The irony and satire are still there, though its been covered over a bit through the years. One of my favorites is that in the end, humanity turned the Emperor into a Servitor. A cyborg zombie tasked with a function, regardless of the underlying subject's pain. Servitors are everywhere in the imperium, people broken down into nothing but tools. So of course, that is what the creator of the Imperium was transformed into. It's a beautiful kind of irony, and a statement about how bureaucracy so often ends up consuming its own purpose.
No, not really. The Emperor is both conscious and chose/endures the eternal torture of the Golden Throne willingly for the sake of Mankind's ultimate salvation from Chaos. It's much more reflective of Christian thematic imagery (something 40K tends to do quite blatantly at times) than anything else.
@@CanadianPaleIf anything the servitors are a reflection of the GE's willingness to suffer tens of thousands of years holding the Imperium together, as the sentencing of servitude is one granted to "make amends" for ones wrong doings. Except its not a choice for the common criminal, heretic or political dissident
@@Dogman262 common criminals don't become servitors. It's normally only used as a punishment for really severe (i. e. _dangerous_ ) acts of tech-heresy, so the comparison falls apart again there.
As an outsider, the "Space Marine controversy" was very entertaining to watch. My familiarity, such as it is, with WH40K is solely what I've picked up from subcultural osmosis; even so, I know that the setting is intentionally, explicitly made to be as horrific as the writers can imagine. So I find it hilarious that anyone would want to "see themselves" in _that._
The whole controversy is, excuse my French, ret*rded af. Space Marines are not just super soldiers, they´re basically "warrior monks". And there are also "warrior nuns" in 40k, the Adepta Sororitas or "Sisters of Battle". They lack the genetic/cybernetic enhancements of the Astartes, but this is balanced out by their faith in the Emperor being so strong, that it enables them to perform superhuman feats. One could argue, that the Sororitas are even more "badass" than the Astartes, because they manage to go out and successfully fight all kinds of horrible Chaos Daemons, Traitor Marines, Xenos and heretics, WITHOUT having all genetic/cybernetic crap showed into their bodies. You want to "identify" with a faction? Well, 40k gives you plenty of options to choose. But that´s not what this is all about. This is just more cultural marxist BS, as we have seen it in various other hobbies and entertainment.
@doublep1980 but, the question is, why do you care so much? how many models you own? how many rulebooks? if youve been playing for a long time, you know that the game never took itself as seriously as you are now... another thing, nothing is canon. every rulebook has retconned and changed loads of stuff. so again, the question is,, right noq, why do you care? why does it actually matter, if there can be female space marines? there are plenty of other brotherhoods and groups in 40k that _arnt_ space marines, still totally emasculated. yet only one female centered one... why cant there be some more stuff thats slightly more female oriented?
@@Rexini_Kobalt no, the question is why you think mere growth is a greater good than preserving the integrity of the lore. You're expressing the values of a cancer LOL. 😏
Also I think Gaunt's Ghost book series (Imperial Guard) would be up your alley. Think Band of Brothers in 40k and Dick Winters in a Commisar Cap with a chainsword.
It's pretty blatantly a take on the Sharpe novels, even right down to copying the gag of having the protagonists hair color be different on the covers and official artwork compared to how it's actually described in the novels themselves.
For those looking for more humanity and, yes, a light in the darkness of 40k...I highly endorse Dan Abnett's work, particularly the Gaunt's Ghosts series. He has a knack for making such a silly setting seem real, filled with real people. Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain books are flat out humorous and if you don't mind the wholesale theft of George MacDonald Fraser's 'Flashman' reskinned, they're good too.
I think you would greatly enjoy the Gaunts Ghosts series of novels by Dan Abnett. It has a Band of Brothers meets Sharpe feel to it, expertly capturing the esprit de corps of fighting men and making combat in the insane setting of Warhammer 40K feel surprisingly believable and 'real' from the perspective of boots on the ground infantrymen.
Gaunt's Ghosts is definitely on my list now. I'll probably be alternating between Warhammer novels and everything else I want to read for quite a while.
@@feralhistorian Careful - Games Workshop has its own in house publishing arm called Black Library that has been around for decades, and it has published huge numbers of books both for 40K and the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Once you start down that rabbit hole, you may never find your way out again. If you are prepared to brave that risk, and fancy dipping your toe into a pulp series of stories from the fantasy arm of Games Workshop's IP that are huge fun, may I also recommend the Gotrek and Felix novels, starting with Trollslayer by William King? Most of those novels are available as audiobooks on Audible now, voiced by the ever excellent Jonathan Keeble, and pretty much cover the journeys and adventures of the Old World's angriest doom seeking Dwarf and his human Rememberer, who is essentially a chronicler of his quest to find honourable death in battle to expunge a personal shame. The dynamic between the two characters varies from hilarious to at times actually rather poignant. Felix Jaeger may be the most relatable character from fantasy fiction I have ever read, and the older I get the more relatable I find him to be.
@@feralhistorian For a lighter take, the Ciaphas Cain novels are more-or-less Flashman in 40k. All the grimdark is there, of course, but since the story is first person the narrator is rather blase about features of the setting that grate against modern sensibilities.
Thanks for the upload. My own, meandering thoughts on 40K are broadly similar, and often in conflict with the more nihilistic perspectives prevalent in some quarters (Reddit in particular seems to be a hotbed of such), so it's heartening to see a more optimistic take on the universe discussed at length here for public edification. That said, there are a couple of quibbles I have with some of the points presented: First is the idea that the Imperium are not "the good guys," which I've always found curious. From our perspective here in the comparatively cozy 2nd Millennium, the Imperium of course appears horrifying, but while it may be "the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable," it's ultimately cruel to be kind, so to speak. Everything the Imperium does is dictated by the singular, all-consuming goal of preserving Mankind's existence in a universe stuffed to bursting with genocidal alien monsters and daemons thirsting for human souls, a universe where "we had to destroy the village to save it" is not Orwellian doublethink but a bald statement of fact that could mean the difference between a few souls being prematurely sent to the Emperor's Realm and the loss of an entire planet inhabited by billions (a recent Warhammer + animated short had a nice take on this in the context of a Genstealer cult and a Tyranid invasion). Second is the degree of corruption in the Imperium. While we definitely see corrupt officials in the fluff (and Imperial bureaucratic shenanigans _are_ often darkly humorous), I'm not convinced that the Imperium (as distinct from its constituent planetary governments) is _especially_ corrupt by any reasonable standard for a more-or-less feudal polity that has ruled over millions of planets for the better part of 10,000 years. Obviously, the system works, in-universe, and is robust enough to have kept working for almost 10 millennia, though it is true that the Administratum is inefficient. That, however, is in large part because it was designed to be so; after the Horus Heresy, and then again, after the reign of Goge Vandire, the apparatus of government was redesigned with the goal of making it as difficult as possible for a single person to quickly exercise absolute and unimpeded power throughout the Imperium. But again, thank you for articulating your thoughts on the oft-overlooked or downplayed optimism of 40K, the slender thread which, as you note, serves to strengthen the universe as a whole. Whether it be Space Marine Ragnar Blackmane getting snapped out of a Chaos-induced stupor by some indescribable force of goodness radiating directly from Holy Terra, Euphrati Keeler banishing daemons in the name of the Emperor, slain Imperial Guardsmen reuniting with their comrades in the afterlife, or the Primarchs gradually returning, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is still hope.
