The limits of Grimdark, Grimderp, and Suspending Disbelief

[USNCenturion]

I think a bit too much is being given to the 4chan “grimdark” word. Grim darkness was meant to flesh out the far future setting for a box art tag line. To take that and try to apply it to stories and have that determine their validity is as close to an exercise in futility as anything. There can absolutely be a story on a pristine cultural utopia, cut off from access to the greater galaxy by warp storms, and that story will have every right to exist in the 40k universe as any other.

[Wargamer]

If I was to define Grimdark, I guess it'd be a setting without hope. GrimDerp, on the other hand, is a setting without a point.

 

Again, to use Master of Mankind (I swear I don't just use it to fish likes from the author),it has a great example of Grimdark at the very end - when the Webway of Mankind falls. With that, you get the sense that the Imperium as the Emperor envisioned it is gone forever. It's not that Mankind is doomed to extinction or that Chaos is destined to win; it's that the bright, shining future we always dream of can never be achieved.

 

The Imperium is Grimdark because it's the kind of nightmare situation we would normally assume to be the end goal of an evil supervillain, yet instead has become the end goal of the "good guys" instead.

 

Yet as terrible as it is, it works. It's when the Imperium is painted as doomed to death and is just delaying extinction that tips us into GrimDerp.

[Ascanius]

 

You know what I find a proper Grimdark? Instead of "Imperium is so ingrained on its own way of doing things that it cannot even notice it's acting stupidly" I vastly prefer "Imperium does genuinely best or better than the greatest minds we know of, and it isn't enough".

 

I wouldn't like to see this, personally, because that justifies all the horrors of the Imperium as genuinely necessary in order for humanity to survive - and I think that an important part of the 40K universe is that they believe this is so, but it isn't necessarily the case.

[bluntblade]

I see that as a demarcating line between 30K and 40K. 30K is the act of reconstruction, enlightenment rising and promise beckoning. 40K is what happened after it all went wrong.

[Ascanius]

For me, 30K is as horrifying in a different way.

[MrDarth151]

Yet as terrible as it is, it works. It's when the Imperium is painted as doomed to death and is just delaying extinction that tips us into GrimDerp.

 

I need to catch some sleep, so no time for long winded speeches. I will just say this:

 

I have Laurie Goulding on record saying that this is the case. In fact, I have Laurie Goulding on record that this was the case since the inception of the setting.

 

I'm saying this so you can understand why I say that greater 40k universe could benefit from toning Grimdarkness down a bit.

[Wargamer]

 

 

Yet as terrible as it is, it works. It's when the Imperium is painted as doomed to death and is just delaying extinction that tips us into GrimDerp.

I need to catch some sleep, so no time for long winded speeches. I will just say this:

 

I have Laurie Goulding on record saying that this is the case. In fact, I have Laurie Goulding on record that this was the case since the inception of the setting.

 

I'm saying this so you can understand why I say that greater 40k universe could benefit from toning Grimdarkness down a bit.

Except that when I joined the hobby back in Third it was NOT like that. It was made clear that the Imperium was literally too big to fail, that it was reclaiming territory and rediscovering lost technology. There was none of this "the Golden Throne is failing!" bull:cuss - that was invented for Fifth. Chaos wasn't on the rise, the Imperium wasn't split in half, and there was no Time of Ending - the Imperium had remained largely unchanged for ten thousand years.

 

So forgive me for taking what was written down before your writer friend joined the company over his opinion.

[Ascanius]

On the other hand, "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war" has been there since the start, so there's no doubt that the Imperium can never win, right?

[MrDarth151]

 

 

Yet as terrible as it is, it works. It's when the Imperium is painted as doomed to death and is just delaying extinction that tips us into GrimDerp.

I need to catch some sleep, so no time for long winded speeches. I will just say this:

 

I have Laurie Goulding on record saying that this is the case. In fact, I have Laurie Goulding on record that this was the case since the inception of the setting.

 

I'm saying this so you can understand why I say that greater 40k universe could benefit from toning Grimdarkness down a bit.

Except that when I joined the hobby back in Third it was NOT like that. It was made clear that the Imperium was literally too big to fail, that it was reclaiming territory and rediscovering lost technology. There was none of this "the Golden Throne is failing!" bull:cuss - that was invented for Fifth. Chaos wasn't on the rise, the Imperium wasn't split in half, and there was no Time of Ending - the Imperium had remained largely unchanged for ten thousand years.

 

So forgive me for taking what was written down before your writer friend joined the company over his opinion.

 

 

Perhaps an elaboration is required: I didn't bring it up to prove you wrong. I am not a friend of Laurie Goulding, and I disagree with him a lot.

