Warhammer 40k Fluff Discussion XVII: Call Necrosius, The Old Thread Is Dead!

[Whoracle]

Daily reminder that the Interex knew what Chaos was and were educating people about it and weren't falling to Chaos until the Imperium screwed everything up.

Say Hi to Chaos Cultist Erebus - They didn't fall until Chaos got off its ass and paid attention to them. Also: Eldar. IIRC (might be wrong here, if so, please correct): Knew of Chaos, weren't fascist, still fell. You're either too insignificant to Chaos (T'au - again IIRC), immune (Orks, Tyranids, Necrons?), or they're going to get you (Eldar, Imperium). Anything I've missed?

[Wraith]

My only take on this is thus:

If GW had to post an unequivocal, direct, uncensored and euphamism-free statement that "40k is satire"... Maybe it actually wasn't all that obvious in the first place.

[Lord Raziere]

Say Hi to Chaos Cultist Erebus - They didn't fall until Chaos got off its ass and paid attention to them. Also: Eldar. IIRC (might be wrong here, if so, please correct): Knew of Chaos, weren't fascist, still fell. You're either too insignificant to Chaos (T'au - again IIRC), immune (Orks, Tyranids, Necrons?), or they're going to get you (Eldar, Imperium). Anything I've missed?

Yes, they didn't fall UNTIL Erebus and a former Imperial guy, screwed them over.

As for Eldar: are you sure about that? their ruling body included the first Haemonculi. the Drukhari are in fact, the closest thing to the Eldar society unaltered. just because a society is selfish and decadent doesn't mean they aren't oppressive and cruel. Haemonculi, beings who are masters and connoisseurs of pain, terror and torture. guess what a fascist, oppressive society runs on? oh right, terror to keep people in line, pain to answer those who try and rebel, torture to get answers out of people. the Eldar instead of one fascistic religious empire were inflicting a thousand pleasure cults of pain and torture on others for their head's amusement, instead of one Emperor, they had many, that is all.

[Saambell]

My tiny take on this is that the whole showing the imperium as fascist is basically leaning into the grim darkness. "look how absolutely awful this setting is if fascism is actually the best choice". It's more to help convey how terrible the setting is rather then any sense of if it's good or not. Everyone with a working brain knows it's awful, so a setting where it's the best option must clearly be the absolute worst to live in. Also, the War of the Beast series actually spends a while showing the Imperium running as a, well not quite democracy but by a council who votes on actions. And it really doesn't go well for them. The lore is to say why the Imperium turned fascist while the meta reason is to establish how messed up the setting is for having fascism work. Everyone knows and can agree fascism is bad, it doesn't work, and thus we should all be able to see that if there was ever a situation where it did, it must clearly be the absolute worst place to be.

[DataNinja]

the Drukhari are in fact, the closest thing to the Eldar society unaltered.

I mean, they claim that, but while there is certainly some truth to it, it's also made clear that Commorragh was never a great place even during the height of the Eldar. So it was a very... biased slice of Pre-Fall Eldar society.

[Lord Raziere]

I mean, they claim that, but while there is certainly some truth to it, it's also made clear that Commorragh was never a great place even during the height of the Eldar. So it was a very... biased slice of Pre-Fall Eldar society.

Yeah but the Aeldari Empire still included a master torturer and terror on their governing body before they fell and Slaaneshi excess isn't wild sex parties, its insane torture parties where everyone who isn't on the list is apart of the furniture or a toy to do with as you please. like, when that Empire went bad, it wasn't them just being decadent in some harmless fratboy party way, it was going bad in a "they were probably enslaving all the common people and using them as pieces in their sick games where feel pain and die" kind of way, and at that point, it might as well be fascism.

[Whoracle]

Yes, they didn't fall UNTIL Erebus and a former Imperial guy, screwed them over.

So, they knew about Chaos and didn't fall until chaos got around to them. Means that knowing or not knowing about Chaos makes no difference in surviving. Which former imperial guy are you talking about, btw? Can't recall. IIRC it was Erebus singlehandedly stealing the Athame that lit the dungheap there. According to Horus Rising it wasn't even the Space Marines' usual bullheadedness that time.

As for Eldar: are you sure about that?

I'm not, as I said above, but to the rest of your explanation: All fascists are *******s, but not every ******* is a fascist. And terror, pain and oppression are not exclusive to fascism. So unless we want to have a discussion about what is exclusively intrinsic to fascism as opposed to "also used by" over my flippant reply to your equally flippant remark, I'll leave it at that :) Mod wrath and all that.

Edit: Addendum to the Interex: It's been a while since I read Horus Rising, but I seem to recall that they banned the knowledge of Chaos and Sorcery, too. The only real difference that I remember is that the Interex basically said: "Look, Chaos exists and if you do Chaosy things Daemons will eat your brains", which is only a bit better less obtuse than claiming it doesn't exist at all. They didn't study it - unless that was mentioned outside of the HH novels and the Lexicanum wiki. If so, point me to the source, I'd like reading up on that.

[Grim Portent]

Bit of an overgeneralisation about Slaanesh there, occasionally it doesn't involve any overtly horrible stuff at all, at least to a casual glance. The body horror murder and sex is just what people focus on.

