Can you be a true 40K fan...

[Scribe]

Tl;dr: based on Gav's view, you can have 40k without Grimdark... But it won't be 40k - it'll be a version of 40k that only exists in your head.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

So what you're trying to say is that the location of London or Tokyo can be faked? That D-Day could've actually happened in Spain and we might never have even known? Places exist in space and time. If you travel to them and see the things at the place and time, they are there. So the points of Tyranid invasion being too many to count, even if the map isn't able to show each tendril, are too many to count. The words of the lore reflect there being innumerable tyranid ships invading the galaxy, so that is not even up for debate.

I said that they can be faked. I never said that the fake was true. This is 40k, a universe of whispers, half truths, secrets, and lies. Everything is up for debate.

Kinghongkong you are trolling right? Pulling our legs on this right?

 

I agree that "IN GAME" the accuracy of any lore or maps could be questionable and the map you use clearly is meant to evoke it being used "IN GAME BY PLAYER CHARACTERS" in this case the Dark Heresy RPG - so totally intended to help the players get into the head space of their player characters and restrict their knowledge to what the people "IN GAME" would know rather than what we in the real world know about the game setting.

 

But the codex maps are there for us players (in the real world) to get a feel for what is happening across the galaxy and absolutely yes WE get the benefit of a God perpective and far more knowledge than ANYONE "IN GAME" could hope to have.

 

"IN GAME" none of the factions hold all the knowledge or same level of knowledge as we do in the real world (there may be an argument that the Eldar do I guess but not sure on that one).

Dude, I wish I was trolling. I'll accept that I'm playing the contrarian between the four of us (especially considering that I've admitted multiple times now that I want an objective canon), but I'm not lying when I say that the only objective truth Games Workshop has given us is that there is no objective truth and there is no word of god including codex galaxy maps.

 

Marc Gascoigne (Manager of Black Library before 2008)

"I think the real problem for me, and I speak for no other, is that the topic as a "big question" doesn't matter. It's all as true as everything else, and all just as false/half-remembered/sort-of-true. The answer you are seeking is "Yes and no" or perhaps "Sometimes". And for me, that's the end of it. Now, ask us some specifics, eg can Black Templars spit acid and we can answer that one, and many others. But again note thet answer may well be "sometimes" or "it varies" or "depends". But is it all true? Yes and no. Even though some of it is plainly contradictory? Yes and no. Do we deliberately contradict, retell with differences? Yes we do. Is the newer the stuff the truer it is? Yes and no. In some cases is it true that the older stuff is the truest? Yes and no. Maybe and sometimes. Depends and it varies. It's a decaying universe without GPS and galaxy-wide communication, where precious facts are clung to long after they have been changed out of all recognition. Read A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M Miller, about monks toiling to hold onto facts in the aftermath of a nuclear war; that nails it for me. Sorry, too much splurge here. Not meant to sound stroppy. To attempt answer the initial question: What is GW's definition of canon? Perhaps we don't have one. Sometimes and maybe. Or perhaps we do and I'm not telling you."

 

 

Aaron Dembski-Bowden has used this quote multiple times in his blogposts and articles.

 

Gav Thorpe Jumping the Fence

I think that Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 have a unique advantage in the realm of tie-in backgrounds: they exist to allow personal creativity. Both are backdrops, nothing more. They were created to allow people to collect armies of toy soldiers and fight battles with them. They were conceived with the idea of the player’s creative freedom being directed but not restricted. In Warhammer you can have anything from Ogres to ninjas (and even Ninja Ogres!). Warhammer 40,000 trumpets an ‘Imperium of a Million Worlds’ precisely because that leaves room for everyone to come up with whatever they like. Hobbyists can create armies, places, worlds, colour schemes, characters and stories for themselves.