There have been occasional hiccups in those 10,000 years though, like the Age of Apostasy, but yeah, broadly speaking the Imperium keeps trucking on, bumps in the road not withstanding.
Cool video as always! I was kind of hoping you'd cover this sooner or later, since it seems to be in your wheel house! Personally, I got turned off of 40K years ago when I attended a gaming convention and saw two grown men in 45 minute screaming match over who was in possession of a square inch. All the miniatures looked cool. But further got turned off by all the painting and expense involved. Oh, and not to mention all the rules and books you need to read. So I guess it boils down to Money, time, and patience which are all finite resources that I can't manage for shit! Oh well... At least the art is cool!
Yeah, some people take their gaming way too seriously and 40K makes it really easy to find things to argue about. Just recently I ran a small experimental game, using roughly 40K rules but I DMed it like a D&D campaign. There was a story to the mission, the objectives where actually things that made sense rather than arbitrary markers, and periodic "intel updates" that moved the story along. It was really bare-bones but I would absolutely do it again.
Outside the more rigid tournament scene end of the 40K hobby, Game Workshop have repeatedly stated that the rules in more casual games should be treated as simply a broad framework, a general guide that you can modify and tweak in whatever way you like as you work with your opponent to set up the sort of enjoyable, memorable game you both want. If you fancy a last stand against the odds, a fighting retreat, a death or glory charge, holding the line until reinforcements arrive, or any other sort of game scenario, then it can be done simply by modifying the missions already in the rulebook a bit or by agreeing with your opponent ahead of time how you want to arrange things.
@@seand.g423 I don't see how any controlling tendencies of GW could apply to casual games. You can modify the rules any way you want to have the game you choose to have with your opponent. It is not as though GW's secret police are going to kick down your door at three in the morning and drag you off to slave in the Forgeworld resin mines for the crime of using house rules in a casual game between friends...
This is probably the best explanation of W40K that I've ever heard. Though I'm not a gamer - the rules for this game in particular would make the Federal Income Tax Codes look straightforward in comparison - I am a model builder, and I've built some Games Workshop kits as a 'break' from yet another Panzer IV or P-51. I find them to be highly detailed, with numerous options provided. The only real drawback is the price of these bespoke kits. About a year ago, I picked up a Rogal Dorn tank to be modified as the basis for a Draka Hond. That idea was abandoned when I saw your own - and much better - interpretation of S. M. Stirling's creation. Thanks for doing the research to make this for us! 775th Like.
Yeah, I'm not a player of WH40K as it doesn't scratch my itch, though I like what I think the original inspiration was Nemesis the Warlock from 2000AD. OTOH the Ciaphas Cain books by Sandy Mitchell are a homage to the Flashman series.
Happy reading! The books by Dan Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Graham McNeill, Chris Wraight, are all good stuff. Of course there are lots more other Warhammer writers worth checking out...
I'd recommend checking out the Ciaphas Cain books for some good humor in the setting, as well as the lore of the Salamanders for one of the best examples of the 'good guys' of the setting. Isyander and Coda have some great lore videos on 40K as well that really does work for the layman just getting into the series.
We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are--- One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
I have often said that if Games Workshop actually had any intestinal fortitude vis a vis the Space Marine Gender malarkey, they would do the following: Declare that Female Space Marines have always existed, but that you couldn't tell because the Space Marine augmentation erases secondary sex characteristics.
Warhammer 40k is ultimately a story about Hope. Mankind survived the Cybernetic Revolt and Old Night. It's currently fighting off multiple extinction level events. Though trillions may die... The species will survive.
If you can find the time, you should read through the original 1st Edition Rogue Trader manual. Maybe skip the game rules since they're irrelevant now anyway, though they do resemble your D&D experimental hybrid game in practice since the game was a lot smaller scale back then. Anyway, the setting used to be a lot more on the nose and satirical. It also shares heavy influence from Judge Dredd since GW had the license to produce the miniatures game and John Wagner worked on Warhammer Fantasy for awhile. Most of its been retconned but it explains a lot about how the modern grimdark 40k is often so silly at times.
Seeing 40K as the subject of one of your videos is quite the gift you give us. Not to pile onto your reading list, but Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden does a fantastic job of conveying how dissimilar Astartes psychology is to baseline humans, and also that theme of fighting tooth and nail despite already knowing the outcome " 'Hero of Helsreach!' the crowd cheers. As if there is only one."
You might be interested in the Age of Sigmar lore for that feel of waging an unending war against an onslaught of nightmarish enemies. The Stormcast Eternals faction are mortal champions plucked from their moment of death by Sigmar. They are given powerful armor, mighty weapons, and a functional immortality. When a Stormcast dies they return to Sigmar and are reforged to continue the fight. However, each reforging takes something away from the Stormcast, a curse by Nagash, the God of Death, for keeping souls that should rightfully be his. A memory of a loved one, your eyes appearing as a collection of glittering stars, your personality changing from joyous to dour are some of the costs of reforging. Stormcast will eventually become so radically transformed that they act almost like soulless automatons or their souls resist the reforgings and have to be caged for their own good. All Stormcast know this and they will continue to fight on, for they have been given the power to eternally protect their civilizations from monsters.
it would be really cool if you looked at the Mechanicum of Mars specifically. Also the Ciaphas Cain series would be a good read, it's actually a bit more light hearted, but that grimdarkness of the setting always feels like it's hovering just out of sight in the background, it's still there, but the curtain of humanity hides it.
Honestly, if the Imperium and several of the other xenos factions actually recognized that they all share a goal of survival (Eldar, Nectons, Tau) they could actually halt the advances of the more destructive factions. But that can never happen of course.
I hope that the next time you talk about warhammer 40k, you might consider talking about the realm of Ultramar, "The empire within an empire". I know some people might role their eyes given its connection to the poster boys of the setting, the Ultramarines, but i can't help but wonder if its very existence has something deeper to say about the larger story of this GrimDark setting. This last bastion of light in a galaxy of darkness, fighting not just to survive but trying to keep the foundings principles of the original dream of the Imperium alive, hoping the embers of hope from its core may one day spread a fire to the rest of the Imperium if they just hold on long enough.
I have always thought that the Orcs aren’t “good” but more innocent. They don’t understand why humans scream when being torn apart. They need to fight to grow and even reproduce. They were built for war. Built to be a near perfect living weapon.
