Is 40k Grimdark, Noblebright or have we just grown-up

[Dagoth Ur]

Aye but what's the alternative? Having an omniscient narrator who goes "And Battle Brother Augustus committed the horrid atrocity of bombing the everlowing bejesus out of Praxima II, before sergeant Marianus reacted with utter indignation and outrage over the moral implications of his captain's deeds." that seems kinda drab to me (Joking here obviously ;) ). Besides, I am just not buying the whole getting safer and more marketable angle - people have been crowing that for years and yet the Fehervari books are a thing, GSC are insanely popular and the Bile trilogy has been a resounding success judging by what I can see.

[Lucerne]

Aye but what's the alternative? Having an omniscient narrator who goes "And Battle Brother Augustus committed the horrid atrocity of bombing the everlowing bejesus out of Praxima II, before sergeant Marianus reacted with utter indignation and outrage over the moral implications of his captain's deeds." that seems kinda drab to me (Joking here obviously ). Besides, I am just not buying the whole getting safer and more marketable angle - people have been crowing that for years and yet the Fehervari books are a thing, GSC are insanely popular and the Bile trilogy has been a resounding success judging by what I can see.

 

I mean, I'd be okay with Sergeant Marianus doing a runner for "turning on his brothers" after having his conscience flare up, be nice to read about him a bit more from the angle of "Marianus does a runner: a renegade space marine story"...or at the least a bit more clinical detachment by the narration from the jokers that keep yelling about how nice the Emperor is.

 

Bile and GSC aren't the problem, it's the two headed pigeon in the room that pretty much is the marketing face of the hobby.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Lucerne

[Marshal Loss]

 

I love the old 3rd edition style OTT horrific grimdark; the Imperium is doomed, virtually everybody is awful, etc, etc. That's just my preference. These days I tend to ignore the metaplot in favour of the authors & books that present 40k the way I like it as a lot of the newer stuff, e.g. Guilliman's return, Cawl, etc, doesn't gel at all with how I view the setting. Others have different views and that's fine.

See, the OTT horrific grimdark honestly only appeals to a specific group of people, and that's the ones who started during it.

Nah, that is a gross oversimplification. It would be more accurate to say that people that were exposed to 3rd/4th edition, whether or not they started in it, were more likely to be fond of it. The simple reality is that people who started in 7th/8th/9th haven't been exposed to the same kind of setting even if many of the same themes still exist (which they certainly do). Whether or not it would be as successful or popular as the current stylization is something about which we can only speculate.

[Bryan Blaire]

I mean, I'd be okay with Sergeant Marianus doing a runner for "turning on his brothers" after having his conscience flare up, be nice to read about him...or at the least a bit more clinical detachment by the narration from the jokers that keep yelling about how nice the Emperor is. :P

I mean, you might want to read about it, but practically ANY Imperial source, especially an Imperial Space Marine, doing that would represent a pretty serious failure by the author, unless turning to Chaos or going to a Xenos empire was the point of the story. The horror of the completeness of programming in the Imperium, because 10K years in none of the "normals" and Marines even know that there could be something different, is supposed to be there.

[Lucerne]

 

I mean, I'd be okay with Sergeant Marianus doing a runner for "turning on his brothers" after having his conscience flare up, be nice to read about him...or at the least a bit more clinical detachment by the narration from the jokers that keep yelling about how nice the Emperor is.

I mean, you might want to read about it, but practically ANY Imperial source, especially an Imperial Space Marine, doing that would represent a pretty serious failure by the author, unless turning to Chaos or going to a Xenos empire was the point of the story. The horror of the completeness of programming in the Imperium, because 10K years in none of the "normals" and Marines even know that there could be something different, is supposed to be there.

 

Bwa? We know from high-end canon sources that Imperial conditioning fails all the time. We have plenty of renegade warbands that decide to act on their own initiative, they're just not in focus. (Hi Soul Drinkers, hi "damned company of Lord Caustos, hi avenging sons that eventually just get so sick of mismanagement they shoot the chaplain in the face)

 

Hell, Constantius the "Liberator" did a take on this, if one that wasn't quite as interesting narratively!

