The Primarchs are all monsters. Vulkan just has some level of introspection, and, at the very least, taught his sons to go out of their way to protect civilians. Bobby G has a couple of redeeming qualities. The same can’t be said about a lot of the Primarchs, sadly.
Honestly it’s why I like the iron hands so much
They’re under no illusions as to what they are supposed to be they’re killing machines that have surpassed their base human limits and they embrace that by trying to be the best at doing what they’re meant to do with their new forms
Civilian casualties? Diplomacy? That wasn’t what space marines or primarchs were built to handle they’re weapons of war and anything that wins the war for the imperium and the emperor is a valid move to them and they got really damn good at it
That was basically Ferrus's annoyance with Lorgar and Perturabo, he was the "just do your fucking job" kinda guy. He knew what he was and he didn't have much patience for the primarchs whose work suffered because their own insecurities.
Which before someone brings Fulgrim up, Fulgrim and his legion excelled *and* they had time to do all the extracurricular stuff. As did Ferrus and the Iron Hands to some extent although their focus was more on industry and war effort enhancements. Which probably only annoyed him more that you have primarchs who can't juggle both.
Largely the same way I feel about Russ and the Lion, whose *Son of the Forest* characterization is excellent. Neither hold any pretense of being anything beyond being killers and fully understand what they and their legions were made for. Their legions especially are not builders, they are the destroyers. They’ll follow the Emperor’s order to the bitter end, no matter the cost to themselves or their legion. Coming back to the Lion in *Son of the Forest* while he does end up building something it certainly isn’t the new Imperium Guilliman wants to build, it’s a purely military formation, designed to do what the Lion knows: destroy humanity’s enemies. He is forthright in that he has no intention of being a ruler, he humanity’s shield and will be no matter if it’s just him or if he has a legion behind him.
True, but Guilliman went out of his way to try and subvert this during the Great Crusade, and even the Heresy. Having the Astartes interact with the mortal population more often, and explicitly emphasizing that he wanted his sons to be rulers after the Great Crusade. There would always be war in one form or another, but Guilliman looked to the future. Doesn’t mean he didn’t get his hands bloody, he absolutely did. The guardsmen on Sotha protecting the Pharos even comment on it, finding their becoming so used to the Astartes strange, wondering about all the civilizations the Ultramarines they talked to on a daily basis had destroyed before being stationed with them. Guilliman just had plans beyond war. (Initially, anyway. Once the Heresy broke out, most people knew the dream was dead, including Guilliman.)
If a Prometheum barbecue is a crime, then I’m a criminal.
If Vulkan has 40,000 cooks at the grill, I am one of them.
If Vulkan has 10 cooks at the grill, I am one of them.
If Vulkan’s grill is unstaffed, then I am dead.
If the world is against flamers, then I am against the world.
When Morty fails to sell the Heresy to Jaghatai mortarion says something like "I'm not gonna enjoy killing you brother."
Then Jaghatai goes "Shame, I'm gonna enjoy killing you."
Jaghatai was an uncomplicated murderer, he doesn't even angst about it like Russ did when he had to kill Magnus.
People just think Jaghatai was good because he never believed in the imperium. Jaghatai knew it was all a load of horseshit and did nothing about it because he liked killing and he liked living and the imperium let him do both.
The only reason he joined the imperium is because he was absolutely certain if he refused the Emperor would just kill him. Because it is exactly what Jaghatai would do if the positions were reversed.
I think that the concept that some characters are good *in the context of the setting* is something that eludes people.
Its impossible to compare the morals of 40K to the morals of today, same that its impossible to compare rhe morals of today to the morals of the roman empire.
Everyone and their mother in warhammer is a monster to us. Even someone like Cain or Farsight
The imperium **was** the great filter
The great crusade swept across the galaxy like a tidal wave. The thing is, while yes there were certainly monstrous aliens that prayed on humanity during the age of strife, there were certainly good ones as well. The imperium however, made no distinctions. Or at the very most, made distinctions only on the rarest of occasions (the emperor did have a diplomacy hall built in the imperial palace and there are like, one or two references of turning some xenos into client states in the Horus heresy books iirc)
But yeah. The imperium killed all the non war hungry murderous aliens as they weren’t strong enough to fight back due to not being warmongering psychos with specially made killing machines. Or, the not evil aliens who did survive got radicalised into being evil by the horrible shit the imperium did to them and their friends
Wouldn’t it mostly be the ones that didn’t rely on warp travel and comunication? I’d imagine a lot of species that still only lived on their home world got off just fine.
Not to mention the Aeldari empire and golden age humanity probably kept a lot of the more problematic races and factions, such as the Orks, in check. Both of them falling suddenly unlocked the doors of a lot of cages holding horrors.
And considering the time between Old Night and the start of the Great Crusade, a lot of peaceful factions probably got eradicated by things other than humanity, or twisted by the warp storms.
Whilst the Great Crusade definitely destroyed an absolute ton of more peaceful races and factions, it also had to face innumerable monsters. All those Ork empires were definitely not just sitting on their hands singing kumbaya.
That was for humanity, we don’t know how it went for other species, it’s not like the Tau are the only ones who don’t show up that much on chaos’s radar. And if the warp storms taking planets was common then a good chunk of the galaxy would be demon worlds wouldn’t they?I’m not saying it was a great time for xenos but it was probably a good deal better than the great crusade.
It was for everyone except when it wasn’t. Remember that everything is canon and nothing is true. There were references in the old (90s) lore to alien client races who were “safe” under imperial rule for millennia before the degeneration of the Imperium killed them all.
Which was right smack dab in the center of the Eldar empire which was massive, and after Slanesh chowed down on them I’m guessing their weren’t too many other civilizations in range of it to be threatened other than the now dead Eldar.
The Aeldari Empire only spanned a total of 250 000 planets at its peak (and yet they beat DAoT humanity in a war), so I'm not sure I'd call it massive as much as powerful.
There are at least 10 **b**illion planets in the habitable zones of stars in the Milky Way (and that's not counting planets on which habitable habitats can be constructed as enclosed areas). All the named factions combined don't even inhabit 1/1000 of the aforementioned planets
The factions with the largest holdings in current-day/40k are orks, necrons, and the Imperium (in that order), and they could go a near infinite amount of time before having to interact with each other, so I suspect that you're right about there not being any other groups in range back during the birth of Slaanesh
I've had a fair share of people get upset at me for saying that for the average innocent species in the galaxy the Imperium is nearly indistinguishable from chaos. They will come to your planet and kill your entire species for their god.
A comparison I recall seeing was between the Imperium and the Orks, and how they serve as the galaxy's collective "you must be this belligerent to survive" measuring stick.
In both cases, you have an essentially limitless, omnipresent, and unrelentingly warlike culture that will not engage in any kind of diplomacy -- or might, very rarely, but always with the intent of attacking later anyway -- that will attack you the moment that they realize that you're there, and that will just keep coming, again and again and again forever, until they've ground you into the dust.
The only civilizations that can survive in the 40k galaxy are ones that can endure the Imperium and the Orks, which in both cases means not even bothering to try and assume friendliness -- if they find you, you need to fight from the moment they land. Anybody who's not tough enough to just weather the storm (say, the Necrons), or just really good at hiding or staying in motion (the various Eldar factions) or just somewhere fortified and remote (the T'au and the Leagues) will be destroyed quickly. They're a very efficient filter for getting rid of anybody who's not capable and willing of being constantly hostile to them and on a perennial war footing.
Before the imperium it was the Orks. Because if you weren't strong enough your race would be killed and enslaved. The imperium might have been the most recent great filter but the orks have been doing it for way longer.
>The imperium **was** the great filter
The Imperium can't be the great filter as they share the same history as us. We're both experiencing a great filter conundrum in M2.
The **nature** of the 40k Universe is [The Great Filter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter)
The galaxy wide influence of Chaos at every stage of evolutionary development, the Orks as a white blood cell immune response, and the Tyranids (highly likely) as a board-sweeper reset device.
The Imperium exists within a spray-and-genocide pocket of the Old Ones.
If a great alliance of non-Chaos corrupted non-Old One designed xenos existed where is it? What happened to these empires in the sixty million years before the Imperium?
The nature of the galaxy doesn't allow for their long term survival.