I had never read or looked into Warhammer, but a recent space opera short story I wrote was compared to it. So I started looking into it a little and it seems to borrow extensively from SFs back catalogue and history, and with great results.
The idea that more and more psykers were being born every year has been part of the lore for longer than 7th but it was generally presented as more of a problem than a boon. The issue being that the Imperium is a terrible place to raise anyone to have the kind of balanced outlook on life that is necessary to truly keep the lure of Chaos at bay. The only way to do that is by not giving into the base instincts that the 4 gods represent, so a psyker who is overly violent, or lustful, or manipulative, or even unambitious ends up inadvertently feeding the Chaos Gods and becoming a danger to those around them. Basically, extremism feeds the gods in 40k and the Imperium breeds extremists. For the record I think 5th was the peak of the grimdark for me, everything was failing and there weren't any answers on the horizon. I remember 6th having some lines about how the Imperium was producing more weapons, munitions, and war machines and whatnot than at any other point in it's history and it was a big wtf moment for me when in 3rd to 5th it was more of a "make do and mend" type of setting because they couldn't make enough new stuff to meet their needs, so they had to keep salvaging stuff.
If you want a good book from the perspective of one of the alien species of the franchise, one of the highest regarded books is "The Infinite and The Divine". Of note, one of the titular characters, Trazyn the Infinite, is a Necron Historian/Museum Curator. Admittedly, one that takes a more collector approach than that of on-site preservation.
Definitely checkout Huron Blackheart and Fool's Run by Mike Brooks. But stay away from any Salamander novels they're all terrible, which is unfortunate because the Salamanders represent mercy in the grimdark universe.
"Somehow the slenderness of that thread makes it feel that much stronger." Though it has in no way been made greater, a candle shines brightest in complete darkness. Edit: If you want to just have fun, play against an Ork player. The Orks are the essence of "Random bullshit GO!" and there's no such thing as a salty Ork player.
I highly recommend the Night Lords trilogy of books by Aaron Dembsky Bowden, I really think it takes everything great about the 40k universe and turns it to 11. And it's beautifully written.
@@feralhistorian Haha I just finished Blood Reaver last night! And I read Necropolis last month. If you're interested, the RUclips channel ArbitorIan has a good book club series which follow many of the most popular lore books, including Gaunt's Ghosts. I'm like you and have never played an actual game of Warhammer but I find its world incredibly engaging. I think the struggle to maintain one's humanity in the grim setting is particularly captivating. I really liked your essay, too!
GW has moved towards a narrative and metaplot. Instead of a loose framework for smaller stories. Older adventures and scenarios might be about saving this star sector, this planet or this village. Or how two hive gangs beat the snot out if eachother for a water filter.
The part about Germany reminds me of some old germans telling me about what they did during ww2...bombed cities reduced to dust, random air raids and running into forest for cover, burning corpse at the crossroad, kids serving in militia being engaged in actual combat. Just recently not far from where i work they found the airbomb while digging at some construction site which meant those disaster allerts to phones and evacuation of the small town. I did ask about you know what, but they didn't tell me much and i cant tell if thats intentional.
I would strongly suggest you watch "If the Emperor Had a Text To Speech Device." It's a fan made series that sadly will more than likely never be finished due to legal issues; yet it explains 40k really well in an entertaining way. Its depiction of the Emperor and his views on the current Imperium are pretty lore accurate as well, personality and humor aside. It's what I suggest people watch when I want to show them the better (as in less grimdark) aspects of 40k because it shows what would happen if Big E actually did get off his throne.
It is weird when you look back at the goofier satire heavy early days, when it was being made by the same people who made the Judge Dredd board game. The rules are a mess though. I just use the minis in other game systems I prefer.
A fun paradox of no one matters yet everyone is critical. Buying an extra second of life for a culture 10k years old. To be human in the most inhumane of times.
If you want to read some horus heresy, i got the first 4 books. You are welcome to them, i have family in the area that can ship them to. Always appreciate your content.
Thanks for the offer, but that won't be necessary. Any more anything I read casually has to be on a backlit ereader, my eyes are finally starting to go. Horus Rising is in the queue with everything else I want to read in the next couple months.
The Modern rules are extremely not good. Way I see it you have two options. For free you have the "One Page Rules" series of knock off stuff that comes in several flavors and supports all your armies. Or if you aren't afraid of creatively commandeering abandoned texts online by less than legal means I recommend looking at the Classic Rogue Trader from the 80s. I am not a 40k guy, though I am a wargamer (more into historicals though) so I have dabbled in it due to ubiquity. People like the lore and the models but most people think the official rules leave a lot to be desired.
What little I've done with 40K so far has already gone way into making up new rules frameworks on the fly. Like running Warhammer encounters like a D&D campaign, with a DM and a story around the mission, objectives that are actually objectives, more narrative than straight combat. The initial run was a bit janky but a lot of fun. Trying to work a good balance between 40K's "move all your units while your opponent yawns" and One Page Rules' back and forth is still a gap. Some kind of an initiative thing to simulate having momentum to an advance or being constrained by fire/terrain/whatever.
@@feralhistorian Coming from historicals and roleplaying games as my bread and butter I definitely agree with the focus on narrative objectives. I'm a big fan of greater campaign level contexts to smaller scale actions. It changes how players use their units, leads to greater characterization, changes how you approach battles, etc. Hope it goes well.
I got into warhammer via epic in he early 90s. A straighforward set of rules that were relatively fast passed and allowed large(ish) scale battles. I did get into 40k 2nd edition. It definitely had bloated rules but they were a lot of fun, with all sorts of crazy weapons. But epic was always the far better actual wargame.
I finally got into Warhammer fiction during the Covid lockdowns after friends talking about it for years. I refuse to play the games because I simply don’t have the time for it. The Horus Heresy books are a great intro that require no prior knowledge of the setting.
damn i am always late to these, but i really like your take on why Humanity is the way it is Personally though i throw my lot in with the GSC and just hope there is something in the grace of the star gods
WH40K began as a tabletop game parody of 1980s British politics. The Orks were skinheads, the Eldar were the British aristos, the Imperial Guard were the disposable army grunts of the Falkland War, and the Space Marines were a joking parody of Arthurian knights. WH40K and WH Fantasy were a victim of their own success in the 1990s.
space marines were definitely a joke cos they were conscripted drugged up ex gangers turned space police originally. the gene stuff and knight lore got added later.
Warhammer 40k was never my favorite "humanity fighting a losing war against aliens story." The Imperium is strategically stuck in a metaphorical western front where it isn't losing but cannot win either. I always prefered Halo because unlike Warhammer the desperation is real, humanity is losing decisively and all measures are being considered to try to win or at least not lose. Admittedly Halo jumped the shark with 5, and 4 took place way too soon after 3 in my opinion. (Writers need to learn to let settings rest after titanic conflicts, WW3 wouldn't happen immeadiatly after WW2 because everyone would be too exhausted from the last war. A lot of writers seem to not know this.) Halo Reach is a masterclass in what fighting a losing war feels like, every small victory you achieve is overturned by something going wrong somewhere else. Warhammer doesn't have the same sense of desperation, the Imperium could lose a hundred worlds and not feel it, the UNSC had a little over that to start with.