Often folks ask if Black Library books are ‘canon’. With Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy. There are certainly established facts – the current Emperor is Karl-Franz, the Blood Angels have red armour, Commissar Yarrick defended Hades Hive during the Second Armageddon War. However, to suggest that anything else is non-canon is a disservice to the players and authors who participate in this world. To suggest that Black Library novels are somehow of lesser relevance to the background is to imply that every player who has created a unique Space Marine chapter or invented their own Elector Count is somehow wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong.

Whether a particular author’s take on the world matches up with an individual gamer’s or readers is another matter. The fact that each of us is allowed to take possession of that world and envisage it to our own ideal means that it is inevitable our vision will sometimes clash with the vision of others. Such conflict does not render either vision obsolete.

In this regard it is the job of authors and games developers to illuminate and inspire, not to dictate. Perhaps you disagree with the portrayal of a certain faction, or a facet of their society doesn’t make sense in your version of the world. You may not like the answers presented, but in asking the question you can come up with a solution that matches your vision. As long as certain central themes and principles remain, you can pick and choose which parts you like and dislike.

The same applies to transference from Black Library back into the gaming supplements. If the developers and other creative folks believe a contribution by an author fits the bill and has an appeal to the audience, why not fold it back into the ‘game’ world – such as Gaunt’s Ghosts or characters from the Gotrek and Felix series. On the other hand, if an author has a bit of a wobbly moment, there’s no pressure to feel that it has to be accepted into the worldview promulgated by the codexes and army books. And beside, there simply isn’t enough room in those gaming books to include everything from the hundreds of novels – good, bad or indifferent as we each see them – so the decision must ultimately rest with the taste of individual readers and gamers.

 

Aaron Dembski-Bowden penned an article (or two) titled Loose Canon that has since been lost, but he's been in multiple interviews where he was asked about the subject. Including this one here.

"Canon" doesn't really exist in Warhammer 40,000. Not as it does in other licenses. The very point of the setting is to offer some structure, then open it up to personal interpretation.

 

Yeah, there are hard and fast rules. A Chapter descended from Rogal Dorn's gene-seed is unlikely to ever develop a Betcher's Gland, given it's not in their implantation process. Because of that, as an example, the Black Templars can't spit acid. We know that.

 

But the setting is set up with countless holes for your own army background and lore perceptions to neatly fill. The battles listed in every Codex aren't the only battles and characters - they're not even all of the major battles and characters. They're examples, taken from a spread of ten thousand years, across countless millions of worlds. They're slices of lore to use wholesale, or peel bits off and use as examples.

 

These are future histories. It's all already happened, but the reports we get from that far-flung era are unreliable, corrupted by distance and time and a billion unreliable narrators who know a fraction of what the rulebooks tell us.

 

Games Workshop actively encourages that attitude - the idea of everyone coming to 40K and seeing something slightly different: the same thing from a different angle. An author can say Character X was on World Y in Year Z, and another author might contradict it in something else written several years later if he or she has a different idea. Choose which you prefer? Assume both are false sightings and Character X was nowhere near either world? It's your call. That's the point. There is no canon. There are several hundred creators all adding to the melting pot of the IP.

 

You'll probably note that "Black Templars spitting acid" Gascoigne notes as an "it varies" while Aaron calls it a hard and fast rule. So what is it? Or is it up for each of us individually to decide?

 

In response and affirmation to Aaron's Loose Canon article, Andy Hoare wrote

It all stems from the assumption that there’s a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or “true” representation of the setting. There is no such contract and no such objective truth.

 

I mentioned tongue and cheek before, ask people how tall space marines are and watch all sorts of numbers pour in. I would think that should be a relatively easy question to answer and yet it's not. I got into a little spat with Aaron on this forum years ago when I brought up the topic of Sanguinius's hair, notably that Sanguinius is blonde in so many portrayals and yet is described as having black hair in A Thousand Sons. How about how powerful space marines are? How many space marines are needed to conquer a planet? One? A hundred? A thousand? Can three space marines wreak havoc like they do in Salvation's Reach? Or do seventy odd space marines get demolished conducting a raid like they do in Imperial Armour Volume Eight?

