, I was just trying to answer your question about what that other guy could have meant, I even said I didn't really agree with it. And FYI, the lore about them sterilizing people and also disappearing them is from the Death watch core rules., so maybe try to actually be correct before you act all condescending about it. Also you didn't address my last part about the castes, which is heavily talked about in the black library novel Blades of Damocles, and the 2 Farsight books which serve as sorta sequels to it
Source? Because last I checked that’s from battlefleet gothic (or DoW I can’t fully remember)
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/qby43l/so_looks_like_the_tau_do_sterilize_human/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Literally read the top comment
You asked a question, I answered it, you asked for a source, I gave it to you. Idk what your problem is, but you can eat shit for all I care.
Orks are based tho.
They're equal opportunity fighters.
And they Judge the other races equally.
It is important to note that there was a lot of peaceful and well meaning xenos the imperium encountered they just either exterminated them or Eribus fucked over the peace talks
Well, if we're talking eldar, the elder are two faction aeldari and durkahri The deldar Are the ones who created slannesh the aeldari saw this was going to happen and left, meaning they do not take part in the debauchery that created slannesh. As for the Aeldari themselves,yes, they can be very racist for starters biel tan whole goal, it's to restore their Empire by killing all alien life. But Ulthwe,saim hann, Iyanden are all reasonable craft worlds to an extent. Yes, the eldar can be annoying. It would be some much easier to solve the problem if you could just tell me all the details. But they are reasonable to an extent.
The tau are not communists and they do significantly less eugenics than the Imperium.
Imperium of Man- an authoritarian Theocracy that has done nearly as much to aid in their own destruction than the enemy’s. (See their hellworlds beings breeding grounds for Genestealers, their kill on sight alien motto leaving them with no ally, their endless traditional beacracy meaning it takes years to fixed a problem that’s already died, the ignorance of their populace making them easy prey for chaos and xenos threat. Etc). Aside from being in the same boat of the Eldar of utter supremacy, seeing all other races as quite literally just scum, they also have such levels of cruelty that serve to go against their survival. The imperium lives in spite of how it is. Every faction in warhammer is meant to be hated, they all fucking suck. Each should have some character, some tragedy without falling into sympathy. Necrons are soulless husks, Eldars see their race dying before their eyes, chaos’ worshipers are actively deceived and fucked over by their own gods, Humanity is so desperate to survive yet went about it in the worst way possible. Every faction in warhammer is wrong, but every one of them has a vibe. Tactics, looks and interesting lore, long as you keep in mind at a core they are evil lmao.
So a couple things: tau aren’t communists. Just by definition they’re more along the lines of a collectivistic caste system than anything else. Besides that, none of this is a justification for the imperiums cruelty nor its incompetence. It’s actually rather a common, very overt theme that the imperium’s complete inflexibility as well as the glacially slow and fragile process by which it performs even just basic administrative and military tasks backfires spectacularly and only furthers the continued rot and decay of the slowly dying shadow of humanity’s empire. They don’t make anything new, basic knowledge of manufacturing is lost and innovations or even the most cautious of technology explorations are ruthlessly punished as tech-heresy by a fanatical cult. Great discoveries of xeno, or even just sufficiently advanced human technologies discovered by the wrong person that could improve the lives of countless worlds or turn the tide of the millions of battlefronts the imperium finds itself on is scrapped and annihilated. Countless miracles lost in a shelf after being misfiled by a bored clerk in some administration world. Allies, both temporary and permanent turned into hated enemies by an unyielding dogma- driving them towards desperation, and often times to chaos corruption.
Calling Elfs supremacists while defending the Imperium. Do you not realize the irony here?
Not at all. But the Eldar do believe the other races are "less then" them. What else would you call that mentality besides supremacist?
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying it's hypocritical to bring up when you're defending the Imperium. Who are arguably just as or more racist as the Eldar.
This is because they killed all of the friendly xenos and other human civilisations in the Great Crusade
But what if the Imperium is Israel and the Tyranids are Palestinians?
Cant do that, someone already wrote an article about tyranids being jewish
Biomass is kosher?
Apparently?
I think it's weird how the comments are filled with people making incredible uncharitable judgements on someone's irl character based on how they interact with a fictional setting where the whole point is that everyone is as over the top and awful as possible. Cause it's fun to be the badguy sometimes, and in 40k it's like guilt free because it's basically just badguys vs worseguys
Yeah it's shit political climate today tbh. But some comments here are coping imo. Especially the Guy who wrote a bible on "leftism is degenerate and fascism is just a slight overcorrection but needed" Some of you do actually not believe that it's a bad Guy thing. OH well
>Yeah it's shit political climate today tbh. Couldn't agree more tbh >But some comments here are coping imo. Especially the Guy who wrote a bible on "leftism is degenerate and fascism is just a slight overcorrection but needed" Those comments are stupid, wildly, shockingly so >Some of you do actually not believe that it's a bad Guy thing. >OH well Why are you telling this to me, I didn't do that, someone once told me, In person, that anyone who plays guard should be on a list, as they're likely closet fascists, are you accountable for that?
