The Scouring (Series)

[Marshal Rohr]

The Iron Cage was Sebastus IV, not Olympia. I’ll be interested to see where they take that. I found Ashes to actually be quite interesting and compelling, not at all the slog later HH books became. 

[Felix Antipodes]

I think now is a good time to reprint the Scouring timeline given in the Warhammer Community article so we have some idea where BL plans to take the series:

 

Mid 014.M31 
The Siege of Terra concludes and the Traitor retreat begins. 

 

Late 014.M31 
The Battle of Luna 

 

Early to mid 015.M31 
The Liberation of Mars 

 

Late 015.M31 
The last of the Traitor forces are purged from the Solar System and its immediate vicinity, including Mars. 

 

Early 016.M31 
After securing Sol and reorganising the weary remnants of the loyalist Legions, a bitter and vengeful Rogal Dorn declares they must “scour” the traitors from the face of the galaxy, in what many come to see as a dismal echo of the Great Crusade. 

 

Early-mid 016.M31 
The Battle of Avellorn 

 

Mid 016.M31 
The Battle of Gamma-Horgan 
Traitors fleeing Terra take Gamma-Horgan with help from turncoat local forces, before pursuing Terran forces, reinforced by others from Kado and Aquitaine, drive them off towards Vanaheim.

 

Early 017.M31 
The Underworld War finally ends, and the conflict on Calth is declared to be over. 
The Scouring of Molech 

 

Mid 017.M31 
The Battle of Seraphina 
The Ariggata Culling 

 

Late 017.M31 
The Second Battle of Vanaheim 
Scattered Traitors muster around Vanaheim and attempt to re-take the world, but are defeated and driven towards Yarant. 

 

Mid 018.M31 
Operation Carthage – The Scouring of Isstvan V 

 

Early 019.M31 
The Doom of Valhalla 

 

Mid 019.M31 
The Iron Cage 
Perturabo ascends to Daemonhood before returning to Olympia to establish his 'Iron Empire'. 
The two years-long Siege of Olympia begins. 

 

Late 019.M31 
The Third Battle of Paramar

 

We can add to these dates the Second Founding (seven years after the end of the Heresy - approx 021.M31) which I still think could be the series end point.  Anything past that point will depend on sales and/or author interest IMHO.

 

[Bestkeptsecret]

A comment: The Horus Heresy had some Traitor victories. But this Scouring series is entirely an Imperium victory. Granted, there are heavy Imperium losses; for example, the Imperial Fists' losses in the Iron Cage battle, but mostly this is a series of one Imperial victory after another. We know Guilliman becomes incapacitated in the Battle of Thessala at the very end, but that is after most of the traitor forces have already been chased into the Eye and have been defeated.

So, my question is: will we get a balanced narrative in this Scouring series, or is it going to be a long series of Imperial wins (with great losses and the disappearance of the Primarchs) which creates the impression (an accurate impression) that Chaos is a force that weakens group cohesion and is bad for any army and can never withstand an army that has faith, duty, righteousness, and collectivist brotherhood on its side. Chaos is extreme individualism, lack of self-control, psychopathy, emotional incontinence, disorder, and depravity. The entire series reveals what is pretty obvious: Chaos, even though it does a lot of damage and inflicts considerable harm, is mostly a ragtag band of monsters whose motivations and actions will never find justification.

 

A personal comment: I recently planned to buy Eidolon the Auric Hammer Limited edition by Marc Collins on eBay.ca, but I did some personal reflection and found that not only Eidolon but not a single Chaos Space Marine can ever be "looked up to" as a person of heroism and will always engage in depravity and degeneration, and I remember an Eisenhorn quote that Chaos represents Obscene powers. The obscenity of Chaos that I reflected upon made me realize that, mentally, I am on the side of the Imperium no matter how authoritarian or xenophobic it is. The Imperium represents normalcy, and Chaos represents the utter loss of human excellence. I know I make the correct purchase decisions when I buy Black Library books, which portray Chaos as villains and the Imperium as heroes. There is a concept in Hinduism called Dharma, which in Western thought would translate into duty, and I feel quite nauseous and disgusted when I read and contemplate some of the things that the Chaos forces participate in and represent. It basically comes down to morality and a sense of feeling repugnance at the deeds Chaos does. Unlike Michael Moorcock, Games Workshop has always represented Chaos as Evil. Although the Death Guard in Lords of Silence come across as somewhat "good", I don't think a Slaanesh or a Tzeentch CSM can ever be represented as a hero. In this sense, Games Workshop has shaped our perception of Chaos in very black-and-white terms, and so Chaos in our favorite game does not represent clean and honest freedom, but something that pushes the limits to an utterly vile extreme. It is a clear Manichean moral frame.

[darkhorse0607]

I think largely its going to be an Imperium fest,  the conflict is going to more come from inter-Imperium factioning (the formation of the Inquisition,  Dorn vs Guilliman, the reemergence/rise of the High Lords, etc). There will probably be a few moments for the Traitors as well, but I see it more coming in the same vein as the IW/WB/SoH plot line from Ashes. Reflection, "what are we now," "Why do we want to even still fight?" Etc. The Iron Cage will be something, I personally hope they cover the Ultramarines vs Alpha Legion, and a few others but I dont think we are going to have something solely traitor focused like Betrayer that gave you something to rally behind for lack of a better term.

 

As for the reflections on Chaos, its interesting that you brought it up as I have been going through my own personal turn on that for the last twoish years. I am not saying I will stop complaining about Black Legion 3 any time soon, but as the real world gets darker (and thats as far as I am going to go on the details there), I am finding it harder to get invested in the Chaos side of things, where Id rather root for the "heroes" (as bad as they may be, as you mentioned, the Imperium isn't exactly great either). 