 

The 4e codex explicitly says Marines aren't ignorant of alternatives, they're just not supposed to consider it and the chaplains won't shut up about how it's a bad thing. And the huge number of renegades suggests that plenty of people, even in the Imperium, are more than capable of considering various alternatives.

 

There's no particular reason every renegade has to go full Chaos and even the Chaos codexes admit there are renegades that don't get around to that.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Lucerne

[Azekai]

The idea of a criticizing the morality of the people in the 40k universe and wishing they had ‘conscience flare ups’ seems laughable to me.

 

 

It’s like you are incapable of putting yourself in their shoes. Indeed, the very idea of a ‘just’ war or limited war, where civilians are spared, is an exceedingly modern notion. I would argue that butchery and totalitarian murder are the norm. Ancient Rome, Assyria, the Khanate of the Huns- extrapolate these earthly governments across space and it is not hard to imagine an Imperium that exhibits all their worst excesses and more.

 

And if you were a scion of Rome or a death-world warrior drawn into the Imperial Guard, you would likely see your conquering as heroic, and the destruction of traitors and weaklings as necessary. Having an omniscient narrator scold the characters (or reader!) for things that are clearly at odds with the values of our current real-world is not helpful.

[Bryan Blaire]

 

 

I mean, I'd be okay with Sergeant Marianus doing a runner for "turning on his brothers" after having his conscience flare up, be nice to read about him...or at the least a bit more clinical detachment by the narration from the jokers that keep yelling about how nice the Emperor is. :P

 

I mean, you might want to read about it, but practically ANY Imperial source, especially an Imperial Space Marine, doing that would represent a pretty serious failure by the author, unless turning to Chaos or going to a Xenos empire was the point of the story. The horror of the completeness of programming in the Imperium, because 10K years in none of the "normals" and Marines even know that there could be something different, is supposed to be there.

Bwa? We know from high-end canon sources that Imperial conditioning fails all the time. We have plenty of renegade warbands that decide to act on their own initiative, they're just not in focus. (Hi Soul Drinkers, hi "damned company of Lord Caustos, hi avenging sons that eventually just get so sick of mismanagement they shoot the chaplain in the face)

 

Hell, Constantius the "Liberator" did a take on this, if one that wasn't quite as interesting narratively!

 

The 4e codex explicitly says Marines aren't ignorant of alternatives, they're just not supposed to consider it and the chaplains won't shut up about how it's a bad thing. And the huge number of renegades suggests that plenty of people, even in the Imperium, are more than capable of considering various alternatives.

 

There's no particular reason every renegade has to go full Chaos and even the Chaos codexes admit there are renegades that don't get around to that.

And those are the point of those stories.

 

You don't have random Marine 452 in a Chapter "wonder if there was a better way." Having a random insert like that would be an issue in the writing, yes.

[Lucerne]

The idea of a criticizing the morality of the people in the 40k universe and wishing they had ‘conscience flare ups’ seems laughable to me.

 

 

It’s like you are incapable of putting yourself in their shoes. Indeed, the very idea of a ‘just’ war or limited war, where civilians are spared, is an exceedingly modern notion. I would argue that butchery and totalitarian murder are the norm. Ancient Rome, Assyria, the Khanate of the Huns- extrapolate these earthly governments across space and it is not hard to imagine an Imperium that exhibits all their worst excesses and more.

 

And if you were a scion of Rome or a death-world warrior drawn into the Imperial Guard, you would likely see your conquering as heroic, and the destruction of traitors and weaklings as necessary. Having an omniscient narrator scold the characters (or reader!) for things that are clearly at odds with the values of our current real-world is not helpful.

The point isn't that the Imperium is brainwashed with an alien viewpoint. The point is that you wouldn't expect a story about Aztecs to end up as having shades of "well clearly mutilation and religious sacrifice isn't such a dealbreaker, aren't these people pleasant" in the out of setting narrative and in ten thousand years it's fundamentally ridiculous in a setting where there IS explicitly a lot of rebellion and dissent that doesn't fit into a neat "spikey power armour" package that there can't be viewpoint characters about said rebellion and dissent that explicitly exists in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

I mean, I'd be okay with Sergeant Marianus doing a runner for "turning on his brothers" after having his conscience flare up, be nice to read about him...or at the least a bit more clinical detachment by the narration from the jokers that keep yelling about how nice the Emperor is.