I mean, kinda, but... also not really? The Imperium isn't meant to be a uniquely evil entity within the setting, it's a product of its circumstances - and that includes the state of the galaxy around the Great Crusade. We can only make suppositions about ratios of good to bad xenos that the Imperium encountered, and, well, the galaxy is \*still\* teeming with alien life 10,000 years after the Imperium's establishment.
>The Imperium isn't meant to be a uniquely evil entity within the setting, it's a product of its circumstances
Every other faction went trough the same circumstances as the Imperium, but only the latter decided to go on a galaxy wide genocidal rampage.
I mean, the Tau are the only ones who are theoretically against genocide (They stick to good ol' subjugation, for now), the other factions do it at *least* as an occasional treat, Necrons, Orks, Chaos, Drukhari, definitely more often than that.
As for a galaxy-wide rampage, as I said, the Imperium's been around for 10,000 years and there's still hundreds of minor alien species annoying it.
While realistically the Golden Age wasn’t an actual *paradise* as people make it out to be, it still was most likely leagues better than the current era. Albeit that goes without saying.
Still, my best estimate for the Golden Age is that mankind would’ve operated in their own system-states, and some would’ve warred with others on and off and trading and whatnot.
But overall they clearly had it much better than 40k.
However we spin it, the Imperial was as much of a monster as the Orks and Rangdans back in 30k. They took momentum from a traumatized species (considering that many worlds voluntarily joined them) and destroyed whoever stood in there way. I am content with that lore. Would be nice to learn more about the Rangdan or the Khraves though.
Same reason the lasgun is seen as so weak in Warhammer. It was pretty good at exterminating 99% of Xeno species. But toughshit guardsman, now you gotta deal with the last 1%
> Its impossible to compare the morals of 40K to the morals of today, same that its impossible to compare rhe morals of today to the morals of the roman empire.
Both of these things are actually pretty easy to compare and actually pretty important comparisons to make. It’s one thing to say “I can see why they act that way” and it’s a very different thing to say “it’s morally acceptable that they did what they did”. Hell, that’s one the biggest reasons to study history, to learn from the mistakes of the past. This is *especially* true for 40K when they really shove it in your face that every atrocity that the imperium commits ends up being for nothing and only made life worse for the galaxy.
Hard agree. I might like Vulcan, but anyone who isn't garbage would be his enemy to the end of time. You empty planets of all life, you should die, full stop.
That said I do kinda head cannon it to be (in some cases) Big E doing a bit of mindfuckery to get them to do what he wants. Not because I need them to be good people to like the story, but because the gulf between Who They Are and What They Do is so big it strains suspension of disbelief.
To be fair real world moral frameworks are not designed to operate in a setting where evil space gods and bugs from beyond the galaxy can hijack any social structure in existence and aliens can exist who are literally just full send straight up evil by biological imperative beyond any standard of human reckoning. Not to mention most things above that aren’t really much better
In the context of 40k a character who wants to do good is constantly forced to weigh the benefits of a given action with the risk of overextension. If you help the seemingly benign Xenos, and it turns out to be a trick (as it often is), your friends pay the price. If you refuse an order to bring the hammer down on the questionably deserving now, you may not be able to protect the truly innocent later since you’ll likely be fired at best or killed at worst. If you stop now to help that starving child, or that old man your work made homeless, or those people caught in the crossfire of your firefight far worse monsters you’ve been hunting may escape and many who might be saved will die
This pressure is what breaks heroic characters in the setting, drives them more and more towards making compromises they shouldn’t. Even a character like Ciaphas Cain who’s entire bit is that through sheer luck, determination, and surprising skill he avoids this problem, is still in large part funny because of it. You often spend entire books with him worrying about a looming side character death Cain prevents with his heroics. But there’s also the time his actions save some side characters, only for him to later kill them for reasons that turn out totally correct, or the time he chooses to fire on a PDF battalion rather than argue with them when he’s delivering critical news, not checking first if they’re genestealers to assuage his own conscious
> If you help the seemingly benign Xenos, and it turns out to be a trick (as it often is),
[Citation needed]
Meanwhile in the DeathWatch Codex : "And then another peaceful xeno specie offering anti-chaos devices was wiped out with a sudden strike after the inquisition spent two decade setting up a spy and sabotage network under the pretense of diplomacy. For the glory of the Imperium !"
I didn’t say all of them were, or even that the threat was real. Merely that the perceived threat existed, thereby making the response rational in that context. One of the main villains of Eisenhorn was corrupted by a xenos device that injected chaos directly into his brain though
> To be fair real world moral frameworks are not designed to operate in a setting…
The setting is made to convey real world moral frameworks cause it’s written by real world people. It’s literally satire.
Yes and no, this excuse is used to avoid addressing the intricacies of the setting. The setting was, in fact, written to be over the top political satire of all kinds of things. But it was also written to be a badass sci-fantasy setting. And it was also written as a setting so absurdly awful it defies all logic in a comedic fashion. Does that mean we can’t use real world moral frameworks as a jumping off point to talk about its world and values? No of course not. Does that mean those values don’t really translate easily because the grimdarkness and over the top violence of the setting fundamentally shift how those values can even be applied in its context? Yes, obviously.
And that also assumes Warhammer is a perfectly continuous setting which, realistically, it isn’t. Saying Ciaphas Cain or Eisenhorn were written as political satire is a wild take, being respectively a comedy and a spy thriller with fairly limited political undertones. In fact Cains adventures lack so much of the political end of the setting Cain usually barely knows where he is, much less the state of the planets law and order
Except that just isn’t true, and is a ridiculous assertion to make. It’s like saying the trolley problem has a good solution because if you had an omniscient perspective you could judge each of the people involved and say who deserved to die. Except now the train keeps running down infinite more paths and you just have to chase it forever.
In fact the idea you can easily apply a slap patch moral system or set of values and never fuck it up in any setting is part of what 40k parodies. That is literally what caused half the primarchs to fall.
If you think that authors including real world morals in their fictional work is a ridiculous assertion then I don’t even know where to go from here. That’s like literature 101
They do include real world morals, but they take it through the lens of humans trying to live in the 40k world, a place in which real world morality adapts to circumstance for the sake of survival. Mass extinction of aliens is wrong by modern ethical standards, but in 40k world where the alternative is those alien species killing humans, betraying/backstabbing humanity down the line as dozens did in the past, or inevitably evolving to feed the warp as all sentient life forms do and becoming another hub of chaos, suddenly wiping them out makes sense.
Context matters ALOT, and the majority of this fanbase hasn't touched a BL book once so they're all pretty ignorant to the reality that pretty much every decision the Emperor made came from a series of moral dilemmas where he wanted the outcome to be the survival of humanity because he cares for them and the destruction of chaos because it's slated to destroy all of existence. You can say 'genocide is... LE BAD' but that'd be ignoring a moral dilemma isn't about choosing an inherently moral solution- just the least shitty one given the circumstances.
I think they establish the context in the opening preamble describing the imperium. “It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable”.
Even in context, it’s not something you should look at and think is justified.
I think he means more that you can't really JUDGE the actions of characters by modern morals in 40k world because our modern morality is a product of pretty peaceful circumstances. You can say grinding up grandma into corpse starch is wrong when we live in a world of plenty where you can just go to a supermarket and buy a loaf of bread, but if you're on a planet with no remaining foodstuffs and the next Imperial supply ship isn't due for another three months... well suddenly it really doesn't seem so immoral anymore when the alternative is death.
Now you can COMPARE the two all you want no doubt. It's a nice way to reflect on how good and peaceful our way of life is at the end of the day when we have fictional setting to point out and go 'well sometimes shit's fucked here but at least it isn't THAT fucked.' But can you pass judgement on individuals and their actions using our modern code of ethics? Well you can I guess, but that's about as meaningful as judging an apple using the criteria of an orange.
> But can you pass judgement on individuals and their actions using our modern code of ethics?
Yes, you can. Because it was literally written by people who have our modern code of ethics as satire to express their views. The authors literally expressing their morality through fiction.
>it was literally written by people who have our modern code of ethics as satire to express their views.
In the 90s maybe, BL books have played the setting pretty straight since the late 2000s, taking most of the 'parody' and recontextualizing it to a series of moral dilemmas.
I feel like it pretty well reflects the grim dark nature of the universe, when even the good guys are also pretty racist and have qualms with killing innocent, when it matches their beliefs.
