Space Marines are Hope; Agree or Disagree

[Schlitzaf]

Triggered by a conversation with Firepower whom said Primaris brought hope into the setting and my disagreement that hope always been their;

 

Any Astartes is or represents ‘Hope’, or a belief that their is a chance for victory. They might not individually bring literal hope to the people but their existence is hope. For all the tyranny, vile and worse of the Imperium and 40k at large, there is sense that we can fight those things that go bump in the night. Be it Cruel Daemon, Capricious Xeno or Insidious traitor. What makes 40k as a Universe set in the grimdark genre that contains things like the Lovecraft Mythos. Is that in 40k, we aren’t just lambs for the slaughter.

 

We can fight back, and it’s not completely futile in then and now. The longterm? Yes. Imperium will fall. But we can slow the clock. Not just by luck or otherwise, but because we on some level (as a race) matter. Space Marines are the epitome of that, and that belief. Their existence as the super human warrior is ‘proof’. The fact they regularly fight things like Daemons to Xenos like Tyranids and Necrons, and then win. Is proof as a race we matter. Space Marines are creations of science not magic, while certainly have some warp influence in the gene-seed they are largely a scientific process.

 

And while Astartes aren’t perfect, and many do succumb to chaos. Even more stay loyal at the end of the day. And form the last line do the defense. And for that they represent hope in the settling. Not individually or to everyone in-Universe, but they represent and demonstrate We Matter. What everyone else think?

[Lord_Caerolion]

I'd argue they represent Hope in the sense that they are a manner of fighting back against the Darkness. As mentioned in the other thread, the individual Marines and Chapters might not be bright and hopeful, in fact they can leave their battlezones in objectively horrible circumstances, but they do so to stop the subjugation of Mankind by the horrors of the Warp or Xenos.

 

What the GrimDark comes from is that this is what we have to do in order to fight back. We have to create living weapons, from children that could have gone on to any other more "positive" role, to form families, is instead taken from their parents and surgically altered into essentially a post-human. The fact remains though, they are our weapon against those that seek to exterminate or enslave humanity. Yeah, they're the Hope of the Imperium continuing another day.

[Bryan Blaire]

I guess I agree and disagree: Space Marines were the "hope" of the Great Crusade, to me, but not for 40K.

 

I don't consider the idea that dying just to extend the duration of the inevitable is a "hope" for the human race as a whole, if anything, I feel like it's almost the opposite, that it's simply the lesser of two evils, but it is still a prolonging of virtually inevitable suffering, either now, depending on circumstances of the person, or later for all of humanity. Don't get me wrong, as a species, I would expect nothing less - as a whole, humanity seems to have shown that in the end, we will almost all fight to the death, it seems to be almost against our "programming" to not do so (and those that do tend to be the rare beings indeed).

 

Really the best anything humanity might hope for would be some kind of discovery of a weapon that normal men can use to fight the things that bump in the night, because normal men are not only lambs for the slaughter, but sometimes even the best intentioned men ARE the slaughter, courtesy of Chaos. Beyond that, there would only be the prolonging of existence of humanity until (if it even can any more) the plans of the Emperor come to fruition and humans either evolve to the psychic race or otherwise transcend the Warp in some fashion.

 

And sadly, while the implantation process may not truly be "magic", the gene-seed itself works only by biological "magic" - it may be internally consistent, but it doesn't operate by an extension of current biological science for several of its effects - and the generation of a Space Marine, and even the use of technology, is treated virtually exclusively as a religious process (even those that should understand it the most treat it as something religious) and is not well understood scientifically, seemingly even by those who perform the processes. Again, I feel like it was more scientific during the Crusade.

 

The Primaris represent even less "hope" in the setting to me, they actually smell more of desperation, but in the end, I really wish the entirety of their lore had been done better.

[redmapa]

I dont think I have ever thought of Marines as "hope", Wahammer 40k has always been about Humanity's last stand against unsurmountable odds, be they enemies from within, without or beyond and part of this last stands against the powers that be are the Space Marines which, to me, have always been inhuman monsters created to fight a monstrous universe that is bent on extinguishing Mankind, "Hope" "Good" "Evil" are concepts for those with the luxury of time something that Mankind has ran out of for now there is only survival and how many of Humanity's enemies can they take before the Emperor's light is extinguished.

 

Even now that Hell itself is splitting the galaxy in half the odds of survival are growing slimmer by the second, not even a Primarch can win against something he cannot understand, against powers that go beyond the mortal realm, Guilliman brings a shallow hope for nothing will stop the tides of Chaos that will engulf the galaxy.

[deathspectersgt7]

No they are a means to an end . Disposable tools even if they do not see that.