 

Well, that might be a bit of an understatement.

 

My point was that, as far as I can tell, BL writers intent is to portray Mankind as irrevocably doomed. I don't like it, but I cannot change facts by wishing them to be otherwise.

 

For that matter, the intended reading of TMoM is that Mankind is doomed to fall with the failure of Imperial Webway, as far as I can tell. 

 

On the other hand, "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war" has been there since the start, so there's no doubt that the Imperium can never win, right?

 

Of course it cannot win. Their enemies have the magical and mystic power known only as "The Plot" on their side.

[mc warhammer]

i’ve seen that magic power elsewhere too. in pretty every story with a plot

[Wargamer]

Just to confirm, I went back to Rogue Trader itself to see if there's anything to support the idea that the Imperium was always doomed. The best I can find is that it would be doomed without the Emperor, but there's nothing there to suggest that his death was at all likely.

 

And no, the Imperium can't win. It can't win for the same reason it can't lose - it operates on a scale that makes such notions meaningless.

 

Let's put it this way. Imagine if a mad scientist invented a giant killer robot that killed sixty million people a year. That robot would purge the UK or France of all life in under two years... But it wouldn't put a dent in Humanity. The global population would continue to rise, and in theory a suitably callous leader could simply throw bodies at it to ensure that the rest of humanity can grow and prosper.

 

That's the Imperium. It's an intergalactic power surrounded by monsters that it keeps at bay with an eternal stream of bodies. If it over-reaches, the monsters devour the isolated pocket of humanity and ground is lost - but if the monster pushes against it, the Imperium clenches like a fist to drive it away.

 

It's an Orwellian setup - the Imperium wages war to perpetuate the war. It cannot lose because it has spent ten millennia dedicating itself to war, and it cannot win because the very notion of peace is now anathema to it. War gives its people purpose. The common threat unites the worlds and organisations who would otherwise turn on each other. Moreover, the Imperium cannot be doomed to fail because failure would be a mercy at this point. Everything good and pure and noble about us, everything worth saving has been stripped out to make room for more guns, armour and shields.

 

There is no peace. There is no victory. There is no defeat. There is only WAR.

[mc warhammer]

well they won't win or lose for even more practical reasons, reportedly BL/GW will never actually write the conclusion

[Ascanius]

Of course it cannot win. Their enemies have the magical and mystic power known only as "The Plot" on their side.

 

This seems like a churlish interpretation to me. The premise of Warhammer 40,000 is that the Imperium cannot ever truly achieve any lasting improvement in its fortunes. Complaining about the eternal stalemate in 40K is like complaining that humanity in Star Trek is part of a multi-species, peaceful and progressive Federation instead of going it alone and selfishly taking what they want from the galaxy, or complaining that the Force and those who wield it dominate so much of the storytelling in Star Wars.

 

40K doesn't exist to tell stories about superhuman Space Marines triumphing over humanity's enemies. Superhuman Space Marines exist in 40K to battle those enemies that would otherwise overwhelm humanity and destroy it.

 

The arms race is eternal, by design. Any Imperial success will be countered or undermined, sooner or later. One of the Primarchs comes back after 10,000 years, bringing with him powerful reinforcements . . . but the biggest Warp rift ever seen has split the galaxy in two, making the threat of Chaos more widespread and menacing than ever.

 

It's also vice-versa - any non-Imperial victory will be countered or undermined in turn. Let's not forget that Abaddon's success in creating the Cicatrix Maledictum preceded the resurrection of Guilliman. From Chaos's point of view, they managed to strike a decisive blow in the Long War . . . only for Roboute bloody Guilliman and his damned Primaris Space Marines to emerge at just the right time to save the Imperium!

[Huggtand]

When I started in the hobby -89 there was even hope for mankind in 40k 

“The Master of Mankind knows that to protect his race he must survive, must live forever if necessary, or until such time as psychic humans have evolved sufficient strength to withstand the dangers they face” (RT p138, my bolding)

 

Since then the narrative have progressively gotten darker. Instead of 1000 people sacrificed to big E every day its 10000, instead of the Emperor watching over mankind indefinitely the golden throne is falling and instead of the imperium in a stalemate the imperium is doomed.