A suicide cult that goes on a month long bender of drugs, alcohol and dancing until their hearts explode, or someone who just lies in a chair eating food until they look like a human doing an impression of an elephant seal is also perfectly within Slaanesh's domain.

Yes the Eldar went pretty heavy on the murder cults and the sensuality cults, and sometimes combined the two, but they did a bunch of other freaky things too. For example when they invented soul transference tech (rarely used but the Dark Eldar still have it, it appears in the Path of the Dark Eldar trilogy) some of them decided to put their souls into trees and rocks just to see what it was like and to no one's surprise found they couldn't get themselves back out, on account of being inanimate objects , so there are still possibly some ancient Eldar who've been stuck as a boulder for over fifteen thousand years.

So, they knew about Chaos and didn't fall until chaos got around to them. Means that knowing or not knowing about Chaos makes no difference in surviving. Which former imperial guy are you talking about, btw? Can't recall. IIRC it was Erebus singlehandedly stealing the Athame that lit the dungheap there. According to Horus Rising it wasn't even the Space Marines' usual bullheadedness that time.

Erebus isn't something Chaos had under it's own power though, he was the result of the Emperor's super soldier program and shoddy recruitment screening practices. If the Emperor didn't make the primarchs, or made the primarchs but not the space marines, or if he vetted the recruits better, the Interex would have been fine, they were plenty powerful enough to fight the existing Chaos societies like the Laer. Without the Emperor Chaos would still be twiddling it's thumbs with a few dozen races of minor xenos and a handful of human worlds that can barely field a single fleet of ships while the rest of the Galaxy just puttered about doing it's own thing.

[Lord Raziere]

Well, regardless of those details, I insist that no matter what Whoracle says, fascism doesn't work in 40k.

[Whoracle]

Well, regardless of those details, I insist that no matter what Whoracle says, fascism doesn't work in 40k.

I never claimed that - I took umbrage with your assertion that something else does. Nothing works in 40k is my point.

[Lord Raziere]

I never claimed that - I took umbrage with your assertion that something else does. Nothing works in 40k is my point.

Then please, lead with the bolded statement.

Otherwise I don't care, if thats how you want to think of the Interex, fine. your free to think that. I'm free to think they worked. difference of opinion, thats all it is.

[Grim Portent]

The Interex did seem to work fine, though I think that was because they were able to make a society that seemed somewhat utopian in nature. Enough so that they could keep chaos relics on display without overt concern for corruption spreading from them.

If you don't have people who are hungry, angry, scared, sociopathic, bored, insane (without treatment) or any of the other qualities that the gods pick away at in decent numbers, then the gods can't touch you as a civilisation, they have to get a mortal catspaw to do it for them.

Chaos probably wouldn't get a foothold in humanity in say... Star Trek except maybe on the fringes of Federation space, but it would do wonderfully in Star Wars, Judge Dredd, or real life.

[Forum Explorer]

Why does it seem like nobody but Cheese has actualy read any of the books?

Yes, Emps is not nice, he's not meant to be. He's the designated protector of humankind, and if that means he has to make a choice that will kill off trillions of lives to ensure that *millions* survive instead of letting trillions be killed and *NOBODY* surviving, well, sucks to be him, but that's what he's got to do.

Oh, but he's **EVIL**, yeah, to your 2022, mostly peaceful existance not threatened with extinction at every turn line of morality, but this is 28/38 thousand years in the future where there are psychers, sentient murderous fungus, a galaxy full of terminator knockoffs who can use guns and spaceships, planet devouring bug monsters without number, every daemon from every religion and then some is real and they live in an edition where recursive summoning hasn't been patched out yet, BDSM space elves who aren't big on consent raid planets for slaves and butcher everyone else for the lulz whenever they've got nothing better to do and more besides.

The Emperor gave humanity a shot at doing their own thing, but the same bunch of collective retards who refuse to wear a mask in the middle of a planet-wide plague ran things into the ground so bad that the Emperor was forced to intervene. Do a search on what a wonderful time the unification wars were if you think that 30k or even 40k is a bad time to be some random human without plot armour. Considering that the combined might of the million+ worlds of the Imperium is only enough to lose more slowly against the various forces set against them, ask yourself how well humanity would have done as individual colonies, cut off from each other every time one of the major powers invaded them?

Big E is a man faced with the runaway trolly problem every day, but instead of pulling the lever to kill one man to save 5 others, the choice he's given is to do nothing and watch humanity be destroyed or pull the lever and feed a few million lives into the meatgrinder so humanity survives to do something super dumb another day. Which choice is more evil in that regard? The condeming of all humanity because you refuse to sacrifice [insert unpleasantly large number here] people, or to sacrifice [number] of humans? Is the blood on your hands and concience any less when you're just as responsible for not pulling the lever as for pulling it?

The whole 40k setting is a story about doing what you have to in order to survive, the ends DO justify the means and there is no "take a third option" that makes everything work out all right. It's what happens when the delicate sensibilities of a civilised people are put to one side due to being on a war footing for survival for thousands of years in a row and it explores what is necessary for survival against certain doom.

The Emperor isn't meant to be GOOD, he's meant to be RIGHT.