 

There is no canon, and thus it's all up for discussion and interpretation.

You just went through a lot of time and effort to be entirely wrong. Places exist in 40k. And in those places things happen. Cadia guarded the Eye of Terror, it was in the segmentum obscurus, and 116 years before the date of Dark Imperium, it was destroyed. That’s not up for debate. What you’re saying is wrong, because while my Cadia may be different from your Cadia may be different from ADBs Cadia, the above are facts. Marines might be seven feet or nine feet depending on the author, that part doesn’t matter. What matters is that marines are taller than unaugmebted people. That’s the baseline fact. Numbers are up for interpretation by the author. Baseline facts are not.

 

So to circle back to the maps: they can be outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete like an old map of the US east coast. But just because a map is one of those things doesn’t mean Oregon no longer exists. Or you can decide Oregon isn’t there because you’ve only seen that map and the myth of a west coast might be rumors.

[Donkey Kong]

 

Tl;dr: based on Gav's view, you can have 40k without Grimdark... But it won't be 40k - it'll be a version of 40k that only exists in your head.

 

And yet those are the only versions of 40k that exist.

 

You just went through a lot of time and effort to be entirely wrong. Places exist in 40k. And in those places things happen. Cadia guarded the Eye of Terror, it was in the segmentum obscurus, and 116 years before the date of Dark Imperium, it was destroyed. That’s not up for debate. What you’re saying is wrong, because while my Cadia may be different from your Cadia may be different from ADBs Cadia, the above are facts. Marines might be seven feet or nine feet depending on the author, that part doesn’t matter. What matters is that marines are taller than unaugmebted people. That’s the baseline fact. Numbers are up for interpretation by the author. Baseline facts are not.

 

Wrong

[Wargamer]

No, King, it's not. The fact we currently have at least four collaboration projects on this board alone suggests to me that people want to have a shared vision for 40k and actively try to build around that.

 

To give a contentious example - female space marines. My Chapter includes them and as far as I'm concerned they can and do exist. But I have only ever referenced their existence in other Chapters if the author of said Chapter also stated they have female Marines.

 

The result of this is that, for all intents and purposes, people who don't like Female Marines don't have to work around them much, if at all. In order to directly conflict with what I have created you would have to include my Chapter, include a Marine explicitly stated to be female, and include them in such a way that their sex is confirmed male. Given that most of the time Marines are fully enclosed in armour, this becomes a big diversion just to cause a conflict of facts.

 

It's not that every player has their own version of 40k - it's that 40k is massive and we are knowledgeable about different parts of it to different degrees.

[Brother Tyler]

Memes are not constructive discussion.

 

If you are going to post and say that members are wrong, provide some constructive support for your argument.

 

=][=

[Scribe]

To give a contentious example - female space marines. My Chapter includes them and as far as I'm concerned they can and do exist. But I have only ever referenced their existence in other Chapters if the author of said Chapter also stated they have female Marines.

 

Do you actually believe this within the context of the actual lore? Or just head canon.

[Donkey Kong]

No, King, it's not. The fact we currently have at least four collaboration projects on this board alone suggests to me that people want to have a shared vision for 40k and actively try to build around that.

 

It's not that every player has their own version of 40k - it's that 40k is massive and we are knowledgeable about different parts of it to different degrees.

 

"Want to have" and "actively try to build" does nothing to prove that there is canon, which I've already demonstrated doesn't exist. To be knowledgeable implies being correct. There is no objective correct word of god. Even between creators, supposed hard and fast rules are disputed. Everyone has their own version of 40k, and I think that's okay. It makes conversations about the lore difficult, but that's the price paid for malleability.