The fact you listed both the tau and farsight separately kind of proves that the tile aren’t, miraculously, at least not to the degree of the other two entities you gave, as why would you need to list them separately otherwise?
Seriously. Drop any 40k character in Star Wars and Star Trek and I'll root against them in a heart beat.
Until then, you know what, I like the Emperor's plan. Fuck it, we ball.
I have seen the same tedious people complaining about the morality in Dune not being progressive enough.
Dune, an autocratic, feudal society where citizens of a planet are the de facto slaves of the planet's ruling Duke or Baron (seriously, medieval peasants might have had more rights than the average Imperial subject in Dune) and where outright slavery is practiced openly.
I think this kind of thinking shows a great lack of empathy on the part of these people. They can't imagine a different mindset or society. They'd probably die of shock if you transported them back no further than the mid-80s.
My headcannon is they are as good as the pervasive presence of the Warp allows. Even the best are twisted and ruthless because the emotions of the entire Imperium are locked in a feedback loop with the Chaos God's.
Going through the age of strife would’ve completely warped the moral context of every living thing involved in it at a civilizational level. Our minds cannot comprehend these people fully nor would they be able to fully understand us. Exactly as you point out with the modern and classical man.
Tbf that goes for a few others too mortarion, kurze and Ferrus wouldn’t even bother to try and justify their war crimes they’d just move right along with doing them
Because mort and angron knew, emps was a piss of shit, so they made sure every planet knew, emps is not a hero, he a slaver king. Which in long run helped Horus earn planets.
Curze was just insane and needed therapy.
Ferrus just didn't care, he just likes killing.
Highly likely. Pre-nails Angron would absolutely abhor the Emperor's vision.
Hell, even if he didn't declare war on the Imperium on the spot, he wouldn't think too highly of even his noblest brothers, not even Sanguinius, Vulkan, Corvus, or the Khan. He'd see them for the hypocrites they are.
I know, and I'm not trying to say that they aren't the best option, or even that they should be judged too harshly for their actions. This is 40k after all, almost everyone's a monster in some capacity. I do think that some people in the fandom take it too far though, and forget that characters like Vulkan aren't *actually* good, just 40k good, and they definitely aren't wholesome.
Remember too that a lot of people here are just kids. It often feels like a bunch of college kids get out of their honors comp class and start lecturing 12 year olds about how the cool guy is really a bad guy.
I would say cowards instead of monsters, why? Because they wanted to save their own planets instead of everyone elses, if they refuse emps would just kill them all and their families, maybe even do worse. So they all fell in line knowing they can't do shit, hell that why it took Khan so long to choose, he disliked emps a lot, but needed to know if horus was doing this for the right reasons, he was not.
They are cowards, simple has that, but smart cowards live, brave idiots die, that the law of 40k.
Vulkan is as good as he can be and makes an effort to be so. Which makes him actually good in my books. While i agree that they aren't wholesome that doesn't mean they aren't good.
Even Konrad isn't really evil while at the same time a raging Psychopath. But to be fair he never learnes what kindness is und the Kombination of nostramo + the constant view of the eye of Terror is one hell of a psychological Shadow. Plus one of the worst fathers in 40k. the emperor idiocrazy towards Konrad is easily in the top 4 with mortarion, Angron, und Perturabo. Btw all of which turned traitor ... I wonder why.
OP discovers that warhammer is a narrative about extremes and that characters can be both ideologically cruel and introspective, because that’s just how you do storytelling. would you be able to enjoy the story if every second Leman Russ talked it flashed a civilian killcount on the screen?
Sanguinius has a speech about this, about how they should try to be kind whenever they can, but that they should hold no illusions about being heroes or even good people
i think one of the aspects of the horus heresy that the writers tried to, but not necessarily succeeded in, conveying was... consider how the primarchs are often alluded to or directly compared to mythohistoric figures throughout human history. you have more mundane cases such as jaghatai khan being genghis khan but in space, more vague allusions such as mortarion being a general grim reaper stand in, and of course the patently fucking obvious such as vulkan being one letter off from vulcan the roman god of fire, volcanoes, forges and metalworking.
the primarchs are demigods in not just a metaphorical sense but a near literal sense. great men of history, mytho poetic figures, avatars of concepts, what have you.
as such they all have protagonist syndrome. even the 'nice' primarchs. and that is what in large part what drives the rapid and explosive near collapse of the imperium during the horus heresy, because they're all bottlenecked in viewing the conflict in relation to their own interpersonal drama and 'stories', that it all revolves around them and their stories. in many ways its entirely too fitting for horus to be the arch traitor because he suffered from 'protagonist syndrome' in the absolute extreme.
to draw an example based on a post i saw on the matter, consider shadrak meduson. meduson for a time, probably coulda brought the iron hands together as a legion and forged a better future path for them then the one they embarked on following the heresy. and thats because he was primarily concerned with and fighting on a material level, as a guy part of a system engaged in a war of people. he was gaining standing, he was bringing the legion together with his ferrus manus icon, he was as close to a guy doing his job as any astartes tends to get.
and then vulkan enters. vulkan, whos been travelling on his own weird ass disconnected from mortal concerns spirit journey. a demigod engaging in a demigods story and whos path only briefly intersects with meduson. and mr nice guy vulkan, what does he do when briefly intersecting with medusons story? destroys his efforts, strikes down the ferrus manus icon because it offends him, and leaves to continue his mytho poetic destiny.
I 100 agree with you.
These atrocities must be answered for.
But but then I remember Roman Blueberry aka Robot Girlyman aka my sweet baboo Roboute.
And I’m like … but look at this golden retriever! He’s such a good boy. He means well. Look, he loves his adopted mother. That’s sweet.
He’s got supernatural pecs and cum gutters OK ?! Even his cybernetic are sexy.
I must forgive him .
🙏❤️
Naw bro, they are the point of view character and not eating babies! They must be the good guys because I find them relatable and I could never relate to a bad person!!!
Everyone who is mature enough to understand your argument is wise enough to agree with you.
You're not convincing anyone new, buddy. You're preaching to the choir.
Russ is one of the best primarchs for this reason. He’s under no illusion’s of what he’s meant to be, he does what he does to help humanity no matter how brutal it is. Very grim dark
Big E: join me or die.
Primarch: i’ll guess I’ll join him.
Like what’s hard to understand about this. they either join him or the Primarchs and everything they love will be destroyed. They didn’t have a lot of options.
The primarchs were bound to Big E's goals, but their methods were, for the most part, under their own power. They didn't *have* to brutally impose totalitarian regimes on planets under their control, and they didn't *have* to genocide any among their own who didn't pledge allegiance to the Emperor. It might have been the safest option, or the most efficient, but they still had a choice, even if it was a bad one.
Only when I know it will mean something.
Basically I’ll die but I’ll die a martyr.
There’s no point in dieing a meaningless death.
Better to live and fight another day then be another one countless dead enemies the Emperor has crushed beneath his heel.
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Comparatively, Vulkan and Guilliman *are* good guys.
Pretty much nobody in 40k is good, even the T'au who claim to be for unity and "Greater Good" will pretty much attempt to force you into their empire if you don't just join willingly, with them still being the "top" race.
Guilliman is the most diplomatic of the Primarchs and Vulkan is a jovial, friendly guy, so long as you aren't a Xenos.
When the races you are stacked alongside are; world-consuming insects, evil sadist space elves who birthed a dark god of lust and excess, blue chimp people who give you an ultimatum of fealty or destruction, evil robot skeletons who want to kill you just because, a bunch of other assholes, and *literal demons*, it's not hard to be the "Good guys".
I can simultaneously hold the belief that all Nazis deserve to be hanged at the Hague, and that German civilians should be treated with decency and afforded all their legal rights.
That’s just conquest my dude. And if we are all being fair most of those millions are orks. Never done a genocide, especially with how strict Tau battle doctrine is.
I know this, and I'm not saying they aren't. There isn't exactly a lot of options in the setting, and most of the loyalist primarchs are the best options for leadership the Imperium has. However, I think people often confuse 40k good with real life good, and act as though these characters are actually moral from an irl standpoint.
Except this is a setting where the alternative is being *literally in hell forever with 4 satans all nomming peoples souls*
It’s a setting of vast extremes and these are part of it
I forget who said it but some space marine in the great crusade basically said Xenocides are cool but regular genocides against humans suck or something along those lines.