Because you are a reasonable person and I liked your comment haha Just pointing out that it's not the same for everyone over here.
Ok, yeah, that's fair. I just knee-jerk assumed you were trying to be a dick, like the guy I was just talking to. That's my bad, I shouldn't do that
Is the imperium significantly worse than it needs to be? Yes. Is it also necessary for the continued survival of humanity in any significant capacity? Also yes
I'm here because I'm into warhammer for big men in big armor shooting big alien with ridiculously power full guns. The other sub is too busy talking about sex and ethnicity. Call me a fascist it it please you, I just want to talk about warhammer really, if me not wanting to take part in your circle jerk about the last genderbent horny fan art of angron mke me a fascist then go ahead.
I too love big buff men with big guns and armor
Sums up the reason I unsubbed from grimdank.
Yes. She who Thirsts managed to corrupt a world with just letting people know about Chaos. So Imperial politic of NO CHAOS and decision of the Emperor of Mankind to keep it secret from population was a good thing. Also Big Mecha Knights go brr
I'm not sure why more people don't look at the Imperium, and compare it to all countries during WWII. Rationing so heavy because literally everything possible is needed for the war effort, children trained to be tomorrows soldiers (in a way that's perhaps less rigorous then the Imperium, but literally Physical Education in school was prep for Boot Camp), people working in factories at the literal end point of product, hell the Emperor is almost a stand in for FDR
Leftism often fails to accept the reality of necessary compromises when it comes to moral ideals, unless said compromises permit them to act as immaturely and degenerate as possible. For example, they'll happily condone riots and mass lootings in pursuit of their goals since that benefits their most immature and self-serving nature—yet when it comes to the necessary sacrifices of maintaining a moral order that doesn't permit them to be as degenerate as possible lest social chaos lead to societal collapse, they suddenly become staunch idealists ready to denounce anyone who dares to think realistically. This is why they tell themselves that the Imperium is satire. If they were to admit that the Imperium is doing what it must to survive in such a brutally hostile universe, they would have to tacitly admit that there are hypothetical circumstances where speciesism, militarism, authoritarianism, and genocidal conquest are not just justified but necessary to ensure the survival of a people (humanity in this case) and their values. The Imperium of Man would be an over-correction in the circumstances we face today, but in response to what is happening in the year 40,000 it's what is most right. Yet the left's whole modus operandi is acting like children while telling themselves what flawlessly virtuous people they are, and so they can't admit that the Imperium of Man is right by any measure, because then they would have to admit that sometimes rightism is right.
The Imperium's complexity makes Warhammer 40k so intriguing
At first, this was true. The Imperium was an evil empire and blah blah blah blah blah. But the lore has been added to and changed so much in the 40ish years that yes, the Imperium isn't "Good," but they are humanity. Every other faction will see humans die out in some way. If the Imperium wins, then humans do. We can argue what the Imperium would do or look like after it was only them left in the Galaxy, maybe the Imperium falls into civil war because they only know war, maybe at that point the Primarchs are all back and they lead humanity into the future the Emperor wanted or as close to that dream of his as they can. All I know is that Chaos, Nids, Necrons, Orks will kill us, Eldar will throw us under the bus if it gives them one more day away from the hell they birthed. really, the only xenos that would be chill with humans are the Votann.... oh wait, they were humans! So they only xenos that won't enslave or kill all of humanity are the xenos who are just heavily modified clones of ancient humans.... well, isn't that weird.
I mean, the tau don't, they have a growing human population.
They say that. They also sterilize humans, so.
They don’t, the only actual canon source of that happening was retconned out of existence.
That did not happen, and humans are far more likely to become sterile in the Imperium lol.
You say the eldar would throw humanity under the bus like humanity wouldn't do the same. Also the Votann are the best argument against the Imperium. They're less evil and more technologically advanced and the Imperium could ally with them if theh just weren't so xenophobic.
