How Evil are the Thousand Sons?

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

So how bad morally are the Thousand Sons in comparison to other factions in 40k? I ask because it seems that while they do ritual sacrifices, invade the Imperium of Man, and are scheming bastards they also have a weird dichotomy other traitor legions don't. They still respect the Prosperine Spireguard, normal humans, for defending Prospero something unheard of for traitors to do. They hate it when people discriminate against psykers something unheard of by many factions. They also have loved and shown respect for Xenos the most prominent examples being Iskandar Khayon and Ahzek Ahriman. They cherish knowledge rather than burn it. They have loved and respected Mechanicum adepts and robots before. I'm just very confused.

[Skerr]

They will seek knowledge and power whatever the calculated cost.

 

To me they are very Luciferian. Seeking Illumination and bringing it to others at the expense of those deemed ignorant or too timid to do what must be done.

 

I have not read much novels and only fluff from our rules sources though this is how I see them.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Skerr

[WarriorFish]

Aside from morality being somewhat subjective by nature, they're less outright evil in comparison to others but that's as much due to semantics. The Sons no doubt kill many to further their own nefarious plans - an evil deed, but less so than killing for the sake of it? Arguably it doesn't matter much as is there really a difference..? Certainly at the scales you see in 40k.

 

It's good that the Sons aren't moustache twiddling baddies (by comparison... mostly), but their better treatment of psykers is almost certainly just because they are psykers so it's not a particularly noble attitude for it. I think we can all agree that being nice to xenos is not a good thing ;)

 

Sons are those who sought knowledge; too much and paid the price. This type of scholarly arrogance is quite commonly associated with some level of hypocrisy, but the 40k universe isn't short of this in various stripes :P So as much as a Sorcerer may covet knowledge, he may also desire that nobody else can have it. Many would view others as beneath them for their knowledge (and how many simply view everyone as beneath them? :lol: ). They understand that knowledge is power, as much as some would be after the knowledge how many are really after the power that comes with it?

 

In a Legion like the Sons who have very few people in (as in most are dust) it's better to focus on the individuals I think. There would be many different opinions and attitudes anyway, never mind among so many academic types :P

[Marshal Loss]

Pretty much nobody in 40k has the moral high ground so comparing them to others isn't super useful. They might seem nicer than e.g. the Word Bearers but that distinction presumably means little to the innocents who get in their way. Also be very careful putting characters like Khayon or Ahriman on pedestals - we tend to empathize with them because we read things from their perspective, but they're both mass-murdering lunatics who will do anything to anyone in pursuit of their goals. It is that callous disregard and arrogance that cements their inhumanity.

 

The Thousand Sons like to maintain the moral high ground but really they're just as bad as everybody else. Baddies never view themselves as being the baddies. Them having respect for a bunch of humans & robots means little. Somebody or someone can still be evil and possess positive qualities.

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

Thanks for the responses

[WarriorFish]

Is there anything in particular you're thinking of (e.g. some lore, or a DIY thrallband), or is it just something you were pondering upon? If it's the former there's a lot room for you to work with as to how true to their purported ideals a Thousand Son is

[Xenith]

What do you define as evil?

 

Looking after your henchmen while sacrificing worlds for a spell is pretty evil. They treat Tzaangors like meat.

 

Ahriman has killed or betrayed so many of his brothers "for the greater good" it's getting ridiculous. 

[Lucerne]

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."

 

While they're all over the place, when push comes to shove, they're the Legion of Tzeentch and their actions right before the Wolves came was to delve into human sacrifice. They're damned- in a tragic way- but they still are evil by any objective morality (not that Loyalists are really much better, but it's apples and oranges)

[Kite Senet]

Personally, I don't see the Thousand Sons as particularly more evil than any other faction in Warhammer 40,000. As I see it, they're largely a hyperbolic depiction of a progressive value system: they have their sights set on some ideal vision of the world and will sacrifice anything and anyone, without or even despite personal attachments, to progress towards that ideal, and as they are incapable of recognizing a doomed cause, they would sacrifice the entire world in its imperfect reality before giving up hope on their ideal vision for that same world.

