Bubble_Helmet Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 I'm new to Chaos. I've always gravitated towards the religious zealotry of the Imperium but after reading the First Heretic I became more interested in the Word Bearers. The motivations of the primarchs in the Heresy, for the most part, make sense to me. Where I have a hard time is 40k era Chaos followers. There doesn't seem to be much nuance. Am I wrong here? Their motivations seem to strictly be death to all and let the galaxy burn. Strikes me as kind of dull. Maybe I'm just not cut out for Chaos. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyD4rkPassenger Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 It is quite varied to be honest and its definitely not uniform amongst even a single legion. For some it's now a deep seeded bitter hatred of something they couldn't destroy 10,000 years ago, and now do everything they can to strike out at it. Others it is the freedom of carving out their own empire and slaughtering at their whims. Even more just follow the directions of their gods and/or strictly attempt to gain daemonhood. It's kind of a freedom of what your dudes want to do in the galaxy. I would add that IMO Chaos is just like the imperium. The dream goal was shattered, and now all that's left is finding how to move forward within the confines of the futile goal of following that broken dream. Grimdark at its finest. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5156284 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 Well some are completely into worshipping the chaos gods and do whatever they think would please them and some are more like rebels who don't actually want the forces of chaos run wild but rather use them/are forced to use them in their war against the imperium so they eventually can build their own empire. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5156293 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hushrong Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 MyD4rkPassenger states a lot of great points. The reasons are as diverse as the number of legion forces and warbands that strike out to bring down the imperium. Some want freedom, other revenge, some merely exist and try to survive, and others are devoted to serving their gods. There is some great fluff out to read to see the more deeper motivations of some CSM. I would wholeheartedly recommend Talon of Horus and Black Legion as great samplers into chaos. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5156295 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Father Ferrum Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 Something to remember is that both Cmthe Imperium and the Chaos Gods have what amounts to as a zero-tolerance policy. Once you dabble in the darkness, your soul is damned. So all these Chaos Marines must commit to their darkest natures because any attempt to backpedal will see one side or the other crush them ruthlessly. Thus the need to find something - anything! - to motivate themselves or else they might as well just throw themselves out the nearest airlock. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5156314 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paradigm Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 It seems less nuanced, because GW had a bad habit of treating Chaos Space Marines as mustache twirling 1 dimensional baddies for a long time. Recently, and partly due to the Horus Heresy series, the motivations and meat of the legions and warbands have become much more apparent. They’re still a bit limited in immediate depth, but once you scratch the surface and realize what a lot of their fluff means vs what it says, they’re an extremely diverse and interesting faction. The warp as an aspect is pretty philosophically rich as well. You could find yourself fighting on a battlefield against yourself from the past and kill your past self without altering the timeline. Or you could be dead set on avoiding corruption only to wake up one day and realize you’ve been tainted all along, in a warband of monsters who see themselves as saints. Or you could realize the futility of it all and crusade for the sole purpose of enlightening the masses to your darkly interpreted fatalistic nihilism. Chaos is what you make of it, and rarely do the motivations of the warbands have immedIate depth, but thefreedom is what drives it. Marines who follow chaos aren’t the bad guys, they’re something far worse. They’re what happens when the good guys fight too long. When conviction remains, but principle is buried in a pile of bodies both foe and friend. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5156336 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadass Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 It is quite varied to be honest and its definitely not uniform amongst even a single legion. For some it's now a deep seeded bitter hatred of something they couldn't destroy 10,000 years ago, and now do everything they can to strike out at it. Others it is the freedom of carving out their own empire and slaughtering at their whims. Even more just follow the directions of their gods and/or strictly attempt to gain daemonhood. It's kind of a freedom of what your dudes want to do in the galaxy. I would add that IMO Chaos is just like the imperium. The dream goal was shattered, and now all that's left is finding how to move forward within the confines of the futile goal of following that broken dream. Grimdark at its finest. That's pretty much spot-on. The traitor legions are as fractured as the Imperium itself is at times, and it requires the strength and/or charisma of a great leader to unite them for a single goal (Abaddon, Magnus, etc.). Even the Alpha Legion - the one traitor legion that most people would argue is still unified in purpose - is in truth just as divided as the rest. Some of them do in fact believe that they are still fighting for the Emperor, others have truly fallen to chaos, and yet others are little more than raiders between the stars. That particular example becomes quite apparent in Sons of the Hydra by Rob Sanders. Some people say that it's rather uninspired and doesn't add much to the lore, but I'd still recommend the book. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5156339 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 It's really just a civil war that went on for way too long. Long enough that the good guys (imperials) became objectivley bad guys as well (it's 40k after all) and the other party that followed some corrupted/brainwashed leaders lost their original path and faced the only option they had left ... to follow the path they got guided on even further regardless of their actual motivation or cease to exist. What the imperium and the forces of chaos really sets apart aren't their goals but rather their methods. Both are fanatically believing in some godlike being(s) and both have an interest of having humanity rule over the galaxy. Some are just more open to the influence of the primordial forces of the warp and the others blindly follow what they believe a super psychic corpse, who is far from who he used to be as we know since Dark Imperium, wants regardless of whether they're right or not. In the end none of them are completely in the right and I'm pretty sure there are renegade/chaos warbands who would treat people better than the imperium would if they were in their position. Falling to the chaos gods isn't inherently a bad thing. It's only a bad thing because it's the 40k universe and the state of the galaxy reflects in the warp and shifts the chaos gods towards their negative aspects a LOT. In a peaceful galaxy it would be great to be a follower of them and followers would be considered saints lol Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5156343 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doom Herald Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 Every warband or legion had some sort of conflict with the imperium that evolved into an irreconcilable difference. In some cases that issue was provoked or taken advantage of by Chaos, for others Chaos was just there to take them in. Chaos is a tool to some and a religion to others. The gods offer power for service and the Imperium or other gods are generally targets for those serving the gods. Word Bearers are religious zealots to Chaos, in general less concerned with destroying the Imperium than they are with serving chaos, the destruction of the Imperium is only a part of that. World Eaters follow the ideals of Khorne and in truth are just as zealous as Word Bearers, their focus of worship is just slightly different. As I understand it, less zealous legions view Chaos as a tool for revenge against the Emperor. Then you have Renegades, Crimson Slaughter for example are cursed by Chaos but also hate the Imperium for abandoning them and use Chaos, including their curse, as a tool for revenge. Then you even have some who are pirates, seeking only their own material selfish ends. Each warband has it's own motivations. Don't forget, Chaos Space Marines are still human at their cores, even Princes according to some stories, their motivation is different from that of Chaos it's self. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5156686 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daemon Prince Marbas Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 They are extremely varied and just limited by some authors imaginations. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/349949-making-sense-of-chaos-motivations/#findComment-5157361 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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