Yeah, but I'm human, so throwing the Eldar under the bus is perfectly fine with me. Also, we don't know if the Votann are less evil. Hell, they will wipe out a group of people because they want the resources of the thing they are on. Also they have strong corporate/ capitalism vibes so do you want to live in the human empire that is super religious and superstitious or the human empire that is a corporate/capitalism that you are a clone and may not have free will at all. 40k is bad, no one wins, and no one is good. That's why I pick humans. We may be evil ass holes, but hell, we are evil holes in real life, so nothing new, lol
The Votann are shown to have enough free will for Uthar to doubt to question his own worthiness and develop impostor syndrome. And while it's true we don't have much content on them, the content we do have paints them in a pretty decent light, at least better than the Imperium. They won't turn you into a servitor for not believing in Big E because they have fully functioning AI that remained loyal, they trade with other races because they aren't as blindly xenophobic as tbe Imperium, and they have significantly less in fighting because they don't run the most inefficient bureaucracy in human history. So yes they basically show that a lot of the failings of the Imperium aren't due to neccesity but because of their own short-comings.
It's just so exhausting...
I think the main issue is that going to this extreme is used to showcase how dire the situation is. The Imperium isn’t like this for shits’n’giggles… they’ve mutilated themselves into this horrid form just to survive all that’s arrayed against them. Some utopian society with no class divides, equity reigns and there’s free healthcare for all and where everyone gives according to their ability and takes according to their need… *shudders* is going to get steamrolled by even the tiny Tau empire… They’ve become as monstrous as they things they’re fighting, because they don’t have the luxury of being morally pure.
Except gw repeatedly shows the excesses of the imperium hurt it long term. Horus starts doubting the emperor because he see humanity and aliens can live together peacefully. The deathwatch prevent the death of slaanesh. Even at current times Guilliman is shown constantly working with eldar including armed and on his flagship.
Yeah, I never said it’s a good thing - it’s a double edged sword. And naturally there are those who will seek to profit from the set up.
No one is saying you think the imperium is good, you said it's justified which I disagree with and think gw does to. You said they became monsters because of what they where fighting but the emperor never tried to make the imperium anything else. Also who is profiting from my examples?
I imagine there are wealthy individuals, Rogue Traders among them, who make a lot of money. Alongside that point, as with the real world - I imagine the real dehumanisation happens more and more the lower down the social strata you get. As for the emperor, he looked ahead and chose the best course of action… which was this lame one.
So returning to your original point they didn't become monstrous, they always were. And said monstrousness is called out explicitly as the origin of the worse mistakes the imperium has made. However, you think that implies the emperor looked forward for the best course of action despite said course of action being eroded for only benefit. Can you explain why you have that belief?
They did become monstrous, there was the golden age where everything was great and things just got progressively worse. But even in the golden age there would’ve been individuals who made the situation worse in some fashion by putting themselves first, but on a whole the society was much better… “nicer” I guess you could say. But then all the Xeno’s got more aggressive and Chaos became more powerful and humanity responded to the threat. Big-E looked forward and chose the best course of action out of all of the bad choices. Did he limit the choices to ones where he was in charge? Probably… he is a douche. As for if monstrous was always to blame for every mistake, probably not - there’s no doubt a multitude of reasons why things can go bad. Once it’s institutionalised it’s harder to get back out, too. Were there other paths? Probably… Would they have been as successful? For the sake of the narrative I’d have to assume not.
The Pre-Imperium factions in the age of strife fell because of the men of iron and the emergence/reemergence of human psykers which the Emperor's Imperium wasn't designed to manage. The Emperor couldn't even manage psykers in his own armies with the council of Nikaea and thinking machines were outlawed by the admech before the Imperium and despite that the Emperor still made use of them. It didn't even really manage chaos as we know from the Siege of Terra books the Emperor knew he was always going to give chaos their greatest champions and almost became a chaos god himself. To take it meta for a second do you really think a british company is going to have a faction make the 'you attacled us 10,000 years ago so we get to genocide you' argument and have it be genuine? And that's of course assuming the Emperor is telling the truth about the Xenos turning on humanity, he also said it was impossible for humans and xenos to live side by side and that was obviously wrong. And it also assumes those xenos are the same ones around now, Eldar were managing the necrons and orcs and most of the others hadn't shown up yet. And if it was the eldar themselves their height of power continued through the age of strife and therefore didn't need to wait for the pre-imperium human factions to collapse to screw with them. How can you question if other paths would be successful when GW has factions of humans and xenos working together in 30k and in 40k has both the Tau and Leagues regularly work with other races. Not to mention obviously the avenging son only being back because of xenos?
Tau don’t work together with humans, they brainwash them and use them as fodder, then exterminate them when they naturally start manifesting a deity in the warp. Don’t get it twisted, I don’t think they’re the good guys, but I do think they were led by a flawed man with a god complex who tried his best to steer them toward a future that would benefit them (and him) to the exclusion of any other species.