 

Nor are they particularly worse than ideas which could easily be attached to a Death Guard or Nurgle faction (though I know less of how they're depicted in fluff) as a hyperbolic depiction of a conservative value system: recognizing the real problems in the world and girding oneself and others to endure these problems and come to terms with living in a world that is naturally rich in suffering.

 

To be frank, I don't even think the Thousand Sons are a particularly hyperbolic example of a progressive value system. There are so many real-world examples of evil deeds committed both today and in history for the sake of some (often messed-up) ideal of progress that are often quite comparable in magnitude to what the Thousand Sons are willing to do for the sake of elevating humanity to a psychic species (on Magnus's side), or restoring the Legion (on Ahriman's side), that really make the T-Sons's actions seem relatively tame in my opinion.

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

I'm just curious. I didn't know how sympathetic or diabolical they had been written out to be.

[byrd9999]

My Thousand Sons are secret loyalists, looking to fulfill the Emperor's original vision for Magnus and psykers in general.

 

But the Imperium is a corrupt version of what the Emperor had in mind, so that's why they fight and look like the "bad guys".

 

If this were Hogwarts, Thousand Sons would be Ravenclaws.

[Prot]

I think what makes the Thousand Sons' tragedy so interesting is the complexity of it, and the... unwilling participation they had in part of it. 

 

I also think it's oversimplifying it by considering them 'evil'. Is a gun evil? 

 

They simplest way I can make sense of it is to ask: Would any of the 'wrong doings' by the Thousand Sons have happened if the Emperor was straight forward about the Warp with Magnus? About Chaos? About the master plan? 

 

Magnus, like many of the Primarchs were/are just tools for the Emperor. But many (not all) including Magnus, seemed to seek validation through their gene father. And it all goes sideways from there. Let's not forget Horus manipulated many of these events.

 

But to stay away from unending detail and debate, let's for the sake of argument look at the Legion how it exists today. The Thousand Sons collectively are in pure survival mode. The attacks on Fenris are out of hatred, but for the first time perhaps they show the true sense of betrayal the Legion feels against the Imperium, and moreso the Emperor. What else could possibly re-unite a galaxy wide split Legion?

 

The ancient motivations of the overall Legion haven't changed though. It included the evolution of mankind, and what the species is capable of and that little part plays out (horribly I might add) in Psychic Awakening 4. (don't read it if you haven't, it's horrible fiction.) The point is that although they are torn, split on opinion, have differing views on their Primarch's actions..... they will come together for vengeance against a great betrayal, and/or the 'benefit' of mankind. 

 

At this point we could argue Magnus has 'lost it' to some degree. Or that time has jaded the best of them, but I think if you look at the catalyst; the Heresy, then you see good intentions gone terribly wrong. The Nikea Accord might showcase the tipping point best of all.

 

That's just me though... from all the fiction I read that's what I come to.

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

I think the legion embodies "The highway to Hell is paved with the best of intentions." Ahriman and Magnus the Red are just trying to do what they feel is right and, oh boy, are they wrong. But so is the Imperium of Man, the Craftworld Eldar, the Silent King, and the T'au Empire. I think that's what makes the Thousand Sons stand out is their intent to do good versus the other traitor legions with the exception of may be some of the Alpha Legion whom are all consumed by Chaos and selfish desires.