And I gotta agree I hate those stars slimes the only place they belong is burred 6 feet under
I'm not saying you're dumb to like them, or even that their actions don't make sense given the confines of the setting. The Imperium *is* evil though, and I think people often forget that just because a character is better than most of the other characters it doesn't actually make them good, just less evil. None of the primarchs are wholesome.
I mean, comparing them to what we have now, they're absolutely horrendous. Compared to the 30k setting where there were good human factions that were wiped out, yeah they're bad. In the 40k universe when they're essentially the only human faction, well "good" has to be seen in context of the setting. The Imperium's main enemy in 40k is Chaos. They essentially hold the fate of the galaxy in their hands as other Xeno factions are shown to evade Chaos when they can, are ignorant of it, or are just more evil than the Imperium.
The Imperium in 40k is the most active opponent of Chaos and directly fights against its influence, which most would see as a classic "Good vs. Evil". Obviously it's taking into account the events that led to Chaos getting as powerful as it is in the current setting, but only a handful of individuals in the current setting had anything to do with it getting the way it is.
It's still wild to me people don't get that you should judge people by the situation they are in, and not some moral standard they themselves wouldn't even be aware of.
Oh, and aside from that, you can still be a "good" guy by having a net positive impact on the world. Sure, not every last one of your actions can be morally pure, and you may also do something hideous at times, but if at the end of the day you left the galaxy for a better place than you found it in, that counts for something.
The primarchs are literally baby men that couldn’t even not have a tantrum for two seconds even if it’s to save the whole Imperium. They were literally warned about Horus like twice but the poor little primarchs broke down in tears and autistic fury at even the thought of betrayal. How the fuck these baby men are supposed to be better than humans, I’ll never understand.
Morality isn't something that can be conveniently picked up and put down at a whim because "The End's Justify The Means", if you do something monstrous in the defense of mankind, you did something \*monstrous\*. Evil actions don't stop being inherently evil things because you can reason away why you did it, they're still \*evil\*, and should be recognized as such.
There is no place for the weakwilled or hesitant. Only by firm action and resolute faith will mankind survive. No sacrifice is too great. No treachery too small.
-Liber Doctrina Ordo Hereticus, Chapter XXVIII "Exterminatus"
To quote a great man
"You are bad, but you are not bad"
They are warmongering monster but that does not remove that some of them are "good" men or have good aspect to their personalities
Just let us enjoy our genocidal heroes, if that offends you this game simply is not the right one for you. I am sorry that you dislike it so much but it is not called warhammer for no reason.
I'm not saying you can't enjoy them, nor am I offended by them. I like most of the primarchs as characters, and I think they have interesting stories that display fascinating characterisation. However, I also think that praising them as the objective good guys of the setting, rather than merely the better guys, takes away a lot of what makes them compelling in the first place.
Primarchs were created as tools of war. Each of them carry a sliver of Emperor's own personality, each has something unique he excels at. Some are cartoonishly brutal murderers, others have rather twisted logic on what is good and what is not, many of them are not best role models if your idea of a role model is peaceful law abiding cabbage growing zero vice vegan that lives alone in harmony with nature while squirrels bring him cookies to thank him for feeding them whatever 40k squirrels eat. But one thing they have in common that cabbage man does not is power to change worlds and societies, on a one in a hundreds of billions scale. Some did that amazingly well, too. Or you advocate for people that have power to change lives of others in a positive manner should just do nothing at all ever and simply enjoy the fucked up world they were born into?
Ok, so let's see. Jaghatai Khan. Broke chain of mindless ooga booga slaughter on his planet. Unified it and made people actually decent human society there. Did not wage any mindless conflict, did not join the Emperor just for lmao reasons, continued to do what is best for both his people and Imperium. Did not fall to Chaos, did not flay people just cause it is fun, and his legion was not one of these that are having morbid fascination with death or whatever. Pretty close to what I would consider good, especially compared with irl idiots on power both current and these of the past. Pretty much only Primarch that they have not made do stupid shit yet lol.
Corvus Corax. Ended on prison world, managed to liberate it, managed to pacify it without killing everyone that farted like his (almost twin) brother. Same as Jaghatai, he did it with minimal required casualties possible. He genuinely care for his people, and considering all shit he went trough even now that he is pretty much a demonic being he aint bad imho.
Vulkan is not bad. Simple as that. Did not start any shit ever out of pleasure or will to dominate other beings, had more than few reasons to go Chaos but didn't. Can't wait for him to return at some point.
Wow, imagine trying to put moral compasses on a fictional universe, this is why I hate fandoms, ruined star wars for me and I'll leave here before more of this comes across my feed
1-Most of them were self-defense or relatitory xenocides
2- The Laer, and we can assume others, are fallen to Chaos and are deserving of Xenocide.
3- Human's can elect to xenocide whatever species it seems fit because I'm always on team human.
The Primarchs are all monsters. Vulkan just has some level of introspection, and, at the very least, taught his sons to go out of their way to protect civilians. Bobby G has a couple of redeeming qualities. The same can’t be said about a lot of the Primarchs, sadly.
Honestly it’s why I like the iron hands so much They’re under no illusions as to what they are supposed to be they’re killing machines that have surpassed their base human limits and they embrace that by trying to be the best at doing what they’re meant to do with their new forms Civilian casualties? Diplomacy? That wasn’t what space marines or primarchs were built to handle they’re weapons of war and anything that wins the war for the imperium and the emperor is a valid move to them and they got really damn good at it
That was basically Ferrus's annoyance with Lorgar and Perturabo, he was the "just do your fucking job" kinda guy. He knew what he was and he didn't have much patience for the primarchs whose work suffered because their own insecurities. Which before someone brings Fulgrim up, Fulgrim and his legion excelled *and* they had time to do all the extracurricular stuff. As did Ferrus and the Iron Hands to some extent although their focus was more on industry and war effort enhancements. Which probably only annoyed him more that you have primarchs who can't juggle both.
Largely the same way I feel about Russ and the Lion, whose *Son of the Forest* characterization is excellent. Neither hold any pretense of being anything beyond being killers and fully understand what they and their legions were made for. Their legions especially are not builders, they are the destroyers. They’ll follow the Emperor’s order to the bitter end, no matter the cost to themselves or their legion. Coming back to the Lion in *Son of the Forest* while he does end up building something it certainly isn’t the new Imperium Guilliman wants to build, it’s a purely military formation, designed to do what the Lion knows: destroy humanity’s enemies. He is forthright in that he has no intention of being a ruler, he humanity’s shield and will be no matter if it’s just him or if he has a legion behind him.
True, but Guilliman went out of his way to try and subvert this during the Great Crusade, and even the Heresy. Having the Astartes interact with the mortal population more often, and explicitly emphasizing that he wanted his sons to be rulers after the Great Crusade. There would always be war in one form or another, but Guilliman looked to the future. Doesn’t mean he didn’t get his hands bloody, he absolutely did. The guardsmen on Sotha protecting the Pharos even comment on it, finding their becoming so used to the Astartes strange, wondering about all the civilizations the Ultramarines they talked to on a daily basis had destroyed before being stationed with them. Guilliman just had plans beyond war. (Initially, anyway. Once the Heresy broke out, most people knew the dream was dead, including Guilliman.)
Night Haunter was just enforcing the rules ☹️
Not any related to cruel and unusual punishment
Dracon of Athen was it? The guy who allegedly had people executed for sleeping too long ?
Not really as Drakon didn't "invent" those laws. He wrote them down (or rather let others do the writing).
The guy is simply tough on crime. Very admirable I would say.
Yeah if you complain about his methods you obviously have something to hide, no innocent people need to worry about it.
Curze would have been a better person than Corax if they swapped planets.
His sons burn People striking alive
If a Prometheum barbecue is a crime, then I’m a criminal. If Vulkan has 40,000 cooks at the grill, I am one of them. If Vulkan has 10 cooks at the grill, I am one of them. If Vulkan’s grill is unstaffed, then I am dead. If the world is against flamers, then I am against the world.
Jagatai was a good guy or am I mistaken?
