Emperor’s Pointy Sticks = canon?

[Philip S]

This may seem like an odd question.

 

I'm updating the 1000 chapter project, and while going through the chapters one by one, I notice the Emperor’s Pointy Sticks comic is now hosted on GW's warhammer community website: https://www.warhammer-community.com/tsoalr/

 

The rule for the project is: if it's GW it's canon (and here are my thoughts on GW canon that I am working with)

 

So are the Emperor’s Pointy Sticks now canon - should I change them from DIY to Canon?

 

 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

If that's your rule of thumb, then go for it. I've read enough of ADB's "loose canon" posts that I've about abandoned the idea of canon anyway.

[Leif Bearclaw]

I'd say that they're pretty definitively not canon, regardless of now being supported by GW. The comic is specifically about sentient miniatures, rather than 'real' 40k characters. Especially as the comic has included such madness as one of the characters dating a Daemonette mini, and (in the recent ones) a Death Guard complaining to a Custodes 'adjudicator' about Kren and Frep proxying themselves as Guardsmen in a Kill Team game. I don't how (or even why) you'd even try to work that into even as loose a canon as GW's.

 

Plus, the company seem to agree, calling out the series as non canonical on the Community Home Page for TSOALR.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/tsoalr/

 

 

A note from the Inquisition: The events of Turn Signals on a Land Raider are entirely fictitious – any occurrences or characters that bear any resemblance to actual events or persons anywhere in the Imperium, the warp or beyond the galactic fringe, are purely coincidental.

[Lemondish]

Do it. 

 

Also, I love the idea of an entire chapter of space marines going insane and thinking they're part of a table top wargame. 

[Ioldanach]

I see them as an officially sanctioned DIY chapter. I doubt that they'll ever appear in GW canon (rulebooks, BL fiction, etc.). Based on the Warhammer Community article that Leif Bearclaw linked, I'd keep them as a DIY.

[Philip S]

Thanks everyone so far.

 

Plus, the company seem to agree, calling out the series as non canonical on the Community Home Page for TSOALR.

I really like this, as I didn't think of it that way.

 

I took that disclaimer as a tongue-in-cheek legal disclaimer, where the 'Inquisition' is the editor, and the Imperium our world, but it seems you are suggesting we take it literally as an in-game disclaimer?

 

The would make things more complicated; as the Emperor's Pointy Sticks would be a parody of a chapter found in a comic made within the Imperium, which puts the Emperor's Pointy Sticks in the game setting - but talking about the Emperor's Pointy Sticks as miniatures?

 

As an in-game parody, the chapter the in-game comic writers are lampooning could be (logically and rationally, as a probable) the Emperor's Spears, but they have different colours. Perhaps the Emperor's pointy sticks are a real in-game chapter and the TSOLR is propaganda, mocking this real chapter as toy soldiers?

 

In considering the question of the 'canonical' status of this 'chapter'; I first thought: no. As they are as aside, out of the game world. I was conflicted as they are on GW, but now I'm thinking the Emperor's Pointy Sticks may be in-game, and the comic is propaganda!

 

Further, if the comic is in-game, then mocking a chapter is heresy, and therefore the writers are some form of chaos cult. This is further evidenced by looking at the comic's content, where they seem to downplay the horrors of chaos - almost making chaos 'cute'!

 

Now I am more conflicted. Thanks

 

Brothers, have we been corrupted into accepting chaos propaganda? (Mixing the real-world and in-game where a gamer is both in the real-world and the spirit animating the will of those within the game, if the Player is corrupt then isn't his armies corrupt at the root?)

 

Oh look, a rabbit hole...

[Doghouse]

Other thing to remember is that they are not in universe in the same manner as the likes of the Blood Angels as they are literally just models on a tabletop. If you were to accept them as what people would see as true lore canon then the game itself, Warhammer 40,000, would be canon within that universe as well. ;)

[Philip S]

If you were to accept them as what people would see as true lore canon then the game itself, Warhammer 40,000, would be canon within that universe as well.

Some kind of meta-inception?

