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View Full Version : Making A Stand-In For The Imperium of Man The Bad Guys



Leliel
2013-09-22, 10:47 PM
I'm working on a mecha setting in which the players are basically supporters of the French Revolution, IN SPACE!, after being given a fresh coat of paint from the Ruinous Powers of Chaos; For one, the mecha the Malandanti Rebellion use are so-called "Solomonic Familiars"-literal archdemons who their sorcerers summoned, bound to a specific person, and then preformed extensive cybernetic modification on to insert a cockpit for that person, armor, a control system, and various weapons. They're actually quite tame, all things considered (though that may be because demons were already meant to be a force of servants for their creators, a godlike race known as the Titans sealed in superspace. The more useful they make themselves, the more they can entice their summoners to attempt to free their forefathers).

Now, I am aiming for moral ambiguity here, that's why I'm looking at the French Revolution and not the Industrial one. Indeed, one of the Malandanti's favorite sayings is "The time for words is gone, now is the time for swords." Of course, I also recognize that the Jacobins and their ilk had some pretty legitimate complaints about their government and it really, really needed to change.

So, for an enemy, I'm thinking of what would happen if the Imperium of Man disguised itself as Starfleet-the Confederation of Light (cue bad jokes about "the Con" from the more vitriolic rebels).

Thing is, the Imperium is very near and dear to a lot of people's hearts. It's near mine, as well-but a lot will go out of their way to defend them as "doing the best they can in the grim darkness of the far future." I actually agree with this-but the point of the Confederation is that they made their own demons (pun intended), and their own mythos of being the Last Bastion of Good is the cause of that reality rather than a result.

So, yeah. I'm going to try and show that while there may be heroic individuals in the Confed ranks, the organization as a whole is irredeemably corrupt and probably in need of dissolution for the good of everyone.

Also, it should be noted that the Malandanti are more Jacobins than Chaos: There is an utterly evil group of beings in this universe that feed on negative emotions and abuse humans (and other humanoid races, if I want to draw on Starfleet more to create a more unique society) to get them, but they're a particular race of xenos, not demons. Demons here are more like the Exalted version, alien and extremely bitter about not being able to stomp around normal space to their heart's content, but they're angry and strange, not evil. They're certainly more rebellious than the Exalted variety, but a demon that frees itself is largely content to find a nice corner of the universe, build a domain there, and then live their eldritch life in peace (although given the behaviors and biological needs of many of them, a free demon can still be a local menace-they won't doom a planet though). Really, they want freedom, not corruption-their entire goal of freeing the Titans revolves around this, since once the Titans return in infernal splendor, so may the demons, and they have been promised long-overdo end of their service.

So, any ideas on this? What horrors may even the wicked, extremist demonlogists of the Malandanti recoil from in disgust at how far the would-be Imperium has fallen?

(And yes, I know about Black Crusade. I own all the books in Black Crusade)

Leliel
2013-09-23, 09:55 PM
Nothing? Agh, I've been swinging and missing with my ideas lately.

Okay, little more background, that makes this more like Warhammer-at-first-glance:

The evil xenos I'm talking about, the Outer Beings (or just Outer, for the species as a whole), are the "great enemy of mankind" demographic-they're essentially a space-born, super(hyper)space hopping race whose minds revolve entirely around eating-and what they eat is the despair of sapients. They're quite good at it too, and very cunning-they can't lie, so they poke holes in the censor shroud that the Confederation built to maintain its control (indeed, one of the example witch-pilots-the people who fly Solomonic Familiars-is a former censor who read a very comprehensive and unbiased history they wrote). They aren't organized to form an actual army, so they're masters of shackling the undead, demons, sapients, and constructs to themselves, using both sorcery and overloading their "tools" which such overwhelming despair it breaks their will and they serve the Outer willingly. Above all else, due to the way they eat, they're always at an advantage-even if they lose, it's likely that at least somebody of their targets felt despair due to terror and demoralizing tactics, meaning they got at least something out of it, cutting some of their losses and allowing them to prepare for another go at a weakened opponent. Assuming they even need to fight at all, or even act-wherever there is misery, the Outer feast. A few have even theorized they created all extant sapient races as an inexhaustible food source.

Needless to say, nobody likes them very much. Indeed, the first Confederate mecha, or Paladins, were meant to kill Outer, since they can't regroup if they're dead, and their society is aggressively individualist and doesn't waste time on mourning or seeking restitution for the fallen-to them, dead is dead, and it's pointless to view it as anything else.

Which is a good thing, because each and every one of them is as powerful as a tank at the very least, and as they grapple for dominance over each other, they undergo biological changes that causes them to become even stronger the more they've bought other Beings to heel, until they are literal Outer Gods. And if no potential "subordinates" are in sight, well they can always mutate themselves via glutting on unique flavors of despair.

Or make some. You do not want to be on the same planet as an Outer polyp colony.

Friv
2013-09-24, 06:50 AM
All it takes for the Imperium of Man to be the bad guys is for the universe to not be a ridiculous crapsack parody of reality.

If innovation wasn't guaranteed to lead to Chaos, emotion didn't open up death-warps, and psychic powers weren't all but guaranteed to ruin the lives of everyone around the pskyer, most of the "hard choices" that the Imperium makes would look a lot more like a dystopian totalitarian theocracy. You can't really reasonably make them worse as human beings.

I mean, I guess you could include some corruption on top of the totalitarian genocidal oppression.

Leliel
2013-09-24, 11:01 AM
All it takes for the Imperium of Man to be the bad guys is for the universe to not be a ridiculous crapsack parody of reality.

If innovation wasn't guaranteed to lead to Chaos, emotion didn't open up death-warps, and psychic powers weren't all but guaranteed to ruin the lives of everyone around the pskyer, most of the "hard choices" that the Imperium makes would look a lot more like a dystopian totalitarian theocracy. You can't really reasonably make them worse as human beings.

I mean, I guess you could include some corruption on top of the totalitarian genocidal oppression.

I was actually expecting that response.

Unfortunately, I've also seen responses to reviews of Strike Legion, which is best described as "enemies of the Imperium team up and rebel against it while changing mood from Grimdark to Disgaea", and inevitably, the loudest voices are the ones screaming about the Empire not being playable against the, ahem, xenos scum and traitorous humans of the Republic. Please note that all playable races are transhumans (or posthumans at any rate).

I primarily made this as a way to figure out how to hammer through that yes, the Confederates are not the good guys and, as morally ambiguous as the Malandanti are, they're revolting for good reasons, and in the end the worst enemy the Confederates have is themselves.

I'm leaning towards "complete hypocrisy". I'm thinking, for example, a superweapon that's essentially an automated mental torture room meant to cause soul-crushing despair in a condemned prisoner and broadcast his or her anguish across superspace and draw curious (and hungry) Outer Beings. This is the same empire that formed primarily as a defense league against their vicious hungers for misery.

(Truth is, the Malandanti take a secret glee in them being used against them. Not because they enjoy suffering, but because once defused, the rescued bait is all too happy to be recruited...and they don't get to be the pure good guys that often).