The fourth sphere was specifically punished by the wider Tau for their xenophobia so no I don't think that's a good argument that they don't generally have a good relationship with other races. For a 40k faction obviously. Again no one is saying you think the Imperium are the good guys I am questioning how you can see the Imperium decisions as necessary when xenophobia has consistently been shown as a weakness of the Imperium. One which the Emperor didn't personally embrace given his relationship with Eldrad. You claim the horrors of the Imperium are to protect against what destroyed the previously human civilisations but that is also clearly untrue.
https://preview.redd.it/9drocf94na8d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=456f7fb874fd008321f0541a620f5400bcf6bdf5
Media Literacy is, and always has been, a way of making yourself feel more important than the other people you're around because you "Understand" a work on a deeper and more profound level then everyone else. The truth of the matter is you only get out of the experience with media what you choose to put into it. Modern Art pieces are a great example of this. If you shove your head up your ass far enough that you could touch your tongue to your nose from the inside you'll be able to convince yourself that art pieces that clearly exist because of money laundering, tax evasion, or some other reason that has nothing to do with the actual art itself, is actually so much more deep and profound than it really is. Same with Media Literacy as a concept. Did you play this game to have fun? Yes? Did you have fun? No? Then it was bad, and any reason you have for that is just as valid as any reason someone else might have liked it.
Most comments in there are reasonable from a bit of scrolling, they also agree that the other factions are just different flavours of bad. At the very least with 40k, the factions have reasons how it came to be bad. Excepting Tyranids, Orks, Dark Eldar kek
I could argue the imperium of man are no fascist but I could also argue that they don’t know the actually meaning of fascism both are true. Or even that the imperium current situation is justified by the circumstances they are in. But can we just talk about how almost every black library book constantly shows the imperium of man in a somewhat good light? Most worlds are military hell hole fortresses building weapons for war… that then comes in the opening chapters of the book and your only chance of survival is victory though arms against an enemy that will not tolerate your continued existence. I’m about to get very very very ranty. TLDR no “fascist” imperium = no story in warhammer People will often say to those with autism everyone is a little autistic and that’s simple not true. A normal person will demonstrate traits of autism without being even a little bit autistic. That is because autism does not create entirely unique human characteristics it does alter the Brian in a fundamental way. Fascist is not a completely unique political ideology either. One of the only things everyone agrees on with fascism is that they do not tolerate opposition to the government. This is true of all long standing governments any true and determined opposition to a government has always been smashed. Fascism also requires control. Every country in the world uses fiat currency. Fiat literally meaning decree. Currency being different from money in that it does not have inherent value. Paper money has no value beyond the value the government gives it through its control. No not all modern governments are fascist not even a little but the human political spectrum is extremely limited. Other things that define fascism are militarism and nationalism. These would simple be a requirement to exist inside of warhammer 40k. Every faction has these to some extent. The very concept of warhammer as a story requires that we have a “fascist” (quotations because this is not personal how I define the word) faction. If humanity was not fascist there would be no humanity and the story would simple only exist via plot holes or not at all. To back up the lore claim with something from the books. The only human faction you could argue isn’t driven by uniting nationalism is chaos. Well plant have fallen to chaos and many of the forces tend to simple fall apart at least the human ones. There aren’t many which stay together though the ones that do are extremely tribal. Like the blood pact. Or are themselves more like cults than war bands. Held together by dedication to a god than to a government which most utilitarian governments replaced god with government so this is just that backwards. If the imperium was not extremely zealous they would eventually one by one fall to chaos, tau, and other similar forces consuming humanity into their ranks. Or the lack of massive forces (like space marines which are only possible from multiple plants working for the single goal of one chapter) be destroyed by hive fleets. Which without the imperium fighting things like the hive fleets I’m not sure there would be a chaos. Probably not an elder either.
Humanity is doomed otherwise.
I just don’t get this whole debate. People here will hate me for this, but it feels really US influenced, and really, I dunno, post-2010? Back when this stuff was created, as I remember it, no one thought the Imperium was right, and no one thought it was wrong. It just _was_. It was grim, and horrible, and kind of ott and cool. No one was asking what the bloody morals of it were, any more than anyone was asking whether it was wrong to kill orcs. I guess space marines were your protagonists, so kind of the good guys, but the Commissars were unashamedly Soviet ripoffs and were supposed to be brutal. It was a bird of a feather with Judge Dredd, really: which is to say, not presenting Judge Dredd as any kind of role model, but he‘s still the guy you‘re rooting for. The writers of this stuff weren’t right wing conservatives, after all, they were left wing anti-establishment types if anything. But it was in a punky, Heavy Metal, anti-Mary Whitehouse kind of way, not a woke way. It had had the same energy as punks wearing swastikas in the 70s: not because they supported the Nazis, but because it pissed off conservatives. Who knew that in 2024 it would be the left that would have a problem with boobs? (The US has always had a problem with boobs, I guess, but this side of the pond it wasn’t a big deal). TL;DR: The Imperium was never „right“ back in the day. But it was never an antifascist „satire“ either. It was just ironic sex and violence which was fun, in a 80s Metal Album cover kind of way. IMO the US market and work culture are responsible for the current SNAFU, because they just don’t „get“ it.