@feralhistorian If you want to get into it, I would recommend the Masterchief collection. It's on pc and gets you most of the games. The books are really good. The forerunner saga by Greg Bear is deep sci-fi and delves into the background of the setting. The short story collections in Halo evolutions are great. I certainly would like to hear your take on the setting.
Salamanders don't have kids but they do visit the descendants of their families from before they became astartes, so every few hundred years some lucky Nocturnean kid might get to meet his great-great-grand-uncle Draksmith from the 3rd company.
funny I meet warhammer thanks to some parody when I was a pre teen then when I was a teenager I started reading the wiki on some factions and I tought it was to grimdark for me. But then I started understanding the Imperium and even respect some of his brutal factions like the Inquisition, becouse like you said against this kinds of enemies you don't have other choice than to fight and do henious acts to survive. Sadly since I live in south america is almost imposible to find warhammer 40k merch besides the videogames, but funny enough a youtuber from Peru by the name of huntleo have introduced warhammer 40k to the latin american community and now there is a big increasing fandom of warhammer growing in south america. Changing subjetcs haye you see this mecha anime in youtube called "Obsolete"? it's really good since it have some cultural and political topics wich I think you may be interested
Mmmm.....FINALLY, you tackle 40k. A fair take. But I'm still waiting for your take on the Traitor Legions, the rebels. Perhaps once you've read the Night Lords Trilogy? Definitely one of the best (IMHO) at showing how "other" the space marines are.
I'm halfway through the trilogy now (alternating with a couple other books I want to cover) and I'm quite sure that there will be more Warhammer commentary in the future.
@@BoneistJ Cain reveals that one of the secret rituals for appeasing the machine spirits is to give the device's casing a good, solid smack. It's surprisingly more effective (and usually faster) than incense, votive candles, and attaching scripture.
It's funny that he thinks the rules are complicated now. Back in the day I felt like I could have gotten a law degree easier then understanding the rules.
Or, to avoid the comparison with Fascism and Nazis you could have used a modern equivalent that would avoid all controversy... Slava Ukraini :) Another excellent video. It's been over 30 years since my last game of 40K, but it's so ubiquitous in the SF/gaming space that I still know more than I normally want to.
So the germans were about to face the same fate that drove them into hitler's arms n the first place. It is romantic to think they avoided that by fighting to the bitter end. What a wonderful fact that I did not know about WW2, thank you. I didn't know the allies at first wished to do much worse to germany. On another note, I wonder if you heard of Black Lagoon.
Terra and planets like Necromunda are in the quadrillions each, tens of thousands of other tens of billions of people hive worlds and the Imperium as a whole has anywhere from a few hundred quadrillion to low quintillions of souls in population.
Fundamentally it probably wouldn't matter what the gender of the child was, given what we know about development and the array of techniques used in universe, a small child of either gender is going to turn out indistinguishable in the end. It just happens that the physical traits of a space marine align with an exaggerated idea of masculinity.
The battletech universe Elementals is a better version of space marines. no gender issues, can be either, both end up super strong but females and male remain distinguishable, and they use battle suits that make terminators look like paper. imagine a group of terminators leaping onto a warhound titan with jetpacks and ripping it apart with lasers and claws. Thats Elementals.
The main problem is that the astartes augmentation process fundamentally does not work with the XX chromosome, since the primarchs were all male and each legion is based on the genetic components of a primarch.
All the talk about bloated bureaucracy but you only get to play with lame space marines, can we play interstellar taxes instead? No wonder the playerbase is so mentally underdeveloped. Imperial bureaucrat isnt even playable faction but somehow they are the most influential.
Did it every occur that it's because 40k tabletop is - you know, a wargame? You can certainly explore the imperial bureaucracy in the TTRPG adaptations of the setting.
You did this in the Dark Heresy RPG where you might see more of the civilian side. In the original DH you are inquisitorial goons running around poking at high and low. There was also Inquisitor, where you half skirmish wargame and half roleplay inquisitors and goons.
As some one that took part a few years ago in the "Female Space Marines" online debate in Dakka Dakka forum (with a somewhat middle ground position), this are my two cents on the issue. -Space Marines are Cis Males pre adolescents that suffer a deep transformation before they became sexually active and therefore became metahuman leaving weapons. -They cannot reproduce, its very clear in lore that they are sterile, By design. This is a very important element of the lore. -Its most probable that Space Marines cannot experience normative sexual relationships... its implied that there sexual impulse its directed towards battle and combat. Since loyal and traitor space marines are so diverse, there might be some exceptions (I havent read all that many novels. Perhaps the Emperor sons can indeed have a estandar intercourse). -There are in universe reason for this too happen. But the RW reason is that when 40K was born in the 80s and early 90s as a cohesive franchise the Space Marines where the most direct projection (avatars) of the teenage players that make up the bulk of the costumer base. -From a social and performative POV Space Marine are young cis asexual men (with a more or less platonic homoerotic edge depending on the particular story). -This could be reckoned with out a huge overhaul. But the impact on the setting wont be minor. Headcannon allow a custum made marine chapter or warband to have Ciswomen or transgender people in its ranks...altough as describe above it would make little diference since in practicall terms Space Marines are asexual pre adolescents with their personalities freeze before reaching sexual maturity.
The way it strikes me is that a Space Marine is so heavily modified from the base-model H-Sap that questions of gender are pretty much relegated to what parts get thrown away in the operating room. Encountering them in the field, I don't think anyone would be able to tell without stripping off the armor and checking where the scars are.
You left out the grim arithmetic of the 41st millennium. You are a cog, a piece of the machine. Your labor, your every action, your every breath, is accounted for. There are statistics and figures on the amount of water you produce into the atmosphere when you sweat; and somebody who's entire existence from birth to grave is to collate said statistics. Your reproduction is likewise accounted for. The Ordo Famulous handles this for the nobles but rest assured the genetic stock of the average citizen is also closely monitored. Mutation is often one of the first signs of heresy, after all. In most worlds you are not merely monitored but managed. Your role is given to you and for the overwhelmingly vast majority of people; it will never change. Likewise your partner is assigned to you and you are expected to produce further generations to perpetuate the machine. In such calculations those with wombs are more valuable than those with dangly bits; and that is all the Imperium cares about. What role you play in the war.
I actually kind of like the aesthetic. I've always found Gothic architecture appealing, there's a certain beauty to that towering, spiky cathedral with insufficient lighting look. But then I really like Saruman's cluttered study at Orthanc in the Lord of the Rings films too, so my taste is somewhat suspect.