He was RIGHT in the sense that if everything went to plan it would actually work. But he was wrong in the sense that it would never actually go to plan. And he didn't take the bare minimum steps to keep things going to plan when really obvious deviations appeared (like Logar's city, or Agron in general)

Also just because The Emperor's plan COULD work, doesn't mean it's the ONLY plan that would work.

But that's the problem.
The text is saying that space fascism, is the correct choice of action for the world that they are in. What do you do, in the grim darkness of the future where there is only war?

If the text is supposed to be satirising, or at the very least, criticising fascism...Well, it doesn't.* It actually presents fascism in the single-best light I've ever seen, in arguably the only setting where it would be useful and arguably correct**; Chaos is Real. Chaos Always Wins. Also, there's Orks, Tyranids and Necrons, all of which provide their own existential threats to Humanity. What do?

*I am aware that this causes problems for those who can't separate fiction from real life; Namely unguided children and the mentally ill.
**I am aware that this causes problems for those who can't separate art from real life; Namely unguided children and the mentally ill.

In any case.
We're devolving back into 'IRL Fascism bad,' territory which everyone with a working brain agrees with (see above). So I'm out.



That's my point. If the writers want 40K - and especially the Imperium - to be satire, there are entire series worth of novels that should've gone out of production years ago.

Eh, I'm not so sure about that. Maybe it's because I generally avoid Space Marine books, but the books from the perspective of the humans usually portrays the Imperium as horrifically incompetent, needlessly cruel, and half the time causing the problem in the first place. Yes, it works, in the sense of keeping humanity alive, but you can pretty obviously think of better ways of doing things.

Thing is that the Imperium is only threatened by Chaos because of the Imperium's own actions.

Before the Emperor dropped a handful of maladjusted demi-gods and legions of slightly less maladjusted super soldiers in their lap all Chaos had was daemons, who aren't good at invading realspace, a handful of tiny chaos worshipping societies like Colchis which couldn't grow powerful because they were too self destructive in nature, and a few enclaves of xenos who mostly stuck to their own space and did much the same as the chaos aligned humans. Each individual chaos faction at the time was trivial to exterminate by the setting's standards, even if costly in human life.

Chaos is generally speaking a self made problem, a form of massive metaphysical insurrection caused by the Imperium and the Eldar empires (and the previous human cilisations) own bad choices.


The Necrons are able to be negotiated with a lot of the time, even if they're *******s about it. The Orks are only interested in humanity because they find fighting them fun, and the Tyranids would be a lot less threatening if the Imperium hadn't been degrading for ten thousand years because of internal disputes over dogma and power balances.

Case in point. Chaos always winning is more a matter of entropy then anything else. It is eternal, and eventually a civilization will mess up enough to cause it to fall to Chaos. But because daemonhood is rare and doesn't allow the new daemons to stick around, a civilization that falls to Chaos also just falls apart and is easy pickings for whoever comes next. Chaos Space Marines bypass that, and have thus made Chaos an expanding and active threat for the last 10 000 years, rather than a passive one.

If the Imperium hadn't had Space Marines, they might still have had the Heresy, but it would've likely stopped there as it fizzled out when all the servants of Chaos died out.

Say Hi to Chaos Cultist Erebus - They didn't fall until Chaos got off its ass and paid attention to them. Also: Eldar. IIRC (might be wrong here, if so, please correct): Knew of Chaos, weren't fascist, still fell. You're either too insignificant to Chaos (T'au - again IIRC), immune (Orks, Tyranids, Necrons?), or they're going to get you (Eldar, Imperium). Anything I've missed?

To be fair (or rather completely not), Eldar didn't so much fall to Chaos as create an entirely new branch of Chaos to tempt people with. It's impressive in the sense of a fire in a firework factory. But they didn't technically fall to any of the threats they knew about.


Ork immunity is weird in the sense they are protected by their own gods. Which kinda pushes against that whole 'Chaos always wins' thing. A powerful enough psychic race can actually create gods in the warp to push back against Chaos and protect their species. Eldar actually likely did this initially but then stopped as they became more self-indulgent and neglected their gods. Or maybe their gods were still able to protect them from Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle, but couldn't do anything about the new Chaos god they created themselves.

[Fyraltari]

Ork immunity is weird in the sense they are protected by their own gods. Which kinda pushes against that whole 'Chaos always wins' thing.

I donlt think they're immune? I remember 40k theories mentionning a couple instances of chaos orks. They are much more resistant than humans, but it seems more a matter of mindset. As the joke goes, the Orks are the only one in this galaxy who are habing fun.
Chaos has almost nothing to offer to an Ork, as he's already living his life like a party: Khorne? You can't tempt an Ork with more violence, he's constantly violent. Nurgle? Orks are almost never sick or in pain. Slaanesh? Orkoid understanding of pleasure is basically just "bash that guy's brain out." Tzeentch? Get outta here.

They're just too single-minded to be nudged off the path ad easily as humans. Grots, now, they'd make prime targets for chaos corruption. But any Ork passing by would just krump the Chaos grot immediately.