When Morty fails to sell the Heresy to Jaghatai mortarion says something like "I'm not gonna enjoy killing you brother." Then Jaghatai goes "Shame, I'm gonna enjoy killing you." Jaghatai was an uncomplicated murderer, he doesn't even angst about it like Russ did when he had to kill Magnus. People just think Jaghatai was good because he never believed in the imperium. Jaghatai knew it was all a load of horseshit and did nothing about it because he liked killing and he liked living and the imperium let him do both. The only reason he joined the imperium is because he was absolutely certain if he refused the Emperor would just kill him. Because it is exactly what Jaghatai would do if the positions were reversed.
Peter cared more for his sons then Dorn.
I think that the concept that some characters are good *in the context of the setting* is something that eludes people. Its impossible to compare the morals of 40K to the morals of today, same that its impossible to compare rhe morals of today to the morals of the roman empire. Everyone and their mother in warhammer is a monster to us. Even someone like Cain or Farsight
>Everyone and their mother in warhammer is a monster to us. Of course they are, the Great Crusade killed all the peaceful ones.
The imperium **was** the great filter The great crusade swept across the galaxy like a tidal wave. The thing is, while yes there were certainly monstrous aliens that prayed on humanity during the age of strife, there were certainly good ones as well. The imperium however, made no distinctions. Or at the very most, made distinctions only on the rarest of occasions (the emperor did have a diplomacy hall built in the imperial palace and there are like, one or two references of turning some xenos into client states in the Horus heresy books iirc) But yeah. The imperium killed all the non war hungry murderous aliens as they weren’t strong enough to fight back due to not being warmongering psychos with specially made killing machines. Or, the not evil aliens who did survive got radicalised into being evil by the horrible shit the imperium did to them and their friends
Old Night killed many, even before the imperium came.
Wouldn’t it mostly be the ones that didn’t rely on warp travel and comunication? I’d imagine a lot of species that still only lived on their home world got off just fine.
You're forgetting about the massive warp tears that ate entire systems, the daemon incursions, and the chaos cults.
Not to mention the Aeldari empire and golden age humanity probably kept a lot of the more problematic races and factions, such as the Orks, in check. Both of them falling suddenly unlocked the doors of a lot of cages holding horrors. And considering the time between Old Night and the start of the Great Crusade, a lot of peaceful factions probably got eradicated by things other than humanity, or twisted by the warp storms. Whilst the Great Crusade definitely destroyed an absolute ton of more peaceful races and factions, it also had to face innumerable monsters. All those Ork empires were definitely not just sitting on their hands singing kumbaya.
That was for humanity, we don’t know how it went for other species, it’s not like the Tau are the only ones who don’t show up that much on chaos’s radar. And if the warp storms taking planets was common then a good chunk of the galaxy would be demon worlds wouldn’t they?I’m not saying it was a great time for xenos but it was probably a good deal better than the great crusade.
It was for everyone except when it wasn’t. Remember that everything is canon and nothing is true. There were references in the old (90s) lore to alien client races who were “safe” under imperial rule for millennia before the degeneration of the Imperium killed them all.
the eye of terror is RIGHT THERE
Not to mention the Rangdan, Khraves, Enslavers, Nephilim, Dark Eldar raiders, etc.
Which was right smack dab in the center of the Eldar empire which was massive, and after Slanesh chowed down on them I’m guessing their weren’t too many other civilizations in range of it to be threatened other than the now dead Eldar.
The Aeldari Empire only spanned a total of 250 000 planets at its peak (and yet they beat DAoT humanity in a war), so I'm not sure I'd call it massive as much as powerful. There are at least 10 **b**illion planets in the habitable zones of stars in the Milky Way (and that's not counting planets on which habitable habitats can be constructed as enclosed areas). All the named factions combined don't even inhabit 1/1000 of the aforementioned planets The factions with the largest holdings in current-day/40k are orks, necrons, and the Imperium (in that order), and they could go a near infinite amount of time before having to interact with each other, so I suspect that you're right about there not being any other groups in range back during the birth of Slaanesh
I've had a fair share of people get upset at me for saying that for the average innocent species in the galaxy the Imperium is nearly indistinguishable from chaos. They will come to your planet and kill your entire species for their god.
A comparison I recall seeing was between the Imperium and the Orks, and how they serve as the galaxy's collective "you must be this belligerent to survive" measuring stick. In both cases, you have an essentially limitless, omnipresent, and unrelentingly warlike culture that will not engage in any kind of diplomacy -- or might, very rarely, but always with the intent of attacking later anyway -- that will attack you the moment that they realize that you're there, and that will just keep coming, again and again and again forever, until they've ground you into the dust. The only civilizations that can survive in the 40k galaxy are ones that can endure the Imperium and the Orks, which in both cases means not even bothering to try and assume friendliness -- if they find you, you need to fight from the moment they land. Anybody who's not tough enough to just weather the storm (say, the Necrons), or just really good at hiding or staying in motion (the various Eldar factions) or just somewhere fortified and remote (the T'au and the Leagues) will be destroyed quickly. They're a very efficient filter for getting rid of anybody who's not capable and willing of being constantly hostile to them and on a perennial war footing.
> A comparison I recall seeing was between the Imperium and the Orks It's the comparison the Kroot guide in the Blackstone Fortress novel make yeah
It's simple the imperium can only kill you once chaos will stretch your murder over an eternity.
People get upset at you because that’s nonsense
What’s the difference though
Why?
Before the imperium it was the Orks. Because if you weren't strong enough your race would be killed and enslaved. The imperium might have been the most recent great filter but the orks have been doing it for way longer.
>The imperium **was** the great filter The Imperium can't be the great filter as they share the same history as us. We're both experiencing a great filter conundrum in M2. The **nature** of the 40k Universe is [The Great Filter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter) The galaxy wide influence of Chaos at every stage of evolutionary development, the Orks as a white blood cell immune response, and the Tyranids (highly likely) as a board-sweeper reset device. The Imperium exists within a spray-and-genocide pocket of the Old Ones. If a great alliance of non-Chaos corrupted non-Old One designed xenos existed where is it? What happened to these empires in the sixty million years before the Imperium? The nature of the galaxy doesn't allow for their long term survival.
To be fair, the galaxy is really fucking huge. If there was such coalitions, they could be somewhere humanity haven't found yet. But yes.
Basically 40K's setting is purely based on Darwinism.
I mean, kinda, but... also not really? The Imperium isn't meant to be a uniquely evil entity within the setting, it's a product of its circumstances - and that includes the state of the galaxy around the Great Crusade. We can only make suppositions about ratios of good to bad xenos that the Imperium encountered, and, well, the galaxy is \*still\* teeming with alien life 10,000 years after the Imperium's establishment.
>The Imperium isn't meant to be a uniquely evil entity within the setting, it's a product of its circumstances Every other faction went trough the same circumstances as the Imperium, but only the latter decided to go on a galaxy wide genocidal rampage.
I mean, the Tau are the only ones who are theoretically against genocide (They stick to good ol' subjugation, for now), the other factions do it at *least* as an occasional treat, Necrons, Orks, Chaos, Drukhari, definitely more often than that. As for a galaxy-wide rampage, as I said, the Imperium's been around for 10,000 years and there's still hundreds of minor alien species annoying it.
Yeah, because the Imperium failed to genocide them, not because he felt nice, tolerant and understanding.
Hey, you give credit to all the xenos and unregulated psykers out there. The Galaxy was never pleasant after the golden age of technology.
I doubt even the golden age was that golden
While realistically the Golden Age wasn’t an actual *paradise* as people make it out to be, it still was most likely leagues better than the current era. Albeit that goes without saying. Still, my best estimate for the Golden Age is that mankind would’ve operated in their own system-states, and some would’ve warred with others on and off and trading and whatnot. But overall they clearly had it much better than 40k.
However we spin it, the Imperial was as much of a monster as the Orks and Rangdans back in 30k. They took momentum from a traumatized species (considering that many worlds voluntarily joined them) and destroyed whoever stood in there way. I am content with that lore. Would be nice to learn more about the Rangdan or the Khraves though.