[Firepower]

BB summed it up pretty well.  The nature of 40k for the majority of its history depicted a bleak, hopeless existence for humanity.  It's not to say that there weren't individuals who were hopeful.  The whole purpose of the Imperial Cult was as a tool to keep the sheeple of a ruthlessly oppressive dictatorship happy and content to the necessary degree that they remained productive and loyal (very Machiavellian).  But there was no hope for humanity's eventual victory.  It was the last minute til midnight.  it was a tragedy of a distopian empire that once stood on the cusp of utopia, and collapsed into a backwards, superstitious spiral of gradual degradation by the failures of their mightiest heroes.

 

Primaris come across as a 'No wait, humanity has one last chance" card that tries to undercut that premise.  The abstract of hope rather than the emotion of hope was more the thrust of my argument.

 

But on the emotion of hope, Marines as the incarnation of that only really works so long as the individual people of the Imperium don't actually meet the Marines.  Firstly, if the Marines have shown up at all, it's because something has gone horribly wrong.  And secondly, a great deal of them don't care about you or me when they are there, but rather the interests of the Imperium as a whole.  Mortals are as expendable as tinder.  Infrastructure and territory are not.  The Marines moved most often to protect the latter than the former.  Few and far between are Marines whom put any thought at all into the well being of the Imperium's citizens, beyond perhaps "Killing the unclean preserves humanity," which is not the same as "We are killing them to save you."

Edited January 17, 2018 by Firepower

[N1SB]

I do not believe Space Marines are His angels of hope.  I believe they are His angels of death.

[SpecialIssue]

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That comic popped up a while back on this site, and someone commented on how he hated how the humans were 'ungrateful' for complaining about how the Space Marines who saved them but were so brutal.

 

Really? It looked like the Orks were destroying everything to me... Just checked, it did say that the Orks burned the fields and the cities already.

Again, ungrateful humans and their, "Hate the guy that saved us" attitudes. "BUT THEY WERE SO BRUTAL, we should be better than that brutality!" Was the argument of the farmer.

This is the stuff that makes me wish Horus would have won.

I answered:

 SpecialIssue, on 21 Apr 2016 - 7:51 PM, said:

 

Really? It looked like the Orks were destroying everything to me... Just checked, it did say that the Orks burned the fields and the cities already.

Again, ungrateful humans and their, "Hate the guy that saved us" attitudes. "BUT THEY WERE SO BRUTAL, we should be better than that brutality!" Was the argument of the farmer.

This is the stuff that makes me wish Horus would have won.

 

 

You aren't an illiterate peasant brought up peacefully to believe in a benevolent and protective Emperor watching over you - then find His Angels and 'deliverance' is just as terrible in visage and violence as the demons, and just as uncaring of your individual fate.

 

Besides, the Black Templars and the Imperium don't care about gratitude. What matters to them is that they put the fear of the Emperor into that farmer, and he is now more loyal than ever.

On a macro scale from an Imperial organisational view, yes Space Marines are a 'hope' for the Imperium in that they are an elite, effective force of super soldiers willing and able to die to a man to defend the empire, the crumbling edifice of Mankind's gaudy temporal power.

 

But as succor, as hope to the ordinary man? No. These are not Angels of Protection, not even Angels of Humanity. They are Angels of Death.

 

(This obsession with death and sacrifice for a corpse permeates through the entire culture of humanity's military hierarchy - we viewers have been desensitized to it to a degree due to its ubiquitous nature in-universe, but why do you think the extremely morbid symbol of a human skull has been raised to be such a signifier of the Imperium's martial might and honour, plastered on everything? Death is a release, death is an honour, death is a duty, death is both a punishment and a reward; no matter what, die for the Emperor.)

 

They by and large, care nothing for the individual mortals living below them. Even those such as the renowned Ultramarines care not for the banal intrinsic qualities of human life, but rather for the abstract order and efficiency those human lives can be arranged in, within the framework of 'good governance'.

 

From an objective, macro standpoint then, do they offer hope? No. For they are but one more cog in the machine, that eternal meat grinder of bloody war that has gone for 10,000 years, since the first days of the glorious and bloody great crusade, to these last waning days of man. They only contribute to the bloody turmoil, they would never be able to win; since the true enemy is human nature itself, trapped in a never-ending struggle with itself.

 

...for there is only carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods.

 

But perhaps I'm wrong in this post-Gathering Storm world.

 

EDIT: sorry, added additional comic links

Edited January 17, 2018 by SpecialIssue

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

But perhaps I'm wrong in this post-Gathering Storm world.

 

Nah, this is 40k. As the saying goes: "if you think this ends well, you haven't been paying attention".

[Ipsen]

There is no hope in 40K. The shadow in the warp will consume all...