I mean, you might want to read about it, but practically ANY Imperial source, especially an Imperial Space Marine, doing that would represent a pretty serious failure by the author, unless turning to Chaos or going to a Xenos empire was the point of the story. The horror of the completeness of programming in the Imperium, because 10K years in none of the "normals" and Marines even know that there could be something different, is supposed to be there.

Bwa? We know from high-end canon sources that Imperial conditioning fails all the time. We have plenty of renegade warbands that decide to act on their own initiative, they're just not in focus. (Hi Soul Drinkers, hi "damned company of Lord Caustos, hi avenging sons that eventually just get so sick of mismanagement they shoot the chaplain in the face)

 

Hell, Constantius the "Liberator" did a take on this, if one that wasn't quite as interesting narratively!

 

The 4e codex explicitly says Marines aren't ignorant of alternatives, they're just not supposed to consider it and the chaplains won't shut up about how it's a bad thing. And the huge number of renegades suggests that plenty of people, even in the Imperium, are more than capable of considering various alternatives.

 

There's no particular reason every renegade has to go full Chaos and even the Chaos codexes admit there are renegades that don't get around to that.

And those are the point of those stories.

 

You don't have random Marine 452 in a Chapter "wonder if there was a better way." Having a random insert like that would be an issue in the writing, yes.

 

Your logic doesn't follow at all. The existence of stories about flare ups means THERE CAN'T BE STORIES ABOUT RANDOM MARINE 452, or that it can't be a plot point despite by your own concession it being entirely consistent with the setting. Right.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Lucerne

[MegaVolt87]

I think what gets me is the sudden hurdle of technology being suddenly overcome for the Imperium. In battletech, they were in a similar point of technological stagnation and regression, new inventions difficult, easier to make lower spec versions of existing weapons and technology etc. Then the Helm Memory core event which re-vitalized the technology base by restoring PRE-EXISTING not new weaponry and technology. Then the clans came, then there were new developments past the restored star league era tech for the inner sphere. I feel like Cawl has skipped past the restoration and just instant leveled up to new inventions and ground breaking technologies. Pre Cawl 40k ad mech were about maintenance and recovery not invention, restoration of GC/ HH era tech would make more sense first before Cawl does his thing. 

[Azekai]

The Imperium is exceedingly evil. They encapsulate the old warning- he who wrestles with monsters should take care. The Imperium has sacrificed so much that it is quite nearly as monstrous as the literal daemons it strives against. That is part of the tragedy of the setting. They didn’t even compromise and win, they compromised their minds and souls so the Imperium could die a slow agonizing death spanning millennia.

 

Guilleman all but comes out and says this in the text quoted above. If you don’t like that, ok, but that Faustian bargain is at the heart of the grimness of 40k. The galaxy is dying amid a great and terrible war, and there is no moral high ground.

[Lucerne]

The Imperium is exceedingly evil. They encapsulate the old warning- he who wrestles with monsters should take care. The Imperium has sacrificed so much that it is quite nearly as monstrous as the literal daemons it strives against. That is part of the tragedy of the setting. They didn’t even compromise and win, they compromised their minds and souls so the Imperium could die a slow agonizing death spanning millennia.

 

Guilleman all but comes out and says this in the text quoted above. If you don’t like that, ok, but that Faustian bargain is at the heart of the grimness of 40k. The galaxy is dying amid a great and terrible war, and there is no moral high ground.

 

You've restated the basic point that the ongoing push towards sanitizing the "good Imperials" in lore is bulldozing. Guilliman is a monster and that needs to be made more explicit rather than tucked away in obscure subtext, or worse- overwritten outright.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Lucerne

[Bryan Blaire]

Your logic doesn't follow at all. The existence of stories about flare ups means THERE CAN'T BE STORIES ABOUT RANDOM MARINE 452, or that it can't be a plot point despite by your own concession it being entirely consistent with the setting. Right.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

What do you not get about "you aren't going to get a story where Random Marine 452 speaks up about the horrors of what's they are doing" or even wonders about it? If an author is going to have that occurrence, it's going to be a major plot in the story - it's not going to be some throwaway side element just to have a comment about the horrible nature of the Imperium - because when it happens, it's a big damn deal. It's not the norm, you aren't just going to get that somewhere in the middle of a book.