[BRC]

I donlt think they're immune? I remember 40k theories mentionning a couple instances of chaos orks. They are much more resistant than humans, but it seems more a matter of mindset. As the joke goes, the Orks are the only one in this galaxy who are habing fun.
Chaos has almost nothing to offer to an Ork, as he's already living his life like a party: Khorne? You can't tempt an Ork with more violence, he's constantly violent. Nurgle? Orks are almost never sick or in pain. Slaanesh? Orkoid understanding of pleasure is basically just "bash that guy's brain out." Tzeentch? Get outta here.

They're just too single-minded to be nudged off the path ad easily as humans. Grots, now, they'd make prime targets for chaos corruption. But any Ork passing by would just krump the Chaos grot immediately.

Orks are a purpose-built species. My headcanon is that the Chaos Gods are formed when enough soul-having beings subconcious thoughts align along certain axis.

Like, Khorne is the universal subconscious desire for Violence, from the most bloodthirsty khornite berserker to a kindly schoolteacher who, just for a moment, wishes she could slap her students, all that feeds into the entity known as Khorne, as their souls echo that desire for violence into the warp, and it congeals around Khorne.

Slanessh was weird because they're not something quite so universal. Yes "Desire for Pleasure" is part of it, but since people's definition of "Pleasure" is so different, that desire didn't really align along anything until the Eldar created a massive cultural obsesession with Excess, which caused all of them to align along "Desire for Excess" enough that Slannesh was born.


Now, the Orks were purpose-built by the Old Ones to be soldiers. They're kind of a blunt instrument, psychologically speaking. Their inbuilt desires basically come down to "Be good soldiers", and align along two axis of "Being good at fighting" and "Being good at PREPARING to fight".

Or, to put it another way. Brutal Cunning and Cunning Brutality.


With so many souls and minds aligned across such similar Axis, Gork and Mork must be VERY powerful chaos gods indeed, but you can't really hear their call unless you're an Ork, since Orks have purpose-built brains. Unlike most sentient species, whose brains are the result of messy evolution designed to teach them how to survive and reproduce, the Orks were built by the Old Ones, who circumvented most of that messy "Survival and Reproduction" things by making them absurdly tough and reproduce via spores, the better to be Soldiers in their war against the C'Tan.

It also means that the other chaos gods have a very hard time laying claim to the Orks, because they are inherently born out the subconsciousness of, let's call them "Organically Developed" Minds, while the Orcish psyche is artificial. The Desire for Violence that aligns one to Khorne is not the same as the Orkish drive for "Cunning Brutality". A Weirdboy'z desire to gain more power aligns them to Mork, not Tzeench.

An Orc could theoretically fall to Chaos, but they speak a different language so to say, and would have to make themselves heard over the foghorn of precision targeting that is Gork and Mork.

Meanwhile, Gork and Mork don't feel the need to meddle in the material realm the way the other Chaos gods do because, well, there are not "Uncorrupted" Orks, and they're not interested in spreading their influence to other species. If the Chaos Gods are sharks swimming through the Warp, Gork and Mork are Whales, unbothered and unconcerned, almost more part of the landscape than actual agents.

[Grim Portent]

There are three examples of 'Chaos' Orkz to my knowledge. Two are very old and only dubiously canon, in that they've never been mentioned again in about twenty years, but IIRC the player Ork mechanics from Rogue Trader don't make them immune to the mental effects of corruption, only the physical ones, so they aren't wholly out of the question. Eldar technically also have the 'immune to mutation' shtick, but they can be corrupted canonically, worth bearing in mind.

Khorneboyz, a unit from the really old Freebootaz. Stormboyz who worship Khorne, I think their skin would actually turn red, though that might have been paint, and they would scrawl chaos runes on themselves. Disliked by normal Orkz for being Un-Orky, so they wound up dead or as Freebootaz who are more lenient towards being weird.

Plague Orkz, from an ancient White Dwarf article, where they fought Grey Knights I think. Basically a bunch of Orkz found some statues or drawings of Nurgle, who is obviously big and green. Given that he is so big and green, he is obviously very Orky, so they started worshipping him without really unnderstanding what they were doing and became corrupted, infested with plague and tentacles. I think there was even a black and white bit of art to go with them.

Khorne's pet WAAAGH!!! from the Chaos Daemons codex (6th and 7th, not sure about 8th.) A warboss decided to lead his forces on a path that led them into the Eye of Terror, where they eventually found themselves on a Daemon World of Khorne. They fought bravely, cheerfully and without fear even as the last of them were butchered. Khorne found this amusing, so he resurrected them, and once again they fought daemons to the death with glee. After a few repeats of this Khorne decided to keep them, scooped them up into the Warp proper and deposited them in the mountains around his realm. The Orkz rush down the mountains, fight until they die, new Orkz grow from the spores left in the mountains, rinse and repeat for all time in a place where time doesn't exist.

[JNAProductions]

There are three examples of 'Chaos' Orkz to my knowledge. Two are very old and only dubiously canon, in that they've never been mentioned again in about twenty years, but IIRC the player Ork mechanics from Rogue Trader don't make them immune to the mental effects of corruption, only the physical ones, so they aren't wholly out of the question. Eldar technically also have the 'immune to mutation' shtick, but they can be corrupted canonically, worth bearing in mind.

