Has Chaos already won? My faith in the Imperium is weakened

[heavens henchman]

Hey it's been awhile since I've posted on the B&C, I mainly just lurk and learn. Lately though I've been reading the HH series of novels while trying to get back into the hobby aspect of the game.

 

Something that's been percolating in my mind as I've been going is how much the goals of some of the original "traitor" primarchs goals or Ideals, goals and ideals that had them branded as traitors and heretics in the first place, have become become accepted facts of life by the modern imperium. In some cases what would have had you killed during the great crusade is now a demanded course of action that will have you killed if you DON'T do it.

 

For example:

 

1. The Word Bearer's where chastised, punished and scorned for there belief in the Emperor's divinity. Encouraging that belief had them censored by the Emperor. In fact the Emperor himself fought long and hard to abolish "religious belief" from the human way of life and had it outlawed. Cultures encountered during the crusade had to give up their beliefs or be annihilated.

Simple really and yet now it's a accepted as fact that the Emperor is a god and that belief if strictly and bloodily enforced. Denying the Emperor as divine will have to executed, declared a heretic and an enemy of mankind.

 

2. Night Haunter and the Night Lords were shunned and brought to account for their terror tactics in securing compliance from the worlds the encountered. Rogal Dorn and Night Haunter have a very ...pointed discussion on the matter where Night Haunter proves that having the population fear harsh repercussions for criminal activity ensures peaceful behavior better than coddling and "re-education" does. Despite this the Imperium is an unholy terror machine administering brutally harsh punishments for what can be the smallest of infractions. It as secret police, inquisitors that actively pursue the "heresy" or perceived heresy with bloody single mindedness. There's commissars who sole lot in life is to be so ruthless and scarey that people would rather face a Khorne 'zerker than admit their scared. The Imperium is held together and run solely through fear and terror regimentation.

 

3. Psykers Emperor said they were bad. Council of Nikea (sp?) Basically saw the Imperium and the Space Wolves black ball the Thousand Sons. When Magnus used his psychic abilities to try and help, he was declared a heretic and the Wolves went with the Emperor's blessing to kick there arses and bring Magnus back for disciplinary action. Now a days space marine chapters have librarians all the time, even the Wolves have psykers and while psykers may not be really like or trusted they do exist and their use is condoned and accepted. Heck the inquisition use them, there's a whole chapter of psychic marines (Grey Knights)

 

There are more examples but I've made a marathon post as is. Through these musings I cant help but think that it was the actions of the Emperor and the "loyalists" are more to blame for the current state of things than the "traitors". They wouldn't have become what the did or done what they did but for the course set by the Emperor and his cronies.

 

Have Chaos and the traitor legions already won? Everything they fought for has been achieved really. The Emperor's golden age of unity and enlightenment that was to be Imperium is a shattered dream. The Emperor's edicts are ignored and twisted to the whims of men on the council of Terra. Fear, terror, hopelessness and ignorance are the way of life. Humanity is circling the drain so to speak.

 

Now don't get me wrong I don't think allegiance to the Chaos gods is the best thing in the world, in fact i think they've orchestrated things to be just as they are because this is what they want eternal strife, change, deterioration and excess. constant chaos in the universe. I think they have and are playing both loyalist and traitors for fools.

 

So if you've read all of my ramblings thanks you! I'd love to hear others thoughts on things. Honestly I'm finding it harder to look at my loyalist armies and feel a connection to them and feel a greater sympathy and conviction for the original traitor legions

[Lady_Canoness]

Chaos can't lose... lets put it that way.

 

Can they claim a moral victory in the way you describe though? No, not really. The Horus Heresy was ten thousand years ago and the Imperium has grown and changed, whereas the Chaos Legions have not due to the Warp affecting them in stranger ways. What you are really describing are the necessities of a totalitarian state - something that the Imperium needs to be if it is to have any chance at all (just imaging freedom of religion when Chaos is involved, eh?). The Emperor, when he was alived, seemed to be opposed to this, though now that he isn't the Imperium has to make do with the best it can muster to keep in control.

 

Control - that word should be key. Everything the Imperium does (all those things you have described) is a method to keep control. That is what the Imperium is about. Not freedom, not peace, not justice. Control. The Imperium sees its only way of survival as being through killing everything before everything can kill it, and since there is so much of everything they are doomed to fight forever until they fail.