 

Random Marine 452 doing a side comment about how they are all dicks and need to shoot themselves in the brainpan in the middle of some other story would be a writing issue on the part of the author. An author writing a book or even series specifically about Brother Ben, who at the very beginning of the story, goes renegade for the purging of a planet lamenting "there's got to be a better way" and going on to slaughter thousands for Khorne (or just to help free some world that doesn't want to be part of the Imperium), or skinning thousands in conjunction with the Night Lords and inadvertently feeding Khorne and Slaanesh, or even leading the conquering of world's under the Tau (if he's not killed outright for being a Marine) - any of those could be a thing, but if he author just has them fade away into some agri-world, that's going to be a pretty damn boring book.

 

It's not that hard to follow.

 

I mean Guilliman's comments on the Imperium are probably the closest you're going to get to specifically having some kind of side comment on the horribleness of the Imperium (granted, in comparison to the "original vision of the Imperium", which was also horrible and equally fed Chaos) - Guilliman might just have done what you were asking for, and being it was him, it was a pretty big point to be made.

[Guest Triszin]

We are on a journey, and this road, has ups and downs.

 

40k is slowly transitioning to an age, that is multitudes worse than ever known in the imperiums history.

 

The Necrons are waking.

 

The shattered Gods of reality are breaking free of their shackles.

 

The Orks Are evolving, into Beasts, their Gestalt Old one intelligence is awakening.

 

The Eldar are forming a New god.

 

The Tau are entering their golden age.

 

The more advanced forms of Tyranids are approaching, some entering the sol system.

 

Humans are evolving, causing warp breaches everywhere.

 

Chaos gods have ripped the galaxy apart, strengthening themselves in reality.

 

The Traitor Deamon Primarchs are loosed in the materium.

 

 

There is no one force strong enough to start to curb any one force in this age.

 

Therefore it is war and advancement that hasn't been seen.

 

The Imperium is being lead by the lone son of a awakening god.

 

The imperium, humanities best hope is just to survive.

[Lucerne]

 

Your logic doesn't follow at all. The existence of stories about flare ups means THERE CAN'T BE STORIES ABOUT RANDOM MARINE 452, or that it can't be a plot point despite by your own concession it being entirely consistent with the setting. Right.

 

What do you not get about "you aren't going to get a story where Random Marine 452 speaks up about the horrors of what's they are doing" or even wonders about it? If an author is going to have that occurrence, it's going to be a major plot in the story - it's not going to be some throwaway side element just to have a comment about the horrible nature of the Imperium - because when it happens, it's a big damn deal. It's not the norm, you aren't just going to get that somewhere in the middle of a book.

 

Random Marine 452 doing a side comment about how they are all dicks and need to shoot themselves in the brainpan in the middle of some other story would be a writing issue on the part of the author. An author writing a book or even series specifically about Brother Ben, who at the very beginning of the story, goes renegade for the purging of a planet lamenting "there's got to be a better way" and going on to slaughter thousands for Khorne (or just to help free some world that doesn't want to be part of the Imperium), or skinning thousands in conjunction with the Night Lords and inadvertently feeding Khorne and Slaanesh, or even leading the conquering of world's under the Tau (if he's not killed outright for being a Marine) - any of those could be a thing, but if he author just has them fade away into some agri-world, that's going to be a pretty damn boring book.

 

It's not that hard to follow.

 

I mean Guilliman's comments on the Imperium are probably the closest you're going to get to specifically having some kind of side comment on the horribleness of the Imperium (granted, in comparison to the "original vision of the Imperium", which was also horrible and equally fed Chaos) - Guilliman might just have done what you were asking for, and being it was him, it was a pretty big point to be made.

 

So in other words in your idea of 40k, which kinda ignores the body of lore about renegade marines and blackshields , it somehow must be a major plot point for Marines to turn their back on Imperial ideals...despite this happening from time to time routinely being a literal footnote in canon lore.