 

I of course understand and accept that the narrative have shifted through time and now is more like Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné where we live in the end times. Personally, I thoroughly enjoy even the new novels in 40k (even if I mostly read 30k) but the Imperium in my head canon is still in RT to second edition (and TTS) 

 

As Ascanius point out the setting is of course designed from a business standpoint to have an eternal stalemate but that is no reason to not have fun and discuss different viewpoints of the narrative 

[Karthak]

 

Isstvan V is basically a collection of Horus Heresy/Warhammer 40K tropes writ large. Ferrus Manus decides to attack Horus’s prepared defensive position in piecemeal fashion with a smaller force for no compelling reason. Tens of thousands of Space Marines commit themselves to a prepared killing field because the entirety (more or less) of two Legion fleets (and a healthy portion of a third) couldn’t get around the Void Shield MacGuffin. As a result, the Iron Hands, Raven Guard, and Salamanders fight an uphill Bronze Age battle while thousands of 31st millennium-caliber explosions tear the battlefield apart around them. It’s “Rule of Cool” without any consideration as to whether it makes sense, and while McNeill himself never made this argument I almost resent it when readers almost write off the idea that it’s possible to write immersive, powerful battles without compromising on what is available in the setting.

 

Ah, Isstvan V. Two full Legion fleets, and the flagship of a third, in complete control of the orbitals. Forget void shields protecting Horus's position: with the kind of firepower the loyalists possessed they could have cracked the planet itself like an egg.

[bluntblade]

I can let that issue go for the same reason I can understand Russ going to slay Magnus personally. Ferrus wants to see Horus dead in the flesh, to hear and scorn his reasons for rebelling, and to kill him personally if possible.

[Roomsky]

On the theme of strategic ineptitude:

 

It is my opinion that Black Library absolutely does not need more detail put into the warfare it portrays, and while I'm aware it is not an opinion shared by everyone, I would have enjoyed works like Tallarn: Ironclad far less if it had delved further into the armored battle.

 

That said:

 

I get that authors like to portray massive casualties in service to emphasizing how grim the setting is, but many of the allegedly genius commanders present in BL fiction seem to lack the concept even of risk/reward. While I liked Cybernetica fine, the implication that Dorn didn't consider the galaxy-wide revolt of Mechanicum devotees as a consequence of performing exterminatus on Mars is absurd. It created a suitably grim atmosphere I suppose, but it was definitely undermined by the stupidity of the suggestion.

 

As for examples like Istvaan V, it sort of ties back into why I enjoyed Ironclad. A raging Ferrus leading three legions to their deaths in a ground assault motivated by vengeance generally makes more sense in the broad strokes of codex entries than in any defining detail. Perhaps it might have benefitted from a Tallarn-like treatment: a vague summary mixed with on-the-ground characters who have little idea what is actually happening, at least if an author like Mcneill is writing (nothing against Mcneill, his strengths just aren't at all in the writing of strategy and tactics).

 

As for an in-depth description of sci-fi warfare, I dunno, maybe we can kidnap Timothy Zahn or something.

[Xisor]

That's a great observation about "Tallarn" - precisely why I enjoyed French's approach so much, and what I often find lacklustre in Isstvan V and it's treatment - especially in "Fulgrim" - for a slight passing over of a thing, focusing on what happened to FM/F seemed a really awkward view. Especially with 7 Legions (and untold numbers of expedition fleet forces in tow/viscinity/under their commands) - it felt ripe for exploration. But "Fulgrim" skips past it all too... quickly.

 

The broad brush had already been painted, now the only ingenuity fell to the tiny details or brief passes.

 

It's been done, but it feels like there's still a huge gulf of missed opportunity waiting just out of sight.

[Phoebus]

Roomsky,

 

I think the amount of detail people want or don't want in the large-scale battles of this setting and the point about the characters making sense within their own context are two different things. The former is subjective; a lot of people genuinely like McNeill's vision of Isstvan V or endorse how French handled the final battle on Tallarn, while I count myself as disappointed by both. Where the "logic" of a battle is concerned, though, I think that comes down to the amount of burden an author wishes to take on.

 

Let's use Isstvan V as an example. I sympathize with McNeill because he was forced to work within an existing construct, but it doesn't feel as if he was particularly bothered with considerations beyond presenting us with heroic, individual battle. The priority was to show us the battle through the eyes of Ferrus Manus, Fulgrim, and their lieutenants. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it genuinely feels as if less thought went into it. To be clear, I'm not talking about putting a reader through a dissertation on strategic decision-making and planning. I'm questioning why an author of McNeill's caliber didn't bother with Ferrus Manus questioning why Horus -- one of the most brilliant beings in the galaxy -- would present such a tempting target or send his fleet away. I'm underwhelmed by that same Primarch delivering his strategy, which amounts to a Bronze Age battle plan, in three terse sentences (almost literally: you, go right; you, go left; I'm going down the middle).