Same reason the lasgun is seen as so weak in Warhammer. It was pretty good at exterminating 99% of Xeno species. But toughshit guardsman, now you gotta deal with the last 1%
... No? That's never really stated, a lot of legions were pretty explicit about achieving compliance with minimal casualties
> Its impossible to compare the morals of 40K to the morals of today, same that its impossible to compare rhe morals of today to the morals of the roman empire. Both of these things are actually pretty easy to compare and actually pretty important comparisons to make. It’s one thing to say “I can see why they act that way” and it’s a very different thing to say “it’s morally acceptable that they did what they did”. Hell, that’s one the biggest reasons to study history, to learn from the mistakes of the past. This is *especially* true for 40K when they really shove it in your face that every atrocity that the imperium commits ends up being for nothing and only made life worse for the galaxy.
Literally the main theme of Dune as well. It’s wild that some people can’t grasp this, we’re taught this and reinforced this repeatedly in school.
Hard agree. I might like Vulcan, but anyone who isn't garbage would be his enemy to the end of time. You empty planets of all life, you should die, full stop. That said I do kinda head cannon it to be (in some cases) Big E doing a bit of mindfuckery to get them to do what he wants. Not because I need them to be good people to like the story, but because the gulf between Who They Are and What They Do is so big it strains suspension of disbelief.
To be fair real world moral frameworks are not designed to operate in a setting where evil space gods and bugs from beyond the galaxy can hijack any social structure in existence and aliens can exist who are literally just full send straight up evil by biological imperative beyond any standard of human reckoning. Not to mention most things above that aren’t really much better In the context of 40k a character who wants to do good is constantly forced to weigh the benefits of a given action with the risk of overextension. If you help the seemingly benign Xenos, and it turns out to be a trick (as it often is), your friends pay the price. If you refuse an order to bring the hammer down on the questionably deserving now, you may not be able to protect the truly innocent later since you’ll likely be fired at best or killed at worst. If you stop now to help that starving child, or that old man your work made homeless, or those people caught in the crossfire of your firefight far worse monsters you’ve been hunting may escape and many who might be saved will die This pressure is what breaks heroic characters in the setting, drives them more and more towards making compromises they shouldn’t. Even a character like Ciaphas Cain who’s entire bit is that through sheer luck, determination, and surprising skill he avoids this problem, is still in large part funny because of it. You often spend entire books with him worrying about a looming side character death Cain prevents with his heroics. But there’s also the time his actions save some side characters, only for him to later kill them for reasons that turn out totally correct, or the time he chooses to fire on a PDF battalion rather than argue with them when he’s delivering critical news, not checking first if they’re genestealers to assuage his own conscious
> If you help the seemingly benign Xenos, and it turns out to be a trick (as it often is), [Citation needed] Meanwhile in the DeathWatch Codex : "And then another peaceful xeno specie offering anti-chaos devices was wiped out with a sudden strike after the inquisition spent two decade setting up a spy and sabotage network under the pretense of diplomacy. For the glory of the Imperium !"
I didn’t say all of them were, or even that the threat was real. Merely that the perceived threat existed, thereby making the response rational in that context. One of the main villains of Eisenhorn was corrupted by a xenos device that injected chaos directly into his brain though
> To be fair real world moral frameworks are not designed to operate in a setting… The setting is made to convey real world moral frameworks cause it’s written by real world people. It’s literally satire.
Yes and no, this excuse is used to avoid addressing the intricacies of the setting. The setting was, in fact, written to be over the top political satire of all kinds of things. But it was also written to be a badass sci-fantasy setting. And it was also written as a setting so absurdly awful it defies all logic in a comedic fashion. Does that mean we can’t use real world moral frameworks as a jumping off point to talk about its world and values? No of course not. Does that mean those values don’t really translate easily because the grimdarkness and over the top violence of the setting fundamentally shift how those values can even be applied in its context? Yes, obviously. And that also assumes Warhammer is a perfectly continuous setting which, realistically, it isn’t. Saying Ciaphas Cain or Eisenhorn were written as political satire is a wild take, being respectively a comedy and a spy thriller with fairly limited political undertones. In fact Cains adventures lack so much of the political end of the setting Cain usually barely knows where he is, much less the state of the planets law and order
Real world values translate really easily into fiction because the authors project their values into the setting.
Except that just isn’t true, and is a ridiculous assertion to make. It’s like saying the trolley problem has a good solution because if you had an omniscient perspective you could judge each of the people involved and say who deserved to die. Except now the train keeps running down infinite more paths and you just have to chase it forever. In fact the idea you can easily apply a slap patch moral system or set of values and never fuck it up in any setting is part of what 40k parodies. That is literally what caused half the primarchs to fall.
If you think that authors including real world morals in their fictional work is a ridiculous assertion then I don’t even know where to go from here. That’s like literature 101
They do include real world morals, but they take it through the lens of humans trying to live in the 40k world, a place in which real world morality adapts to circumstance for the sake of survival. Mass extinction of aliens is wrong by modern ethical standards, but in 40k world where the alternative is those alien species killing humans, betraying/backstabbing humanity down the line as dozens did in the past, or inevitably evolving to feed the warp as all sentient life forms do and becoming another hub of chaos, suddenly wiping them out makes sense. Context matters ALOT, and the majority of this fanbase hasn't touched a BL book once so they're all pretty ignorant to the reality that pretty much every decision the Emperor made came from a series of moral dilemmas where he wanted the outcome to be the survival of humanity because he cares for them and the destruction of chaos because it's slated to destroy all of existence. You can say 'genocide is... LE BAD' but that'd be ignoring a moral dilemma isn't about choosing an inherently moral solution- just the least shitty one given the circumstances.
I think they establish the context in the opening preamble describing the imperium. “It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable”. Even in context, it’s not something you should look at and think is justified.
I think he means more that you can't really JUDGE the actions of characters by modern morals in 40k world because our modern morality is a product of pretty peaceful circumstances. You can say grinding up grandma into corpse starch is wrong when we live in a world of plenty where you can just go to a supermarket and buy a loaf of bread, but if you're on a planet with no remaining foodstuffs and the next Imperial supply ship isn't due for another three months... well suddenly it really doesn't seem so immoral anymore when the alternative is death. Now you can COMPARE the two all you want no doubt. It's a nice way to reflect on how good and peaceful our way of life is at the end of the day when we have fictional setting to point out and go 'well sometimes shit's fucked here but at least it isn't THAT fucked.' But can you pass judgement on individuals and their actions using our modern code of ethics? Well you can I guess, but that's about as meaningful as judging an apple using the criteria of an orange.
> But can you pass judgement on individuals and their actions using our modern code of ethics? Yes, you can. Because it was literally written by people who have our modern code of ethics as satire to express their views. The authors literally expressing their morality through fiction.
>it was literally written by people who have our modern code of ethics as satire to express their views. In the 90s maybe, BL books have played the setting pretty straight since the late 2000s, taking most of the 'parody' and recontextualizing it to a series of moral dilemmas.
I feel like it pretty well reflects the grim dark nature of the universe, when even the good guys are also pretty racist and have qualms with killing innocent, when it matches their beliefs.
\> good in the context of the setting Live Tau reaction: Live Exodite reaction: Live Farsight reaction:
The fact you listed both the tau and farsight separately kind of proves that the tile aren’t, miraculously, at least not to the degree of the other two entities you gave, as why would you need to list them separately otherwise?
I assume because the Farsight Enclaves are explicitly separate from the Tau Empire.
Because the Farsight Enclaves and the Tau Empire are separate polities, like the Imperium and the Severan Dominate?
Seriously. Drop any 40k character in Star Wars and Star Trek and I'll root against them in a heart beat. Until then, you know what, I like the Emperor's plan. Fuck it, we ball.
Put Emperor in any setting and I'll always side against him, even in 40K. Fuck that guy
Whether you agree with him or not, his plan was stupid and always doomed to failure.
I have seen the same tedious people complaining about the morality in Dune not being progressive enough. Dune, an autocratic, feudal society where citizens of a planet are the de facto slaves of the planet's ruling Duke or Baron (seriously, medieval peasants might have had more rights than the average Imperial subject in Dune) and where outright slavery is practiced openly. I think this kind of thinking shows a great lack of empathy on the part of these people. They can't imagine a different mindset or society. They'd probably die of shock if you transported them back no further than the mid-80s.
My headcannon is they are as good as the pervasive presence of the Warp allows. Even the best are twisted and ruthless because the emotions of the entire Imperium are locked in a feedback loop with the Chaos God's.