 

So let go of the 'Good Imperium' idea you seem to be cherishing - that died when the Emperor went to the Golden Throne - now everyone is in a 'holding pattern' trying to survive until the day He might return. The Imperium isn't here to be good - it is here to survive in any way it possibly can, because if it didn't humanity would cease to exist as it is known.

 

Just think of how it worked in Star Wars: they let the aliens in, and they noooooobody wanted an Emperor! :) They all wanted to be equal and stuff - frightful!

[Chosen of Chaos]

I cant agree with the OP more. I used to be a good little imperial dog, but the more I read and learned the more I started to find out about chaos and the Imperium. I found it interesting how the modern Imperium has gone so far from its roots. All of this led me to become a Renegade from the Imperium. It is almost as bad as chaos... The Imperium is not good, but on the other hand Chaos is just that... Chaos not good nor bad. The Dark gods are just facets of human emotion personified. There is no good or bad in 40k for Space marines and humans, just many shades of gray.....

 

 

Chosen

[Crimson Hawk]

The traitor legions can't claim a moral victory as such, but the Chaos Gods certainly can- they got the entertainment that they were after. As for the use of psykers/ worship ect. , they seemed like good ideas at the time, but without the emperor, things just got more grimdark, and emphasize the Imperiums hypocrisy- I'm a regnegade player myself

[Warp Angel]

I've spent 20 years knowing that the Imperium of Man was a horrible place, but knowing that Chaos was far worse.

 

The big E was a hypocrite when he was alive, I don't find it a big stretch that after he's dead, his crumbling empire remains hypocritical.

 

The big E was a bloodthirsty tyrant who chose bloodshed and violence instead of negotiation, insisting that it was the only way. The HH books make repeated references to people not supporting his methods and questioning if they really were the most effective.

 

The big E lied to his sons and left them no tools to realize the corrupting influence of Chaos and assisted in their downfall.

 

The big E exterminated or otherwise "erased" two of his sons and their legions somewhere early in the crusades. One can only imagine what their crime was since outright disobedience by Magnus didn't rate being "forgotten". (Don't forget that it was Horus who altered the nature of the Space Wolves mission from "arrest and sanction" to "sanction destruction".

 

But, I'd much rather live in the walls of a hive city where the crime for theft was mind-wipe and transformation into a servitor than to spend one day on a Chaos world where everything that is horrible in the universe and anathema to existence wants to consume my soul and torment it for eternity.

[Kol Saresk]

Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler!

 

 

Now that that's out of the way we can get to business. First I have to say that I've been a fan of Chaos since the beginning so you have a right to say that I am biased. From what I have gathered, as soon as Horus died, Chaos won. Maybe not the Legions since their objectives are to create an Empire where the entire species is devoted to the worship of Chaos in one form or another. The evidence for my case is the book "Legion" by Dan Abnett. In it, the official cannon now states that the Alpha Legion turned Traitor so that Horus would win his civil war because it plunge the entire human species into a maelstrom of Chaos and when it destroyed itself, it would rob the Gods of all of their power because so much of it would disappear and they would never again threaten the galaxy at large. But since it is official canon that Horus died and the very present of the 40k universe is exactly what the council predicted, that means either the Alpha Legion failed in their duty to ensure Horus's victory, or they are so much more devout to the Chaos Gods than any other Legion in making sure that there was Eternal War. The only third possibility is that even now they are trying to ensure Humanity's mass suicide despite the loss of the Siege of Terra and Horus since it was supposed to be Horus who caused the suicide.

[Warp Angel]

Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler!

 

 

Now that that's out of the way we can get to business. First I have to say that I've been a fan of Chaos since the beginning so you have a right to say that I am biased. From what I have gathered, as soon as Horus died, Chaos won. Maybe not the Legions since their objectives are to create an Empire where the entire species is devoted to the worship of Chaos in one form or another. The evidence for my case is the book "Legion" by Dan Abnett. In it, the official cannon now states that the Alpha Legion turned Traitor so that Horus would win his civil war because it plunge the entire human species into a maelstrom of Chaos and when it destroyed itself, it would rob the Gods of all of their power because so much of it would disappear and they would never again threaten the galaxy at large. But since it is official canon that Horus died and the very present of the 40k universe is exactly what the council predicted, that means either the Alpha Legion failed in their duty to ensure Horus's victory, or they are so much more devout to the Chaos Gods than any other Legion in making sure that there was Eternal War. The only third possibility is that even now they are trying to ensure Humanity's mass suicide despite the loss of the Siege of Terra and Horus since it was supposed to be Horus who caused the suicide.