 

And besides, did the battle being carried out like a Bronze Age battle but with Titans, tanks, gunships, and artillery do McNeill's story justice? Again, heroic combat and M31 technology aren't mutually exclusive. I'm sure that many (maybe most) readers think that's irrelevant; for me, addressing such issues in a nuanced manner can be the difference between a good novel and a very good one.

[MrDarth151]

Note to self: Don't write when tired.

 

 

 

This seems like a churlish interpretation to me.

 

Churlish, huh. Now that's a word I have not heard in a long time. Churlish. Rolls of the tongue nicely.

 

You are mistaken in your assumption that I am questioning eternal stalemate. It exists because GW will not allow the setting to end as long as it sells. It's a reasonable economic policy. I have nothing against it.

 

 

 

The premise of Warhammer 40,000 is that the Imperium cannot ever truly achieve any lasting improvement in its fortunes.

 

It is? I thought it was an eternal war. With all of the ups and downs involved.

 

And to be honest, I grow really tired of people trying to convince me that the universe I am quite fond of, and which I am heavily invested in, is this kind of nihilistic nonsense.

 

 

 

40K doesn't exist to tell stories about superhuman Space Marines triumphing over humanity's enemies. Superhuman Space Marines exist in 40K to battle those enemies that would otherwise overwhelm humanity and destroy it.

 

And I call that a waste of narrative opportunities. And, you know, boring?

 

I know that people treat me like I don't know the lore because I don't fall into general pattern of praise and complaints, but really? I've read nearly all of the Codexes and somewhere around a fourth of entire BL line-up. And you know what, reading the same stuff over and over again didn't exactly endear me to the concept of Grimdarkness. I find it to be root cause of many, possibly even most, contradictions, logical errors, unrealistic depictions of warfare, societies, politics, economy, technology and industry, and so on, and so forth.

 

You might find it a point of the setting, but I find it a constant annoyance that takes away from my enjoyment.

 

 

 

The arms race is eternal, by design. Any Imperial success will be countered or undermined, sooner or later. One of the Primarchs comes back after 10,000 years, bringing with him powerful reinforcements . . . but the biggest Warp rift ever seen has split the galaxy in two, making the threat of Chaos more widespread and menacing than ever.

 

It's also vice-versa - any non-Imperial victory will be countered or undermined in turn. Let's not forget that Abaddon's success in creating the Cicatrix Maledictum preceded the resurrection of Guilliman. From Chaos's point of view, they managed to strike a decisive blow in the Long War . . . only for Roboute bloody Guilliman and his damned Primaris Space Marines to emerge at just the right time to save the Imperium!

 

 

And? Both are far from peaks of storytelling. I am not picky.

 

I like Imperium winning, but I like them winning in traditional way. A sudden Deus ex Machina to fix the problem caused by Abaddon's Diabolous ex Machina is not good storytelling to me.

 

i’ve seen that magic power elsewhere too. in pretty every story with a plot

 

Chaos works through forced incompetence of their opposition, creation of new powers as the plot demands, and writer's fiat.

 

Other factions have their own examples, but Chaos is special, because it would not work at all without those.

[Roomsky]

Roomsky,

 

I think the amount of detail people want or don't want in the large-scale battles of this setting and the point about the characters making sense within their own context are two different things. The former is subjective; a lot of people genuinely like McNeill's vision of Isstvan V or endorse how French handled the final battle on Tallarn, while I count myself as disappointed by both. Where the "logic" of a battle is concerned, though, I think that comes down to the amount of burden an author wishes to take on.

 

Let's use Isstvan V as an example. I sympathize with McNeill because he was forced to work within an existing construct, but it doesn't feel as if he was particularly bothered with considerations beyond presenting us with heroic, individual battle. The priority was to show us the battle through the eyes of Ferrus Manus, Fulgrim, and their lieutenants. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it genuinely feels as if less thought went into it. To be clear, I'm not talking about putting a reader through a dissertation on strategic decision-making and planning. I'm questioning why an author of McNeill's didn't bother with Ferrus Manus questioning why Horus -- one of the most brilliant beings in the galaxy -- would present such a tempting target or send his fleet away. I'm underwhelmed by that same Primarch delivering his strategy, which amounts to a Bronze Age battle plan, in three terse sentences (almost literally: you, go right; you, go left; I'm going down the middle).

 

And besides, did the battle being carried out like a Bronze Age battle but with Titans, tanks, gunships, and artillery do McNeill's story justice? Again, heroic combat and M31 technology aren't mutually exclusive. I'm sure that many (maybe most) readers think that's irrelevant; for me, addresses such issues in a nuanced manner can be the difference between a good novel and a very good one.