 

Your experience with 40k is improved by the inclusion of female space marines. I disagree, but I also couldn't care less. I already saw enough of that rudeness first hand when Doctor Thunder used to post here. I don't think it makes you not a true fan, whatever that means. So, suppose someone else has an improved experience by head canoning in or head canoning away something that is also considered to be an immutable fact. Does it make someone not a true fan if they'd prefer to give their Tyranid monster a personality or pretend the T'au don't exist? Or are they working with the universe as intended to maximize their enjoyment?

 

Pause and consider, why is it that so far I'm the only one that has provided quotes from Games Workshop employees about canon to substantiate my argument? Post #122 for anyone else interested.

[Marshal Rohr]

Because none of their quotes invalidate what we’ve said. You’re twisting their words. Baseline facts =\= Authors interpretation. It’s two separate subjects. Also, people soured on Dr. Thunder’s marines because he took credit for painting them when he farmed them out for commission, his conversions were insultingly comical with massive breasts and might’ve actually been an elaborate satire, and he was on a personal crusade to insult the intelligence of everyone who pointed out female marines can’t exist in every thread, across every board on the internet. Let’s not pretend he was any kind of victim.

[Wargamer]

This comes back to the two central issues - what is established in 40k, and what is integral to 40k.

 

There are plenty of things that have been established in 40k that are ignored, both by players and official authors. That's fine - ignoring established facts is sometimes necessary to fix poor choices.

 

This question cones back to what is integral to 40k, and I think most people agree that Grimdark is integral. However, other aspects are not. The Cadian uniform, for example, is not integral to the setting. Nor is the exact shade of blue Ultramarines wear.

 

Again, not particularly caring that you've painted your 1941 US troops in the 1942 colours doesn't mean you're playing an alternate history historical wargame - it means you simply aren't interested in that level of detail. Why should 40k be different?

 

The idea that because someone is not adhering rigidly to established canon isn't grounds to dismiss them as having their own "version" of 40k, so long as the broad strokes are correct.

[Scribe]

I think you'll agree, that where those broad strokes end, is up for debate.

[Donkey Kong]

Because none of their quotes invalidate what we’ve said. You’re twisting their words. Baseline facts =\= Authors interpretation. It’s two separate subjects.

 

Wrong.

 

Read Thorpe's Jumping the Fence again.

 

Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong.

[Marshal Rohr]

Yes acknowledging the existence of the validity of headcanons. We aren’t talking about whether or not you can do what you want with your dudes. We are talking about where Cadia is. Where the Hive Fleets are. Whether the Emperor is a psychic Superman and not a tea kettle painted gold with stick on googly eyes. If my Cadian 8th wears green pants instead of khaki, it’s still the Cadian 8th. If you are trying to say my head canon where tyranids never arrived and Cadia is in the Segmentum Ultima is valid, you’re wrong.

 

But you know what. We’ve had this stupid debate before, countless times. And each time you trot out these quotes like you’ve found some kind of universal truth or holy grail, like you’re some kind of table top intellectual with sharper insight than everyone who disagrees with you and frankly I’m done with it. Youre point of view on this topic isn’t universal, and plenty of people don’t acknowledge a players head canon as being as valid as studio fluff

[Donkey Kong]

A debate would require you to actually make arguments.

[mc warhammer]

I don't think there's a qualifier for 'true 40k fan' besides not trying to force your view of the lore on anyone else. 40k is such a large and interesting story/setting with room for a myriad of civilizations and factions. If you want a simple feudal world, you can have it. If you want a grimdark metropolis of crushing despair, you have that. If you want a civilized and prosperous planet, those exist too.

 

However I don't think any single view or version of the setting should be the dominant one. The Imperium shouldn't be all Ultramar but it shouldn't be a 100% grimdark hellhole either. There should be lots of variation.

 

agreed, though fandoms do tend to have those elements that like to police the community on what is acceptable.