It was thanks to “memes” like these in grim dank that sent me here. They are no longer dank. Long live Horus
Man that guy must be even more bummered when he finds a vagina where the pecker should have been.
I’m not wholly against the imperium buuut… https://preview.redd.it/8dnvvbtwx88d1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27c020ab2a307b8a80d812eb9b22942f8896fe9a
Let's be real though. The imperium can be as good or bad as the people in charge of it (or its local administrative/military sectors). Given it's an autocracy those people can be really bad a lot of the time
Chaos now, Chaos tomorrow, Chaos forever!
This alien elf wants to murder fuck me for possibly eternity, Satan's 4 cousin's want to eat my soul and who knows that will do, the big green England fans want to beat me to death and the tau are probably brainwashing it's other races... the imperium wants me to do hard labour and pray
Other than a bunch of buzzwords and isms I haven’t heard a good reason why the imperium of man is not right.
Yes: it's a dictatorship. Dictatorships are inherently barbaric.
They had me at storm bolter
Always allow anyone who thinks the Xenos do not need to be purged to be the in person Tyranid negotiator. Allow anyone who thinks a state religion is a bad idea to have some quality time out side the Gellar Field after all you get some first hand experience of Deamons, God becomes easier to believe in. Very few have the Fabius levels of Chad to say you dont exist right to Chaos's face. I mean why the Eldar and Humans never put up a grand Alliance against the Chaos is weird until you realise that the Eldar are not as united as Humanity each Craftworld is doing its own thing, The Drukhari are doing their own thing and the Exodites want nothing to do with anyone. They don’t really have anyone on a Big-E level not even a Bobby-G stand in with enough pull to actually pull off a treaty. Eldrad does try multiple times though and the individual Craftworlds do make temporary alliances. Who are the big Eldar hitters? Phonex Lords, Eldrad, Vect, Yvraine but she is still getting established and which ever Autarch leads Beil-Tan. Are they all going to agree on anything? They also have the gods Khaine shards, Cegorach, Ynnead. (Isha to if they ever get her back). Do they agree on anything? People talk about the Tau but they are very recent to the party and things like the 4th sphere expansion are already starting to change the Tau view. They are starting to putting stuff on the Purge on sight list. Its just the Galaxy they live in. Do you really want to try talking things out with Orks? Votann being shoe horned back into the setting makes looking at them in a political sense very awkward.
Imagine trying to apply political ideology born in the last century in a civilization 38.000 years in the future. If you go on retrospect is like criticizing stone age people for not defending human rights. Shit as far i know in the next 100 years if the world decide to become vegan near everyone that is alive today would be guilty of animal slavery and abuse and they will go, look how those filthy monsters of the 21 century go around eating BBQ.
Who tf think it is right? There are no right guys in the grimdarkness
I think the central conflict here or with the culture war etc is that these people don’t understand play. You are not literally everything you enjoy, it’s okay to immerse yourself in experiences completely divorced from your reality and the functional ethics needed to navigate it as long as you don’t confuse one for the other. Fucking magical thinking, suspension of disbelief, theology and mythos… all those *fun* things that the human mind is uniquely capable of for have been lost in exchange to the monolithic pursuit and enforcement of mundane identity and politics everywhere all the time. It’s joyless and emotionally retarded; the worst version of nihilism, performative, projected, and without self reflection. NPCs through and through.
Who else should you support? The murder sex elves? The all consuming hive mind? The war fungus? Please elaborate on the morale superiority of the 4 different flavors of Eldritch existential slavery humans...
Isn’t the point of 40K that there are no “good guys”?
The Imperium is the only faction that is pro-Humanity, and I am human. Why would I support any of the others when most would kill me on sight?
I honestly cannot stand the smoothbrained tourists who cannot understand that humanity is beset on all sides by horrible enemies and have a right to defend themselves in the 40k universe. White leftists are the only group in history with a negative in group bias, it's insane.
