The problem of the Emperor?

[Olis]

You're treading a very fine line here guys and my trigger finger is getting itchy. I suggest dropping contemporary references and refocusing on the original point. Ta.

[Vesper]

Yeah, I'll avoid those. I find that it shed an interesting light on the meaning of the word crusade, to explain its roots, its very meaning and the impact it still has today. Wasn't trying to start an Holy war or something.

[Olis]

I see. Let's move on. 

[Kol Saresk]

Well I understood that. But that's my point. Let's look at the Great Crusade. A singular authority fogure(the Emperor) is bringing his belief(the Imperial Truth) to the entire galaxy. His choices are submit or die(sort of like Riddick's Necromongers). Part of the Imperial Truth is that Humanity spread itself across the stars and in doing so, claimed the stars for itself. The job of the Imperium is to bring Humanity to those stars where there is none, and reunite with its lost children. Despite the etymology of the namesake, it is living up to what its namesake did.

 

This the truth of the Imperium. It brings this truth to you. Accept it or die.

 

In the case of the xenos, it was probably changed to "Become our slaves or die." Or something like that. But with more dying apparently.

 

In relation to the topic, that is the Emperor's problem. His Truth is the only truth. Those who refuse to accept it have no place in his Imperium.

[Vesper]

What bothers me is the religious dimension of the word crusade. The imperial truth isn't Christian in any way (technically, the crusades weren't true to the Christian dogma too...). It could have been called the Great Reconquest or something, but we know the rule of cool (and the native cutlure of the original GW guys) made them use that word. As I pointed out, templars were not only soldiers, but also great economists, philanthropics (they cared for the poors, and stuff like that) and used to escort pilgrims to the Holy land. I don't think the BT have that many layers... They were named that way because "a Templar Order chapter would be so awesome !" which is true, but it still makes no sense to call them that way, as I doubt they care for the Temple of Solomon.

[Wade Garrett]

Not to side track, but:

 

Minefields. Tread lightly in them. M'kay?

[Vesper]

I can live with cusades and templars in 40k, no doubt about that. It's just that it feels a bit silly.

EDIT : And while I'm at it, I think we may have strayed off topic. Could be wrong, though.

[Kol Saresk]

It depends since the topic is where the Emperor went wrong. And he did let the Lectitio Divinatus flourish before saying it was wrong and one of the worlds conquered was a human world with thinking machines that worshiped the Emperor.........

 

Source: Tales of Heresy anthology, Scions of the Storm short story, Anthoney Reynolds author.

[Chaplain ChonkE]

The "Crusades" were just wars of conquest to gain power, wealth/land and prestige and diminsh the power, wealth/land and prestige of others. The taking up of the cross/plenary absolution was just a nice little bonus to the war and those who fought in it. In a parallel, the Nazis werent attacked because they were bad, evil people but because they threatened other nation-states. The justification of a "Just War" came afterwards and some of the "Allies" were as bad or worse in their conduct. Crusade was coined in the romantic Renaissance period. The "Crusaders" and "Crusader States" were just simply Europeans (Franks, HRE/Germans) and the like on the warpath. The religious aspects played strongly no doubt but the Crusades were the same as all wars and fought by seperate armies who were hardly unified in goals, intentions or principle. The Muslims who wrote about the invaders at the time who I have read referred to them as Franks, Imperials etc or referred to the Crusader states as Frankish territories and the like and the accounts and chronicles of the Europeans refer to them as general military "campaigns" (Most of my knowledge/reading is just 1st and 2nd Crusade though). Crusade is just a nice catch-phrase to summarize the "World Wars/Great Wars" of that period. Heck, even Crusade as the verb in definition today is not religious despite it's religious etymology and just refers to actions taken with "Zeal" or great "Determination" and the like whether they are religious, social or political in nature.

Yes, Black Templars are awesome and silly. We have Holy Hand Grenades and "Run away! Run away!" from vorpal rabbits and shooting casualties. We are a few of the last of the dying comedic references of the breed. Well, Orks. Some players do refer to Black Tide lists as Orks in Power Armor though

Back to OT: I also agree that I feel sorry for the authors in the BL who try and portray the Emperor because we have such high expectations of Him (perfection in a lot of cases) but I think with the "humanizing" of him it makes a character much greater than a savior figure in depth; as said earlier, he is the paragon of humanity with all that entails both good and bad. He is as much Comidus as Marcus Aurelius, the ruthlessness of Ghengis Khan and the security of the Pax Mongolia, the ambition of Alexander who brought "civilization" to places that held their own cultures but helped shape the world today. The list goes on. He is much more interesting that way but one cannot help but think that despite all the justifications and the shiny shining example that He wished for us that deep down he isnt just another tyrant? A jumped up warlord? The Ends might justify the means but that does not make you a good man or a good leader. Guilliman didnt seem to suffer any of these issues in such major ways on his worlds it would seem from the descriptions and I know the Emperor can be as good and thorough as Guilliman? Maybe not. Why wouldnt he get Big Blue Schoolboy to run things then? Why do we have such nasty 40k institutions around if Guilliman was that good in the Perestroika phase/Age of Imperium? There are contradictions here, massive shades of grey and that is what makes it so interesting to speculate on.