 

Part of it is real life, part of it is also how they have been portrayed recently. For example, the Night Lords have always done heinous things, but in the trilogy it gave you the commraderie to get invested in (which won't make sense to some, but they spoke to each other very similarly to how many in my unit did when I was still in, so it echoes there). Black Legion also had something similar, as did the characters in Betrayer. Now, you get less of that. I'm not going to gloss over the fact that they were still doing incredibly bad things, but there was something different about how they were portrayed vs how the Imperium was (another example was Abbadon initially supporting the war because of the brotherhood amongst the legions and what he viewed as disregard for them by the High Lords even to the initial years of the Black Legion, to what we get from him now)

 

I'm not swearing off Chaos entirely, I still have a soft spot for the Iron Warriors for personal reasons, and I still like the Alpha Legion. But it is different than it used to be for me, to the point where I havent picked up the brush for a Chaos mini in over a year now, when they used to be part of my normal rotation

[Griefbringer]

One aspect of Chaos is how people tend to get gradually drawn to it for various reasons, and then get more and more involved. It is not just a matter of turning overnight into a big baddy with mighty mutations.

 

Part of the tragedy of Horus Heresy is how the various Imperial servants end up getting involved with Chaos for a various reasons in their past or flaws in their character, and then get seduced. Though by the time of the Scouring, they are already very deep into it.

 

As for the Scouring campaigns ending up in an Imperial victory, that much is true - but it is not a truely decisive victory. While the loyalists can defeat the traitors in battles and recapture planetary systems (or what remains of them after years of war), they are not strong enough to destroy them wholesale, having to resort to driving them to the Eye of Terror. Where they will be able to exist for many long millennia, fighting amongst themselves and raiding the Imperium.

[grailkeeper]

11 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

I think now is a good time to reprint the Scouring timeline given in the Warhammer Community article so we have some idea where BL plans to take the series:

 

 

Mid 014.M31 
The Siege of Terra concludes and the Traitor retreat begins. 

 

Late 014.M31 
The Battle of Luna 

 

Early to mid 015.M31 
The Liberation of Mars 

 

Late 015.M31 
The last of the Traitor forces are purged from the Solar System and its immediate vicinity, including Mars. 

 

Early 016.M31 
After securing Sol and reorganising the weary remnants of the loyalist Legions, a bitter and vengeful Rogal Dorn declares they must “scour” the traitors from the face of the galaxy, in what many come to see as a dismal echo of the Great Crusade. 

 

Early-mid 016.M31 
The Battle of Avellorn 

 

Mid 016.M31 
The Battle of Gamma-Horgan 
Traitors fleeing Terra take Gamma-Horgan with help from turncoat local forces, before pursuing Terran forces, reinforced by others from Kado and Aquitaine, drive them off towards Vanaheim.

 

Early 017.M31 
The Underworld War finally ends, and the conflict on Calth is declared to be over. 
The Scouring of Molech 

 

Mid 017.M31 
The Battle of Seraphina 
The Ariggata Culling 

 

Late 017.M31 
The Second Battle of Vanaheim 
Scattered Traitors muster around Vanaheim and attempt to re-take the world, but are defeated and driven towards Yarant. 

 

Mid 018.M31 
Operation Carthage – The Scouring of Isstvan V 

 

Early 019.M31 
The Doom of Valhalla 

 

Mid 019.M31 
The Iron Cage 
Perturabo ascends to Daemonhood before returning to Olympia to establish his 'Iron Empire'. 
The two years-long Siege of Olympia begins. 

 

Late 019.M31 
The Third Battle of Paramar

 

We can add to these dates the Second Founding (seven years after the end of the Heresy - approx 021.M31) which I still think could be the series end point.  Anything past that point will depend on sales and/or author interest IMHO.

 

 

 

There was some massacre at a reclusiam  where Gulliman gets the gauntlets of ultramar from a chaos champion. I wonder if we'll see that?

[Marshal Rohr]

10 hours ago, darkhorse0607 said:

I think largely its going to be an Imperium fest,  the conflict is going to more come from inter-Imperium factioning (the formation of the Inquisition,  Dorn vs Guilliman, the reemergence/rise of the High Lords, etc). There will probably be a few moments for the Traitors as well, but I see it more coming in the same vein as the IW/WB/SoH plot line from Ashes. Reflection, "what are we now," "Why do we want to even still fight?" Etc. The Iron Cage will be something, I personally hope they cover the Ultramarines vs Alpha Legion, and a few others but I dont think we are going to have something solely traitor focused like Betrayer that gave you something to rally behind for lack of a better term.

 

As for the reflections on Chaos, its interesting that you brought it up as I have been going through my own personal turn on that for the last twoish years. I am not saying I will stop complaining about Black Legion 3 any time soon, but as the real world gets darker (and thats as far as I am going to go on the details there), I am finding it harder to get invested in the Chaos side of things, where Id rather root for the "heroes" (as bad as they may be, as you mentioned, the Imperium isn't exactly great either). 

 

Part of it is real life, part of it is also how they have been portrayed recently. For example, the Night Lords have always done heinous things, but in the trilogy it gave you the commraderie to get invested in (which won't make sense to some, but they spoke to each other very similarly to how many in my unit did when I was still in, so it echoes there). Black Legion also had something similar, as did the characters in Betrayer. Now, you get less of that. I'm not going to gloss over the fact that they were still doing incredibly bad things, but there was something different about how they were portrayed vs how the Imperium was (another example was Abbadon initially supporting the war because of the brotherhood amongst the legions and what he viewed as disregard for them by the High Lords even to the initial years of the Black Legion, to what we get from him now)

 

I'm not swearing off Chaos entirely, I still have a soft spot for the Iron Warriors for personal reasons, and I still like the Alpha Legion. But it is different than it used to be for me, to the point where I havent picked up the brush for a Chaos mini in over a year now, when they used to be part of my normal rotation

We had that, it was the Black Legion series, and then a bunch of Redditors bullied ADB off the internet over it. 