[BrainFireBob]

13. They are 13 evil

[Moonreaper666]

Let's not forget Ahriman and his Progidal Sons are one of the main nemesis of the Ynnari. Ahriman is currently in Commoragh and will definitely kill a lot of Dark Eldar as well as their slaves. There is a good chance that more Warp Distortions and Daemons will affect Commoragh. There is a reason why Psykers are either killed or exiled from Commoragh

 

Currently, the Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons outnumber the Space Wolves/Primaris Wolves/Wolfspear after Fenris. They are going to be involved in the Psychic Awakening which means billions more will die

 

Don't forget what they did during the Solar War. It is a good thing that Garviel Loken isn't a member of the Legion of the Damned, he would hunt the TS and Word Bearers until the end of days

[Kite Senet]

Let's not forget Ahriman and his Progidal Sons are one of the main nemesis of the Ynnari. Ahriman is currently in Commoragh and will definitely kill a lot of Dark Eldar as well as their slaves. There is a good chance that more Warp Distortions and Daemons will affect Commoragh. There is a reason why Psykers are either killed or exiled from Commoragh

 

Currently, the Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons outnumber the Space Wolves/Primaris Wolves/Wolfspear after Fenris. They are going to be involved in the Psychic Awakening which means billions more will die

 

Don't forget what they did during the Solar War. It is a good thing that Garviel Loken isn't a member of the Legion of the Damned, he would hunt the TS and Word Bearers until the end of days

 

 

*ahem* [puts on Exalted Sorcerer helmet]

 

You're not wrong, but "the Thousand Sons will kill a bunch of Dark Eldar" sounds more like a commendation than a condemnation to me. And considering daemons are literally one's sins catching up to them, I think the time's nigh for those sadistic slavers to face karma.

 

I can't speak to anything that seemed particularly bad in the Psychic Awakening fluff for the Thousand Sons? Perhaps I didn't read it closely enough. I definitely haven't read the Solar War book(s?), though; it didn't occur to me that it had any specifically T-Sons related content. I might need to pick that up at some point.

[Prot]

Let's not forget Ahriman and his Progidal Sons are one of the main nemesis of the Ynnari. Ahriman is currently in Commoragh and will definitely kill a lot of Dark Eldar as well as their slaves. There is a good chance that more Warp Distortions and Daemons will affect Commoragh. There is a reason why Psykers are either killed or exiled from Commoragh

 

Currently, the Sorcerers of the Thousand Sons outnumber the Space Wolves/Primaris Wolves/Wolfspear after Fenris. They are going to be involved in the Psychic Awakening which means billions more will die

 

Don't forget what they did during the Solar War. It is a good thing that Garviel Loken isn't a member of the Legion of the Damned, he would hunt the TS and Word Bearers until the end of days

 

Ahriman killing Dark Eldar is possible, but does that make Thousand Sons evil? I think the bigger picture here is that he isn't necessarily a 'nemesis of Ynnari'. He's simply after a way to reverse the Rubricae and Yvraine showed him a piece of that arcane knowledge. 

 

Let's say you accidentally caused your friends to 'disappear' and you saw someone knew how to bring them back.... are you evil for exploring that option? You might go pretty far to see it through. 

 

And to widen our scope to Psychic Awakening, I hate to be the party pooper, but the Thousand Sons are turning out to be little more than a glorified pit stop during this 'campaign'. Magnus was easily halted from committing any real act by a handful of Grey Knights. They simply shot him in the face as he was 'distracted' by chanting magic stuff, and the whole "Thousand Sons" crisis has been averted, thus solving the problem forever. 

 

Frankly I personally wouldn't use anything occurring in Psychic Awakening Ritual of the Damned (which might be the most poorly written fiction in the series to date) to come to any conclusions in 40K. 

[Lucerne]

On the bright side, ritual of the damned was a space marine prisoner delivery service to the TSons.

[Mr Smith]

I think the bigger picture here is that he isn't necessarily a 'nemesis of Ynnari'. He's simply after a way to reverse the Rubricae and Yvraine showed him a piece of that arcane knowledge.  

 

 

I miss when he was doing this for power.  He wanted to access the Black Library to gain their knowledge of Chaos, and the Eldar were terrified of what he would be able to do when he got this.