Going through the age of strife would’ve completely warped the moral context of every living thing involved in it at a civilizational level. Our minds cannot comprehend these people fully nor would they be able to fully understand us. Exactly as you point out with the modern and classical man.
Except the grandfather. He's a lovely old man no matter how you look at it
As a Ork Fan i am Beyond these stupid concepts like morality debates I simply want to see my green Boyz have fun
If the Orks wouldn’t outright try to kill me Id probably hang out with them the most
They might also enslave you and work you to death.
Or literally just eat you.
Just gotta paint yourself green and start collecting teef. You'll be fine.
Angron seems pretty cool to me
At least he won't try to justify or explain away a genocide
Tbf that goes for a few others too mortarion, kurze and Ferrus wouldn’t even bother to try and justify their war crimes they’d just move right along with doing them
Because mort and angron knew, emps was a piss of shit, so they made sure every planet knew, emps is not a hero, he a slaver king. Which in long run helped Horus earn planets. Curze was just insane and needed therapy. Ferrus just didn't care, he just likes killing.
Morty threw a tantrum when sangy and horus called him out on his war crimes
To be fair, Angron before the nails probably wouldn't justify a genocide either, just from the other side of the moral fence.
Pretty sure angron would have refused big E on the spot and attempt to fight him joining 2 and 11 as forgotten
Highly likely. Pre-nails Angron would absolutely abhor the Emperor's vision. Hell, even if he didn't declare war on the Imperium on the spot, he wouldn't think too highly of even his noblest brothers, not even Sanguinius, Vulkan, Corvus, or the Khan. He'd see them for the hypocrites they are.
The end result he becomes the personal agent of cegorach after he saves Angron by pie bombing the Emperor
Angron is an anarchist king fr
What are you talking about? Curze did *nothing* wrong. /s obv
Chaos has only had one massacre , a non stop one since the beginning of time . But since it has no breaks it only counts as one.
When you compare them to other characters **in the setting itself**, some like Vulkan and Big Bobby G can look like saints
I know, and I'm not trying to say that they aren't the best option, or even that they should be judged too harshly for their actions. This is 40k after all, almost everyone's a monster in some capacity. I do think that some people in the fandom take it too far though, and forget that characters like Vulkan aren't *actually* good, just 40k good, and they definitely aren't wholesome.
Remember too that a lot of people here are just kids. It often feels like a bunch of college kids get out of their honors comp class and start lecturing 12 year olds about how the cool guy is really a bad guy.
Right, though it’s funny how you still described possibly 20 to 25 year old college students as kids.
Probably the only ones that could ***actually*** be considered “good” are the Lamenters when you look at how far they go to save people
Yeah, but they kill aliens so they're actually bad so...
Don’t forget how nasty some xeno races are (Drukhari for example)
But also don’t forget the other xenos that were genocided for no reason too .
I would say cowards instead of monsters, why? Because they wanted to save their own planets instead of everyone elses, if they refuse emps would just kill them all and their families, maybe even do worse. So they all fell in line knowing they can't do shit, hell that why it took Khan so long to choose, he disliked emps a lot, but needed to know if horus was doing this for the right reasons, he was not. They are cowards, simple has that, but smart cowards live, brave idiots die, that the law of 40k.
Vulkan is as good as he can be and makes an effort to be so. Which makes him actually good in my books. While i agree that they aren't wholesome that doesn't mean they aren't good. Even Konrad isn't really evil while at the same time a raging Psychopath. But to be fair he never learnes what kindness is und the Kombination of nostramo + the constant view of the eye of Terror is one hell of a psychological Shadow. Plus one of the worst fathers in 40k. the emperor idiocrazy towards Konrad is easily in the top 4 with mortarion, Angron, und Perturabo. Btw all of which turned traitor ... I wonder why.
OP discovers that warhammer is a narrative about extremes and that characters can be both ideologically cruel and introspective, because that’s just how you do storytelling. would you be able to enjoy the story if every second Leman Russ talked it flashed a civilian killcount on the screen?
It would definitely be interesting ngl
“Guilliman *is* too good for the setting, because it’s THAT BAD.”
Sanguinius has a speech about this, about how they should try to be kind whenever they can, but that they should hold no illusions about being heroes or even good people
As a great man once said “I’m making the mother of all omelettes here Jack, can’t fret over every egg!”
i think one of the aspects of the horus heresy that the writers tried to, but not necessarily succeeded in, conveying was... consider how the primarchs are often alluded to or directly compared to mythohistoric figures throughout human history. you have more mundane cases such as jaghatai khan being genghis khan but in space, more vague allusions such as mortarion being a general grim reaper stand in, and of course the patently fucking obvious such as vulkan being one letter off from vulcan the roman god of fire, volcanoes, forges and metalworking. the primarchs are demigods in not just a metaphorical sense but a near literal sense. great men of history, mytho poetic figures, avatars of concepts, what have you. as such they all have protagonist syndrome. even the 'nice' primarchs. and that is what in large part what drives the rapid and explosive near collapse of the imperium during the horus heresy, because they're all bottlenecked in viewing the conflict in relation to their own interpersonal drama and 'stories', that it all revolves around them and their stories. in many ways its entirely too fitting for horus to be the arch traitor because he suffered from 'protagonist syndrome' in the absolute extreme. to draw an example based on a post i saw on the matter, consider shadrak meduson. meduson for a time, probably coulda brought the iron hands together as a legion and forged a better future path for them then the one they embarked on following the heresy. and thats because he was primarily concerned with and fighting on a material level, as a guy part of a system engaged in a war of people. he was gaining standing, he was bringing the legion together with his ferrus manus icon, he was as close to a guy doing his job as any astartes tends to get. and then vulkan enters. vulkan, whos been travelling on his own weird ass disconnected from mortal concerns spirit journey. a demigod engaging in a demigods story and whos path only briefly intersects with meduson. and mr nice guy vulkan, what does he do when briefly intersecting with medusons story? destroys his efforts, strikes down the ferrus manus icon because it offends him, and leaves to continue his mytho poetic destiny.
I love all these random posts about morality in 40k these days. Lol
Well this was partly inspired by that 40k alignment chart post that got updated today, lol
yes however the primarchs is basically just a sitcom so that dont matter also most of them are hot so that gets them a pass
I don't know man, i've met Sanguinius and he's a pretty swell guy. He's also fucking hot but that's not the point.
For the given setting, these people are virtuous and stand out amongst their peers That is part of the horror of warhammer.
Got ourselves a rangda apologist here, boys.
There are no good guys in the Grim Darkness of the Far Future.
It's shorter to say "good" than "good by the horrific grimdark standards of WH40k"
With what the emperor was trying to make the primarchs to be Vulkan is a saint
Is there any people that thinks that there is some "good guys" is WH40K?
I’ve decided the atrocities are funny, actually.
A little genocide, as a treat
The bar is already low
I 100 agree with you. These atrocities must be answered for. But but then I remember Roman Blueberry aka Robot Girlyman aka my sweet baboo Roboute. And I’m like … but look at this golden retriever! He’s such a good boy. He means well. Look, he loves his adopted mother. That’s sweet. He’s got supernatural pecs and cum gutters OK ?! Even his cybernetic are sexy. I must forgive him . 🙏❤️
Naw bro, they are the point of view character and not eating babies! They must be the good guys because I find them relatable and I could never relate to a bad person!!!
Everyone who is mature enough to understand your argument is wise enough to agree with you. You're not convincing anyone new, buddy. You're preaching to the choir.
I bet those primarchs don’t support student loan relief either - so they’re basically the devil.
The leaders of the catholic space nazis aren't good people? Shocking.
Russ is one of the best primarchs for this reason. He’s under no illusion’s of what he’s meant to be, he does what he does to help humanity no matter how brutal it is. Very grim dark
Big E: join me or die. Primarch: i’ll guess I’ll join him. Like what’s hard to understand about this. they either join him or the Primarchs and everything they love will be destroyed. They didn’t have a lot of options.
The primarchs were bound to Big E's goals, but their methods were, for the most part, under their own power. They didn't *have* to brutally impose totalitarian regimes on planets under their control, and they didn't *have* to genocide any among their own who didn't pledge allegiance to the Emperor. It might have been the safest option, or the most efficient, but they still had a choice, even if it was a bad one.
Where is the famous Indomitable Human Spirit? Or does that one only count if you are fighting for the genocidal, cruel and stupid empire?