 

i suppose that's part and parcel of being so heavily invested in something

[Scribe]

 

I don't think there's a qualifier for 'true 40k fan' besides not trying to force your view of the lore on anyone else. 40k is such a large and interesting story/setting with room for a myriad of civilizations and factions. If you want a simple feudal world, you can have it. If you want a grimdark metropolis of crushing despair, you have that. If you want a civilized and prosperous planet, those exist too.

 

However I don't think any single view or version of the setting should be the dominant one. The Imperium shouldn't be all Ultramar but it shouldn't be a 100% grimdark hellhole either. There should be lots of variation.

 

agreed, though fandoms do tend to have those elements that like to police the community on what is acceptable.

 

i suppose that's part and parcel of being so heavily invested in something

 

 

And its a burden, I and others must bear. ;)

[Wargamer]

Quoting other people isn't an argument either, by the way.

 

The idea of there not being a central canon is disproven simply by the fact that so many people display an innate understanding that some things shouldn't be done. Chaos Grey Knights, for example. That REQUIRES a canon.

 

Ultimately, all canon really is are a set of rules that something has to adhere to in order to be true to the setting. Ironically, official 40k is itself can be declared no-longer canon. See, the quotes you are using are not saying there isn't a canon - they're saying GW doesn't decide what canon is. We do.

 

We may not be publishing the rulebooks, but we steer the ship. You think GW would have turned Forgeworld into a 30k factory if we turned our noses up at the Horus Heresy? You think the massive overhaul of the setting for 8th had nothing to do with the fact that people were walking away from the hobby in droves, in part because of the GrimDumb I mentioned earlier?

 

When dealing with a lone author, canon is whatever the author says it is. When dealing with a work compiled by dozens of people and passed down to successive authors with wildly differing visions, Canon is somewhere between what an author believes and what the fans accept.

[mc warhammer]

A debate would require you to actually make arguments.

 

 

 

this is interesting. it seems that most people would advocate personal interpretation of the canon, but also that there are certain agreed upon foundations in the fiction that allow us all to share an overlapping experience.

 

i'll admit, i skipped most of the map stuff because tldr but...how far do you extend your cloud of ambiguity? maps are one thing, but what elements (if any) do you consider to be inarguable?

 

that it takes place in space and on various planets? that it's set in the far flung future of 40k? that space marines have implants and like a bit of argy bargy?

 

if there are foundations that you think are universal, what's the criteria for ambiguity? i'm guessing it's the usual mix of unreliable narrator, lost knowledge, imperfect records, history written by the winners, ignorance being the cultural currency of the setting etc

 

but where is the line for you? if there is one?

[Wargamer]

This really isn't hard to understand. Porn is porn, even if you wouldn't fap to it.

 

If you spend enough time exposed to something, you get a feel for it. You learn its shapes and textures. But you can change a lot of the dressing and it still fits the hole. That's why the Orville is Star Trek, but Star Trek Discovery is not.

 

It seems that the people arguing that there's a thousand different versions of 40k are doing so because they think changing the curtains makes the house a different building. I'm willing to bet that if you were to drill down and nail exactly what people want and need from 40k for it to BE 40k, you'd get the same things coming up time and again. That's the canon of 40k.

[Donkey Kong]

this is interesting. it seems that most people would advocate personal interpretation of the canon, but also that there are certain agreed upon foundations in the fiction that allow us all to share an overlapping experience.

i'll admit, i skipped most of the map stuff because tldr but...how far do you extend your cloud of ambiguity? maps are one thing, but what elements (if any) do you consider to be inarguable?

 

that it takes place in space and on various planets? that it's set in the far flung future of 40k? that space marines have implants and like a bit of argy bargy?

 

if there are foundations that you think are universal, what's the criteria for ambiguity? i'm guessing it's the usual mix of unreliable narrator, lost knowledge, imperfect records, history written by the winners, ignorance being the cultural currency of the setting etc

 

but where is the line for you? if there is one?