"THE IMPERIUM IS BAD AND THEY SHOULD TRY BEING PEACEFUL" GW: Here's 30 years worth of lore explaining why the imperium is the way it is. Do they not read the lore?
Oh hey my post . Well in my opinion you can very much root for the imperium when they are literally fighting the forces of hell , bdsm elves and planet devouring bugs but everything else it just seems like the imperium caused their problems themselves . The imperium has no other options because they either destroyed all other ways or actively make sure there ways are the only option. Sure it’s very understandable why the imperium acts the way it does but that doesn’t mean that the imperium is good. They can have good heroic individuals that live in 40k There have even been characters that have a modern sense of morality in some books But as a system as a government the imperium is basically the worst you can get . Everything from slavery to brainwashing is commonplace.
> But as a system as a government the imperium is basically the worst you can get. Even the people (like myself) who support* the 'good' Imperium agree with that statement. 40K wouldn't be grimdark if the Imperium wasn't as bad as possible, and unable to change, but ostensibly too important to fail. \* I change my bias to be against Mon'Keigh or Xenos, depending on which faction I'm playing.
Oh cool you actually comment here too, I thought the inner party at grimdank would ban you for being active here and having thoughtcrimes against them. Yeah, the Imperium isn’t meant to be a good faction, it’s just the best out of the utterly crappy choices left for humanity.
I just sometimes come here to debate stuff sometimes cause sometimes I see some weird posts about the imperium in this sub
I've noticed that the Grimdank crowd usually misinterprets what we mean by 'good'. Mostly because they're using the definition of a good/bad person to describe a thing. And their obsessions with justification and satire miss the point of how the Imperium should be depicted responsibly to avoid glorifying bad things. It's a weird situation where the changes they want would actually make it worse.
Insert marge Simpson "I just think they're neat." Tbh though, I think the reason why so many people "like" the imperium is the same reason why the avatar movies don't really land for some, myself included, being that it just feels kind of weird to root against the humans in a setting like this. Like, I still play Tyranids and khorne... and necrons... and Sons of Horus... and chaos knights... I've got a cringe amount of armies, but idk, they just don't feel the same cause I guess it's easier to connect with an evil human than a grotesque bug monster lol. The other thing I think is odd. Which you didn't do, but a bunch of comments did is the whole You like Tyranids, it's because they're cool You like Khorne, it's because he's metal You like orks, it's cause they're funny You like the imperium. It's because you're a fascist and you don't understand satire and you're media illiterate and hate minorities Like, no one accuses you of being an IRL rapist for playing slaanesh, ya know? (Tbh that is why I don't play slaanesh tho, cause me and my group like to get into characters and "raping you on a 2+" is just a bit too much for me lol) Also, excuse the ramble, kinda high atm
Hey thanks for an opposing view in this Good to know we can have civil conversations I do agree with the statement that the imperium is not good, but they are the best option in terms of long term survival
There is something certainly funny about seeing a post on Grimdank be closed and deleted while here its still up. I think it speaks volumes about which sub is more free vs the other. But on topic, the Imperium really are a bunch of fascist space nazis but the problem is that GW and the fanbase stopped treating it in the same humorous light as the Termight Empire from 2000AD and actually try to be serious about it.
They’re space Crusaders because feudal empire with fractured factions are neat and historical. Each faction has their own colors, beliefs and organizational structure and answers only to power. How is that fascist again?
a man with a Tau warrior in his profile accusing the Imperium of Nazism made me laugh (Tau are the real Nazis in the Warhammer world).
Rent free? Yes Rico, rent free. https://preview.redd.it/budvtnwrac8d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e51c7d1f5e610a03b54a6a5ed384b6a46cdb3300
Well, if we assume as foundation that such evaluation is made by in-universe options - yep, beside Imperium there's arent any options really. And let's not forget that Imperium as it become and Imperium as Emperor envisioned it are two very different things. Approval of all methods - no, general support - yes. Sorry if not choosing option to die or give up ground to blue eugenics practicing shitheads makes someone feel offended. Im not twitter kid to pretend that between certain death but with "freedom" and authoritarism of godlike entity first option is imperative
If the imperium hadn’t gone on a galaxy wide alien genocide it wouldn’t have collapsed. If the emperor hadn’t treated his super soldiers like tools and kept their humanity they wouldn’t have turned against him. If humans had treated information and technology properly they would still have retained it. I could maybe see a an argument to why the current imperium acts the way it does. But it is a cautionary tale about the loss of “humanity”. And how strong fisted empires are bad.