 

Marines going renegade or having thoughts that go against hypnoconditioning isn't exactly impossible, and it feels like a bizarre double standard for such stories to BE IMPOSSIBLE UNLESS YOU WRITE THE ENTIRE NOVEL ABOUT IT for...reasons, I suppose? The point isn't that 40k stories are often cookiecutter paint by numbers fOr tHe eMpErOr but that there isn't actually sufficient in-universe reason for such monotony even accounting for cultural biases and hypnoindoctrination- hell, it's a significant plot point that renegades are popping up more and more including from big name chapters!

 

As for marines "fading away into agri-worlds", I can think of at least two short stories that had more or less exactly that scenario! Just file off the "still loyalist" part and the story premise still works just fine. You don't actually need to wear an eagle and gilded shoulderpad trim to have stories about you in the dark millenium.

 

Anyway Guilliman's whinging is a problem rather than addressing "hey the Imperium and Guiliman are pretty awful actually"- because it comes over as whitewashing his own ongoing crimes and narrative apologism.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Lucerne

[chapter master 454]

We are on a journey, and this road, has ups and downs.

 

40k is slowly transitioning to an age, that is multitudes worse than ever known in the imperiums history.

 

The Necrons are waking.

 

The shattered Gods of reality are breaking free of their shackles.

 

The Orks Are evolving, into Beasts, their Gestalt Old one intelligence is awakening.

 

The Eldar are forming a New god.

 

The Tau are entering their golden age.

 

The more advanced forms of Tyranids are approaching, some entering the sol system.

 

Humans are evolving, causing warp breaches everywhere.

 

Chaos gods have ripped the galaxy apart, strengthening themselves in reality.

 

The Traitor Deamon Primarchs are loosed in the materium.

 

 

There is no one force strong enough to start to curb any one force in this age.

 

Therefore it is war and advancement that hasn't been seen.

 

The Imperium is being lead by the lone son of a awakening god.

 

The imperium, humanities best hope is just to survive.

 

There is only one outcome, war never ending.

 

Melodrama aside this does point to what I like. 40k has finally stopped screwing around with "they were once ancient and powerful", less bragging and now races are starting to show what their worth really is! Eldar showing that their capacity to emotion and ties to the warp are that strong they can create gods, this time on purpose. Orks finally being worth a good fight. Necrons had their 5 minutes extra. Tyranids ready for the main course.

 

We're past scuffles and shuffles.

 

But I agree with a statement earlier by megavolt87, Cawl can go in a dumpster. Marine bolters should of been the "rifle" stat-line to begin with. No, Cawl came in and went mary sue "I can not only fix it but I can make 3x stronger, not just 2x". Bah, he's a different topic all together I would like to do but I like to keep things level and on track. Suffice to say, Cawl can go Suck a big fat USB drive for all I care!

[Bryan Blaire]

Honestly Lucerne, I think you need to go back and refresh your lore on Blackshields - they aren't doing anything that would be considered turning their back on the Imperium.

 

Yes, in my view of 40K writing, a random Marine showing that much change vs. their hypnoindoctrination without it being a good sized story point in a novel that helps drive part of the plot would be so jarring as to take me out of the narrative and make me look on it as poor writing - a Mary Sue style self-insert by the author making a comment as it were. A random civilian doing the same would strike me as such as well. If they are going to show that, it would be a larger plot line in a novel (I'm not talking about Codexes or anything, as you seem to keep referring to foot notes, I've never been talking about game books).

 

If you don't share this view, cool - there's no need for further response - the view of "Chaos is better even with the butchery" you established for yourself was very evident early on. I share your distaste for Guilliman, but don't think he is an indicator of 40K getting any more noble (much to the contrary IMO), but doesn't sound like we are going to agree on much else.

[MegaVolt87]

Modern blackshields just fold themselves into the deathwatch though? I don't recall SM forces that would be like the HH blackshields in modern 40k. 

[Marshal Reinhard]

What is Grimdark but a buzzword used differently by different people? I'd ask the same about Noblebright, but I can take the latter term even less seriously.