Khorneboyz, a unit from the really old Freebootaz. Stormboyz who worship Khorne, I think their skin would actually turn red, though that might have been paint, and they would scrawl chaos runes on themselves. Disliked by normal Orkz for being Un-Orky, so they wound up dead or as Freebootaz who are more lenient towards being weird.

Plague Orkz, from an ancient White Dwarf article, where they fought Grey Knights I think. Basically a bunch of Orkz found some statues or drawings of Nurgle, who is obviously big and green. Given that he is so big and green, he is obviously very Orky, so they started worshipping him without really unnderstanding what they were doing and became corrupted, infested with plague and tentacles. I think there was even a black and white bit of art to go with them.

Khorne's pet WAAAGH!!! from the Chaos Daemons codex (6th and 7th, not sure about 8th.) A warboss decided to lead his forces on a path that led them into the Eye of Terror, where they eventually found themselves on a Daemon World of Khorne. They fought bravely, cheerfully and without fear even as the last of them were butchered. Khorne found this amusing, so he resurrected them, and once again they fought daemons to the death with glee. After a few repeats of this Khorne decided to keep them, scooped them up into the Warp proper and deposited them in the mountains around his realm. The Orkz rush down the mountains, fight until they die, new Orkz grow from the spores left in the mountains, rinse and repeat for all time in a place where time doesn't exist.

The last bit I don't think counts as Chaos Orks.

They're not corrupted-they're as Orky as ever. They just happen to be in the Immaterium instead of Realspace.

And yeah, the first two I've heard of, but have not seen a lick of lore indicating that's still canon since I began playing. (Admittedly, I only started in 7th.)

[Forum Explorer]

Khorne's pet WAAAGH!!! from the Chaos Daemons codex (6th and 7th, not sure about 8th.) A warboss decided to lead his forces on a path that led them into the Eye of Terror, where they eventually found themselves on a Daemon World of Khorne. They fought bravely, cheerfully and without fear even as the last of them were butchered. Khorne found this amusing, so he resurrected them, and once again they fought daemons to the death with glee. After a few repeats of this Khorne decided to keep them, scooped them up into the Warp proper and deposited them in the mountains around his realm. The Orkz rush down the mountains, fight until they die, new Orkz grow from the spores left in the mountains, rinse and repeat for all time in a place where time doesn't exist.

In the last example the Orks aren't really corrupted. They're just there doing Ork things.

[Grim Portent]

True, but they are still part of Khorne's menagerie, so I felt they were worth mentioning, and it's why I put '' around the Chaos part of Chaos Orkz, as the first two are straight up Chaos Orkz with no qualifiers other than being old. Also Khorne can flat out bring them back from the dead, which is normally something reserved for creatures with souls that go to the Warp upon death, so that might mean something.


Oh, actually just remembered that Black Crusade has a planet in the Screaming Vortex (the baby sibling to the Maelstrom and Eye of Terror) which is inhabited by Orkz as part of the general dickery of Chaos. It's twinned with a planet inhabited by Kroot, which it has a long standing feud with. Every now and then the two planets pass close enough by to invade one another with crude rokkits on the Ork's part and with flying space moths on the Kroot's part. Fighting happens in space, some of each force gets to the other planet, fights a bit and then dies, the planets move away again and both societies are left to rebuild for the next time they pass each other. If either of them worships Chaos is not specified, IIRC Gork'n'Mork aren't mentioned either, but they are presented as potential recruits for a warband to draw on if they pick one side or the other so there are some Orkz that fight for Chaos even if they don't worship the pantheon.

[BRC]

True, but they are still part of Khorne's menagerie, so I felt they were worth mentioning, and it's why I put '' around the Chaos part of Chaos Orkz, as the first two are straight up Chaos Orkz with no qualifiers other than being old. Also Khorne can flat out bring them back from the dead, which is normally something reserved for creatures with souls that go to the Warp upon death, so that might mean something.


Oh, actually just remembered that Black Crusade has a planet in the Screaming Vortex (the baby sibling to the Maelstrom and Eye of Terror) which is inhabited by Orkz as part of the general dickery of Chaos. It's twinned with a planet inhabited by Kroot, which it has a long standing feud with. Every now and then the two planets pass close enough by to invade one another with crude rokkits on the Ork's part and with flying space moths on the Kroot's part. Fighting happens in space, some of each force gets to the other planet, fights a bit and then dies, the planets move away again and both societies are left to rebuild for the next time they pass each other. If either of them worships Chaos is not specified, IIRC Gork'n'Mork aren't mentioned either, but they are presented as potential recruits for a warband to draw on if they pick one side or the other so there are some Orkz that fight for Chaos even if they don't worship the pantheon.

I mean that would track. We know that some Imperial factions hire orkish mercenaries by bribing them with ships and weapons. No reason a Chaos (or Tau, or Eldar) faction couldn't do the same. Pointing a Waaaugh at something your enemy cares about is a pretty effective tactic if you don't mind the Orks eventually turning their new toys on you when they get bored.

Heck, it seems far more likely for other factions. If you don't have the Imperium's Xenophobia to overcome.