 

The only reason that I can't agree with you is that what Chaos views as winning is turning the whole of the material realm into an extension of the Empyrean. What we have right now is a 10,000 year stalemate where the Imperium never got to be what it wanted to be and the forces of Chaos still don't have what they want.

[Slayer le Boucher]

WH40k was never about Good Guys Vs Bad Guys, its always been Shady Guys VS Less Shady Guys who work each for their own interests.

[Rain]

Well ish. The thing that people don't seem to realize about the Chaos gods is that they aren't very coherent. There is no "goal" or endgame for the gods other than to keep existing, which is in a manner of speaking a forgone conclusion because they have always and will always exist even though some are older than others. Confused? You're supposed to be. That's because Chaos doesn't really function like mortals do, the gods are manifestations of emotion and intent and exist as their "parent" impulses do, albeit without the pressure of agency that those impulses would be under in a mortal.

 

In other words, your emotions do not have any direction or plan in of themselves, and so by extension the Chaos gods, which are derived from said emotions do not either, they exist for their own sake, and they don't have the capacity for anything but to exist. So they can't really "win" or "lose" because they generally don't have an agenda other than to exist which they do as long as there is sentience to feed them, and perhaps even if there wasn't (this really isn't well explained if you read Liber Chaotica and other sources).

 

The Horus Heresy was kind of an exception to this as the Gods did indeed "conspire" in a way to bring it about because they were afraid of various things that the Emperor was doing, however this was both a practically unique and still very brief diversion for them. Also, they didn't really violate their nature because all they did was briefly act outside of the warp instead of inside, in other words, they still acted as manifestations of raw emotion, they just projected themselves out of the warp into the minds of primarchs, which is unusual. Normally the gods channel their nature into the Great Game, completely ignoring mortals, and compared to the "warp time" they put into the Game, the Heresy literally passed in a mere moment.

 

TL;DR : The gods don't care enough about the material universe for much of anything going on to be a win or loss for them. The fact that they still exist and feed is enough of a victory as far as they are concerned.

[Kol Saresk]

Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler!

 

 

"Legion" Page 394

 

"+If the Emperor wins, stagnation will seize the Imperium. It will seek to perpetuate itself, over and again, across thousands of years, but it will decay, slowly and surely. It will decay, and gradually allow Chaos to seep back in and consume it.+

 

'Victory... is defeat?' asked Alpharius softly.

 

+If the Emperor wins, Alpharius, Chaos will ultimately triumph. Ten, twenty thousand years of misery and rot will follow, until the Primordial Annihilator at last achieves ascendacy.+

 

'This is the choice?' asked Omegon. He laughed bleakly.

 

+The slow inexonerable conquest of Chaos, or a briefly period of terror and frenzy.+"

 

 

So technically they have won, it's just a matter of time until everyone realizes it.

[Rain]

Well, you are assuming that the Cabal was not mislead or misleading. Which we really have no clue about, heck we don't even know if the Alpha Legion listened to them or is pursuing some other currently unknown to us objective, fact is we just don't know enough about the "truth" behind the events in that novel to say one way or the other.

[Brother Ambroz]

Read Deliverance Lost, sheds a bit more light on the Cabal and how the AL percieve them....

[Kol Saresk]

I still have a while until Deliverance Lost comes out in the US. :nuke:

[Warp Angel]

Well ish. The thing that people don't seem to realize about the Chaos gods is that they aren't very coherent. There is no "goal" or endgame for the gods other than to keep existing, which is in a manner of speaking a forgone conclusion because they have always and will always exist even though some are older than others. Confused? You're supposed to be. That's because Chaos doesn't really function like mortals do, the gods are manifestations of emotion and intent and exist as their "parent" impulses do, albeit without the pressure of agency that those impulses would be under in a mortal.

 

In other words, your emotions do not have any direction or plan in of themselves, and so by extension the Chaos gods, which are derived from said emotions do not either, they exist for their own sake, and they don't have the capacity for anything but to exist. So they can't really "win" or "lose" because they generally don't have an agenda other than to exist which they do as long as there is sentience to feed them, and perhaps even if there wasn't (this really isn't well explained if you read Liber Chaotica and other sources).