 

As someone whose first exposure to 40k was 2nd edition, I've always felt the drive or need to make or keep the setting GRIMDARK as the tryharding of teenagers (or well people younger than myself, I suppose). But it seems what qualifies as "grimdark" or not is remarkably malleable. Apparently 8th edition 180'd on the Grimdark thing. Apparently we've course corrected a little now because the space marine models in Indomitus have pieces of cloth on them. Yes, I'll admit I'm being rather uncharitable here, but it still comes off like something akin to this to me on the whole.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Reinhard

[Commander Dawnstar]

For everyone else, it suffers from a thing called "Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy". For any writer the WORST thing you can have for your story is the reader or fan to say the Eight Deadly Words:

 

"I don't care about any of these people"

 

If the world is too dark and the characters unlikable, the audience won't care what happens next. Once those six words are said, you've lost the audience's care for the setting. 3rd Edition's OTT horrific Grimdark is a brilliant example of that.

 

I think there's a certain irony in that I started playing in 3rd and yet 8th Edition actually succeeded at hitting me with darkness/big event-induced apathy.

 

A summary of the T'au narrative in 8th:

• The Empire faces an existential crisis after the fire wave from Damocles: Mont'ka ends the Third Sphere of Expansion.
• The Fourth Sphere fleet is seemingly destroyed after its warp drives go horribly wrong.
• It turns out the Fourth Sphere survived but became violently xenophobic.
• Shadowsun leads the Fifth Sphere to back up the Fourth. They discipline their peers and make some modest progress.
• The Death Guard walk all over the combined T'au fleets. Were it not for plot convenience they would have directly invaded the Empire.
• Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good essentially amounts to "The war with the Imperium is ongoing. Shadowsun is sad over the massive loss of life for minimal gain."

For me the T'au angle on 8th has just been this trauma-conga that's been treated like something of an afterthought. We've seen them fall foul of fate, hold the idiot ball or just get clocked in the jaw over and over again, with their last appearance in the narrative being in a book that seemed to be pushing the angle that they simply cannot answer the very real power of the Imperium's faith in this new era. I may dislike some of the plot points being thrown out (or the fact that they were delivered through a Dark Angels book), but even as someone who doesn't much care for grimdarkening the T'au I'll still admit that there's interesting stories to be told here ... and yet they're not being told. Nothing that happened to the faction was of any real consequence within the space of this particular edition of the game, and there's no real sense that GW wants to take things beyond "bad things are happening because this is an era of bad things happening."

 

I think 8th in general has suffered from a bit of an appearance and reality problem. Things are undeniably awful on the narrative front and yet Primaris over-saturation has created the impression that the Imperium isn't actually in a bad way, not helped by a string of big events that (on a surface level reading) show the Imperium either coming out on top or getting good hits in before the status quo is re-established. Cadia may have fallen and the Great Rift split the galaxy but it just doesn't feel like things are meaningfully worse or that the Imperium is being forced back by the greater strain. There's something of a disconnect for those who already weren't especially engaged which is making it all the harder to buy into the story being told by 8th edition even if that story is explicitly being told through the text.

 

I've come into 9th in really quite a low point because it doesn't feel like I have much reason to care. I like Necrons and it it's certainly cool to see the arrival of the Silent King and a representation of the Void Dragon on the tabletop, but why should I actually take him any more seriously as a threat than then dozens of other big threats, and why should I expect this new line in the narrative to go anywhere meaningful after we saw 8th throw on the brakes time and again?

Edited July 13, 2020 by Commander Dawnstar

[Panzer]

 

For everyone else, it suffers from a thing called "Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy". For any writer the WORST thing you can have for your story is the reader or fan to say the Eight Deadly Words:

 

"I don't care about any of these people"

 

If the world is too dark and the characters unlikable, the audience won't care what happens next. Once those six words are said, you've lost the audience's care for the setting. 3rd Edition's OTT horrific Grimdark is a brilliant example of that.

 

I think there's a certain irony in that I started playing in 3rd and yet 8th Edition actually succeeded at hitting me with darkness/big event-induced apathy.

 

A summary of the T'au narrative in 8th:

• The Empire faces an existential crisis after the fire wave from Damocles: Mont'ka ends the Third Sphere of Expansion.
• The Fourth Sphere fleet is seemingly destroyed after its warp drives go horribly wrong.
• It turns out the Fourth Sphere survived but became violently xenophobic.
• Shadowsun leads the Fifth Sphere to back up the Fourth. They discipline their peers and make some modest progress.
• The Death Guard walk all over the combined T'au fleets. Were it not for plot convenience they would have directly invaded the Empire.
• Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good essentially amounts to "The war with the Imperium is ongoing. Shadowsun is sad over the massive loss of life for minimal gain."