[Grim Portent]

I mean that would track. We know that some Imperial factions hire orkish mercenaries by bribing them with ships and weapons. No reason a Chaos (or Tau, or Eldar) faction couldn't do the same.

Them living in a permanent warp storm and being patsies only there for the amusement of the Warp is a bit different than rocking up to a klan and throwing guns at them in exchange for mercs.

Black Crusade does technically have rules for playing as orkish chaos champions through the rules it has for updating characters from the other games across, but it gets into the realm of 'is this intended, or just an oversight in the rules?' territory. Given what the Ork rules from Into the Storm have to say about them and Corruption I think it's intended, or not unintended anyway, but meant to be something quite exceptional.

Kaos an’ Kurrupshun
Orks in service to the Chaos Gods, or even succumbing to the corrupting influence of the Warp, are so rare as to be
essentially unheard of. Simply put, Orks aren’t easily tempted to Chaos and they’re far more resistant to the warping
influence of Chaos than humans, for reasons that nobody has been able to accurately define. Consequently, Orks don’t
gain Corruption Points.

So there are potentially Chaos Orkz, but there's almost none in the entire known history of the galaxy, so each one is a massive oddity.


Took me an annoyingly long time to remember I even have that pdf. Been way too long since I got to use the RPGs.


Decided to check the other xenos for completeness sake.

Dark Eldar gain Corruption, but don't mutate or get malignancies the way humans do, instead they become more susceptible to the draining effects that come from not feeding on pain.

Tau gain Corruption, but it has not effect until they hit 100 points and become unplayable. Described as 'less attuned' to the temptations of Chaos.

Kroot are as vulnerable as humans, but are advised to be given special malignancies to reflect them being more animalistic and humans are.

Interestingly the Tau are worded in a way that doesn't make them truly immune, presumably to allow for Tau characters to fall if they want to. Fairly standard for Warhammer tbh. Everyone except the Dark Eldar can go insane as well, even Orkz can't cope with some of the horrors the galaxy throws around it seems.

[BRC]

Them living in a permanent warp storm and being patsies only there for the amusement of the Warp is a bit different than rocking up to a klan and throwing guns at them in exchange for mercs.

Black Crusade does technically have rules for playing as orkish chaos champions through the rules it has for updating characters from the other games across, but it gets into the realm of 'is this intended, or just an oversight in the rules?' territory. Given what the Ork rules from Into the Storm have to say about them and Corruption I think it's intended, or not unintended anyway, but meant to be something quite exceptional.

Yeah, but in general I could see any number of Xenos factions hiring Orks.

I'm now imagining an Ork army whose "Warboss" model is just an Alpha Legionnaire with a painted green helmet and an Orkish banner on his back.

[Grim Portent]

Yeah, but in general I could see any number of Xenos factions hiring Orks.

I'm now imagining an Ork army whose "Warboss" model is just an Alpha Legionnaire with a painted green helmet and an Orkish banner on his back.

I've seen a few Ork mashup armies before, but normally it's Kommandos disguised as other factions, or driving looted vehicles that aren't just Imperial Guard tanks.

There's plenty of mentions of them working as mercenaries for other factions, major and minor, and I think one or two mentions of them taking on mercenaries themselves. They certainly hire the services of other Orkz, big chunk of the fluff for Wortsnagga is that he sells his supa-runtz services to various warbosses, but I could see them hiring Loxatl, buying poison weapons from the Scythians or buying clone armies from the Stryxis.

I know some people used to run Ork models as units in Renegades and Heretics army lists, there was a unit that was a bit beefier than normal and suited to Orkz and mutants, and a separate unit that had options themed around being non-Ork alien mercenaries as I recall, with a slant towards Dark Eldar IIRC.

[Cheesegear]

Also just because The Emperor's plan COULD work, doesn't mean it's the ONLY plan that would work.

Every time I see this particular argument no-one ever proposes an alternative:

- You have thousands of worlds with a population of trillions, if not quadrillions, barely in contact with each other, and very rarely in real time. Travel between worlds is not only long, but also unsafe.
- Logistics is ****ed. But, you also know that people are a renewable resource.
- If anyone, ever, feels a particularly strong negative emotion, they have a potential - however small - to conjure a nigh-unkillable monster that is immune to most mortal weaponry, by accident. This potential increases when that emotion is felt in higher concentrations (e.g; During a riot)
- People can, if they feel strongly enough, can summon those nigh-unkillable monsters, on purpose - if they know how to (your best bet is probably to keep that information very, very, very secret and strongly discourage people from doing their own research).
- Additionally, there are multiple alien empires intent on your destruction.

Go.

Yes, it works, in the sense of keeping humanity alive, but you can pretty obviously think of better ways of doing things.

See above. I can't. Maybe I'm stupid? Help me out.

It is eternal, and eventually a civilization will mess up enough to cause it to fall to Chaos.

Good point.
The Emperor has a finite amount of time to get Humanity to enlightment, or Chaos Wins. That's the doomsday clock in the Emperor's head.
Every setback, is moving the hand closer to midnight.

Horus falling to Chaos, was not a setback in the Emperor's plan. That's why he didn't care.
Magnus destroying his Webway Project, was a massive setback.