[Nagashsnee]

12 hours ago, Bestkeptsecret said:

but I did some personal reflection and found that not only Eidolon but not a single Chaos Space Marine can ever be "looked up to" as a person of heroism and will always engage in depravity and degeneration, and I remember an Eisenhorn quote that Chaos represents Obscene powers. The obscenity of Chaos that I reflected upon made me realize that, mentally, I am on the side of the Imperium no matter how authoritarian or xenophobic it is. The Imperium represents normalcy, and Chaos represents the utter loss of human excellence. I know I make the correct purchase decisions when I buy Black Library books, which portray Chaos as villains and the Imperium as heroes. There is a concept in Hinduism called Dharma, which in Western thought would translate into duty, and I feel quite nauseous and disgusted when I read and contemplate some of the things that the Chaos forces participate in and represent. It basically comes down to morality and a sense of feeling repugnance at the deeds Chaos does. Unlike Michael Moorcock, Games Workshop has always represented Chaos as Evil. Although the Death Guard in Lords of Silence come across as somewhat "good", I don't think a Slaanesh or a Tzeentch CSM can ever be represented as a hero. In this sense, Games Workshop has shaped our perception of Chaos in very black-and-white terms, and so Chaos in our favorite game does not represent clean and honest freedom, but something that pushes the limits to an utterly vile extreme. It is a clear Manichean moral frame.

 

You perceive the Imperium as normal cause its the most popular faction that gets the most lore and minis (SPACE MARINES YO).

 

In Universe there is nothing especially normal about the Imperium. And nothing specifically evil or non normal about chaos. Chaos planets/realms/sectors exist.  People are born, live lives and die knowing nothing else but their version of chaos. 

 

A great look at this are the Sanguinary tribes in the sabbat wars crusade. Landing on a planet the Imperium made a agri world,  and a planet chaos made a supply world is just different flavours of the same evil. To the sanguinary tribes the Imperium is the insane place following a crazy and debased faith.  The imperium is the one that showed up one day (chaos worship predates the Imperium and the Emperor) on CRUSADE and killed everyone and took over the planets. Saint Sabbat is their version of the crazy religious warlord leading her frenzied hordes on a path of blood, death and conquest in the name of her corpse god. 

 

Almost every non bolter porn book BL puts out has the vast majority of the Imperial higher classes knowing exactly how benevolent the Imperium is. Vaults of terra is one of the peak 40k works because it has a fundamentalist true imperial believer visit holy terra itself and find out EXACTLY what the Imperium is.   Go tell a lower level hive citizen how lucky he is not to be born on some random planet that worships slaneth the silken,  because you see there he would live a life of deprevation and misery all while the powerful syphon off all resources and life choices mostly for their own power , and lives given up in their thousands in the name of a insane faith in a eldtrich being. He may even be hunted because he is a 'special birth' and the chosen of the god want his blood/soul/life for their arcane reasons.  Oh wait thats his current existence. 

 

Books never potray the Imperium as heroes in the general sense, they are the heroes of the POV faction, this is not the same. The same marine/guardman/sister becomes the antagonist when the POV faction becomes Tau/Eldar/ yes even chaos.  Plenty of books have chaos heroes in them, in fact the entire Gaunts Ghosts books is literally them killing of the Chaos Heroes off one by one over the books.  Sek gets done while he is giving a rousing speech to his troops. Their deaths shatter morale and cohesion as much as the loss of any Chapter Master or High General. 

 

Now you might say oh chaos is a cult, chaos asks for death and blood and bad things of its followers, it demands sacrifies and souls. But my man thats also the description of the Imperial faith, which fun fact is the CULT imperialis. Double fun fact the Imperium was literally founded to stop those kind of cults from existing. 

 

From a third person perspective of someone with our modern day morals Imperium vs Chaos is basically two equally bad forces seeing who will finally RULE THE GALAXY, Going back to gaunts ghosts, we get quite allot of non astartes chaos military pov....and they are just people, with beliefs, desires and all the rest.  The imperials seem as strange to them as they do to the imperials.  The sanguinary tribes simply cannot understand the imperial way of life and belief. To them its not true living under the true gods. They are the GOOD GUYS on a good guy CRUSADE. 

 

Chaos is the answer to what happens when religions can PROVE what they say is true, irl people have throw their own into fires, tortured, killed, and done unspicable horrors for gods who existence they take on nothing but 'trust me bro' (please dont PM how YOUR religion is different).  Now imagine what they would do if that stuff ACTUALLY HAD IMMEDIATE AND PROVABLE EFFECT. The answer is chaos. 

 

Its just that the only playable chaos factions for BL to write books about are CSM, CSM and CSM.  And this changes how we view chaos a great deal.  BL have NO REASON to write a book about a random world that worships 4 strange gods lives their everyday life...unless its being invaded, chances are from the Imperium, which means SPACE MARINE BOOK YO! 

 

Only true good guy in the setting are orks cause they are pre programmed bio weapons who truly have no choice in the matter, they were literally made this way, its literally in their blood and bones.  Not fighting would end up killing them off as a species.

 

Vorx from lord of silence is one of the nicest CSM  in 40k.  He is not a good person. 

Dante is one of the nicest marines in 40k. He is not a good person.

Gaunt is generally looked at as example to follow, he is NOT a good person. He would  lead the burning down of entire planets because they refuse to follow his religion, or maybe they just dont want their lives dictated to from half a galaxy away. Burn them all, write out the medal list. 

Edited October 27 by Nagashsnee

[Scribe]

11 hours ago, darkhorse0607 said:

I think largely its going to be an Imperium fest,  the conflict is going to more come from inter-Imperium factioning (the formation of the Inquisition,  Dorn vs Guilliman, the reemergence/rise of the High Lords, etc). There will probably be a few moments for the Traitors as well, but I see it more coming in the same vein as the IW/WB/SoH plot line from Ashes. Reflection, "what are we now," "Why do we want to even still fight?" Etc. The Iron Cage will be something, I personally hope they cover the Ultramarines vs Alpha Legion, and a few others but I dont think we are going to have something solely traitor focused like Betrayer that gave you something to rally behind for lack of a better term.

 

As for the reflections on Chaos, its interesting that you brought it up as I have been going through my own personal turn on that for the last twoish years. I am not saying I will stop complaining about Black Legion 3 any time soon, but as the real world gets darker (and thats as far as I am going to go on the details there), I am finding it harder to get invested in the Chaos side of things, where Id rather root for the "heroes" (as bad as they may be, as you mentioned, the Imperium isn't exactly great either). 