I just want to toss in my 2 cents on this, while the world written about is the stuff of antifa's nightmares, its not really. First off, there are nice worlds, they just never write about them. There are worlds in varying levels of technology from medieval to some that might even be higher tech than Terra or Mars omnissiah forbid! I forget how many worlds there are but I do vaguely remember the tables to roll on to determine the details of generic world X that you happen to need to generate off the cuff and while yeah those tables contain nightmare hellworlds, they also contained the possibility to roll up Eden. 2nd, the reason for the extreme authoritarian control and repression is because if society was a bunch of free thinkers, demons show up and kill everyone. To quote "an open mind is like a fortress with its gates open and unbarred", it's not some nazi wet dream it's humanity attempting to survive against demons that can literally invade your mind. 3rd, while everything is basically shit and GW keeps inventing new foes, the Imperium of man stands strong as the most powerful faction with the god emperor set to ascend to true godhood upon his death, the Imperium of man with a legit god leading it would likely lead mankind to an unrivaled time of peace.... Mind you, that's the logical thing that should happen but I'm pretty sure Dan Abnett has all but confirmed that GW is going to subvert our expectations and do something stupid instead. PS if you just started digging into 40k lore and came up with this cliff's notes synopsis, good job! I think you got it all correct. Oh and borrow a friend's army and play, it's kind of fun but not really worth over a grand on the models. Oh and you can always buy used armies, people quit just as frequently as they start.
@@grazzitdvram putting the snark aside, I am impressed with all the Warhammer authors I've read so far with how they manage to tell interesting stories set in a world that they can't fundamentally change. It gets harder to do as decades of lore pile up.
@@feralhistorian I appreciate them trying but they're also the ones that casually break the rules of the world.... Which they've gotten much better at avoiding but now you have GW directing them to rewrite lore in the 30k novels which I find even worse. *shrug* it is what it is and it's still interesting.
40K is something I just can't get into. To me, the scale of it rises to such absurd levels that I just can't come to care. Stalin's quote, et cetera et cetera. And for the visuals, Blizzard stole it and made it cooler (objectively cooler) with Starcraft. And the scale in Starcraft is approachable. If you lose a planet to the Zerg, we understand the significance of it. It would be like losing a continent on Earth to the zombie horde. We get it. The Imperium losing a few dozen planets? Eh, that's just a Tuesday. ---- I do not share the idea to fight on, no matter what, just to preserve "life". At a certain point, your actions to preserve yourself reaches the point where it is no longer worth it. If you sacrifice humanity to save humanity... Then... what's the point? You have already given it up. You have already lost. Fighting bitterly against an invading enemy to prevent the slaughter and enslavement of your people, is an understandable cause to fight for. But if that defiance reaches the point where, for fantasy and conversation's sake, the defender then starts sacrificing hundreds of virgins a day on some blood altar in front of the Reichstag. Then you have reached a point where slaughter and enslavement is perhaps not the worst of the two outcomes. If the whole occult thing panned out, and they open a portal to Hell itself... Even Soviet occupation and enslavement would be better than that. "In 'Possible Worlds" Professor Haldane pictured a future in which Man, foreseeing that Earth would soon be uninhabitable, adapted himself for migration to Venus by drastically modifying his physiology and abandoning justice, pity and happiness. The desire here is for mere survival. Now I care far more how humanity lives than how long." - C.S. Lewis. From "God in the Dock", from the chapter "Willing Slaves of the Welfare State." (which I have quoted before, but it seems to stay relevant on this channel). There is nothing in 40K that is worth fighting for. This notion to fight on in the hopes that some "evolution" is to save the day, really makes me uncomfortable. On the one side, there is the Pagan defiance that interested Tolkien. Where the Norse fought on, knowing that it would all end in Ragnarok. And not believing in any sort of Salvation. Then on the other, there is the modern Progressive view, that all things will just get better by itself, because the entire ideology is dependent upon it. Where our modern world is a sort of twisted marriage of these two ideas, where the end result is some horrid result that makes the hairs on my back stand up. Sacrificing our young men to fight for "our way of life" and whatnot. A blood sacrifice for Social Democracy and Globalism. Blergh. So, that is the second reason I can't get into 40K. It is one of the most anti-New Testament fictional settings out there. Not as in, it tries to tear it down or any such thing, no not at all. But that the world portrayed is so fundamentally opposed to how I view... everything. That it becomes impossible for me to interact with it. The 40K "Grimdark", to me, is close to synonymous with "Why even bother?". Why bother fighting to preserve the Imperium? Why bother reading about it?
That's not too far off from my initial impression of it way back. Somehow though, through exposure to it, I've started thinking of it in terms of a parable for all the questions about where that line between doing what's necessary for survival and not deserving to survive lies. And it always brings me back to Tolkien's eucatastrophe. It's so grim, so hopeless, it just drips in this thick ooze of despair that it would be so easy to just sink into and quit. I've been there in my own life, and 40K reminds me of that stubbornness of staring into the abyss and saying "piss off you, today could be the day it turns around." And sometimes it is. (edited for typo)
@@feralhistorian to read something in the same vibe you have "The dead and the living" (translated from spanish, translated from russian so perhaps not correct) about the battle of Moscow. Its Stalinist propaganda but its well ment propaganda and it captures that feeling of fighting against all odds on spite the lack of hope.
That's not an unreasonable take away. For me the selling point is pre-heresy Big E. The empire he wanted to create isn't "good" by our standards, given the necessities of the universe it exists in I don't think it ever could be. Yet the Emperor's goal was certainly far from the totalitarian all controlling regressive theocracy that the Imperium has become. The current Imperium being a product of a heretical fallen son of the Emperor. So at its core there is still that progressive human civilization that almost was. Even if it's buried deep the core of the Lex Imperialis is actually remarkably permissive and liberal; again as much as it can be given the universe it exists in. Even as it is, suffocating beneath a mountain of ten thousand year old bureaucratic bloat you still have noble ideals desperately trying to assert themselves. It is precisely the ridiculous scale of the calamities which make the ever shrinking glimpses of that hope all the brighter. There is a way out of this mess. It's getting harder to find with each year but there is still some hope.
Then why come to the video then and drop an essay saying "I don't care for this, because this it upsets me hew, hew, hew."? Yes it's a setting set at minute to midnight, that is what makes it cool and despite modern GW and these faggy (((lore))) channels, the new fluff, it ain't good. The old stuff, while hardly Dickensian, allowed wiggle room to play and create, write and indeed do your own thing in any part of this apparently "grimdark" galaxy (although it's been overtaken several times in that respect since its inception!). Now it's just corporate slopola, with all that entails, including a grown man going it's "ohh it does the goose step" female marines (which wouldn't even make sense, as given the implants you would get very much the same end result - assuming she survives the trials, does the uploader hate women?). There is a reason they are selected from the male of the species. But how does that connect to my view of 40K you ask? Easy. Go back to primary sources, forget YT, forget audiobooks, forget even modern GW go back to RT, 2nd, 3rd and 3.5 and 4th editions and read them for yourself, they are easy to find in PDF form, give it a chance. Take the art the quotes and the atmosphere, you never know... You could become one of us.