 

The Horus Heresy was kind of an exception to this as the Gods did indeed "conspire" in a way to bring it about because they were afraid of various things that the Emperor was doing, however this was both a practically unique and still very brief diversion for them. Also, they didn't really violate their nature because all they did was briefly act outside of the warp instead of inside, in other words, they still acted as manifestations of raw emotion, they just projected themselves out of the warp into the minds of primarchs, which is unusual. Normally the gods channel their nature into the Great Game, completely ignoring mortals, and compared to the "warp time" they put into the Game, the Heresy literally passed in a mere moment.

 

TL;DR : The gods don't care enough about the material universe for much of anything going on to be a win or loss for them. The fact that they still exist and feed is enough of a victory as far as they are concerned.

 

I've got 20 years of fluff that says that Chaos is trying to destroy the material realm. The powers do not get along in the Warp and mortals (and souls) are fuel for the power struggle between the various Chaos gods. Each of the Gods seeks to enhance their own power by corrupting and consuming the material realm and the souls it contains. Khorne is strengthened by slaughter, Nurgle by decay, Slanessh by excess, and Tzeentch by treachery and change. (I'm oversimplifying here)

 

What happened in the Heresy is that the Gods conspired together to achieve a goal and haven't unified their efforts on a large scale since. They are constantly trying to expand their personal power and influence, though as you pointed out, their motivations and actions are incomprehensible to the mortal realm.

[Ammonius]

I still have a while until Deliverance Lost comes out in the US. :nuke:

Amazon.com delivered my copy last week, so hopefully you should see it on shelves this week?

[carnosaur93]

to reply to OP... first of all, what you present is more examples of irony. rather than a victory for chaos... second, this whole thing comes down to how GW choose to tell their story, or more specificly, create their setting. warhammer 40k is unlike so many other setting NOT your typical "the big good holy guys against unfathomable mustache-twirling evil", its a grimdark setting, where the whole core concept is that EVERYONE is bad guys, or at best ruthlessly and violently neutral (even if they seem to start diverging more and more from this awesome concept in newer fluff), and much background is carefully tailored towards the "we are doomed*sad face*"-feeling.

 

personally, i actually NEVER viewed the imperium as "good". to me they were allways the nasty nazi-like guys... to give things a D&D example. one could say most of the 40k races would be aligned in the "evil"-scale (chaotic evil, neutral evil, and lawfull evil)... the rest would however be found in the "neutral" parts (lawfull neutral, true neutral, and chaotic neutral). the imperium as a whole would stand on "Chaotic neutral" (sorta funny when you think of it). being selfish and not caring one bit for anyone else, they dont want to do anyone any good, but neither any bad for the sake of being bad to them, they genually dont give a damn, the only reason they care is that others stand in the way of their goals (survival), thus having to remove them (and not caring they ignorantly uses brute force mostly)

 

 

also, shameless turn to talk about my own stuff:

my renegate marines, for example, have the goal of advanceing human tech in order to make the imperium more efficient, meaning more freedom for its citizens, and less needed soldiers, however this is a huge goal to reach (literally impossible, especially when branded by the inquisition), but becouse of this, the guy who runs this show genually beleive he is doing everything he is for good, when really he is just as bad as everyone else... guys like this is what mostly makes up the the 40k universe. being good in the eyes of themselves and their peers, but truly they are too "bad guys"

[Brother Ambroz]

I still have a while until Deliverance Lost comes out in the US. :lol:

 

I bought mine in a hobbystore in Idaho so if I bought mine there you definitely should be able to find it somewhere!

[Kol Saresk]

That sucks cause there are no hobby stores close to me that have GW in them. Maybe the bookstores have them..... "To the hangar bay and away!"

[Iron Lord]

Waterstones usually has GW books- however, there tends to be a delay between them appearing at GW stores and them appearing at Waterstones or other big bookstores.

[Rain]

Read Codex: Daemons and the Liber Chaoticas. The gods don't care about the mortal realm with the possible exception of Nurgle for whom caring about his minions is part of his intrinsic nature. The fluff that describes the gods as caring about conquering the mortal dimension are usually from an Imperial bent and focused on explaining demonic incursion, the gods themselves are preoccupied with the Great Game and don't give a Nurgling's pustule.

[Kol Saresk]

Ah but see the warp relies on the material for its power. Without the psychic species worshipping them and giving them strength, the Gods and other minor denizens of the Warp would have no power or form. So part of the Great Game against each other also requires gaining worshippers so as to increase their power and that of their daemons.