[CCE1981]

“Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment.”

[Race Bannon]

So ... it seems this thread is essentially a poll?

[Schlitzaf]

Discussion gonna respond after work more

[Huggtand]

Of course there is hope   The Emperor and the change in mankind is the hope for humanity’s future

 

There seems to be a lot of people in this B&C who argue that the ”real” old 40k is grimdark with mankind just short of certain doom and no hope what so ever for survival. Anything that hints of humanity halting a threat or gasp winning somewhere is “nobelbright” rubbish that’s destroys the “real” setting.

 

I started playing 40k RT -89 and must admit that I can’t subscribe to the above description based on the “really” old lore. Now I love the RT era and never really left it in my mind so I´m a little biased   A week ago I started to reread RT and the WD articles of the early 90s to refresh my memory what the original setting was, just out of curiosity. I will try and summarize the setting in some bullet point:

• The Imperium is an era where unfathomable technology is seen as mysticism and madness. No technological degradation in it selves just that people describes the effects and workings to religion and spirits.
  Grimdark and certain doom? Not really, a common enough sci-fi trope 
   
• In the universe the gods, mysticism and magic is real. This is also a time for a great change within humanity itself. More and more humans are developing powers and visions far beyond their ancestors. This is also mankind’s biggest threat for many aliens feed of weak psykers or can open warp portals to infiltrate humanity.
  Grimdark and certain doom? It’s not described as such. It’s a grave danger but not the end of humanity
   
• There are many aliens and monsters in the universe and many if not all is a danger to humanity. But not one of them is described as on the brink to annihilate the human race. Humanity discovers new world all the time and also trades with natural aliens.
  Grimdark and certain doom? No, a fairly standard fantasy sci-fi with some unique twists 
   
• The Imperium is, because of its size, a religiously bureaucracy nightmare where the Administratium extends to every aspect of life. The single (or millions) life don’t matter as long as the Imperium keeps going on. The life for the average human is not overall described as an oppressed nightmare with endless toil and no pleasure. It depends more what type of planet type and ruler they have. This is akin to many examples like “The trial" by Kafka, Brazil and A brave new world to name a few. The more unique aspect it to mix the priesthood with the bureaucrats.
  Grimdark and certain doom? More a common dystopian picture on the large scale than on an individual scale.
   
• The Emperor. He is the guardian of mankind and his will steers the Imperium of man. He is locked to the ancient machine and only kept alive by his will and the sacrifice of hundreds of psykers life force every day. He is the heart of the Imperium and makes so navigators can sail through the warp safely and astropaths can function. He also shields humanity’s psyche from predators.
  Grimdark and certain doom? The big E is a bit grimdark since he can only protect and help humanity by his eternal suffering and the sacrifice of life force to him.
   
• The art style is a really mixed bag with everything from fairly standard sci-fi and cyber punk to Blanche (love your art man). This is what really sets the tone of RT in my opinion.
  Grimdark and certain doom? Not really. The more outlandish style is more that man and machine is melding together.
   
• The most grimdark piece in RT is the opening blurb

 

In summary the first 40k was not especially grimdark, more a combination of dystopian bureaucracy, cyberpunk, metal, satire and wackiness   The real grimdark came with the second and third edition where they took away more and more of the humor, and what I think made the 40k fun to play in, and replaced that with more and more doom, gloom and more doom for mankind. In the RT-era there was always the hopeful future where mankind is evolved and strong enough to withstand the dangers they face.

So in this case I feel I can say that the “new” lore have ruined my “real” old lore with a bunch of grimdark rubbish 

 

 Really sorry for the length of this post and my rambling  above is of course just my personal opinions

Edited January 17, 2018 by Huggtand

[Schlitzaf]

So I started this game late 4th and there is a quote I cannot for the life of me find, but it says “at a thousand chapters of thousand marines, they number less than the total number of worlds in the Imperium yet they must be sufficient.”

 

Then, the chapter I started (as in really started with), Black Templars all about continuing to fight and reclaim lost worlds or claim new ones for humanity. But the opening passage I paraphrase “Vile Deamon, Capricious Xeno and Insidious Traitor, gnaw and gather to feast on the carrion that is the Imperium of Man...” then it goes to gather that man is worthless. But what stood out to me is “of Man”. God-Emperor of MANKIND, and the Astartes are HIS Angels of Death.

 

I never personally liked Lovecraft, I felt his world and Mythos robbed his characters of any value. Because they don’t matter, nothing they does matter, because the human race doesn’t matter. They are just a nothing more than a gnat in his universe.

 

40k? The Imperium of MAN, which has existed for 10 Millennia as a rotting decaying corpse. But still fights against the darkness. And even if they are ultimately losing? They aren’t a gnat in the universe. Man matters, while Joe the Gaurdsman doesn’t, what Joe represents does. He is a representation of the power of the Imperium it’s ability to muster and deploy manpower that makes Man Matter.