Jokaero are infantile in their general intelligence and very useful for Imperial technological advancement. Abhumans are also useful. Are they slaves or useful and equal members of the Imperium of Mankind? Look at how Nazi German used captured populations for instance, contrast that with French treatment of native populations in their New World colonies. Touchy subjects (just like alot of issues brought up in this thread) but the Emperor and the 40k setting are parallels of human history and culture which is part of what makes it so interesting to such a wide cross-section of people. There are things for us as individuals to grasp onto and to hate or love, support or condemn. Is making unending war on xeno and disident human populations, even those that pose relatively little threat to an Empire that spans a large portion of the galaxy, worthwhile or just war-mongering? For some, does it even really matter as long as the blood flows? It is more up to the individual themself. 40k is a little slice of us all. Whether you are going to see the Emperor as savior, tyrant, Chosen One with Tonguey, Superman/Batman/Scientist, ManBearPig, it is more up to your own personal views and episteme than anything that is presented to us from others and that is how it should be. He is a totality and we are just getting fragments of differents views like looking into a cracked fun-house mirror; its all the Emperor.

Are the things He done wrong? Yea probably but species survival is pretty nice though even if the means to get us there are not utopian at all. Global warming or rapid climate change or whatever it is called right now (if you believe in it) isnt going to kill the planet, just the living things on it. Some people might say that is an improvement. /drunken ramble off

[Adra'Melek]

But the origin of those words is 30k years before the setting. The origin of words become irrelevant. Even now you have all sorts of things called Crusades. Be it an effort to make school dinners healthier, reducing crime, raising awareness of prostate cancer, all sorts of things. I agree that the Black Templers calling themselves that is a bit strange but had the cult of the emperor (whatever it's called) already started? In which case it makes more sense.

 

Regarding the Emperor, I think he's suffering from a shift in the fluff that he's straddling old and new. None of the stuff in the Horus Heresy novels is direct from the Emperor. It's given from the point of view of people who hate him, generally. Then we're using the older stuff the fill in the gaps. Because that's all we can do. There will be discontinuities due to this (which is made worse by the fact the Horus heresy novels are stories not histories)

[Kol Saresk]

That is very true. And let us also remember that the "histories" of the background are from unbiased and are also fragmentary as well and that the Horus Heresy novels are more like journals. They may show more than the historians, but still do not show the whole picture.

[Marshall Bretton]

i just want to point out to everyone i think we need to be careful in what we are saying on this forum.....

when the age of strife comes round the emperor is going to be stood there thinking "you know i could stop this, but those guys on the bolter and chainsword forums back in the year 2k abused me so much that im not going to stop the age of strife, just to make a point!"

[Piousservant]

i just want to point out to everyone i think we need to be careful in what we are saying on this forum.....

when the age of strife comes round the emperor is going to be stood there thinking "you know i could stop this, but those guys on the bolter and chainsword forums back in the year 2k abused me so much that im not going to stop the age of strife, just to make a point!"

Well... you know - "everything you have been told is a lie" - right...?

[Vesper]

The "Crusades" were just wars of conquest to gain power, wealth/land and prestige and diminsh the power, wealth/land and prestige of others. The taking up of the cross/plenary absolution was just a nice little bonus to the war and those who fought in it. In a parallel, the Nazis werent attacked because they were bad, evil people but because they threatened other nation-states. The justification of a "Just War" came afterwards and some of the "Allies" were as bad or worse in their conduct. Crusade was coined in the romantic Renaissance period. The "Crusaders" and "Crusader States" were just simply Europeans (Franks, HRE/Germans) and the like on the warpath. The religious aspects played strongly no doubt but the Crusades were the same as all wars and fought by seperate armies who were hardly unified in goals, intentions or principle. The Muslims who wrote about the invaders at the time who I have read referred to them as Franks, Imperials etc or referred to the Crusader states as Frankish territories and the like and the accounts and chronicles of the Europeans refer to them as general military "campaigns" (Most of my knowledge/reading is just 1st and 2nd Crusade though). Crusade is just a nice catch-phrase to summarize the "World Wars/Great Wars" of that period. Heck, even Crusade as the verb in definition today is not religious despite it's religious etymology and just refers to actions taken with "Zeal" or great "Determination" and the like whether they are religious, social or political in nature.

