Games Workshop notes that space fascism would be bad

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This is as far into RL politics I will go, but even though WH and just about any dystopian world setting (the word dystopian might be a clue) are meant to be purely fantasy, perhaps cautionary tales (if the writer is really clever), RL is indeed heading down that path. I was reading an article (think it was Bloomberg) where the point was made that Musk now has more relative wealth that Carnegie did, before Standard Oil was broken up, and Carnegie started giving it all away. One only has to pick up a newspaper and read about the rise of authoritarianism across the planet.

It is not at all unreasonable to suggest that something along the lines of the Dune political system with House Musk, House Apple, House Bezos, et al will run humanity in the future. That is certainly a fascism-adjacent reality.

No one is saying that it's unreasonable to assume that something like Dune or WH40K's fascist governments could exist in the future if/when we get access to more common space travel for humans from planet to planet, they're more saying that idolizing that idea and striving for that kind of future is wrong.

(And, yes, you are correct that the world's current class of billionaires and millionaires are have a ton of wealth. The wealth disparity between the working class and the billionaires is greater than it was in France before its Revolution.)

 

[Urriak Uruk]

When you are going to who knows many billions when your parents die, I would not worry so much about that name. Musk is only 50, and apparently in great shape. But one slip up on some space jaunt, and then there are 6 kids, two wives, and a bazillion lawyers squabbling over 300 billion dollars.

Kids don't know (or care) how much $ your parents have. Guaranteed this X kid is going to be made fun of in his early years in kindergarten.

 

[MGibster]

No one is saying that it's unreasonable to assume that something like Dune or WH40K's fascist governments could exist in the future if/when we get access to more common space travel for humans from planet to planet, they're more saying that idolizing that idea and striving for that kind of future is wrong.

I never really thought of the governments of Dune as being fascist. Unless we're just saying authoritarian is fascist.

 

[Blue Orange]

I never really thought of the governments of Dune as being fascist. Unless we're just saying authoritarian is fascist.

With their noble houses fighting with the king and outside institutions like the Bene Gesserit and Spacing Guild, I get much more of a neofeudal feel to Dune. They even had that whole thing with shields that stop (only) bullets so they can have swordfights.

 

[Ixal]

Hm, I don't really see the WH40k Imperium specifically as Nazi. Rather they are a collection of all dictatorships in history.

Their leadership is fanatically theocratic with huge cult of personality around the empire. And I don't think that the Nazis had that much of a cult of personality around Hitler, at least when you compare them to Stalin or Mao.
The entire Machine Cult and the repression of knowledge is a exaggerated version of the trope that the catholic church repressed knowledge.
And their army tactics of poorly equipped human waves and commissars who shoot anyone who retreats is borrowed from the Soviets who did exactly that.
From the Nazis the Imperium gets its hate for mutants and everything different and their drive to exterminate them.

 

[dragoner]

And their army tactics of poorly equipped human waves and commissars who shoot anyone who retreats is borrowed from the Soviets who did exactly that.

They were German POW's that the Red Army forced strip the uniforms of their dead, and charge the other line. The Germans killed Red Army POW's at Auschwitz, so the Victory Generation did not feel so bad doing it. A Polish friend, that was his Grandfather's first duty at Kolberg, to make the Germans go over in the first wave, he said he was surprised when they had him do it, though he really didn't have any objections.

Germans did have roving death squads for their own troops after 1943.

 

[MGibster]

Their leadership is fanatically theocratic with huge cult of personality around the empire. And I don't think that the Nazis had that much of a cult of personality around Hitler, at least when you compare them to Stalin or Mao.

The standard salute for civilians was the classic "Heil Hitler" which I think is pretty good evidence that there was a cult of personality built up around the guy.

 

[Blue Orange]

The standard salute for civilians was the classic "Heil Hitler" which I think is pretty good evidence that there was a cult of personality built up around the guy.

I was gonna say, for all the pictures of Stalin and copies of the Little Red Book of Mao's sayings, the Communists didn't make their leader's name into a greeting...

Yep, I've heard 'Catholic Space Nazis' for the Imperium, though the commissars are more Communist. I'd say, as Ixal said, you have a medieval-Catholic inquisition, Nazi racism, and Communist ideological control. Basically everyone the Brits fought against in the past 500 years (quite a few of their Early Modern period conflicts had an anti-Catholic dimension). The only longtime enemy of England I don't see is the French (the Eldar are kind of fancy, but that's a stretch).

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

One of the reasons I don't like the lore of W40K is the anticlerical tropes about the church as enemy of the science and the reason. It is not only annoying and offensive, but as dangerous as messages promoting homophobia or racism. Haven't you thought anytime maybe any horrible things said about the Spanish empire were only lies by enemy propaganda? The pirates movies tell English corsairs were brave to attack Spanish ships, but in the real world the Spanish ships went together in convoys to avoid those pirates. The most of attacks by pirates were against coast villages to catch slavers. Spain built universities in the new world for the naives, Spain published books about naive American languanges when any European countries hadn't yet done with theirs. We may need humildity and self-criticism to not become monsters, but don't allow be emotinally manipulated apealling the shame and the guilty shame, and less when others should

Let's imagine for a second all that look of neogothic art by the space marines was replaced by Russian and Chinese esthetic. Can you notice now the potential menace of the speculative fiction being used as a propagandistic weapon?

If some day GW is acquired by a bigger fish, you could bet a restart of the IP to be more.... open-mind and flexible.

 

[John R Davis]

Yeah I am amazed Disney havent gobbled it up yet. It is very profitable and with such backing they could make some breath taking looking movies.