What is it about The Emperor, where his favourite son turning Evil, doesn't concern him, but shattering the thing that will undo Mankind's reliance on The Warp, does?

If the Imperium hadn't had Space Marines, they might still have had the Heresy, but it would've likely stopped there as it fizzled out when all the servants of Chaos died out.

Well yeah. If the Emperor had never made Primarchs, they never would have Fallen.

As above, the Emperor has a finite amount of time before the Doomsday Clock strikes twelve. Chaos Always Wins.
The Imperium, is a civilisation, and as such slouches towards Bethlehem by default.

In M30, Slaanesh is born, and a great butthole in the Galaxy is formed - The Eye of Terror, and it's spewing out malignancy.

The Emperor freaks out as the clock is shattered on the floor. Now it's a race to the finish:

You kick off the Unification Wars. It's game time, boys. No time to **** around anymore. Chaos is Winning, and we're playing catch up, now.
You freak out. You have to get this done. You create a bunch of Primarchs to make this happen.
Those Primarchs get stolen and spread all over the Galaxy where you have no control over them at all.
****. ****. ****.
You launch the Great Crusade. You unite the Galaxy again. Hell, you even find some of your sons.
But remember they weren't raised by you. Half of them have been brought up in the worst environments imaginable. At least a quarter of them know what Chaos is - and two of them actively research it...****.

NO TIME.

Alright. The Aeldari exploded the Galaxy. A whole bunch of them survived. How?
Okay.
New plan. Scrap the Great Crusade. We're doing what the Aeldari did. Everyone keep your Psykers under control. I'm off to do a thing that will literally save...Some of us. But some of us is better than none at all. The Emperor looks at the Doomsday Clock, shattered on the floor. Malcador shrugs. We had a good run.

I've got this. Just leave me alone. I can fix this. Give me time. My sons can settle whatever's going on outside between themselves. Malcador. Handle this. Make sure my sons don't listen to Lorgar. They're smart enough. They'll figure out he's a piece of ****, right? RIGHT!?

Magnus: OH YEAH!!!

****.

Well that's game. GG. Report Lorgar for feeding. Magnus you're blocked.
Welcome to Bronze Tier Hell.

[Forum Explorer]

Every time I see this particular argument no-one ever proposes an alternative:

- You have thousands of worlds with a population of trillions, if not quadrillions, barely in contact with each other, and very rarely in real time. Travel between worlds is not only long, but also unsafe.
- Logistics is ****ed. But, you also know that people are a renewable resource.
- If anyone, ever, feels a particularly strong negative emotion, they have a potential - however small - to conjure a nigh-unkillable monster that is immune to most mortal weaponry, by accident. This potential increases when that emotion is felt in higher concentrations (e.g; During a riot)
- People can, if they feel strongly enough, can summon those nigh-unkillable monsters, on purpose - if they know how to (your best bet is probably to keep that information very, very, very secret and strongly discourage people from doing their own research).
- Additionally, there are multiple alien empires intent on your destruction.

Go.



See above. I can't. Maybe I'm stupid? Help me out.



Good point.
The Emperor has a finite amount of time to get Humanity to enlightment, or Chaos Wins. That's the doomsday clock in the Emperor's head.
Every setback, is moving the hand closer to midnight.

Horus falling to Chaos, was not a setback in the Emperor's plan. That's why he didn't care.
Magnus destroying his Webway Project, was a massive setback.

What is it about The Emperor, where his favourite son turning Evil, doesn't concern him, but shattering the thing that will undo Mankind's reliance on The Warp, does?



Well yeah. If the Emperor had never made Primarchs, they never would have Fallen.

As above, the Emperor has a finite amount of time before the Doomsday Clock strikes twelve. Chaos Always Wins.
The Imperium, is a civilisation, and as such slouches towards Bethlehem by default.

In M30, Slaanesh is born, and a great butthole in the Galaxy is formed - The Eye of Terror, and it's spewing out malignancy.

The Emperor freaks out as the clock is shattered on the floor. Now it's a race to the finish:

You kick off the Unification Wars. It's game time, boys. No time to **** around anymore. Chaos is Winning, and we're playing catch up, now.
You freak out. You have to get this done. You create a bunch of Primarchs to make this happen.
Those Primarchs get stolen and spread all over the Galaxy where you have no control over them at all.
****. ****. ****.
You launch the Great Crusade. You unite the Galaxy again. Hell, you even find some of your sons.
But remember they weren't raised by you. Half of them have been brought up in the worst environments imaginable. At least a quarter of them know what Chaos is - and two of them actively research it...****.

NO TIME.

Alright. The Aeldari exploded the Galaxy. A whole bunch of them survived. How?
Okay.
New plan. Scrap the Great Crusade. We're doing what the Aeldari did. Everyone keep your Psykers under control. I'm off to do a thing that will literally save...Some of us. But some of us is better than none at all. The Emperor looks at the Doomsday Clock, shattered on the floor. Malcador shrugs. We had a good run.

I've got this. Just leave me alone. I can fix this. Give me time. My sons can settle whatever's going on outside between themselves. Malcador. Handle this. Make sure my sons don't listen to Lorgar. They're smart enough. They'll figure out he's a piece of ****, right? RIGHT!?