Wrong. A crusade is started by the pope who calls for the chritians lords to go on a Holy war (where they would be washed from their sins, fighting for God). And you forgot the Normans (I'm one, god darn it !). A crusade is an holy war from Christianity. Imagine a second if the emperor called the great crusade the Great Djihad. That would be more or less as silly as it is now.

[Haranin]

Except there is a good argument that the first crusade was called by Byzantium in the Persian War; the parallels to 30k and the historical crusades are interesting as the Persian Crusade and the First Crusade were both viewed as defensive counterattacks. The first Crusade was triggered by Alexios' request for troops against the Turks post Manzerkriet. Between that battle, and the civil wars that followed, the Byzantium army was gutted.

 

From a 21st Century or Muslim point of view the crusades have quite a different perspective. That doesn't invalidate the contemporary view.

[Vesper]

Indeed, but that does not makes it right either. In fact, it's ofter quite biaised and full of misconceptions.

The first crusade was also some kind of counterattacks, as the Turks threatened the Byzantine Empire (on the decline) and refused to let christian pilgrims go to Jerusalem (which, by that time felt more important to Western countries that the issues of the Byzantine... I don't even want to talk about the fourth crusade). The Byzantine being christian (with a twist !) and the access to Jerusalem being important for the christian world, I think we can all agree that the first crusade is heavily (ready mostly) fuelled by religious considerations.

So no, I don't think that's an appropriate term. Even more so when 30k's humanity got rid of every piece of religious background thanks to the emperor.

[Piousservant]

 

I think part of the point is the words religious overtones are meant to contradict what the Emperor was (supposedly) setting out to do. Sindermanns (terrible) speech about the Imperial Truth in Horus Rising is pretty suggestive of that.

 

But I think you're getting too wrapped up with the etymology of the word. What it originally meant is different to what it means now and that is almost certainly different again from what it might mean in M31. Language evolves.

 

The OED definition:

 

1 (Crusade) each of a series of medieval military expeditions made by Europeans to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries

2 a vigorous campaign for political, social, or religious change

 

Seems on the right lines to me...?

[godking]

 

@Legatus

 

The only problem I have with your analysis is that everything we've seen in the Heresy series doesn't really suggest a galaxy that has one foot in the Eye of Terror, one foot on a banana Peel..indeed, many of the pockets of humanity (interex, Diasporex, the Technocracy, Shrike, the "Imperium") seemed to be doing just fine before the Titans and Space Marines dropped out of the sky on them. Compare that to every time we are shown the Night Haunted on Nostromo, where it's hammered in that things were awful, Curze made them better.

 

Things WERE awful on Nostromo. Something like a beat every 2 second and a murder every 8. The entire place was a Maximum Security mental institution with no orderlies. Night Haunter saw this and realized that the only way anything could be done was to keep everyone terrified of retribution. Not every city/planet was that bad, though.

 

>Honestly, the farther into the Heresy we get the more similarities I see between the Emperor and the Night Haunter, for example the twisting of Nostromo when Curze left as a small scale reflection of the decay of the Imperium with its master interred in the Golden Throne.

That is exactly the point Curze was trying to make, too. When he left, and the threat of retribution was removed, the place fell apart, worse than before he came. Curze actually has a nice argument with Dorn about benevolence vs. fear in one story whose name escapes me ATM. And this also leads to Curze's reason for betrayal. The Emprah tried to show himself as this perfect, infallible vision for humanity, and when he called on Curze to return to Terra for committing basically warcrimes (which Curze was ordered to do, by The Emprah himself) Curze called shenanigans, and was then assassinated for his stand. Why would someone who was supposedly benevolent and perfect in every way use the very same tactics he supposedly decried to kill his own son?

 

What is harder to overlook is his behavior during the Unification Wars and the Great Crusade.  Here it is difficult to reconcile an image of the Emperor as a benevolent ruler on the side of humanity.  The creation, use, and ultimate discarding of the thunder warriors is not an act of a kind and compassionate ruler.  There's nothing remotely humanitarian or munificent about using super humans to one's own ends only to intentionally have them destroyed afterwards.  Similarly, the prosecution of the Great Crusade, as it has been written, is not a reuniting of human worlds, but a bloody war of conquest.  One would think that with the might of the Emperor's war machine he could target the leaders and organizational structures of "non-compliant" worlds, but the wars we have been privy to as readers have been wars of annihilation and genocide.  That is a far cry from how these events were alluded to in earlier versions of the fluff.  