 

I don't disagree, but if one isn't going to put the work in there are ways to disguise their lack of knowledge while still communicating the same thing. I enjoyed Fulgrim quite a bit for its lack of dwelling on the battle itself, the story was, after all, about Ferrus and Fulgrim. I won't try to argue anything objective, but for me the distinction between Tallarn and Fulgrim is that one's over-simplified battleplan was informed by a second hand account that kept the minutiae of the decisions at an arms length. As you cited, in the case of Fulgrim we literally have Ferrus himself explain his battle plan in three sentences. The same effect could have been communicated in as much time at an arm's length, and been left with a sense that Ferrus' actions seem questionable but there's likely more to them we just aren't seeing.

 

Of course, that's just me. I don't read BL for the large-scale engagements so my standards are quite low, and even Ferrus' cited actions don't bother me too much, I can at least understand that he was really, really mad. As an example of what I can't put up with: see Horus' opening to the invasion of Molech by essentially shooting himself at an enemy ship inside an unguided torpedo.

[Phoebus]

Speaking purely for myself, I think the author is better off not showing something — or at least just referring to it “off-screen” — than giving it lip service. For example, you can get away with letting the reader know that Corax and the Raven Guard were tasked with assaulting the right flank of the Traitor Legions’ fortifications and then sweeping to the center through third person (or whatever). Professional historians do this sort of thing all the time as part of a summary. It’s another thing altogether to portray Eisenhower in his war room as saying, “Right, you guys go to this beach, you guys go to that beach, you lot jump out of planes behind those beaches. Kill everyone in the area.” If you’re going to devote time to doing something, you may as well give it your full effort.

 

Full disclosure: Fulgrim elicits this response from me more than most other Black Library novels because so much word count is devoted to showcasing, e.g., stereotype-driven art-snob conversations. I refuse to accept that the buildup to one of the most infamous battles of this saga — especially what Ferrus was going to do, how, and why — merited less spotlight than how Fulgrim and his minions felt about Bequa Kynska’s music, or what Ostan Delafour felt about the Phoenician’s attempts at sculpting. That’s not to say that McNeill shouldn’t have devoted time to that aspect of the Emperor’s Children as well; just that my patience as a reader wanes when the highlight of the novel gets short thrift.

[MrDarth151]

One more thing.

 

I see that as a demarcating line between 30K and 40K. 30K is the act of reconstruction, enlightenment rising and promise beckoning. 40K is what happened after it all went wrong.

 

I would like to see that divide, you know... actually being written?

 

The problem with 30k is that there is a lot of informed attributes flying around. That it's actually better than what followed is one of them.

 

Though I suppose it's a good laugh when Roboute feels nostalgic for the Terra of old. You know, irradiate wastelands, roaming bands of gene-enhanced banditry that nobody dealt with, slums just outside of the Imperial Palace that's basically a lawless zone, civilians being ethnically cleansed because Emps just doesn't care. Oh, and the good old water problem.

 

Enlightenment! Reconstruction! Promises of better future!

 

Pah! The only part of the Imperium that actually feels like that is Ultramar, which is instantly undermined by the fact that Ultramar is still a decent place to live ten thousand years into the future, which makes it seem like another example of Ultramarines exceptionalism, rather than part of the actual theme.

[Ascanius]

I feel Guilliman was a mirror of Lorgar in a lot of ways, including being as deceived by his own interpretation of the Emperor's grand plan as Lorgar ever was by Chaos.

 

Guilliman's high-minded ideals can't stand up to the reality of what the Emperor was about.

[Ascanius]

 

 

The premise of Warhammer 40,000 is that the Imperium cannot ever truly achieve any lasting improvement in its fortunes.

 

It is? I thought it was an eternal war. With all of the ups and downs involved.

 

And to be honest, I grow really tired of people trying to convince me that the universe I am quite fond of, and which I am heavily invested in, is this kind of nihilistic nonsense.

 

But a war can only be eternal if no-one can achieve victory. That's a stalemate, no matter how many ups or downs there might be.

 

It's not just the Imperium versus Chaos, either. It's anyone versus everyone. The Imperium could crush the T'au Empire easily, for instance, if only it weren't beset by so many other foes demanding time and resources to fight off.

 

I'm sympathetic to arguments like, "One deus ex machina shouldn't be countered by another," but of course 40K is nihilistic - "there is only war" is not a statement that allows for anything else.

 

There can never be anything more than a temporary peace, or a temporary setback, or whatever - not just because "there is only war", but also of course for as long as Games Workshop wants all of its factions to remain viable, none can be destroyed.