 

Part of it is real life, part of it is also how they have been portrayed recently. For example, the Night Lords have always done heinous things, but in the trilogy it gave you the commraderie to get invested in (which won't make sense to some, but they spoke to each other very similarly to how many in my unit did when I was still in, so it echoes there). Black Legion also had something similar, as did the characters in Betrayer. Now, you get less of that. I'm not going to gloss over the fact that they were still doing incredibly bad things, but there was something different about how they were portrayed vs how the Imperium was (another example was Abbadon initially supporting the war because of the brotherhood amongst the legions and what he viewed as disregard for them by the High Lords even to the initial years of the Black Legion, to what we get from him now)

 

I'm not swearing off Chaos entirely, I still have a soft spot for the Iron Warriors for personal reasons, and I still like the Alpha Legion. But it is different than it used to be for me, to the point where I havent picked up the brush for a Chaos mini in over a year now, when they used to be part of my normal rotation

 

Amusingly I had the exact opposite reaction when I was building up some Kreig.

[Marshal Rohr]

1 hour ago, Nagashsnee said:

 

You perceive the Imperium as normal cause its the most popular faction that gets the most lore and minis (SPACE MARINES YO).

 

In Universe there is nothing especially normal about the Imperium. And nothing specifically evil or non normal about chaos. Chaos planets/realms/sectors exist.  People are born, live lives and die knowing nothing else but their version of chaos. 

 

A great look at this are the Sanguinary tribes in the sabbat wars crusade. Landing on a planet the Imperium made a agri world,  and a planet chaos made a supply world is just different flavours of the same evil. To the sanguinary tribes the Imperium is the insane place following a crazy and debased faith.  The imperium is the one that showed up one day (chaos worship predates the Imperium and the Emperor) on CRUSADE and killed everyone and took over the planets. Saint Sabbat is their version of the crazy religious warlord leading her frenzied hordes on a path of blood, death and conquest in the name of her corpse god. 

 

Almost every non bolter porn book BL puts out has the vast majority of the Imperial higher classes knowing exactly how benevolent the Imperium is. Vaults of terra is one of the peak 40k works because it has a fundamentalist true imperial believer visit holy terra itself and find out EXACTLY what the Imperium is.   Go tell a lower level hive citizen how lucky he is not to be born on some random planet that worships slaneth the silken,  because you see there he would live a life of deprevation and misery all while the powerful syphon off all resources and life choices mostly for their own power , and lives given up in their thousands in the name of a insane faith in a eldtrich being. He may even be hunted because he is a 'special birth' and the chosen of the god want his blood/soul/life for their arcane reasons.  Oh wait thats his current existence. 

 

Books never potray the Imperium as heroes in the general sense, they are the heroes of the POV faction, this is not the same. The same marine/guardman/sister becomes the antagonist when the POV faction becomes Tau/Eldar/ yes even chaos.  Plenty of books have chaos heroes in them, in fact the entire Gaunts Ghosts books is literally them killing of the Chaos Heroes off one by one over the books.  Sek gets done while he is giving a rousing speech to his troops. Their deaths shatter morale and cohesion as much as the loss of any Chapter Master or High General. 

 

Now you might say oh chaos is a cult, chaos asks for death and blood and bad things of its followers, it demands sacrifies and souls. But my man thats also the description of the Imperial faith, which fun fact is the CULT imperialis. Double fun fact the Imperium was literally founded to stop those kind of cults from existing. 

 

From a third person perspective of someone with our modern day morals Imperium vs Chaos is basically two equally bad forces seeing who will finally RULE THE GALAXY, Going back to gaunts ghosts, we get quite allot of non astartes chaos military pov....and they are just people, with beliefs, desires and all the rest.  The imperials seem as strange to them as they do to the imperials.  The sanguinary tribes simply cannot understand the imperial way of life and belief. To them its not true living under the true gods. They are the GOOD GUYS on a good guy CRUSADE. 

 

Chaos is the answer to what happens when religions can PROVE what they say is true, irl people have throw their own into fires, tortured, killed, and done unspicable horrors for gods who existence they take on nothing but 'trust me bro' (please dont PM how YOUR religion is different).  Now imagine what they would do if that stuff ACTUALLY HAD IMMEDIATE AND PROVABLE EFFECT. The answer is chaos. 

 

Its just that the only playable chaos factions for BL to write books about are CSM, CSM and CSM.  And this changes how we view chaos a great deal.  BL have NO REASON to write a book about a random world that worships 4 strange gods lives their everyday life...unless its being invaded, chances are from the Imperium, which means SPACE MARINE BOOK YO! 

 

Only true good guy in the setting are orks cause they are pre programmed bio weapons who truly have no choice in the matter, they were literally made this way, its literally in their blood and bones.  Not fighting would end up killing them off as a species.

 

Vorx from lord of silence is one of the nicest CSM  in 40k.  He is not a good person. 

Dante is one of the nicest marines in 40k. He is not a good person.

Gaunt is generally looked at as example to follow, he is NOT a good person. He would  lead the burning down of entire planets because they refuse to follow his religion, or maybe they just dont want their lives dictated to from half a galaxy away. Burn them all, write out the medal list. 

The side that doesn’t have Gods that make you grow tentacles out of your orifices or melt into a wall is the normal side just to clarify. Regular people fusing with masonry is not normal. No matter what you grew up with believing, if one day your uncle is just a face sticking out of a wall you’re going to be surprised. 

Edited October 27 by Marshal Rohr

[Krelious]

13 hours ago, Bestkeptsecret said:

A comment: The Horus Heresy had some Traitor victories. But this Scouring series is entirely an Imperium victory. Granted, there are heavy Imperium losses; for example, the Imperial Fists' losses in the Iron Cage battle, but mostly this is a series of one Imperial victory after another. We know Guilliman becomes incapacitated in the Battle of Thessala at the very end, but that is after most of the traitor forces have already been chased into the Eye and have been defeated.

So, my question is: will we get a balanced narrative in this Scouring series, or is it going to be a long series of Imperial wins (with great losses and the disappearance of the Primarchs) which creates the impression (an accurate impression) that Chaos is a force that weakens group cohesion and is bad for any army and can never withstand an army that has faith, duty, righteousness, and collectivist brotherhood on its side. Chaos is extreme individualism, lack of self-control, psychopathy, emotional incontinence, disorder, and depravity. The entire series reveals what is pretty obvious: Chaos, even though it does a lot of damage and inflicts considerable harm, is mostly a ragtag band of monsters whose motivations and actions will never find justification.