@@grimjoker5572 The absurd scale also lets you have hundreds of stories about this one time the light wasn't extinguished without breaking the setting's grimdark nature, because we presume that there were thousands of stories that happened off-screen where it was.
You've done it Feral. You've won.
You really are Warhammer 40k...
*”Where I fall ten more shall take my place! And a **_hundred_** each one of them! So strike me down, I am only the harbinger!!”*
The irony and satire are still there, though its been covered over a bit through the years. One of my favorites is that in the end, humanity turned the Emperor into a Servitor. A cyborg zombie tasked with a function, regardless of the underlying subject's pain. Servitors are everywhere in the imperium, people broken down into nothing but tools. So of course, that is what the creator of the Imperium was transformed into. It's a beautiful kind of irony, and a statement about how bureaucracy so often ends up consuming its own purpose.
No, not really. The Emperor is both conscious and chose/endures the eternal torture of the Golden Throne willingly for the sake of Mankind's ultimate salvation from Chaos. It's much more reflective of Christian thematic imagery (something 40K tends to do quite blatantly at times) than anything else.
@@CanadianPaleIf anything the servitors are a reflection of the GE's willingness to suffer tens of thousands of years holding the Imperium together, as the sentencing of servitude is one granted to "make amends" for ones wrong doings. Except its not a choice for the common criminal, heretic or political dissident
@@Dogman262 common criminals don't become servitors. It's normally only used as a punishment for really severe (i. e. _dangerous_ ) acts of tech-heresy, so the comparison falls apart again there.
@@CanadianPale Yeah man whatever ig
@@Dogman262 go in peace, my son. The Emperor Protects.
As an outsider, the "Space Marine controversy" was very entertaining to watch. My familiarity, such as it is, with WH40K is solely what I've picked up from subcultural osmosis; even so, I know that the setting is intentionally, explicitly made to be as horrific as the writers can imagine. So I find it hilarious that anyone would want to "see themselves" in _that._
You'd be surprised...😉
@@CanadianPale Sadly, I would not. But I still find it amusing.
The whole controversy is, excuse my French, ret*rded af.
Space Marines are not just super soldiers, they´re basically "warrior monks".
And there are also "warrior nuns" in 40k, the Adepta Sororitas or "Sisters of Battle".
They lack the genetic/cybernetic enhancements of the Astartes, but this is balanced out by their faith in the Emperor being so strong, that it enables them to perform superhuman feats.
One could argue, that the Sororitas are even more "badass" than the Astartes, because they manage to go out and successfully fight all kinds of horrible Chaos Daemons, Traitor Marines, Xenos and heretics, WITHOUT having all genetic/cybernetic crap showed into their bodies.
You want to "identify" with a faction? Well, 40k gives you plenty of options to choose.
But that´s not what this is all about. This is just more cultural marxist BS, as we have seen it in various other hobbies and entertainment.
@doublep1980 but, the question is, why do you care so much? how many models you own? how many rulebooks? if youve been playing for a long time, you know that the game never took itself as seriously as you are now... another thing, nothing is canon. every rulebook has retconned and changed loads of stuff. so again, the question is,, right noq, why do you care? why does it actually matter, if there can be female space marines? there are plenty of other brotherhoods and groups in 40k that _arnt_ space marines, still totally emasculated. yet only one female centered one... why cant there be some more stuff thats slightly more female oriented?
@@Rexini_Kobalt no, the question is why you think mere growth is a greater good than preserving the integrity of the lore. You're expressing the values of a cancer LOL. 😏
Also I think Gaunt's Ghost book series (Imperial Guard) would be up your alley.
Think Band of Brothers in 40k and Dick Winters in a Commisar Cap with a chainsword.
It's pretty blatantly a take on the Sharpe novels, even right down to copying the gag of having the protagonists hair color be different on the covers and official artwork compared to how it's actually described in the novels themselves.
For those looking for more humanity and, yes, a light in the darkness of 40k...I highly endorse Dan Abnett's work, particularly the Gaunt's Ghosts series. He has a knack for making such a silly setting seem real, filled with real people.
Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain books are flat out humorous and if you don't mind the wholesale theft of George MacDonald Fraser's 'Flashman' reskinned, they're good too.
I think you would greatly enjoy the Gaunts Ghosts series of novels by Dan Abnett. It has a Band of Brothers meets Sharpe feel to it, expertly capturing the esprit de corps of fighting men and making combat in the insane setting of Warhammer 40K feel surprisingly believable and 'real' from the perspective of boots on the ground infantrymen.
Gaunt's Ghosts is definitely on my list now. I'll probably be alternating between Warhammer novels and everything else I want to read for quite a while.
@@feralhistorian Careful - Games Workshop has its own in house publishing arm called Black Library that has been around for decades, and it has published huge numbers of books both for 40K and the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Once you start down that rabbit hole, you may never find your way out again.
If you are prepared to brave that risk, and fancy dipping your toe into a pulp series of stories from the fantasy arm of Games Workshop's IP that are huge fun, may I also recommend the Gotrek and Felix novels, starting with Trollslayer by William King? Most of those novels are available as audiobooks on Audible now, voiced by the ever excellent Jonathan Keeble, and pretty much cover the journeys and adventures of the Old World's angriest doom seeking Dwarf and his human Rememberer, who is essentially a chronicler of his quest to find honourable death in battle to expunge a personal shame. The dynamic between the two characters varies from hilarious to at times actually rather poignant. Felix Jaeger may be the most relatable character from fantasy fiction I have ever read, and the older I get the more relatable I find him to be.
@@feralhistorian For a lighter take, the Ciaphas Cain novels are more-or-less Flashman in 40k. All the grimdark is there, of course, but since the story is first person the narrator is rather blase about features of the setting that grate against modern sensibilities.
@@feralhistorian And also the Eisenhorn Trilogy by the same author is very good.
An open algorithm is like a fortress with it's gates unbarred and unguarded
ISWYDT
@@MarkAndrewEdwards did you hear it in the right voice too?
@@KatanamasterV Aye, I do love me some Dawn of War.
@@MarkAndrewEdwards nice
Suffer not the like button unsmashed
in the name of our beloved god emperor - praise Feral. He has served Terra well
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Kudos to Feral for observing that 40K is not satire, and explaining why. 🤜🤛
Thanks for the upload. My own, meandering thoughts on 40K are broadly similar, and often in conflict with the more nihilistic perspectives prevalent in some quarters (Reddit in particular seems to be a hotbed of such), so it's heartening to see a more optimistic take on the universe discussed at length here for public edification. That said, there are a couple of quibbles I have with some of the points presented:
First is the idea that the Imperium are not "the good guys," which I've always found curious. From our perspective here in the comparatively cozy 2nd Millennium, the Imperium of course appears horrifying, but while it may be "the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable," it's ultimately cruel to be kind, so to speak. Everything the Imperium does is dictated by the singular, all-consuming goal of preserving Mankind's existence in a universe stuffed to bursting with genocidal alien monsters and daemons thirsting for human souls, a universe where "we had to destroy the village to save it" is not Orwellian doublethink but a bald statement of fact that could mean the difference between a few souls being prematurely sent to the Emperor's Realm and the loss of an entire planet inhabited by billions (a recent Warhammer + animated short had a nice take on this in the context of a Genstealer cult and a Tyranid invasion).