 

 Whiny new Ahriman is pathetic compared to megalomaniacal old Ahriman.

 

[Prot]

 

I think the bigger picture here is that he isn't necessarily a 'nemesis of Ynnari'. He's simply after a way to reverse the Rubricae and Yvraine showed him a piece of that arcane knowledge.  

 

 

I miss when he was doing this for power.  He wanted to access the Black Library to gain their knowledge of Chaos, and the Eldar were terrified of what he would be able to do when he got this.

 

 Whiny new Ahriman is pathetic compared to megalomaniacal old Ahriman.

 

 

 

You call it "whiney". I call it an evolution of character! For a long time many (of us?) will go after the ultimate self aggrandizing goal. Sometimes you take your head out of the sand and you realize there's more to it.

 

Besides this is just a side story we're talking about here. I don't actually think this side goal of reversing the rubricae is anything new, nor threatening his ultimate goal of being omnioptent. :)

 

Even so.... does any of this make Thousand Sons evil? 

[Skerr]

I guess if you want to get granular...

 

IMO, Evil?. Yes, more evil than Khorne followers? Perhaps not, though still evil.

[Heliomanes]

I find the terminology of good and evil unpleasing, both in the real world and in the 40k universe. It's too simplistic a tool to measure something as complicated as morality and justice.

In basic ethics classes people often distinguish between various broad stroke ways of judging such things. A few of those might add something to this discussion. Take consequence ethics, where we judge the rightness of an action based on the consequences that are produced - and care not for the intentions. With such a framework we could judge Ahriman and Magnus to be terribly immoral, because their failing always is how callous they can be in the pursuit of their goals, lofty as they might be. 

But this goes two ways. Magnus believed he could stop the heresy, for instance. Judging the consequences of the actions available to him, he decided to undertake the ritual on Prospero to warn the Emperor, breaking the edict of Nikea and sacrificing hundreds of mortals to power his warning. But what are those deaths when weighed against the suffering produced by the Heresy and the following slow death of the Imperium? In that instance we can say that Magnus was a good consequence ethicist, and was simply incorrect in his choice due to lack of information rather than any moral failing in the sense implied by the term 'evil'.

Still, we can argue that human sacrifice is evil in itself, that people should not be used as means (were the sacrifices willing? Did they know what they attempted?) or we could argue that he broke with the edict of Nikea, with the plan his Father had for him and his legion, and tons of other arguments based on deontological ethics - ethics that attempt to propose a series of rules that should govern what is a good or bad action rather than rely on the calculation of consequence, in contrast to the family of ethical theory mentioned above.

The Thousand Sons, when written well, tend to play with the trope of the knowledgable and even wise idealist, who is so enamored by his own lofty goals and ideals that he makes terrible blunders when miscalculating if the means will justify the ends. A trope which can quickly bleed into what we often see from authoritarians and revolutionaries from all kinds of backgrounds - they are guided by the light of an utopia to come, which places them under a terrible burden. It functions as a 'big other', to borrow a term from Zizek. It is like having the one true God watching over your shoulder. What difficult decision would you not make to create that paradise? The world has weathered uncountable hardships so far - if you honestly believed you could alleviate that suffering by a substantial margin, by just being brave enough to commit one or two more tiny atrocities, would you not do it? History will judge you for every action you did not take towards the good of all.

I see a lot of the Emperor too, in this kind of image. I guess the 40k setting is a kind of elaborate ethical experiment, in a sense. How far would we be willing to bend our ideals, if the world was made more hostile? Burning books makes sense in a world with murderous books. Even the way they treat psykers seems understandable, given how incredibly dangerous they are, and how vital a resource they are for keeping the Imperium together. The species would almost certainly go extinct without navigators, astropaths and so on, for instance. Being left with no FTL travel and no way to communicate long distances while the Tyranids move in, the Gods of the Immaterium stir, and a thousand alien races and secessionists see their chance. So a hostile world will exert selection pressure to a greater extent, forcing us to make more drastic actions palatable in the service of survival, I guess. Makes you feel more humble when judging people from other times or places that aren't as disgustingly comfortable as I know I am, dozing off in my couch while debating the ethics of my favourite plastic space wizard miniatures on the internet.