 

That's a complicated question, and I have two answers. One answer I know is right, and the other is mine because I don't like the right answer, and I can hate it all I want, but it won't make the right answer wrong.

 

Is there a line? The official answer from Games Workshop is, in a word, no. There is no Warhammer 40,000 canon and I can easily dredge up half a dozen or more statements from Games Workshop staff saying just that, and anyone who disagrees with me on this is objectively wrong. Gav wrote it best in Jumping the Fence, Warhammer 40,000 is whatever you want it to be. Following their logic, the only hard and fast rule is the Zero-th Rule, have fun. In a way, I've grown to appreciate loose canon, mostly because I've accepted that it isn't going away. But, in its favor, it's liberating to have license to pick and choose and confabulate lore as I see fit, with the freedom to know that I can't be wrong.

 

That being said, it's nowhere near a perfect system, in fact I still think it's terrible. It still reeks of laziness (justified by every excuse for ambiguity you've listed). It's made me less motivated to run out and pick up any new books (Five years ago, I would have finished reading The Warmaster by now. I haven't bothered to pick up a copy yet.). It makes having a shared universe extraordinarily difficult. Given the option, I'd much rather have a lore bible with canonical objective truths.

 

I, personally, have a head canon with multiple lines about setting and tone and how powerful factions are, and they get crossed all the time. I'm happy enough to ignore the material I don't like.

[mc warhammer]

 

this is interesting. it seems that most people would advocate personal interpretation of the canon, but also that there are certain agreed upon foundations in the fiction that allow us all to share an overlapping experience.

i'll admit, i skipped most of the map stuff because tldr but...how far do you extend your cloud of ambiguity? maps are one thing, but what elements (if any) do you consider to be inarguable?

 

that it takes place in space and on various planets? that it's set in the far flung future of 40k? that space marines have implants and like a bit of argy bargy?

 

if there are foundations that you think are universal, what's the criteria for ambiguity? i'm guessing it's the usual mix of unreliable narrator, lost knowledge, imperfect records, history written by the winners, ignorance being the cultural currency of the setting etc

 

but where is the line for you? if there is one?

 

That's a complicated question, and I have two answers. One answer I know is right, and the other is mine because I don't like the right answer, and I can hate it all I want, but it won't make the right answer wrong.

 

Is there a line? The official answer from Games Workshop is, in a word, no. There is no Warhammer 40,000 canon and I can easily dredge up half a dozen or more statements from Games Workshop staff saying just that, and anyone who disagrees with me on this is objectively wrong. Gav wrote it best in Jumping the Fence, Warhammer 40,000 is whatever you want it to be. Following their logic, the only hard and fast rule is the Zero-th Rule, have fun. In a way, I've grown to appreciate loose canon, mostly because I've accepted that it isn't going away. But, in its favor, it's liberating to have license to pick and choose and confabulate lore as I see fit, with the freedom to know that I can't be wrong.

 

That being said, it's nowhere near a perfect system, in fact I still think it's terrible. It still reeks of laziness (justified by every excuse for ambiguity you've listed). It's made me less motivated to run out and pick up any new books (Five years ago, I would have finished reading The Warmaster by now. I haven't bothered to pick up a copy yet.). It makes having a shared universe extraordinarily difficult. Given the option, I'd much rather have a lore bible with canonical objective truths.

 

I, personally, have a head canon with multiple lines about setting and tone and how powerful factions are, and they get crossed all the time. I'm happy enough to ignore the material I don't like.

 

 

 

sure, but i get the feeling it's all context and case by case 

 

the primarchs are all big chaps; how big varies from writer to writer, but i doubt we'll ever see a pygmy primarch (unless that's whats behind the emp destroying the missing legions. oh my dog, what a bigot)

 

there seems to be a line, or many lines. 