Now to defend The Emprah a bit:

1) If you created a super race of warriors specifically for combat, and you used them to accomplish your goals, and you succeeded, what would you do with them afterwards? This is like an extreme case of combat duty soldiers trying to reintegrate into society after a campaign. Only the Thunder Warriors cannot, because they never were part of society. They were bred for war. They were tools. You said it yourself, they were created. Now, if they were, say, like MegaMan, and maybe supposed to have been vacuum cleaners or something beforehand, then just re-purposed, I could see an argument. But why would you let a horde of genetic creations bred to destroy continue to exist after you were finished using them?

 

2) Because the stories of the planets and cities that rolled over and capitulated at the first sight of the legions make for boring stories.

"Hey, uh, Mr. Magistrate, sir...? There's about 20,000 super soldiers in a giant space-ship outside that claim their daddy wants you to surrender to his will."

"Wonderful, Jeeves, send him in, I'll have Samantha prepare tea and crumpets."  

 

Also you could argue that if the worlds were indeed in the vast amount of disarray that the fluff claims them to be, it would be like the Battle of New Orleans in every city on every planet in every sector. Nobody would know (or maybe even care) that their capital had fallen because technology on at least some of those planets was probably medieval at best, so taking one city would just leave the rest of a planet needing to be pacified anyway. Also, how many rival factions are on each planet, vying for control, and possibly not even caring that yet another party has shown up to this giant planet-wide fustercluck? Might as well blast the whole thing at once.

 

The only thing Curze offered was the threat of retribution.

 

He did not actually offered anything better.

 

Something that Sevatar pointed out when he took a dump on Curze's beliefs

[Wade Garrett]

Only if you think a day WITHOUT being robbed, beat, and murdered is in no way superior to the alternative.

[godking]

Only if you think a day WITHOUT being robbed, beat, and murdered is in no way superior to the alternative.

What Curze offered was only marginally better and doomed to fail  without anything else then the fear of retribution.

 

Curze thought of humans as animals who can be cowed indefinetly by the threat of retribution.

[E.G.J.]

 

 

What is harder to overlook is his behavior during the Unification Wars and the Great Crusade.  Here it is difficult to reconcile an image of the Emperor as a benevolent ruler on the side of humanity.  The creation, use, and ultimate discarding of the thunder warriors is not an act of a kind and compassionate ruler.  There's nothing remotely humanitarian or munificent about using super humans to one's own ends only to intentionally have them destroyed afterwards.  Similarly, the prosecution of the Great Crusade, as it has been written, is not a reuniting of human worlds, but a bloody war of conquest.  One would think that with the might of the Emperor's war machine he could target the leaders and organizational structures of "non-compliant" worlds, but the wars we have been privy to as readers have been wars of annihilation and genocide.  That is a far cry from how these events were alluded to in earlier versions of the fluff.  

Now to defend The Emprah a bit:

1) If you created a super race of warriors specifically for combat, and you used them to accomplish your goals, and you succeeded, what would you do with them afterwards? This is like an extreme case of combat duty soldiers trying to reintegrate into society after a campaign. Only the Thunder Warriors cannot, because they never were part of society. They were bred for war. They were tools. You said it yourself, they were created. Now, if they were, say, like MegaMan, and maybe supposed to have been vacuum cleaners or something beforehand, then just re-purposed, I could see an argument. But why would you let a horde of genetic creations bred to destroy continue to exist after you were finished using them?

 

2) Because the stories of the planets and cities that rolled over and capitulated at the first sight of the legions make for boring stories.

"Hey, uh, Mr. Magistrate, sir...? There's about 20,000 super soldiers in a giant space-ship outside that claim their daddy wants you to surrender to his will."

"Wonderful, Jeeves, send him in, I'll have Samantha prepare tea and crumpets."  

 

Also you could argue that if the worlds were indeed in the vast amount of disarray that the fluff claims them to be, it would be like the Battle of New Orleans in every city on every planet in every sector. Nobody would know (or maybe even care) that their capital had fallen because technology on at least some of those planets was probably medieval at best, so taking one city would just leave the rest of a planet needing to be pacified anyway. Also, how many rival factions are on each planet, vying for control, and possibly not even caring that yet another party has shown up to this giant planet-wide fustercluck? Might as well blast the whole thing at once.