[Skerr]

That was very well put sir. And the truth is... it is a bit complicated, lol. Whose to say who holds the moral high ground?

 

OPs original question was how evil are son's in comparison to others.

 

It seems safe to establish that if good does exist in 40k we see no real example of it in playable rules. So what we have are various shades of gray to black on a half ass "morality" scale and where do 1k sons (and others for compairson and benchmarking sake) land on that scale.

 

I have to take the warp, how it works, what it creates, how that manifests, where it starts into account. The lore tells us Chaos "Gods" are reflections of behavioral choices of the galaxies denizens. Murder, Trickery, Filth, Excess, among others manifests in the warp becoming sentient with like minded hordes of manifest "sin" waiting to wreck havoc in real space. While outside the warp these beings gain influence within the legions creating traitors, cults and other forces that throw humanity's then current trajectory into a tailspin and eventual regression creating what it is now.

 

To me the narrative is clear that while the Imperium may not be "good" per say, Chaos is presented as a more "evil" foil and threat than the current messed up establishment simply because the Imperium stared into the abyss and it stared back.

 

So on a scale of 1 to 10 with a 1 being the least evil and 10 the most... I give 1k Sons a solid 7!

 

I am not an complete expert on these matters but on the same scale I give Night Lords a 10 and Blood Angels a 4 maybe a 5?

 

Hey, this has turned into a great thread and I've really enjoyed reading what everyone has had to say.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Skerr

[Mr Smith]

 

You call it "whiney". I call it an evolution of character! For a long time many (of us?) will go after the ultimate self aggrandizing goal. Sometimes you take your head out of the sand and you realize there's more to it.

 

Besides this is just a side story we're talking about here. I don't actually think this side goal of reversing the rubricae is anything new, nor threatening his ultimate goal of being omnioptent.

 

Even so.... does any of this make Thousand Sons evil? 

 

 

Character evolution isn't necessarily a positive if it doesn't make them more interesting.  This new angst-ridden version of the character is just not as fun to read about compared to how he was portrayed in books like Atlas Infernal.

 

Though this is just my opinion, I don't like when villains are made sympathetic for the sake of making them the protagonist.  I don't want my villains to be sympathetic; that's what heroes are for.  If I'm going to read about villains, I want them to be villainous, and unashamedly so.  Making them sympathetic more often than not just comes across as bad writing.

 

An example I like to use here is comparing the Night Lords Series to the Word Bearers series.  The Night Lords are supposed to be the cruelest and most murderous of all the legions; psychopaths the the core.  But in the books (the first two at least,) they're just so damn nice to eachother.  They're even nice to their slaves, offering personal protection in some cases.  True, they do explain this away by saying that some slaves are particularly valuable and they can't spare resources, but it just seems to grate against what Night Lords are supposed to be.  It isn't until the the third book in the series that they really start to act like Night Lords; this book also happens to be the best of the three.

 

The Word Bearers, on the other hand, are never portrayed as being sympathetic or likeable.  They are unreservedly evil from start to finish, and more interesting to read about as a result.  That's not to say that they become two-dimentional; they have clear motivations and goals, and obstacles to overcome.  Their character is clear and consistent, and generally more fun to read about.

 

So Ahriman's motivations may have evolved, but I don't feel like it's made his character more interesting.

[Kite Senet]

And I'll have to disagree entirely. I found the Word Bearers books an unbearable slog precisely because they behaved like stupid, mustache-twirling villains for the entire length of the book. They're portrayed as dumb edgelord teenagers kicking bags of puppies in a desperate plea for attention from daddy rather than characters with any meaningful objectives or purpose of their own.