Games Workshop notes that space fascism would be bad

[Blue Orange]

Hilarious (terrible?) that they actually felt the need to specifically call this out!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/19/the-imperium-is-driven-by-hate-warhammer-is-not/

The number of time's I've had to point out that the Imperium is actually the bad guy, is mind boggling, but as you say, here we are.

Thing is, there is no 'good guy' in WH40K, and the Imperium is the only human faction. All the other factions are trying to kill humans (just like the Imperium is trying to kill them). If you actually met anyone from WH40K, only the Imperium might not try to kill you. (It's the Trope Namer for 'grimdark', after all--IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE, THERE IS ONLY WAR!)

I'm told they started it in the 1980s to make fun of Thatcher.

Still, let's be honest. There's a certain part of a lot of us that wants to be evil and militaristic and destroy the enemy. It's the reason we have sports leagues (though I'm told those get violent sometimes in some countries...) and shooter video games. Better we do it with Warhammer minis than in reality, and there are no real Eldar, Orks, or Daemons who might get targeted.

Now if people are showing up as actual Nazis at your con, yeah, that's a problem. Though I've read old issues of Dragon, and apparently wargamers had this problem even back then. Frankly, fantasy battles obviate one of the problems people had with Axis & Allies and the like--if you're wargaming WW2, someone has to play the Nazis.

(Heck, since this isn't RPG.net, I'll say it--the Communists had eight-digit casualty counts too. There are countries where the hammer and sickle is banned like the swastika. But I was poking through a supplement where there were an enchanted hammer and sickle in an obviously heroic context...)

 

[Scribe]

Thing is, there is no 'good guy' in WH40K, and the Imperium is the only human faction.

Indeed, and as you say, its a Wargame. The point is battles.

This however, misses the finer point.

Take any faction in the game, and it has justification for its actions, in its own eyes.

The Imperium remains worse, for the simple reason you state here. Its the only Human faction (arguable but whatever) and it treats its OWN people just as bad if not worse, than anyone else, and as we are humans, we know thats not the only way.

The Imperium is the bad guy, and its a satire that has been reinforced for decades, if people dont get it (and they exist, I know this!) that's on them.

 

[Blue Orange]

Take any faction in the game, and it has justification for its actions, in its own eyes.

The Imperium remains worse, for the simple reason you state here. Its the only Human faction (arguable but whatever) and it treats its OWN people just as bad if not worse, than anyone else, and as we are humans, we know thats not the only way.

The Imperium is the bad guy, and its a satire that has been reinforced for decades, if people dont get it (and they exist, I know this!) that's on them.

Doesn't the Ork faction throw away its members' lives heedlessly in battle? What awful things do the Dark Eldar do to their underlings?

The reading I had was, as you say, every faction justifies their own atrocities to themselves. Just like real war...

 

[darjr]

No, they’d kill you.

They are xenophobic space Nazis.

 

[Scribe]

Doesn't the Ork faction throw away its members' lives heedlessly in battle? What awful things do the Dark Eldar do to their underlings?

Your own user name provides the answer.

Blue-and-Orange Morality - TV Tropes

To say that questions of morality are thorny and filled with gray when they aren't being hammered between stark absolutes is putting it mildly. Because of this there can be great drama when characters who represent a wide range of moral …

tvtropes.org

 

[Blue Orange]

Your own user name provides the answer.

Blue-and-Orange Morality - TV Tropes

To say that questions of morality are thorny and filled with gray when they aren't being hammered between stark absolutes is putting it mildly. Because of this there can be great drama when characters who represent a wide range of moral …

tvtropes.org

Touché, sir/madam.

 

[MGibster]

Doesn't the Ork faction throw away its members' lives heedlessly in battle? What awful things do the Dark Eldar do to their underlings?

Sure. But the Orks are a race artificially created eons ago by the Old Ones for the expressed purpose of fighting the Necrons. They are hardwired to desire nothing more than to fight just for the sake of fighting. And they want a good fight too. In one of the narratives, the invading Orks waited to give an Imperial planet more time to shore up their defenses just so they could have a better fight. So, yeah, the Orks throw away its members' lives heedlessly in battle. But their hardwired to do so. What's the Imperium's excuse for doing the same? Though it's true that some Orks manage to coexist in a fashion with humans and trade with them. Like the Tyranids, I consider Orks to be less evil and more forces of nature. A hurricane is destructive but evil? Nah, it doesn't really have a moral choice.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Thing is, there is no 'good guy' in WH40K, and the Imperium is the only human faction. All the other factions are trying to kill humans (just like the Imperium is trying to kill them). If you actually met anyone from WH40K, only the Imperium might not try to kill you. (It's the Trope Namer for 'grimdark', after all--IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE, THERE IS ONLY WAR!)

The Tau wouldn't kill you, if you surrender and accept the Greater Good. But they're not really good guys either, and I think they do forced brainwashing.

 

[aramis erak]

For those who don't know, they probably spoke out on this because two people dressed as Nazis showed up in a gaming tournament. This was in Spain, where wearing Nazi imagery is not illegal, so the tournament didn't really do anything about it.

the look of the commisars in 40K is essentially a riff off the 3rd Reich SS, at least in older material. It's not at all surprising that some clueless fanboys would turn to using replica SS uniforms for cosplay. (Similar can be said of Star Wars Imperial Army uniforms.)

So, the question it raises for me is, "were they actually Nazi symps?" Or were they just inept cosplayers?

I do think the new policy is good. But I also expect some backlash... especially given the history of using Nazi imagery.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Warhammer 40K Tells Idiot Fascists Having a God Emperor Is Bad, Actually

“The Imperium of Man stands as a cautionary tale of what could happen should the very worst of Humanity’s lust for power and extreme, unyielding xenophobia set in."

www.vice.com

It's astounding that this had to be said but... here we are.

The article’s coda reminds me of Michael B. Tager’s story about the bartender throwing the “nice” Nazi out of the crust punk bar.