 

 

I disagree.  The Thunder Warriors, as shown in The Outcast Dead, may have been "created" for the purpose of combat, but they are clearly capable of other tasks.  They are , after all, sentient beings capable of learning.  That one of them is researching the genetic key to their continued existence would certainly qualify them to be errr "re-purposed" (as if most regimes that "re-purpose" their subjects are typically of the laudable kind).  Similarly, space marines are posthumans bred, indoctrinated, and enhanced for combat. However, I'm fairly certain that with all their gene-enhanced physical and cognitive abilities, they'd make for, say, pretty darned good engineers too.  In light of that fact I find your defense of the discarding/liquidation of the Thunder Warriors by the Emperor pretty weak.  Especially if you're in the same context trying to claim that this makes him not "that bad of a guy".

 

To your second point, I'm fairly certain that any author could remedy the problem posed by having to focus on the non-compliant worlds by describing a few instances of worlds that were brought into the fold via diplomacy, (maybe even served with tea and crumpets).  It wouldn't take more than a sentence or two, in fact.  However, that is not what the Horus Heresy Series has done.  They have instead depicted an Imperial war machine that is fast on the trigger finger, with generals (primarchs) who quite openly advocate and prosecute wars of total annihilation.  They essentially roll up to each world and and offer an ultimatum of submit unconditionally or die.  Further arguing that this is justifiable by stating that some of these worlds have technology akin to medieval at best does not exactly strengthen your argument.  So you're going to attack them with gene-enhanced super warriors from space?  Yeah, ok.  

 

Follow the logic of the following conversation:

 

Big E "I see your baby is crying."  Here!  Let me pacify it for you."

 

Mother E "You monster!  You just shot my baby in the face."

 

Big E "Let me 1) point out that it's no longer crying, and 2) I made it, I can discard it.  What?  What do you mean?  I've got great parenting skills?  Aw chucks!  I guess I'll have to make test tube babies from here on out." 

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

Only if you think a day WITHOUT being robbed, beat, and murdered is in no way superior to the alternative.

What Curze offered was only marginally better and doomed to fail without anything else then the fear of retribution.

 

Curze thought of humans as animals who can be cowed indefinetly by the threat of retribution.

Not entirely true. Animals could be tamed and domesticated. Curze knew that humans could not. That's why he was constantly punishing people for even the smallest of infractions. And while his policies were being carried out, Nostramo was considered to be the epitome of a hive world, fully an one hundred percent efficient in operating as a society. But when he left and the Administratum became lax with the punishments, Nostramo started creeping further and further until it was even worse than when the Night Haunter first came to it.

 

@E. J. G.: Not all of the Primarchs are as quick on the trigger

Finger as you think. Look at Horus when he wanted to do peace talks with the Interex. Sanguinius when he wanted to find another way to fight the Nephilim than killing their human slaves. Magnus as he wanted to learn everything about every culture he could. I imagine Gulliman has managed to peacefully bring more than a few worlds into compliance. The rest of the Primarchs were warriors. They grew up fighting wars, not learning about them. And they fough those wars on a very brutal level. Their instincts are to fight and if the opportunity presents itself, they take it. It's not what they were made to do, it's what they grew up to do.

[Wade Garrett]

The First Heretic does say that "Entire worlds had fallen to Lorgar's oratory without a single shot being fired."

[Chaplain ChonkE]

Only if you think a day WITHOUT being robbed, beat, and murdered is in no way superior to the alternative.

What Curze offered was only marginally better and doomed to fail without anything else then the fear of retribution.

Curze thought of humans as animals who can be cowed indefinetly by the threat of retribution.

Fear and control were certainly what he offered to the people of Nostromo. Ghengis Khan and his Pax Mongolia offered much the same and with the same even-handed nature. The fear that was wrought by the threat of Mongol retribution allowed traders to be able to sell goods from the East to the West and vice versa on the Silk Road. It was said you could walk from Asian Pacific shores to the edge of Europe without fear of being robbed of your goods which led to earlier trade in goods and technologies such as gunpowder and the printing-press. These were huge game-changing technologies enabling mass distribution of literature, promoted literacy, wrestled away control of education from institutions and brought about a new age of warfare which could be argued to have allowed serfs and peasants to overthrow the yokes of nobility and bring about greater personal freedoms for material, education and treatment. This is a broad brushstroke and overview but fear can be a useful tool. Not trying to glorify or agree with what Curze did but there is more than one way to skin a cat and oft times treaties, agreements and promises are just words and often times "words are wind" (GoT soon ). Fear is a great motivator.

[Kol Saresk]

 

The First Heretic does say that "Entire worlds had fallen to Lorgar's oratory without a single shot being fired."

Fair point. However, that was before the Emperor's....... "disciplinary." After that, they basically went to a "bow or die" policy and started conqueri- "bringing worlds to compliance" at one of the fastest rates among the Legion. According to The First Heretic and the IA article.