[Rain]

Yep, but that doesn't mean that they are concerned with gathering those followers. It's kind of like, you need air to live, but how much of your day do you spend actively pursuing air and making sure you have more/enough of it? Similar idea, emotions exist regardless of peoeple's knowledge or worship of the gods, worship just increases a given emotion by focusing it, but the god don't focus on fostering this. In fact it is mortals who consciously or otherwise turn to the gods for some personal advantage and feed the gods in doing so, at best the god talk to mortals though intermediaries/greater daemons that seem more involved with the mortal world.

[heavens henchman]

Wow awesome replies. Just to clarify I've never thought of the Imperium as "good". As others have stated they are a corrupt, totalitarian (sp) regime established to ensure the survival of the human race. I guess I find it ironic and hypocrytical that alot of the things they condemned the traitors for, have been embraced whole heartedly now.

 

Do you guys(gals) thinks that the heresy would have occured if such things would have been accepted during the crusade instead of waiting till there was no choice? So would the heresy have happened if The big E hadnt laid the Lorgar and the Word bearer on their butts for worshiping him. If he had accepted as a sons devotion to his father, lorgar wouldnt have gone looking for something else to believe in etc. Would Kurze have turned if more drastic punishments and regulations have been established like he wanted? Would any of it have happened if the emperor had just taken the time to teach his sons about the warp and chaos instead of leaving them in the dark until he had no choice?

[Goreshed]

Long time lurker so bear with me here. But these are simply my thoughts.

 

-The HH series isn't done and up until this point the happenings of the HH were tidbits of information that you read in either IA articles or found snipets in Codex's/articles published by GW. We don't know the entire thing and we never will. It has always been apart of the game and its also marketing. I would imagine that the series is only half way through as there are still countless other books/topics I could think off the top of my head that could be played out. So really we have to keep that overall thought in the background when we think about the Hersey as the story is still being told.

 

-Lorgar was allowed to worship like he did for a century. His brothers knew of it, the Emperor knew of it, everyone did. Did everyone take it seriously? No. He was winning worlds but when compared to his brothers not that fast. You also have to keep in mind what Lorger is amongst the brothers. He is the thinker and dreamer, not the warrior. At least, not until he is bitch slapped by the Emperor. The Emperor could have stopped him sooner when he first came to the planet to reclaim his son, but he didn't. He allowed him to continue on, fully knowing what was going to happen or at least some idea of where his son would go with his legion. While I don't think he though Lorgar would go all the way over to the other side, I do think that the Emperor cared more about gaining worlds then caring about his sons.

 

-Curze is the terror weapon that the Emperor made him to be. Either by destiny, fate, chaos, what have you. In the end he was the terror weapon. He was the secret police. He was the one who would, in the end, most likely be the executioner of the subjects once the Great Crusade was over. Before the Emperor even found him Curze had found his niche in society and probably his fathers plans. Punishment would mean little to the one who was supposed to keep the subjects of unruly worlds in line.

 

-The fact of each son being a role in the fledgling Imperium of Man is further cemented in Prospero Burns (forgive me I don't have the page number and such to quote) and down the line in other books. The Emperor wanted each of his sons to be a certain way and in that fashion he would create his Imperium. The side effects (or for that matter the flaws) inherint in each of the Primarchs was over looked (IMHO) because of the scale that the Emperor was acting in. It was so large, so wild an idea/goal that the flaws of the Primarchs was simply a burden that would have to be dealt with.

 

The Hersey would have happened at some point or another. The flaws of the Primarchs would have driven them to bloodshed or at least censure. Chaos simply came in and tipped the balance hard to one side.

[Kol Saresk]

It is still possible it would have still happened but maybe later on after the Crusade was complete or maybe with different Primarchs. Because in A Thousand Sons the official canon now says that Magnus knew as much about the Warp as the Emperor did and was always trying to expand his mastery over it and that the two Unknown Legions, or at least their Primarchs, turned traitor in some way without a reason being known and it is suggested in The First Heretic that at least one of the two Legions was still pure enough to possibly have been disbanded and integrated into the Ultramarines. So it's a "Maybe maybe not" sort of answer with no clear question. It's possible that they could have beaten back the tides of the Warp with only the two Unknown Legions being lost only to fall to the Tyranid swarm or the Necron hordes. Maybe one of the sons like Angron or Kurze would have turned Traitor without becoming servants of the Warp since they have grudges against the Emperor either for how He found them or for different beliefs. Like I said, maybe, maybe not.