Magnus: OH YEAH!!!

****.

Well that's game. GG. Report Lorgar for feeding. Magnus you're blocked.
Welcome to Bronze Tier Hell.

Sure, that'll be fun. It'll take a while though, so I just want to say this in the meantime:

I absolutely love that portrayal of the Emperor you came up with. The idea he was just in a low grade panic the entire Great Crusade and desperately trying to figure out a way to win works really well and is greatly amusing to me.

[Cheesegear]

The idea he was just in a low grade panic the entire Great Crusade and desperately trying to figure out a way to win works really well...

Uhh...
Maybe because that is his portrayal.

The problem is that his portrayal and his motivations get lost in 'lol bad Dad', and 'Fascism bad'.

[Forum Explorer]

Uhh...
Maybe because that is his portrayal.

The problem is that his portrayal and his motivations get lost in 'lol bad Dad', and 'Fascism bad'.

I wouldn't know. I got sick of the Horus Heresy series after a while and stopped reading it. I just do NOT like Space Marines as characters, so the series couldn't hold my attention forever.

[Drasius]

Daily reminder that the Interex knew what Chaos was and were educating people about it and weren't falling to Chaos until the Imperium screwed everything up.

Daily reminder that the Interex got their **** pushed in and don't exist anymore. Might makes Right in this setting, 'cause if you're insufficiently mighty, you're dead and so is everything you care about.

I can certainly see why Big E may think the ends justify the means, but that doesn't mean I have to think he's right. He is a flawed character after all, deliberately presented so. Spoiler, they don't have See above child soldiers post. But it does make for a fun thought experiment.

As for a 3rd option; we can look at the Interex. Sure we only saw them briefly but they had;
- Advanced tech
- High quality of life
- Reasonable size (Lexicanum says 30 systems)
- Fought with xenos, but peacefully integrated them once they beat them (or imprisoned them) Turns out we can just say no to genocide!
- Knows about chaos and also knows not to go near it (Take note Big E, turns out ignorance isn't a good defence, who'd have thunk?)
- Good relations with the eldar for what it's worth
- Capable of beating threats even marines struggled with i.e. the megarachnids.

Now this should all be taken with a pinch of salt, as they were clearly written as a perfect society to contrast against the IoM for us readers who know how that will turn out. But it does show that a third way is possible. And may even have proven highly successful, if a certain someone's army of child soldiers hadn't blundered into it.

EDIT - ninja'ed by Lord Raziere

As above, the Interex, for all their enlightened qualities a) got their arses handed to them and thus demonstrate that the Imperium was right and b) aren't goign to defend anything since 30 worlds is hilariously insufficient to hold out against any major threat (ie Orks, Necrons, Hell, even Dark Eldar are going to give you serious trouble at this point). 30 worlds is about 1/4 the size of the Tau Empire who already survive by the power of plot armour and model sales numbers alone.

[Lord Raziere]

Daily reminder that the Interex got their **** pushed in and don't exist anymore. Might makes Right in this setting, 'cause if you're insufficiently mighty, you're dead and so is everything you care about.



As above, the Interex, for all their enlightened qualities a) got their arses handed to them and thus demonstrate that the Imperium was right and b) aren't goign to defend anything since 30 worlds is hilariously insufficient to hold out against any major threat (ie Orks, Necrons, Hell, even Dark Eldar are going to give you serious trouble at this point). 30 worlds is about 1/4 the size of the Tau Empire who already survive by the power of plot armour and model sales numbers alone.

Daily reminder that the Interex still worked. and that the Imperium was the ones who screwed things up.

If might makes right, then the Emperor is a wimpy corpse who lost long ago. If might makes right, the Chaos Gods are pathetic beings who can't even finish what they start. If might makes right, the Orks and Tyranids are germs who can't handle a little fire. If might makes right, the Eldar lost to pathetic errant thoughts that can't even destroy the Imperium. If might makes right, the Necrons are a bunch of corpses who lost to the Orks and the Eldar long before the Emperor existed.

If might makes right, then everyone in the setting is weak pathetic and wrong, given that they've done nothing but decay into lesser versions of themselves while failing to defeat their greatest foes.

[Drasius]

Daily reminder that the Interex still worked. and that the Imperium was the ones who screwed things up.

If might makes right, then the Emperor is a wimpy corpse who lost long ago. If might makes right, the Chaos Gods are pathetic beings who can't even finish what they start. If might makes right, the Orks and Tyranids are germs who can't handle a little fire. If might makes right, the Eldar lost to pathetic errant thoughts that can't even destroy the Imperium. If might makes right, the Necrons are a bunch of corpses who lost to the Orks and the Eldar long before the Emperor existed.

If might makes right, then everyone in the setting is weak pathetic and wrong, given that they've done nothing but decay into lesser versions of themselves while failing to defeat their greatest foes.

Well, let's ask the Interex what they think. Oh, wait, we can't, they don't exist anymore. Sounds like they were wrong to me, since, ya know, bit hard to protect humanity when you're all dead.

As to the second part, yeah, that's kinda where we're going with the story, it's why it's all grimdark and such. You only technicaly lose when your race stops existing though, so all the people with a dog still in the fight are doing their best (sadly).