Second is the degree of corruption in the Imperium. While we definitely see corrupt officials in the fluff (and Imperial bureaucratic shenanigans _are_ often darkly humorous), I'm not convinced that the Imperium (as distinct from its constituent planetary governments) is _especially_ corrupt by any reasonable standard for a more-or-less feudal polity that has ruled over millions of planets for the better part of 10,000 years. Obviously, the system works, in-universe, and is robust enough to have kept working for almost 10 millennia, though it is true that the Administratum is inefficient. That, however, is in large part because it was designed to be so; after the Horus Heresy, and then again, after the reign of Goge Vandire, the apparatus of government was redesigned with the goal of making it as difficult as possible for a single person to quickly exercise absolute and unimpeded power throughout the Imperium.
But again, thank you for articulating your thoughts on the oft-overlooked or downplayed optimism of 40K, the slender thread which, as you note, serves to strengthen the universe as a whole. Whether it be Space Marine Ragnar Blackmane getting snapped out of a Chaos-induced stupor by some indescribable force of goodness radiating directly from Holy Terra, Euphrati Keeler banishing daemons in the name of the Emperor, slain Imperial Guardsmen reuniting with their comrades in the afterlife, or the Primarchs gradually returning, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is still hope.
There have been occasional hiccups in those 10,000 years though, like the Age of Apostasy, but yeah, broadly speaking the Imperium keeps trucking on, bumps in the road not withstanding.
Feral Historian is an agent of Chaos, I would say Tzeentch.
Cool video as always! I was kind of hoping you'd cover this sooner or later, since it seems to be in your wheel house!
Personally, I got turned off of 40K years ago when I attended a gaming convention and saw two grown men in 45 minute screaming match over who was in possession of a square inch. All the miniatures looked cool. But further got turned off by all the painting and expense involved. Oh, and not to mention all the rules and books you need to read. So I guess it boils down to Money, time, and patience which are all finite resources that I can't manage for shit! Oh well... At least the art is cool!
Yeah, some people take their gaming way too seriously and 40K makes it really easy to find things to argue about.
Just recently I ran a small experimental game, using roughly 40K rules but I DMed it like a D&D campaign. There was a story to the mission, the objectives where actually things that made sense rather than arbitrary markers, and periodic "intel updates" that moved the story along. It was really bare-bones but I would absolutely do it again.
12:43 "a bastard son of the..." fething peak! 😂
Outside the more rigid tournament scene end of the 40K hobby, Game Workshop have repeatedly stated that the rules in more casual games should be treated as simply a broad framework, a general guide that you can modify and tweak in whatever way you like as you work with your opponent to set up the sort of enjoyable, memorable game you both want. If you fancy a last stand against the odds, a fighting retreat, a death or glory charge, holding the line until reinforcements arrive, or any other sort of game scenario, then it can be done simply by modifying the missions already in the rulebook a bit or by agreeing with your opponent ahead of time how you want to arrange things.
I think we've _all_ seen what GW of all things mean by "a framework", tho...
@@seand.g423 I don't see how any controlling tendencies of GW could apply to casual games. You can modify the rules any way you want to have the game you choose to have with your opponent. It is not as though GW's secret police are going to kick down your door at three in the morning and drag you off to slave in the Forgeworld resin mines for the crime of using house rules in a casual game between friends...
This is probably the best explanation of W40K that I've ever heard. Though I'm not a gamer - the rules for this game in particular would make the Federal Income Tax Codes look straightforward in comparison - I am a model builder, and I've built some Games Workshop kits as a 'break' from yet another Panzer IV or P-51. I find them to be highly detailed, with numerous options provided. The only real drawback is the price of these bespoke kits.
About a year ago, I picked up a Rogal Dorn tank to be modified as the basis for a Draka Hond. That idea was abandoned when I saw your own - and much better - interpretation of S. M. Stirling's creation.
Thanks for doing the research to make this for us!
775th Like.
Yeah, I'm not a player of WH40K as it doesn't scratch my itch, though I like what I think the original inspiration was Nemesis the Warlock from 2000AD. OTOH the Ciaphas Cain books by Sandy Mitchell are a homage to the Flashman series.
Happy reading! The books by Dan Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Graham McNeill, Chris Wraight, are all good stuff. Of course there are lots more other Warhammer writers worth checking out...
Chris Wraight? "Unaugmented human female effortlessly lifts and wields a Space Marine Chaplain's crozius" Chris Wraight? LMAO...
If you are looking for a rule set that sheds all the 40k bloat, try Xenos Rampant.
I'd recommend checking out the Ciaphas Cain books for some good humor in the setting, as well as the lore of the Salamanders for one of the best examples of the 'good guys' of the setting. Isyander and Coda have some great lore videos on 40K as well that really does work for the layman just getting into the series.
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Holy smokes, I never would have thought this would be a video you'd ever make! This is awesome.
The books "Scars" and "Warhawk" are favourites among the fandom, and for good reason.
I belive that the maker of event horison have said that he was a 40k fan.
And i would recommend the gaunts ghost and cain books
He's probably also a big fan of the Hellraiser movies.
I have often said that if Games Workshop actually had any intestinal fortitude vis a vis the Space Marine Gender malarkey, they would do the following: Declare that Female Space Marines have always existed, but that you couldn't tell because the Space Marine augmentation erases secondary sex characteristics.
Warhammer 40k is ultimately a story about Hope.
Mankind survived the Cybernetic Revolt and Old Night.
It's currently fighting off multiple extinction level events.
Though trillions may die... The species will survive.
If you can find the time, you should read through the original 1st Edition Rogue Trader manual. Maybe skip the game rules since they're irrelevant now anyway, though they do resemble your D&D experimental hybrid game in practice since the game was a lot smaller scale back then. Anyway, the setting used to be a lot more on the nose and satirical. It also shares heavy influence from Judge Dredd since GW had the license to produce the miniatures game and John Wagner worked on Warhammer Fantasy for awhile. Most of its been retconned but it explains a lot about how the modern grimdark 40k is often so silly at times.
Henry Cavill is a big Warhammer 40K player.
Seeing 40K as the subject of one of your videos is quite the gift you give us.
Not to pile onto your reading list, but Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden does a fantastic job of conveying how dissimilar Astartes psychology is to baseline humans, and also that theme of fighting tooth and nail despite already knowing the outcome
" 'Hero of Helsreach!' the crowd cheers. As if there is only one."