 

An Astartes is that represented in-universe and to an outside viewer. The Astartes ability to fight that which go bump in the night, while making perhaps the ultimate sacrifice twice. Once on becoming an Astartes and again in their final battle. Showcases why 40k is not Lovecraft and his universe. Because we as a species matter and were something like Cthuhlu represents complete despair and meaningless of humanity. An Astartes represents that we matter. And that we can do something. While we as individuals are meaningless, the Astartes represent what we can do.

 

And ultimately represent why 40k isn’t Lovecraft and his stories about how meaningless our existence is. Because an Astartes shows that we can fight back. There is an saying what the point of stories like the Boogeyman.

 

A child will by nature’s create monsters and develop internally their own thoughts about the monsters that go bump in the night. The larger point of fairy tales is not telling the kid about the existence of monsters that go bump in the night, but is telling the child that the monsters that go bump in the night can be beaten, by telling them how.

 

We all know that there exists deamons, xenos, and traitors, the Astartes, Titan Legions and Imperial Gaurd tell us that they can be beaten. By telling us we matter, they give us hope. Maybe not in setting persay, but they give us ‘hope’ in a way stories like Lovecraft’s don’t.

[Ipsen]

So ... it seems this thread is essentially a poll?

 

Just didn't think there was anything more that needed saying. GW could change their minds but right now we are led to believe there is an incomprehensibly large fleet of tyranids on its way for which the likes of hive fleet leviathan or goliath were mere "scouts". A space marine might well be worth 1000 nids but he is unlikely going to do much against a trillion... or more.

[Karack Blackstone]

 

So ... it seems this thread is essentially a poll?

 

Just didn't think there was anything more that needed saying. GW could change their minds but right now we are led to believe there is an incomprehensibly large fleet of tyranids on its way for which the likes of hive fleet leviathan or goliath were mere "scouts". A space marine might well be worth 1000 nids but he is unlikely going to do much against a trillion... or more.

 

 

Just to add, the entire premise of Warhammer 40,000 is that at some point, Humanity loses its fight for survival.

 

That the Tyranids will likely be that threat is consistent with the setting; the real problem to me is, despite the best efforts of Mankind in WH40K, there is no reason to believe in hope.

 

Why? Well, according to the writing, the 'Nid fleet on its way is downright HUGE. This Hive Armada, for lack of a better term, can be seen approaching the galaxy at a range where said Hive Armada is expected to arrive in setting, in a relatively short period of time. Now, I want that to sink in. There is a group of 'Nids so large that the group can be seen in between galaxies, and, to top that off, that is where they were, when the light bouncing off them from the Imperium's host galaxy got to the 'Nids, and is on its way back to the Imperium.

 

There's no reason to hold hope? Space Marines are not alone hope; those that choose to hope are the only ones that stand a chance of seeing the potential to defeat this Tyranid Hive Armada, let alone any others that try to take the galaxy, in setting.

 

No, hope is a choice, available to each Imperial citizen, be they Astartes or Human. Keep to hope, and there is a chance against the foes of Mankind. Lose hope, and only you can hope to recover it within yourself, if ever, in the future, again.

 

Hope may lead to disappointment, true; but, without hope, there's no reason to keep fighting for what is right.

[Kinstryfe]

I find the question of hope, as it's been asked a lot lately, seems to be a little wide in scope. A lot of people seem to hate that the current fluff is a little more hopeful than before, while overlooking that in the end, everything is still completely out of luck. The Imperium has to have hope that they can win against the alien, the heretic, and the mutant. We as outside observers can know that their fight is hopeless, but in universe without hope there would be no point in fighting. It would be more like the above mentioned Lovecraft mythos, where anyone privy to the truth would go insane or give up, rather than fighting harder. For us, we need to remember that we're not in it for the ending, we're in it for the journey to get there. The Imperium will fall, eventually, but it'll be a heck of a ride by the time it does.

[Claws and Effect]

Whether Space Marines represent hope for me largely depends on the chapter in question.

 

"I hope they send the Salamanders" or "I hope Shrike gets here in time" all the way down to "I hope the guys in yellow armor don't kill us."

 

I really see it as more the hope that the Space Marines are enough to preserve humanity.

 

Human reactions to Marines range from awe to abject terror. As an abstract, sure they represent hope. But that hope is dashed when regular people see the aftermath. It is rare for any given chapter to care much about collateral damage. The Raven Guard's methods tend to leave things mostly intact, but their Black Guard successors tend to leave war zones mostly comprised of various sized craters.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Claws and Effect