For me the T'au angle on 8th has just been this trauma-conga that's been treated like something of an afterthought. We've seen them fall foul of fate, hold the idiot ball or just get clocked in the jaw over and over again, with their last appearance in the narrative being in a book that seemed to be pushing the angle that they simply cannot answer the very real power of the Imperium's faith in this new era. I may dislike some of the plot points being thrown out (or the fact that they were delivered through a Dark Angels book), but even as someone who doesn't much care for grimdarkening the T'au I'll still admit that there's interesting stories to be told here ... and yet they're not being told. Nothing that happened to the faction was of any real consequence within the space of this particular edition of the game, and there's no real sense that GW wants to take things beyond "bad things are happening because this is an era of bad things happening."

 

I think 8th in general has suffered from a bit of an appearance and reality problem. Things are undeniably awful on the narrative front and yet Primaris over-saturation has created the impression that the Imperium isn't actually in a bad way, not helped by a string of big events that (on a surface level reading) show the Imperium either coming out on top or getting good hits in before the status quo is re-established. Cadia may have fallen and the Great Rift split the galaxy but it just doesn't feel like things are meaningfully worse or that the Imperium is being forced back by the greater strain. There's something of a disconnect for those who already weren't especially engaged which is making it all the harder to buy into the story being told by 8th edition even if that story is explicitly being told through the text.

 

I've come into 9th in really quite a low point because it doesn't feel like I have much reason to care. I like Necrons and it it's certainly cool to see the arrival of the Silent King and a representation of the Void Dragon on the tabletop, but why should I actually take him any more seriously as a threat than then dozens of other big threats, and why should I expect this new line in the narrative to go anywhere meaningful after we saw 8th throw on the brakes time and again?

 

 

Don't forget to mention that there apparently is now a greater good warp entity created by the psychic imprint of humans and other xenos auxiliaries combined with the ideology of the T'au's greater good. (I still think it's somewhat dumb since neither did that believe exist for very long nor can they be THAT many compared to the Imperium of Man...). :sweat:

 

Also the T'au expansion on the other side of the Startide Nexus getting pushed back by the Blood Angels and Flesh Tearers.

[War Angel]

Tau have a god? We need to cleanse these fish from the setting and soon.

[MegaVolt87]

I think the indomitus crusade era needs a vast and detailed explanation on how it actually pulled the Imperium from the brink, to the present where it seems like its business as usual for the Imperium all things considered. That point in time was what, 100 years ? The fact its only now being addressed for 9th was a major failing of the 8th ed lore timeline which was rushed too far along to make much sense or reference point to a seemingly return to what looks like another stalemate in the current timeline. 

[MegaVolt87]

Tau have a god? We need to cleanse these fish from the setting and soon.

 

Farsight enclave/ empire has rejected the greater good and ethereals/ is also secular, we should back those guys up in a Tau civil war. 

[Panzer]

Tau have a god? We need to cleanse these fish from the setting and soon.

 

Don't worry, the T'au themselves are very disturbed by it. They aren't that great on warp stuff after all.

 

Tau have a god? We need to cleanse these fish from the setting and soon.

 

Farsight enclave/ empire has rejected the greater good and ethereals/ is also secular, we should back those guys up in a Tau civil war. 

 

 

The Farsight Enclaves have never rejected the Greater Good. Just serving under the Ethereals. Like traitor Marines have never rejected the idea of human supremacy, just serving under the Emperor/Imperium of Man.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Panzer

[Panzer]

I think the indomitus crusade era needs a vast and detailed explanation on how it actually pulled the Imperium from the brink, to the present where it seems like its business as usual for the Imperium all things considered. That point in time was what, 100 years ? The fact its only now being addressed for 9th was a major failing of the 8th ed lore timeline which was rushed too far along to make much sense or reference point to a seemingly return to what looks like another stalemate in the current timeline. 

 

They aren't pulled from the brink though. The Imperium of Man has been on the brink for a very long time now and the whole Indomitus stuff only served to keep them not crumbling under the pressure of the new and bigger threats. Being on the brink IS business as usual for the Imperium. :sweat: