Piety in the Imperium

[Zoatibix]

(Rather than diverting the other thread where we touched upon corruption.)

 

While I am now agnostic IRL, I was raised as a (Protestant) Christian and still find religious matters very interesting.

 

Faith in the Imperium intrigues me.  We see a lot in the background about Chaos Cults, etc but not much about the faith of the general, God-Emperor Fearing masses.

 

I agree with Servant of Dante that the number of Sisters falling into the path of corruption should be smaller than that of Marines.  Sisters worship the Emperor directly, whereas most Marines go through the proxy of their primarch or simply see Him as a gifted mortal (Reeducate! Indoctrinate! PURIFY!)

 

This does seem to make it more likely that Marines could be prone to temptation. 

 

I think the possibility of 'falling' makes for an interesting thread in a person's story.  The completely incorruptible lacks a certain tension, and it detracts from the enormous temptations placed upon individuals.

 

That said, I do cringe every time somebody comes out with their 'Chaos GK' army.  Their incorruptibility is one the decent bits of modern GK fluff*

 

 

In third edition I often ran my Sisters backed up by Redemptionists because I loved the idea of ordinary, faithful citizens of the Imperium taking up arms to defend the Empire.  Plus, I love Autocannons, fluff wise.

 

And the idea of AdMech not just being slaves to the machine in the sense of a self-involved cult but genuinely seeing the Machine-God as another aspect of the Emperor.

 

When I ran my DIY Blood Angels chapter I described them as being very strong in their faith.  They saw the over-emphasis on Sanguinus as a part of the Red Thirst.  They tried to overcome it by worshiping the Empeor directly, hoping that His guidance would help them to remain pure.

 

 

Does anybody else have thoughts about this kind of thing in-game?

 

 

 

*I'm still in denial about the Wardian GK background.  I'm sticking firmly to the way they were in RoC:StD.  LALALA, I'm not listening.

[WarriorFish]

IRL religious matters are not permitted within the B&C, so these are not pertinent to the discussion. Regarding faith in the Imperium it is strong, for some very much so. The Ecclesiarchy is massive in scale and power in a way that has no modern comparison and the level of belief and adherence is high. The issue is the various divergences and cults but this is part of what makes it so interesting It also provides scope for heresies and such (for example the GSC and a Chaos movement) as not everyone believes in the same god(s)...

What makes the Sisters strong (though this isn't unique to Sisters, as others can be - it's just common to Sisters) is their belief in the God-Emperor. It is so total and complete that it manifests - though you could argue if this truly comes from the Emperor or not he is shown to have power and ability to do things. Whether some of the things attributed to him were his doing is unknown, but since belief is powerful in 40k that could be enough!

Most Marines don't believe the Emperor is a god, so perhaps this lack of a complete faith means they are more susceptible to falling? I played with the opposite (sort of) of this with my DIY. The chapter is an old one, knowing that the Emperor was a man albeit a great one. However amongst the older parts of the chapter they have seen and experienced much and there is a growing number of veterans who have seen enough to create doubt - perhaps he was a man originally, but he may be a god now...

Belief is a big part of the 40k lore, whether it's the Imperium and Emperor, Chaos gods or even belief in this supposed "greater good". It's also ripe for story telling, you can do a lot with someone battling with belief

[A.T.]

The sisters are chosen from a huge pool of candidates based on the strength of their faith, which is further reinforced through their service. It is who they are and what drives them long before they reach the ranks of even the novicae.

 

The 'faith' of marines is forced onto them through hypno-indoctrination. Break the conditioning, break the faith, as it is nothing more than dogmatic programming that has been built on top of (and in some cases in opposition to) the marines original conditioning as a killing machine and warped gene memories of their primarch and ten thousand years of mutation and replication.

[Servant of Dante]

I feel like I've said everything there is to say on this topic . . . but I'll post some things :P

The faith of the Sisters is what I love about them mose, closely followed by how bad- they are. Through their faith they achieve things that shouldn't be possible for a baseline human.

I still don't like fallen Sisters, but, as I've said, if someone modeled it, I wouldn't be against it as a single model in a chaos army. But they need to run it using chaos rules.

Renegade Sisters, or whole orders falling . . . just no, for a variety of reasons.

And, yeah, I started calling things heresy when I was playing my Blood Angels, but it didn't quite feel right until I had the proper army (Sisters, of course).

[Teetengee]

I feel like any discussion of faith in 40k has to bring up the warp. The only true gods* of the setting (by the extremely arguable measure I am using for true) seem to be warp entities. The warp and this precedent means that gods seem to be belief made manifest via the emotional reflection and amplification found in warp processes. Belief becomes a feedback loop generating the gods that drives those beliefs. I tend to think that in 40k, it may very well be that the gods exist because people believe in them.

 

Considering almost all of the gods seem to be related to origin stories or were once great mortals it seems to me that the general way a god comes to be in the warp is that some person(the human and eldar gods) or idea(the chaos gods) gains a lot of support, and people invoke them again and again even after the original being is no longer in the picture. This emotional repetition links the concept with the emotion and in the warp the two become one. As a side effect, this means that the warp entity may not even include some or all of the original entity that created the worshippers in the first place.

 

Basically, it doesn't matter that the original Emperor of the great crusades wasn't a god, and didn't want to be one. His image and legend alone were enough for the gestalt power of humanity's belief to generate a god to match, a god that may have been produced by the seed of the human Emp's warp essence and the astronomicon, but may not have, or may have grown far beyond it's original bounds.


The takeaway is that I think that piety in the imperium (because of the dependency on the Astronomicon) is not only widespread, but absolutely vital for the continued existence of humanity, particularly in an Emperor of Mankind death event. The belief might be sufficient to sustain the God-Emperor/Starchild/Astronomicon/Firetide entity even without the seed individual that first inspired it. The fact that the warp is outside time also means that this godhood might double back and mean that the Emperor actually was a god from the beginning, even though he didn't start as one from a narrative continuity sense.

 

*C'tan could definitely be considered gods by some metrics, maybe even moreso than warp gods, but they don't seem to be treated as gods in the 40k universe the same way, and they certainly are an entirely different group than the warp entities and the God Emperor (although, the concept of a seed....).

[Servant of Dante]

I feel like any discussion of faith in 40k has to bring up the warp. The only true gods* of the setting (by the extremely arguable measure I am using for true) seem to be warp entities. The warp and this precedent means that gods seem to be belief made manifest via the emotional reflection and amplification found in warp processes. Belief becomes a feedback loop generating the gods that drives those beliefs. I tend to think that in 40k, it may very well be that the gods exist because people believe in them.

 

Considering almost all of the gods seem to be related to origin stories or were once great mortals it seems to me that the general way a god comes to be in the warp is that some person(the human and eldar gods) or idea(the chaos gods) gains a lot of support, and people invoke them again and again even after the original being is no longer in the picture. This emotional repetition links the concept with the emotion and in the warp the two become one. As a side effect, this means that the warp entity may not even include some or all of the original entity that created the worshippers in the first place.

 

Basically, it doesn't matter that the original Emperor of the great crusades wasn't a god, and didn't want to be one. His image and legend alone were enough for the gestalt power of humanity's belief to generate a god to match, a god that may have been produced by the seed of the human Emp's warp essence and the astronomicon, but may not have, or may have grown far beyond it's original bounds.

 

 

The takeaway is that I think that piety in the imperium (because of the dependency on the Astronomicon) is not only widespread, but absolutely vital for the continued existence of humanity, particularly in an Emperor of Mankind death event. The belief might be sufficient to sustain the God-Emperor/Starchild/Astronomicon/Firetide entity even without the seed individual that first inspired it. The fact that the warp is outside time also means that this godhood might double back and mean that the Emperor actually was a god from the beginning, even though he didn't start as one from a narrative continuity sense.

 

*C'tan could definitely be considered gods by some metrics, maybe even moreso than warp gods, but they don't seem to be treated as gods in the 40k universe the same way, and they certainly are an entirely different group than the warp entities and the God Emperor (although, the concept of a seed....).

Though I kinda skimmed it, I think Teetengee and I agree about the Immortal God-Emperor of Mankind (I'm not sure I think he is retroactively a God fitting the crusade, but it's a fun idea)

[Teetengee]

 

-snip-

Though I kinda skimmed it, I think Teetengee and I agree about the Immortal God-Emperor of Mankind (I'm not sure I think he is retroactively a God fitting the crusade, but it's a fun idea)

 

For the record, I don't think so either, although potentially he could become a god at that time, even if that being is not the same as the Emperor of Mankind.

[Servant of Dante]

 

 

 

-snip-

Though I kinda skimmed it, I think Teetengee and I agree about the Immortal God-Emperor of Mankind (I'm not sure I think he is retroactively a God fitting the crusade, but it's a fun idea)

For the record, I don't think so either, although potentially he could become a god at that time, even if that being is not the same as the Emperor of Mankind.

If you read the 2E codex, the time of the Emperor's ascension to godhood is a point of contention within the Ministorum

[sedibear]

dunno if it's canon still but the only sister to ever fall was Miriael Sabathiel.

 

1 out of all the Sisters of Battle. :D

[Knight of the Raven]

And that was after being tortured for months by the Emperor's Children (yeah... those guys). She might have cracked, but this sure didn't happen easily.

[Jacinda]

dunno if it's canon still but the only sister to ever fall was Miriael Sabathiel.

1 out of all the Sisters of Battle.

It depends on what you consider canon. Most of Miriael's fluf comes from FFG. Dan Abnet's original story makes no such claim and even hints that Orders go to great lengths to hunt down and destroy those who do turn.

[Inquisitor Fox]

The Thorian branch of the Inquisition contend that the shell in the Golden Throne isn't the Emperor, and that He has already ascended to Godhood and is watching over/guiding/helping humanity.  Granted they also want to make a vessal in which to reincarnate him/bring him back, which would be all kinds of interesting should that go down.  There's some interesting parallels with the old old Illuminati fluff about the Sensei and the Emperor as well, which I personally find all sorts of neat :)

[Ficinus]

What do folks think about the possibility of Sisters being branded heretics not because of a fall to Chaos but due to faith that becomes too extreme?  There are plenty of examples of this in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, groups who held up the Church as not pure enough and ended up being branded heretical, and 40k has the Redemptionists who, to some extent, already embody this.  Would it be possible for a group of Sisters to become convinced that the Ecclesiarchy has fallen into impurity and seek to purify it, in the process ending up being branded heretics?

 

It would seem to be tough to imagine, especially given that part of their purpose is to maintain purity within the Ecclesiarchy and the level of fanaticism within Imperium is already very extreme.  But, thinking about renegade/heretical (but non-Chaotic) Sisters, it seems like a plausible path.

[Warsmith Aznable]

 

 Would it be possible for a group of Sisters to become convinced that the Ecclesiarchy has fallen into impurity and seek to purify it, in the process ending up being branded heretics?

 

I could see a war of doctrine happening instead of a war of faith. My friend who plays Mechanicum and I label our series of games "The Dogma Wars" based on this idea that both armies are loyal and faithful, but some relatively minor point of dogma or orthodoxy has sparked open warfare.

 

There is a wide diversity in the Imperial cult from planet to planet across the galaxy, and there is bound to be conflict. In history heresy and treachery looks pretty black and white, but to those living through it I imagine it's not that way at all, mostly because no winner has emerged to punish the losers and write history books condemning them.

 

In the 40k universe I can totally picture two elements of the Ecclesiarchy, possibly two powerful Cardinals, getting super zealous about their differing interpretations of something, whatever it is, anything, however minor, and having it turn into a shooting war between their respective congregations.

 

The sticking point is timeline. I think this probably happens all the time, but it only becomes a real problem if no clear winner emerges, or the two sides can't be made to back down. An Ordo Heretics Inquisitor would likely get involved and force both sides to submit their arguments to a conclave of their peers if no outright Chaos is involved.

 

Could a group of Sisters get involved on the wrong side? Why not? Could two groups of Sisters fight against one another? Why not? The key is reconciliation and penance for the losers, or complete censure, rather than the Sisters who turn out to have been on the wrong side refusing to accept it and going full Traitor.