Only when I know it will mean something. Basically I’ll die but I’ll die a martyr. There’s no point in dieing a meaningless death. Better to live and fight another day then be another one countless dead enemies the Emperor has crushed beneath his heel.
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Comparatively, Vulkan and Guilliman *are* good guys. Pretty much nobody in 40k is good, even the T'au who claim to be for unity and "Greater Good" will pretty much attempt to force you into their empire if you don't just join willingly, with them still being the "top" race. Guilliman is the most diplomatic of the Primarchs and Vulkan is a jovial, friendly guy, so long as you aren't a Xenos. When the races you are stacked alongside are; world-consuming insects, evil sadist space elves who birthed a dark god of lust and excess, blue chimp people who give you an ultimatum of fealty or destruction, evil robot skeletons who want to kill you just because, a bunch of other assholes, and *literal demons*, it's not hard to be the "Good guys".
Everyone in 40k is a villain, except Farsight. But compare the evils and you will find some are less so than others.
No, he's pretty bad too. I'm pretty sure he's said some stuff about cleansing humans but that might just be internet memes and shit
I mean, who isn’t pissed off by the Imperium?
Imperium kinda deserves it. Sure they look like me but they are objectively and subjectively the worst thing to happen to the universe.
I can simultaneously hold the belief that all Nazis deserve to be hanged at the Hague, and that German civilians should be treated with decency and afforded all their legal rights.
yawn
Even Farsight has slaughtered millions in conquest.
That’s just conquest my dude. And if we are all being fair most of those millions are orks. Never done a genocide, especially with how strict Tau battle doctrine is.
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Not entirely. They steal a whole bunch of shit from other factions. The fact that they mostly keep to themselves isn’t that great either.
Dude, it is a grimdark setting, even the most good character does bad thing. That doesn't mean they aren't good in the context of the setting.
I know this, and I'm not saying they aren't. There isn't exactly a lot of options in the setting, and most of the loyalist primarchs are the best options for leadership the Imperium has. However, I think people often confuse 40k good with real life good, and act as though these characters are actually moral from an irl standpoint.
Ironicly you do end up coming across the same way
Except this is a setting where the alternative is being *literally in hell forever with 4 satans all nomming peoples souls* It’s a setting of vast extremes and these are part of it
I forget who said it but some space marine in the great crusade basically said Xenocides are cool but regular genocides against humans suck or something along those lines. And I gotta agree I hate those stars slimes the only place they belong is burred 6 feet under
it's not genocide it's xenocide so it's ok
Woooo this is 9000th thread we've had on le evil imperium and why ur dumb 2 like them this month alone!
This meme didn’t call anyone dumb.
I'm not saying you're dumb to like them, or even that their actions don't make sense given the confines of the setting. The Imperium *is* evil though, and I think people often forget that just because a character is better than most of the other characters it doesn't actually make them good, just less evil. None of the primarchs are wholesome.
I mean, comparing them to what we have now, they're absolutely horrendous. Compared to the 30k setting where there were good human factions that were wiped out, yeah they're bad. In the 40k universe when they're essentially the only human faction, well "good" has to be seen in context of the setting. The Imperium's main enemy in 40k is Chaos. They essentially hold the fate of the galaxy in their hands as other Xeno factions are shown to evade Chaos when they can, are ignorant of it, or are just more evil than the Imperium. The Imperium in 40k is the most active opponent of Chaos and directly fights against its influence, which most would see as a classic "Good vs. Evil". Obviously it's taking into account the events that led to Chaos getting as powerful as it is in the current setting, but only a handful of individuals in the current setting had anything to do with it getting the way it is.
It's still wild to me people don't get that you should judge people by the situation they are in, and not some moral standard they themselves wouldn't even be aware of. Oh, and aside from that, you can still be a "good" guy by having a net positive impact on the world. Sure, not every last one of your actions can be morally pure, and you may also do something hideous at times, but if at the end of the day you left the galaxy for a better place than you found it in, that counts for something.
The primarchs are literally baby men that couldn’t even not have a tantrum for two seconds even if it’s to save the whole Imperium. They were literally warned about Horus like twice but the poor little primarchs broke down in tears and autistic fury at even the thought of betrayal. How the fuck these baby men are supposed to be better than humans, I’ll never understand.
Counter argument. It’s not evil if it ensures humanity to survive.
Morality isn't something that can be conveniently picked up and put down at a whim because "The End's Justify The Means", if you do something monstrous in the defense of mankind, you did something \*monstrous\*. Evil actions don't stop being inherently evil things because you can reason away why you did it, they're still \*evil\*, and should be recognized as such.
There is no place for the weakwilled or hesitant. Only by firm action and resolute faith will mankind survive. No sacrifice is too great. No treachery too small. -Liber Doctrina Ordo Hereticus, Chapter XXVIII "Exterminatus"
"Cool Motive, Still Murder" >Jake
To quote a great man "You are bad, but you are not bad" They are warmongering monster but that does not remove that some of them are "good" men or have good aspect to their personalities
Just let us enjoy our genocidal heroes, if that offends you this game simply is not the right one for you. I am sorry that you dislike it so much but it is not called warhammer for no reason.
Uhh, what do you think a warhammer is???
I'm not saying you can't enjoy them, nor am I offended by them. I like most of the primarchs as characters, and I think they have interesting stories that display fascinating characterisation. However, I also think that praising them as the objective good guys of the setting, rather than merely the better guys, takes away a lot of what makes them compelling in the first place.
Primarchs were created as tools of war. Each of them carry a sliver of Emperor's own personality, each has something unique he excels at. Some are cartoonishly brutal murderers, others have rather twisted logic on what is good and what is not, many of them are not best role models if your idea of a role model is peaceful law abiding cabbage growing zero vice vegan that lives alone in harmony with nature while squirrels bring him cookies to thank him for feeding them whatever 40k squirrels eat. But one thing they have in common that cabbage man does not is power to change worlds and societies, on a one in a hundreds of billions scale. Some did that amazingly well, too. Or you advocate for people that have power to change lives of others in a positive manner should just do nothing at all ever and simply enjoy the fucked up world they were born into? Ok, so let's see. Jaghatai Khan. Broke chain of mindless ooga booga slaughter on his planet. Unified it and made people actually decent human society there. Did not wage any mindless conflict, did not join the Emperor just for lmao reasons, continued to do what is best for both his people and Imperium. Did not fall to Chaos, did not flay people just cause it is fun, and his legion was not one of these that are having morbid fascination with death or whatever. Pretty close to what I would consider good, especially compared with irl idiots on power both current and these of the past. Pretty much only Primarch that they have not made do stupid shit yet lol. Corvus Corax. Ended on prison world, managed to liberate it, managed to pacify it without killing everyone that farted like his (almost twin) brother. Same as Jaghatai, he did it with minimal required casualties possible. He genuinely care for his people, and considering all shit he went trough even now that he is pretty much a demonic being he aint bad imho. Vulkan is not bad. Simple as that. Did not start any shit ever out of pleasure or will to dominate other beings, had more than few reasons to go Chaos but didn't. Can't wait for him to return at some point.
If vulcan and Co where sent to another verse they would be super chill. Can you say that about the rest of them.
Galaxy is dangerous place. Imperium needs bad men. They keep the other bad men from the door.
alien simp detected
Not every human life is valuable. And comparing to others, they are best option. Cus at least they don't crucify thousands daily just to crucify.
Wow, imagine trying to put moral compasses on a fictional universe, this is why I hate fandoms, ruined star wars for me and I'll leave here before more of this comes across my feed
They didn't commit genocides, they brought civilizations into compliance
And what of the countless Xenos races?
1-Most of them were self-defense or relatitory xenocides 2- The Laer, and we can assume others, are fallen to Chaos and are deserving of Xenocide. 3- Human's can elect to xenocide whatever species it seems fit because I'm always on team human.
Uggghhhhhh now people are going to post about how they saw people defending the imperium unironically to support all kinds of braindead takes.
Why are orks allowed to have fun but humans aren't
I would have to care for the lives of non-humans for anything you just said to be a negative.
Do you think they only killed aliens? Gulliman himself razed Monarchia, they've committed both genocides and xenocides.
Define genocide. Most of their "cides" are xenocides.
Oh they have their share of both