 

i used to think the policy was laziness, but the more writers and franchise entertainment i work with professionally, the more i appreciate the simple brilliance of what GW/BL have come up with 

 

i mean, all continuity and consistency is an illusion partly dependent on the cooperation of the audience's disbelief suspension. marvel fans had to invent no prizes, sherlock holmes fans have the holmesian speculation and there's however tolkien fans square the hobbit with lotr (probably just lots of arguing). "it's all lies and truth" seems as elegant as any other explanation for the inescapable fall out of multiple contributors over decades of writers

[DukeLeto69]

I have mixed feelings towards the whole "loose canon" approach.

 

On the one hand it could be argued that it is a lazy construct that provides freedom (and more importantly excuses) for when an author (BL or Codex) "gets something wrong"..."the warp did it" or "data was lost" or "lies and misdirection" or "from a certain point of view" etc. It means a lore bible is not required and there is no need for a massive retcon (a la Disney Star Wars Legends fate for the Extended Universe) because anything can be excused away. Lazy perhaps but also clever.

 

On the other hand this approach totally supports the intention behind the games...have fun and adapt/paint and play with your dudes the way you want with few restrictions (except the fact that the rule set DOES have restrictions for each faction so this is not strictly true Ho hum).

 

And I think therein lies the crux of the matter. This is an IP based on a game (rather than a book, film or TV series) and for that reason the canon rules can be approached differently. For example Citadel paints produce around 50 colours (haven't checked that BTW) so feel free to paint your Cadians pink if you prefer or your Ultramarines Purple.

 

Except... The looseness of the canon only extends so far. WE know that for decades there WAS a lore guardian. Alan Merritt. My understanding (though I am sure one of the authors could clarify) was that there was a degree of checking in with Alan M. Sure there was probably a high degree of flexibility but it seems sensible to me that there was a framework and baseline of things that couldn't be touched or changed such as...

 

Ultramarines do wear blue! Space Wolves do not follow the codex Astartes. The God Emperor is on/in the Golden Throne on Terra. Human ships use Navigators who guide by the Astronomicon.

 

If an author pitched a story where a Purple armoured Ultramarine (because he was special) had to step in to navigate a ship through the immaterium just using his gut feel because the navigator was dead... Well that would not be allowed because there ARE rules and those rules are canon.

 

So I guess the question is "how loose is the loose canon?"

 

And back to Kinghongkong... Why are the codex maps showing the vast Tyrannid biomass surrounding the galaxy any less canon than Ultras wearing blue?

[DukeLeto69]

Kinghongkong also to go back to one of your quotes, from Andy Chambers. That is admittedly a crossover between real world and player character in game dialogue but the intention is clear. To rally Imperial players to the cause and fight the Eye of Terror campaign against Chaos players. The language is deliberate and propagandist and intended to evoke the feel of what might be being said in game to player characters.

 

In game you don't think the rallying cry would be...

 

"Ok guys things look pretty bleak. There is this fleet of tyrannids in bound that is as big as the galaxy so we are not sure we even have enough troops to take that on. At the same time those pesky chaos guys are always going to be a thorn in our side because, let's face it, they only exist because they are a reflection of all human emotion. So come to think of it, instead of raising your armies how about we all embrace love and peace and sit around holding hands singing kum by yar (sp?) and that will change the nature of chaos forever, yay!"

 

Oh of course I also forgot... In game the normal everyday human has absolutely no idea of what chaos is. Daemons are myths from dreams. In fact if anyone is exposed to chaos they are purged.

 

So again back to my original post...there is a vast difference between what is known in game and out of game by us as players/readers.

 

The Andy Chambefs quote is a tongue in cheek knowing piece of flavour to support the campaign not a confirmation about hope and chance of ultimate victory being canon.

[Phoebus]

Here's what I would offer:

1. The Games Workshop and Black Library folks who go "on record" on the matter of loose canon consistently talk about providing freedom to both the people creating professionally for the intellectual property (be it in the form of a novel, a codex, or what have you) and the people who simply enjoy the setting itself. I think it's within that context that Gascoigne's own quote must be taken. The setting may very well contradict itself by design, but not for the sake of doing so. Its a means to an end, which is affording people freedom.