 

A personal comment: I recently planned to buy Eidolon the Auric Hammer Limited edition by Marc Collins on eBay.ca, but I did some personal reflection and found that not only Eidolon but not a single Chaos Space Marine can ever be "looked up to" as a person of heroism and will always engage in depravity and degeneration, and I remember an Eisenhorn quote that Chaos represents Obscene powers. The obscenity of Chaos that I reflected upon made me realize that, mentally, I am on the side of the Imperium no matter how authoritarian or xenophobic it is. The Imperium represents normalcy, and Chaos represents the utter loss of human excellence. I know I make the correct purchase decisions when I buy Black Library books, which portray Chaos as villains and the Imperium as heroes. There is a concept in Hinduism called Dharma, which in Western thought would translate into duty, and I feel quite nauseous and disgusted when I read and contemplate some of the things that the Chaos forces participate in and represent. It basically comes down to morality and a sense of feeling repugnance at the deeds Chaos does. Unlike Michael Moorcock, Games Workshop has always represented Chaos as Evil. Although the Death Guard in Lords of Silence come across as somewhat "good", I don't think a Slaanesh or a Tzeentch CSM can ever be represented as a hero. In this sense, Games Workshop has shaped our perception of Chaos in very black-and-white terms, and so Chaos in our favorite game does not represent clean and honest freedom, but something that pushes the limits to an utterly vile extreme. It is a clear Manichean moral frame.

 

 

I would keep in mind that the issue is that Chaos itself does not exist in a vacuum, it is a product or reflection of consciousness.  The reality is that the Imperium while seeming relatively good produces/feeds Chaos itself and in many cases the actions of the Imperium forces people into Chaos whether it be normal humans or primarchs. I believe a large part of the Horus Heresy is caused in many ways by the Emperor himself mistreating the Space Marines as tools and them having legitimate fears of being replaced and usurped by human beaurocrats who did nothing to earn it.  If anything Loyalty and virtue within the loyal 9 legions is really measured by how well indoctrinated they are or hard code programmed to be obedient and not ask questions. The traitors seem to expouse values of free will (to a degree) and self determination while the loyalists are unflinching slaves bound to their sense of duty and programmed to obey their fathers much like the traitors follow their fathers. 

 

The thing really about the 30k and 40k setting is that neither side is right, its just the chaos followers are more wrong because while having legitimate grievances they turned to worse answers which could really reflect in many cases in human history where revolutions took place due to a crisis for them to replace the existing order and cause more chaos, terror, and destruction of human life because they didnt understand what they were replacing or how to fix it. The Horus Heresy novels, to anyone with half a brain is basically spitting at you that a certain real life secret society is evil while dubiously I think that GW and the Black Library authors are part of this society. The 3 revolutions in modern history were all done by this society, only one man really called them out (20th century). To some degree id say that Napoleon was the only one who may have been somewhat good. Albeit any system existing long enough can be subverted by malicious opportunistic actors and twisted against its original intent when the people themselves dont defend what is right and allow their virtues to be determined by authority rather than conscious understanding of why things are right and wrong and how to main them while still progressing technologically.

 

My general sense is that the people who left the Emperor were completely right and he did more harm than good subjecting the galaxy and humanity to his deranged ambition of trying to save it. Regardless I think in the current setting the Emperor is some sort of god that is in the great game and as part of that, the Eternal war and mass suffering of humanity his Empire is feeding Chaos in its opposition to it. Lorgar in a sense is the greatest evil and dupe of the setting as he created two sides of the same coin that perpetually feed into each other.  Lorgar believes his faith is right as he has this twisted power ideology in that if he can force a measurement then it must be true. I could force a cat to eat tofu by putting artificial meat flavoring in it that a Cat's brain is not evolved to understand and thus "loves it", that does not mean tofu is good for a cat. That's Chaos. Lorgar says he seeks truth no matter the cost but the reality is he wants validation and he does not care if the power of chaos is evil as long as it gives him a sense of validation for his desire to worship something. 

 

I think in general 40k is a story about how a degenerate Empire based in fear justifying conquest by that fear creates its own enemies and thereby justifies its fear by its own action of creating its enemies by its own existence. The Emperor justifies everything he does at some unknown end of days extinction event for humanity, ends justify the means thinking. The reality is that the Emperor is a flawed arrogant being who does not see the future accurately and is potential deceived by his own fears playing into the hands of Chaos by trying to enact a grand plan to stop them.  The Emperor is blinded by this fact and that there is no one who is really his equal to balance him out or tell him no. You wonder why some of his sons like say Lorgar or Curze or even Magnus are the way they are and they are perfect reflections of the Emperor made worse by lack of experience and being thrown into a galaxy wide war. To anyone thinking that the Emperor planned out the heresy or had foreknowledge of it, my perception is that that is a stupid idea regardless of modern authors making stuff up as they go along. I generally prefer that the Emperor was blind sided by everything that happened  and I prefer the original story where the Emperor became grievously wounded because he didnt have the heart to kill Horus immediately while being immensely more powerful than him. It would lead more into the element that the Emperor is a powerful man who is flawed and still has his humanity about him. The reason behind this is that there is this modern trend of trying to make the Emperor evil, callous uncaring, or an amoral manipulator which I think is this trend in media trying to pervert heroes or great figures into morally grey beings and instill nihilism. Again I just prefer the idea that the Emperor is what he says he is, a powerful man who is trying to save humanity while not having the time or proper resources to do so, he constantly is rushing and makes mistakes as a result. His real alienating factor is in being alive for so long and existing with the galaxy and its current set of problems is that hes forced into a situation where not acting is wrong and acting against it is also wrong which then spirals out of control when he creates the primarchs and space marines who are then separated from him, he does not have the where with all to correct them or act as a proper father figure to some of them because he is constantly worried about this impending doom for humanity that by his own actions he is potentially creating a worse fate.  A tragedy. 

[Nagashsnee]

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

The side that doesn’t have Gods that make you grow tentacles out of your orifices or melt into a wall is the normal side just to clarify. Regular people fusing with masonry is not normal. No matter what you grew up with believing, if one day your uncle is just a face sticking out of a wall you’re going to be surprised. 