 

I could be; the TSOALR comic chronicles a Player's daydreams about their miniatures as being alive and having adventures, rather than actually playing a proper game with them. Which means the Emperor's Point Sticks may also have an implied proper Index Astartes! For when the player plays for real. It would be funny is the writer made up a proper IA and then featured it in the comic with the miniatures arguing about it, as the writer has allude to that in the past...

 

Edit: To complicate matters, Steve Campbell painted up the Emperor’s Pointy Sticks and they appeared on the warhammer community back in 16/08/2019

Edited January 23, 2020 by Philip S

[Gamiel]

 Edit: To complicate matters, Steve Campbell painted up the Emperor’s Pointy Sticks and they appeared on the warhammer community back in 16/08/2019

 

I say that shows them as being a canon Chapter, at least in colours and name if not in the deeds shown in the comic

[CCE1981]

I don’t think that just because they are on Warhammer Community makes them canon. The Cartoon is about anthropomorphized models, not an actual Chapter in the lore.

[Gamiel]

I don’t think that just because they are on Warhammer Community makes them canon. The Cartoon is about anthropomorphized models, not an actual Chapter in the lore.

They appear also in the Successor Showcase: Hawks, Knights and Pointy Sticks! article, as mentioned above. If we consider the Iron Hawks, the Knights of Byzantium and the Iron Knights to be canon should we consider the sticks also to be, even if their adventures in the comics may not be.

[Brother Tyler]

 

I don’t think that just because they are on Warhammer Community makes them canon. The Cartoon is about anthropomorphized models, not an actual Chapter in the lore.

They appear also in the Successor Showcase: Hawks, Knights and Pointy Sticks! article, as mentioned above. If we consider the Iron Hawks, the Knights of Byzantium and the Iron Knights to be canon should we consider the sticks also to be, even if their adventures in the comics may not be.

 

That post was brought up earlier in the discussion here, and CCE1981 was including it in his post that you quoted.

[Gamiel]

 

 

I don’t think that just because they are on Warhammer Community makes them canon. The Cartoon is about anthropomorphized models, not an actual Chapter in the lore.

They appear also in the Successor Showcase: Hawks, Knights and Pointy Sticks! article, as mentioned above. If we consider the Iron Hawks, the Knights of Byzantium and the Iron Knights to be canon should we consider the sticks also to be, even if their adventures in the comics may not be.

That post was brought up earlier in the discussion here, and CCE1981 was including it in his post that you quoted.

Yes, I know. I quoted that link in my post above CCE1981's. Since he only mentioned the Chapter's comic apperance did I presume that he had missed that link and following page, therefore I linked to it again. 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Gamiel

[War Angel]

If the comic is their only source of existence, then I would say they aren’t even a DIY chapter. The reason for this being they exist only as fictional miniatures in a fictional world. They have no story in the actual setting of 40k, only an existence on a table that doesn’t exist.

 

This is of course assuming their created has not created an actual back story for them.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

To my mind, they're clearly not 'canon', because they don't appear in the canon for 40k. There is no 'in universe' mention of them.

[Tyberos the Red Wake]

Is it really "GW" though if the only hand GW had in the content was hosting it on their community website? No GW employees were involved, it was never mentioned or featured in official publications or in rules and lore, etc and the subject itself is very obviously intended to not be canon even by its own creators, just like the human players in Roll Models aren't canon to AoS. Not that I particularly mind, it would make the Retributors from the Astartes project canon.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Tyberos the Red Wake

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I agree, except that Retributors are now Canon.

 

The difference is that the Retributors are shown in an in-universe source, produced/supported/owned by Games Workshop. Whereas the Pointy Sticks are only shown in a fictional version of our present.

[Dracos]

This conversation is almost as amusing as the cartoon .... c a r t o o n :)

[Philip S]

I now feel I should remind everyone about GW Canon, and the fun that is 40K;

https://philipsibbering.com/warhammer/gw-canon/

In light of this, could the Pointy Sticks be both canon and non-canon at the same time - like a cat in a box?

[Gamiel]

In light of this, could the Pointy Sticks be both canon and non-canon at the same time - like a cat in a box?

Schrödinger's Chapter?

[Philip S]

Yep.