 

2. At the end of the day, people know when the freedom provided to them exceeds parameters that are nonetheless there. Where authors are concerned, for example, we can safely assume that the intellectual property managers and the editors will not green-light an Ultramarines story set in 999.M41 starring a Chapter Master other than Marneus Calgar, regardless of who is writing it. They would almost certainly say no to even Dan Abnett for something like that, but the larger point is that Dan would know better. Dan wouldn't have even asked, even though the setting technically affords him that freedom.

 

And guess what? The gamers, hobbyists, and readers who love this setting also know this. Well, almost all of the time. We take advantage of loose canon to realize our own ideas, but when you strip away arguments of what one can do, we all ultimately know when we're crossing that line - no matter how vaguely defined it may be. Call it the Emperor actually being dead all this time and the Astronomicon just being powered by sacrifices; call it female Space Marines; call it Dark Angels whose Inner Circle has the moral outlook of the Justice League. We almost always know when our ideas go beyond taking advantages loose canon affords us - the enormous amounts of unexplored space, unrecorded time, unnamed Chapters, etc. - and instead start introducing concepts and themes that are new (and perhaps contradictory) to the setting.

[mc warhammer]

40k is a unique beast. i don't know of too many other fictional universes that have such a large cycle of influence between publisher and reader and where the readers are active rather than passive participants.

 

not even your dragonlance and forgotten realms stuff had that particular relationship, to my knowledge.

 

in a lot of ways, it almost defies classical definitions of canon. you can have "official lore canon"- anything ever published by gw/bl. "tabletop canon", which is that 1000 strong hybrid reality between gamer and games workshop that gav speaks about. "head canon"- you are your own master...just don't expect anyone else to jump on board. "fanon" - most likely where things like the dornian heresy sit. and there's plenty of overlap between all of these.

[Donkey Kong]

So I guess the question is "how loose is the loose canon?"

 

And back to Kinghongkong... Why are the codex maps showing the vast Tyrannid biomass surrounding the galaxy any less canon than Ultras wearing blue?

 

Loose enough for Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt.

Loose enough for C.S. Goto's Dawn of War.

Loose enough for a Blood Angels civil war.

Loose enough for the Soul Drinkers and Sarpedon's spider legs.

Loose enough for Fifteen Hours.

Loose enough for Ciaphas Cain.

Loose enough for Nemesis and Spear the daemon possessed pariah.

Loose enough for the Spiritual Liege Roboute Guilliman.

Loose enough for a Blood Angels x Necron alliance.

Loose enough for Ultramarines Second Company Captain Titus.

And, most importantly, loose enough for each of us to decide what we like and dislike and make our own.

 

The question isn't why is X any less canon than Y, as far as I'm concerned they're both equally ambiguous and equally malleable. And while I agree with mc warhammer that nobody is obligated to care about your headcanon, I appreciate people making headcanon and I think that there are plenty of people who would agree with me. Look in the comments section of TTS and look for the people effectively saying "I'm headcanoning this now." The Sly Marbo Returns thread over in News and Rumors op opens with the Dawn of War Blood Ravens Sergeant/ TTS Marbo AAAAAAAAA.

 

Kinghongkong also to go back to one of your quotes, from Andy Chambers. That is admittedly a crossover between real world and player character in game dialogue but the intention is clear. To rally Imperial players to the cause and fight the Eye of Terror campaign against Chaos players. The language is deliberate and propagandist and intended to evoke the feel of what might be being said in game to player characters.

 

I never quoted Andy Chambers, and nothing I quoted is in game dialogue.

 

I'd be more inclined to recognize loose canon as a stroke of genius and not unabashed laziness if Games Workshop was a less sloppily run business.