 

Does the imperium know this? Cause my uncle could end up a face in a wall. Or a brain in a jar. Or fused to a chair. 

 

He might have tentacles of metal, or extra hands. He might be the size of a building and need a crane to get around. My uncle might live for hundreds of years by grinding xenos into powder and snorting them of the clone body of a baby we stich wings to. Not for use in flight of course. We stick a anti grav engine up it's rear for that. The stitched on wings are purely for aura.

 

Aunty Becky works on a starship. They cut of her legs and hands, took out her eyes and tongue and welded her to a console. Best sensory officer in the segmentum. 

 

Uncle John Got kidnaped off the street at 11. He use to like getting into fights you see. So they threw him Into a coffin and filled it with the blood of one of gods 18 sons. He can spit acid now and if you pretend to forget something he eats one of your fingers to make sure your not lying. 

 

Heroes and normal god fearing people one and all. Next week they are going to xenocide a planet which is in the bronze age, together, as a family.

 

Not like those damn people 3 sectors over. They have biological tentacles and their son of gods needs surgery.  Crazy those lot.

Edited October 27 by Nagashsnee

[Marshal Rohr]

47 minutes ago, Nagashsnee said:

 

Does the imperium know this? Cause my uncle could end up a face in a wall. Or a brain in a jar. Or fused to a chair. 

 

He might have tentacles of metal, or extra hands. He might be the size of a building and need a crane to get around. My uncle might live for hundreds of years by grinding xenos into powder and snorting them of the clone body of a baby we stich wings to. Not for use in flight of course. We stick a anti grav engine up it's rear for that. The stitched on wings are purely for aura.

 

Aunty Becky works on a starship. They cut of her legs and hands, took out her eyes and tongue and welded her to a console. Best sensory officer in the segmentum. 

 

Uncle John Got kidnaped off the street at 11. He use to like getting into fights you see. So they threw him Into a coffin and filled it with the blood of one of gods 18 sons. He can spit acid now and if you pretend to forget something he eats one of your fingers to make sure your not lying. 

 

Heroes and normal god fearing people one and all. Next week they are going to xenocide a planet which is in the bronze age, together, as a family.

 

Not like those damn people 3 sectors over. They have biological tentacles and their son of gods needs surgery.  Crazy those lot.

You uncle might commit a crime, and have tubes made in factories of rubber from trees and copper from the ground shoved into him and become Uncle Bob the Doorbell in the Imperium. He might join a religion that replaces his eyes with sensors more advanced than biological eyes. He might snort a xenos that has a chemical compound in it that causes his cells to repair and cognitive function to remain consistent. 
 

what he won’t do, is bend at an angle that is impossible in three dimensions to be the man whispering in his own ear, speak in colors, or simultaneously inhabit every place he ever traveled in his life like a centipede with a baby at one end and a decrepit old man at the other. Chaos does though and none of that is normal. 
 

Words often used to describe the warp and where it bleeds into reality are uncomprehending or imperceptible or impossible, and removing the hyperbolic connotations of the words, means the thing they describe is the opposite of normal. 
 

There are places and societies where the warp bleeds through enough to be the facsimile of normality, like Colchis or Cadia, but once the juice is flowing and the warp seeps in beyond a little sacrifice induced precognition or muscular growth, it ceases to be in any shape or form a life humans can just go on having. 

[Nagashsnee]

The warp pre dates humanity, it is a normal part of the universe as far back as the old ones which is as far back as the timeline goes. Chaos is a the worship of specific beings in the warp. Beings that came about naturally and are as normal as humanity (which maybe did not come about naturally).

 

Some humans can do all the things you talk about, they are called psyckers, they are rare but normal.  In fact they are the normal step of humanities evolution as a species.

 

the warp is normal, as normal as the seas and space and stars. It's a normal part of the 40k universe. 

 

All the things you said are capable by using the warp, chaos or no. you are mixing up the warp, worship of the chaos gods, normal outside the setting and normal in the setting.  Humans live inside the eye, they live in systems where chaos worship is the norm, and that's what chaos is, a religion. You can be a chaos farmer on a warp affected world. A chaos fisherman on warp affected seas. It would be your normal life. In your normal universe.  

 

Again remember entire chaos worshiping realms exist both in normal space and in places like the eye or the maelstrom. That gw rarely explores everyday life on them as again it's a wargame and the focus is on the mini factions of which chaos has just marines doesn't make them go away.  

 

But like take hells iris from the maelstrom, what little we are shown includes  2 people tricking a woman by pretending to want to buy lots of fruit, as she was a fruit seller. She woke up in her house, got dressed and hot damn did she try to sell some fruit that day. That was her normal routine. On the csm controlled station in the maelstrom. 

 

Mutating  happens in 40k, either warp based or environmental. Humanity has entire subspecies of mutants due to GRAVITY alone.  Exposure to the warp is no different then exposure to radiation, it affects humans and alters them. The warp just has a ocean of possible results other then tumours.

 

Chaos comes in and says HEY, if you pray to red ape angry war man....maybe  you get some good stuff and not just boring old tumours. And it works.

 

But even in real life, religious people believe in all sorts of crazy stuff. Chaos deamon or the temple 2 blocks from my house? Is that good, bad, normal or abnormal? People have claimed to hear voices that tell them secrets and paths to salvation for all of human history. In 40k they are real, and that makes it MORE normal. now if you excuse me I must go offer the blood of a fine lamb to ensure my good harvest you know, NORMAL human stuff.

 

Edited October 27 by Brother Tyler

[Marshal Rohr]

You can try to rationalize it as much as you want but “normal” has a specific meaning tied to existence of living things inside three dimensions with constant linear time. Anything that alters any of that is automatically abnormal and 40,000 years is not enough time to evolve to perceive reality differently. Even genetically engineers like mutants process chaos as normal frames of reference like rivers. 

[Griefbringer]

19 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

Only true good guy in the setting are orks cause they are pre programmed bio weapons who truly have no choice in the matter, they were literally made this way, its literally in their blood and bones.  Not fighting would end up killing them off as a species.