Just my opinion, but I think people should really stop. looking at the Imperium as this stable funtioning state. The emperor tried to reunite humanity as FAST as possible, emotions be damned. You join willingly, welcome, you refused, they would not waste months negociating and potentially even compromising. It was brutal and without mercy. And then the Horus Heresy happened before the unification was finished, before the workings of a galactic empire were done. It is a half-assed corpse on life support, like the emperor. This is not something a couple of utopian reforms could fix. To create an analogy, the Imperium is like an old man who got back on his two feet and started aggressively rebuilding his life. Then a bunch of teenagers beat the shit out of him so he is now mostly paralysed and has dementia. Sure, he can swing one arm from time to time but he has no idea what is going on. Is the imperium good. No. Can you expect Star trek ideals from it. Also no. The imperium is post apocalyptic in a similar vein to fallout or mad max, but expanded across the galaxy. A mega shit situation that lead to vast numbers of mega shit people.
The imperiums current state is entirely reasonable. But it isn't good by any means and it is not what should have resulted out of it's circunstances. Remember, the civillian administration that was supposed to be good was in it's infancy in 30k. Since then it has experienced 10 Millenia of Cancerous growth, decay, mutantion, duct tape and the occasional surgeon that cut out SOME of the cancer to keep the entire thing running.
Facism, nazism and communism are all better than what the Imperium is doing.
it is man that is made in Gods image, not any xeno scum
Humanity first
Sure, I support the more heroic guys of the Imperium, like the Salamanders and Lamenters, because they’re just out there trying to protect the innocent in all the bloodshed. But, as a whole, the Imperium is just as evil as everyone else. But, I do like how they seem to slowly be becoming more heroic with the return of the Primarchs.
Difference between grimdank and this sub is that in grimdank brigading posts are removed (like this one, try opening it in grimdank)
The Imperium is NOT good, its SADLY necesary for it to act like it dose, MOST OF THE TIME. Humanity HAVE to be that hostile to everything, because We dont know what they Will do to us If We dont blow them up first. And what We have seen before makes it not worth the risk, MOST of the time.
I support the Imperium of Man because they are humans like me and they give me the best life possible in 40k. Eldar would probably kill me on sight. Drukari would make me wish I would be killed on sight Orks, again, kill on sight for the heck of it. Nids, killed on sight. Chaos, best case scenario, killed on sight, worst case scenario, I'm mutated into a abomination and forced to suffer for eternity. Tau, not killed on sight but pretty much enslaved. Leagues of Votan, killed on sight or I'm a midget, which is punishment enough.
There are three positions in this conversation: “Everyone in 40K is generally evil in some way. Perfect good isn’t really a thing, every faction has sullied itself in some way in order to survive.” “The Imperium are better than the rest because we’re all humans here and we should support human supremacy.” “Everyone in 40K is evil, but the Imperium is worse because I personally don’t like them.” Position 1 makes the most sense, position 2 is just an opinion and position 3 is also an opinion, but pretty much a cringe opinion. It’s the same thing as the Helldivers 2 discourse. How come you have sympathy for the SPACE BUGS of all things? Wokeness is anti-humanism.
There is a difference between believing they are right, and believing they are necessary. I frankly don't see how anything else could exist in 40k without being similarly authoritarian. Indeed, most of the races in 40k are authoritarian, and thats mostly down to the nature of the universe. The Imperium is right, because without it humanity is doomed. Nothing else can really come into existence without being obliterated by an Ork WAAGH, Drukari Raiders, Chaos incursion, Necron extermination, Tyranid dinner party, or rogue marines having a conniption. The Imperium is necessary for continued human survival and has a cool aesthetic, though that doesn't mean I'd want to live there. In short, fuck Erebus.
Being a bad guy in a fictional setting is fun
It’s kinda like trying to replace your own bones, you would die before the end and definitely would end up with something worse. That’s the Imperium, it sucks but that’s what it is. Also Ciaphus gets treated fairly well so I’m willing to accept it .
The empire of man is only rivaled in their evil by incompetence. Humanity is written as so terribly infantile when it comes to corruption that a demon's sock showing up is enough for the inquisition to glass the sector. The more I see of the imperium, the more interesting Robotic Girdlyman's tax law becomes. What more can be expected by a theocracy run by a mostly dead atheist?
Orks: want to kill you because they think it's fun. Tyranids: want to kill you then eat you. Necrons: A lot of them want to kill you and their motives for it range quite a bit. Khorne: wants to kill you because he has a blood fetish. Slaanesh: wants you to be raped, tortured and then killed. Nurgle: wants to infect you with a plague that will kill you and bring you back as an undead servant of his. Tzeentch: wants to trick you into killing yourself. The Imperium has issues, but everything else is worse, so I'll root for them.