 

My understanding of morale theory is that for a being to be either good or evil, it needs to have free will and agency over its own actions. In that sense, creatures that are driven purely by their instincts, like orks or various tyranid sub-species, cannot be good or evil as such, they are merely instinct-driven. Not that orks are likely to waste their time pondering about morale philosophy. Or any other kind of philosophy.

 

As regards Chaos, many of the daemons are also effectively instinct-driven, thought those who summon them from the warp may hope to hold some temporary control over their behaviour (and sometimes things do not work out to their expectations). The Ruinous Powers tend to yearn for the worship of those with the free will, as that tends to strenghten them. Of course sometimes the worshippers may find themselves degenerating to a level where they are effectively acting by instinct rather than independent thought (e.g. chaos spawn). Meanwhile those who ascend to daemonhood (daemon princes) seem to retain a level of independent thought, while being permanently tied to Chaos.

 

As for the representation of ordinary chaos-worshipping humans in the WH40K setting, I would like to mention one of the early Black Library books: Pawns of Chaos by Brian Craig, published in 2001. This is set on the pseudo-medieval world of Sigmatus, which is slowly being conquered by an Imperial expeditionary force, left isolated by warp storms. The local population worships a deity known as The Changer of Ways, and while the bulk of the population does not seem to be particularly affected by this, there are sorcerers, beastmen and at least some strange horses making an appearance that carry the mark of their master. It makes for an interesting read, and tends to be a bit different from what you would expect from a BL 40K publication. The narrative is provided from various perspectives, with an emphasis on the local population. And no space marine (traitor or Imperial) makes an appearance. (Admittedly, there are a few plot twists that I did not find very credible, but I still found it a very enjoyable book.)

[Scribe]

8 hours ago, Griefbringer said:

Not that orks are likely to waste their time pondering about morale philosophy. Or any other kind of philosophy.

 

One of my favourite pieces of flavour text of all time, any setting/IP, including our own!

 

“The Orks are the pinnacle of creation. For them, the great struggle is won. They have evolved a society which knows no stress or angst. Who are we to judge them? We Eldar who have failed, or the humans, on the road to ruin in their turn? And why? Because we sought answers to questions that an Ork wouldn’t even bother to ask! We see a culture that is strong and despise it as crude.”

[Griefbringer]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

“The Orks are the pinnacle of creation. For them, the great struggle is won. They have evolved a society which knows no stress or angst. Who are we to judge them? We Eldar who have failed, or the humans, on the road to ruin in their turn? And why? Because we sought answers to questions that an Ork wouldn’t even bother to ask! We see a culture that is strong and despise it as crude.”

 

Attributed to Uthan the Perverse, an Eldar philosopher.

 

The orks certainly are not easily corrupted by the temptations of chaos. And whatever occasional theological disagreements they have with each other (about the relative merits of Mork and Gork), these are usually quickly resolved by thumping the offending party with a suitably big club.

[Nagashsnee]

20 hours ago, Griefbringer said:

 

My understanding of morale theory is that for a being to be either good or evil, it needs to have free will and agency over its own actions. In that sense, creatures that are driven purely by their instincts, like orks or various tyranid sub-species, cannot be good or evil as such, they are merely instinct-driven. Not that orks are likely to waste their time pondering about morale philosophy. Or any other kind of philosophy.

 

I would not go so far as to say they lack free will. An Ork chooses who to fight, what to do, where to go, there is actual agency and choice unlike nids or lower tier necrons. 

 

Orks are simply made as to make any choice other then violence meaningless. A nid cannot CHOOSE to not fight, a ork COULD choose not to fight but that would only make it easy prey for other orks.  The system takes care of any stray offshoots. 

 

Ork mercs exist, ork traders exist, heck ork space whale fishermen exist. Mecs and docs exist. Orks can be cruel or mercifull, they can enjoy a good song or hate music, etc.  We have seen sneaky orks and orks who understand and respect the concept of honour and a fair fight. 

 

In the beast arises we even see Orks play miniature games and have diplomacy when they progress enough.  We have seen orks get into arguments over the ' proper' way to fight and show distaste at speficic tactics or stratagems as being 'not right', they have their own sense of morality and in their own way do debate it (the one who gets crumped was wrong). 

 

But ork culture does exist they are not mindless beasts lacking free will. 

[wecanhaveallthree]

Quote

But ork culture does exist they are not mindless beasts lacking free will. 

 

Aren't they? 

 

Ork biology is purpose-built to seek out and eradicate difference. They have an innate understanding of what is Orky - that is, what is acceptable behaviour - and what is not. They have a species psychic field that drives them towards particular behaviours (and self-corrects deviance). Let me put it to you like this: let's say an Ork turns to worship of the Ruinous Powers. They become incredibly strong and capable. They have the best loot, the best fights, and they can kill anyone who disagrees with them. Would Orks across the universe flock to Ghazbaddon's hypothetical banner? Or would their innate programming prevent them from doing so? 

 

Equally so, what happens to Orks if they're left alone? What is the inevitable end-point of Orkish existence? What do they always become? Their evolutionary imperative prevents them from taking other actions, other paths: all Orks must follow these imperatives. They have no choice in the matter.

[Nagashsnee]

2 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

 

Aren't they? 

 

Ork biology is purpose-built to seek out and eradicate difference. They have an innate understanding of what is Orky - that is, what is acceptable behaviour - and what is not. They have a species psychic field that drives them towards particular behaviours (and self-corrects deviance). Let me put it to you like this: let's say an Ork turns to worship of the Ruinous Powers. They become incredibly strong and capable. They have the best loot, the best fights, and they can kill anyone who disagrees with them. Would Orks across the universe flock to Ghazbaddon's hypothetical banner? Or would their innate programming prevent them from doing so? 

 

Equally so, what happens to Orks if they're left alone? What is the inevitable end-point of Orkish existence? What do they always become? Their evolutionary imperative prevents them from taking other actions, other paths: all Orks must follow these imperatives. They have no choice in the matter.

 

Yes and no. Firstly orks cant be alone, thats one of their best parts, one orks will drop spores and in no time it wont be one ork.   