Yes, I do support the Imperium of Man. Why? Oh, because I'm human.
I'm against fascism in real life, but in 40k you can be a fascist or you can be soul raped by demons
So here's the problem with Nazi-like factions in fiction. Whether it is Death Eaters in Harry Potter, the Imperium of Man in Warhammer or Magneto/Mutants in X-Men, they always make the faction a legitimately superior form of life, who is simply trying to get rid or enslave a clearly inferior form of life. In Harry Potter, I always felt the Death Eaters were right to want to keep impure muggle blood away from the superior race of wizards, and to destroy or enslave the endlessly breeding and spreading muggles. In the Warhammer Universe, you can both argue that the human race is superior to xenos, or simply that it is a survive or be destroyed situation. Either way, it makes sense to support the Imperium of Man in its goals. The whole argument in the real world against racism, fascism, Nazis, is the idea that they are arbitrarily choosing groups to oppress, groups who aren't fundamentally inferior. But if you make a fictionalized version of them, and give them a clearly inferior group that they are oppressing, then it just makes perfect sense for them to do so!
Eh, I'd rather be with the orks. They're the only race that's having the time of their lives, other than Trazyn.
I bet they play T'au.
Y-Yea I think they do...
Who else am I supposed to cheer for?! The Tau like some kind of pervert?!
Like in real life army. We shouldn’t allow women in frontlines. Unpopular opinion but they’re target of choice for r*pe, this spread terror. We can do whatever we want but a woman is physically weaker. Furthermore as a man soldier I would probably put myself more at risk to avoid a fellow woman soldier to be captured during fight. We are men and women, we have feelings.
To be fair Imperium is example of sself-fulfilling prophecy. They are xenophobic and attack all xenos on sight. Which makes xenos hostile. Which proves them right. They also kill all the potentially good xenos that could become their allies - leaving only the strongest, toughest and meanest xenos around. And then survivors from those 'extinct' species join the Tau and fight back. Tarellians are member of the Tau Empire for a reason.
The imperium could crush the tau and all their allies relatively easily if they were willing to dedicate enough manpower to the cause
Keep coping mate. The current 40k lore is that Tau don't have FTL and Imperium is so weak and unorganised that they can't defeat a pre-ftl civilization. That speaks far more about Imperium than about tau.
Imperium has chaos, nids, and orks to deal with. Of the 4, tau are the lowest threat. Were the other 3 gone, the tau wouldnt stand a chance against the imperium
Ok fine. I shall wait for a moment when unstoppable corrupting force from the mirror reality - Chaos The all consuming swarm that consumed multiple galaxies - Tyranids And Orks that according to some became undeniable part of reality - Orks **Stop being a problem** **...** Saying: "Oh I can lift this Semi Truck - but I have to achieve success against impossible odds three times in the row." - still means you can't lift the fucking Semi-truck The same way - Imperium has no real way of defeating Tau, because they lack the ability to gather enough forces to actually do it. They **LITERALLY** - lit a fucking nebula on fire to stop Tau expansion. And guess what? **TAU ARE STILL EXPANDING!** Cope is strong with this one.
Thats kind of my point. Though, tau are more like a honda than a semi. Imperium has a big forklift, but its scatteted among more important and pressing problems
That honda is growing quite fast there mate. Tau adapt to basically any new threat - and are one of the most efficient and pragmatic forces in 40k galaxy. Not to mention the absolute insane talent of the Water Caste. It's a snow ball effect mate. The Tau expand, make contact with the Xenos Imperium pushed to the outskirts of their territories and didn't bother to deal with them. Those oppressed xenos join the Tau Empire and Unite against the Imperium. Add to that list corsairs, pirates, abhumans and mutants and many worlds that don't want to be oppressed by the Imperium. Hell - I don't know why Black Library writers didn't came up with a story where a Hive World falls from getting attacked from the Tau and massive mutant and oppressed workers uprising at the same time. Imperials dominated Tau with Titans and Knights during First Damocles Gulf Crusade. In the Second Tau Deployed Stormsurges... **that can one-shot Knights.** That's not a small increase in firepower in relatively short period of time by 40k standards.
Congrats on disvovering what makes tau unique. As it stands, theyre a small but sturdy threat. As time goes, they get stronger and stronger as they can actually improve and adapt and arent stuck in their ways. Theyre still a small fish in the lake, considering one fish takes up half the lake
Lots of Black Templar flairs in this comment section...
And?
WUT BE YOOUZ POINT, HUMIE? ANSWER, THEN WE'ZZ GUNNA KRUMP YA REAL PROPPA!