 

On the imperatives, as we have seen they CAN follow other paths, the old ones did not make ork space whalers for the war against the Ctan (or maybe space whales were a crucial part of the master plan), orks can wonder off and become mercs or traders. We simply DONT KNOW the inevitable end point of Ork existence, but the beast arises shows us that they will establish actual infustructure, logistics, farm worlds, miniature wargaming, diplomacy, etc.  A tyranid will never decide to paint, to come up with a song. A ork WILL go out of its way to make its vehicle PRETTY, that is not mindless beast behaviour.  

 

Chaos is a bad example as its inherently wrong and off putting for most races in the galaxy, what you said is as true to orks as it is to eldar, humans, kroot or tau.  And just like a Ork humans will freak out when they see a genestealer hybrid or a zombie human, it doesnt make them lack free will or indepedent thought. 

 

Orks can make friends, they can hold grudges, they can make stupid decisions based on their individual psychology. Yes they are bio weapons, but more in the vein of the men of iron, they were made, they were programmed they made up their own minds in the end. 

 

Now maybe as some lore suggest the orks are missing the brain boyz which will make them all fall into line, maybe the old ones had a way of making sure the Krok obeyed, maybe over the MILLION of years the orks have left their original template behind in some ways. But modern 40k orks are individual beings with free will. Yes they have biological imperatives. But so do humans, and some lore suggests the old ones made us too (xenology my love).  Are we simply a bio weapon made to eat, procreate and spread? Did we simply get finished too late to join in the war? Were we a failed project? 

 

The fun part of 40k is there is no 100% answer, but orks have far far too much free will and individualism to be compared to a tyranid or necron warrior in my eyes. 

[Griefbringer]

3 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Ork biology is purpose-built to seek out and eradicate difference. They have an innate understanding of what is Orky - that is, what is acceptable behaviour - and what is not. They have a species psychic field that drives them towards particular behaviours (and self-corrects deviance). Let me put it to you like this: let's say an Ork turns to worship of the Ruinous Powers. They become incredibly strong and capable. They have the best loot, the best fights, and they can kill anyone who disagrees with them. Would Orks across the universe flock to Ghazbaddon's hypothetical banner? Or would their innate programming prevent them from doing so?

 

Ghazbaddon is a mightily awesome name!

 

I do own the Freebooterz (1991) ork supplement from the Rogue Trader days, and it dedicates around 50 pages to exploring (in terms of rules and some background material) various kinds of freebooter bands of ork outcasts that exist at the margins of the ork society. This includes all sorts of adventurers, fugitives, eccentrics, renegades etc. that tend to be considered odd by the mainstream orks, but are tolerated at least enough to be hired as mercenaries when a cunning warboss needs extra ork-power for a fight.

 

Some of the more extreme freebooter examples include Khornate stormboyz, Ork-genestealer hybrid bands, Chaos renegade ork warbands, Ork mutant mobs and Possessed warpheadz (weirdboy semi-possessed by daemon). These are examples of orks that have either deliberately embraced Chaos, or have accidentally become affected by Chaos or some other corrupting/mutating external influence. Nevertheless, they tend to be regarded by the mainstream orks by suspicion at the best. Some snippets from the book:

 

"Worship of the Chaos Powers is not tolerated amongst the sane and sensible Orks."

 

"Once committed to the Blood God the Orks know they can bever return to normal Ork society."

 

"When surrounding tribes notice that that there is 'sumfink wrong' with the [genestealer] brood tribe, that they are 'not proper Orkses' and have been 'taken over by da Bug-eyez' they will probably wipe them out pretty quickly.)"

 

"Orks generally regard such [chaos worshipping] deviants with suspicion and ridicule, much as they do anything which is not thoroughly and properly Orky. However, a few may actually admire a Chaos Champion with impressive rewards such as horn mutations, iron hard skin, and so forth."

 

"Mutant Orks, and especially Spawn, are poor, pathetic and confused creatures. They do not understand why they are different or  why the other Orks look at them suspiciously and reject them."

 

"Orks are resolute and self-knowing and there is almost no weakness in their minds for a daemon to exploit in order to manipulate the host. The daemon is therefore unable to take control and is effectively imprisoned within the Weirdboy with result that the Weirdboy become greatly enhanced."

 

 

Getting back to Ghazbaddon, I would expect that the mainstream orks would tend to avoid him, for "not being propa orky", regardless of how big and stompy he gets. However, he might be able to recruit succesfully amongst the renegades and oucasts wandering at the edges of the ork society, allowing him to eventually accumulate a decent following. Considering the number of orks in the galaxy, even the margins can provide quite some resources if you can harness them.

 

(Back in the WH40K 3rd edition days, one of the White Dwarf crew (Adrian Wood) ended up modelling a mutant ork army that featured a number of times in the magazine, and possibly in some of the game supplements too,)

 

55 minutes ago, Nagashsnee said:

But so do humans, and some lore suggests the old ones made us too (xenology my love).  Are we simply a bio weapon made to eat, procreate and spread? 

 

If humans were designed to pro-create and spread, then by terms of 30K or 40K setting galaxy that goal has been achieved quite succesfully - though you would also need to factor in the hundreds of thousands of years needed for technical and scientific development to get out of the planet (and later on out of the Solar system).

 

However, orks have also been extremely succesful in spreading around the galaxy. Tyranids presumably have been so succesful in spreading across their own galaxy that they have had to abandon it to search for fresh organic material elsewhere.

[Marshal Rohr]

Isn’t the xenology lore that the old ones elevated lots of races to fight, but only the Eldar and Orks were fully developed by the end of the war. 

[Karhedron]

I don't know about fully developed. The Jokaero were listed as another Old One creation and they seem finished too. The old Necron codex claimed that by the end of the War in Heaven, the Old Ones were getting desperate and threw everything at the C'tan, hoping that something would stick. 

[grailkeeper]

We didn't see much of the orks or xenos in general in the heresy. Think we'll see some in the Scouring? Orks got krumped at ullanor but surely some are making the most of humanities troubles. Maybe we might see some Eldar observers there to see what humanity is going to do next with the warp. Maybe there's some minor xenon species that gets too big for its boots during the heresy and gets eliminated during the Scouring to send a message.