You might be interested in the Age of Sigmar lore for that feel of waging an unending war against an onslaught of nightmarish enemies.
The Stormcast Eternals faction are mortal champions plucked from their moment of death by Sigmar. They are given powerful armor, mighty weapons, and a functional immortality. When a Stormcast dies they return to Sigmar and are reforged to continue the fight. However, each reforging takes something away from the Stormcast, a curse by Nagash, the God of Death, for keeping souls that should rightfully be his.
A memory of a loved one, your eyes appearing as a collection of glittering stars, your personality changing from joyous to dour are some of the costs of reforging. Stormcast will eventually become so radically transformed that they act almost like soulless automatons or their souls resist the reforgings and have to be caged for their own good.
All Stormcast know this and they will continue to fight on, for they have been given the power to eternally protect their civilizations from monsters.
it would be really cool if you looked at the Mechanicum of Mars specifically. Also the Ciaphas Cain series would be a good read, it's actually a bit more light hearted, but that grimdarkness of the setting always feels like it's hovering just out of sight in the background, it's still there, but the curtain of humanity hides it.
God damn that's good writing!
his shininess 😂
Honestly, if the Imperium and several of the other xenos factions actually recognized that they all share a goal of survival (Eldar, Nectons, Tau) they could actually halt the advances of the more destructive factions. But that can never happen of course.
I hope that the next time you talk about warhammer 40k, you might consider talking about the realm of Ultramar, "The empire within an empire". I know some people might role their eyes given its connection to the poster boys of the setting, the Ultramarines, but i can't help but wonder if its very existence has something deeper to say about the larger story of this GrimDark setting. This last bastion of light in a galaxy of darkness, fighting not just to survive but trying to keep the foundings principles of the original dream of the Imperium alive, hoping the embers of hope from its core may one day spread a fire to the rest of the Imperium if they just hold on long enough.
I have always thought that the Orcs aren’t “good” but more innocent. They don’t understand why humans scream when being torn apart. They need to fight to grow and even reproduce. They were built for war. Built to be a near perfect living weapon.
They are cruel blokes who think it is fun to beat another blokes teeth in and do so with an absence of reflection.
I had never read or looked into Warhammer, but a recent space opera short story I wrote was compared to it. So I started looking into it a little and it seems to borrow extensively from SFs back catalogue and history, and with great results.
Finally !
My man review 40k!
Interestingly all the powers in WW2 felt that they were fighting for their very lives. That is why the war was so vicious.
I am once again Posting to gain attention to the starfist book series which is fantastic!
Added the first one to my ever-growing reading list.
If heresy grows from idleness you have nothing to worry about.
The idea that more and more psykers were being born every year has been part of the lore for longer than 7th but it was generally presented as more of a problem than a boon. The issue being that the Imperium is a terrible place to raise anyone to have the kind of balanced outlook on life that is necessary to truly keep the lure of Chaos at bay. The only way to do that is by not giving into the base instincts that the 4 gods represent, so a psyker who is overly violent, or lustful, or manipulative, or even unambitious ends up inadvertently feeding the Chaos Gods and becoming a danger to those around them. Basically, extremism feeds the gods in 40k and the Imperium breeds extremists.
For the record I think 5th was the peak of the grimdark for me, everything was failing and there weren't any answers on the horizon. I remember 6th having some lines about how the Imperium was producing more weapons, munitions, and war machines and whatnot than at any other point in it's history and it was a big wtf moment for me when in 3rd to 5th it was more of a "make do and mend" type of setting because they couldn't make enough new stuff to meet their needs, so they had to keep salvaging stuff.
If you want a good book from the perspective of one of the alien species of the franchise, one of the highest regarded books is "The Infinite and The Divine". Of note, one of the titular characters, Trazyn the Infinite, is a Necron Historian/Museum Curator. Admittedly, one that takes a more collector approach than that of on-site preservation.
I imagine a Necron historian would have some stories to tell. Added to the list.
Definitely checkout Huron Blackheart and Fool's Run by Mike Brooks. But stay away from any Salamander novels they're all terrible, which is unfortunate because the Salamanders represent mercy in the grimdark universe.
This is a setting that you should explor further for sure.
"Somehow the slenderness of that thread makes it feel that much stronger."
Though it has in no way been made greater, a candle shines brightest in complete darkness.
Edit: If you want to just have fun, play against an Ork player. The Orks are the essence of "Random bullshit GO!" and there's no such thing as a salty Ork player.
I highly recommend the Night Lords trilogy of books by Aaron Dembsky Bowden, I really think it takes everything great about the 40k universe and turns it to 11. And it's beautifully written.
I recently read the first two books of the trilogy, and I see exactly what you mean. I'll come back for 3 after finishing Gaunt's Ghosts.
@@feralhistorian Haha I just finished Blood Reaver last night! And I read Necropolis last month. If you're interested, the RUclips channel ArbitorIan has a good book club series which follow many of the most popular lore books, including Gaunt's Ghosts. I'm like you and have never played an actual game of Warhammer but I find its world incredibly engaging. I think the struggle to maintain one's humanity in the grim setting is particularly captivating. I really liked your essay, too!
GW has moved towards a narrative and metaplot. Instead of a loose framework for smaller stories. Older adventures and scenarios might be about saving this star sector, this planet or this village. Or how two hive gangs beat the snot out if eachother for a water filter.
“There are no objectively good sides”
Huh… kind of like WWII…
you mean WWI
@@or_gluzman561Peace_IL_PS to you, all I mean to say is:
➕Christ is King 👑
Nice take 🎉
The part about Germany reminds me of some old germans telling me about what they did during ww2...bombed cities reduced to dust, random air raids and running into forest for cover, burning corpse at the crossroad, kids serving in militia being engaged in actual combat.
Just recently not far from where i work they found the airbomb while digging at some construction site which meant those disaster allerts to phones and evacuation of the small town.
I did ask about you know what, but they didn't tell me much and i cant tell if thats intentional.
I would strongly suggest you watch "If the Emperor Had a Text To Speech Device." It's a fan made series that sadly will more than likely never be finished due to legal issues; yet it explains 40k really well in an entertaining way. Its depiction of the Emperor and his views on the current Imperium are pretty lore accurate as well, personality and humor aside. It's what I suggest people watch when I want to show them the better (as in less grimdark) aspects of 40k because it shows what would happen if Big E actually did get off his throne.
Pretty lore-accurate if you're a Redditor whose main source of info is corpse-starch memes...😆
It is weird when you look back at the goofier satire heavy early days, when it was being made by the same people who made the Judge Dredd board game.
The rules are a mess though. I just use the minis in other game systems I prefer.
Sysiphis with a Lasgun?
Nice video. The game actually started with much more satire and was funny, for some reason it got way more serious in the last 20 years.
A fun paradox of no one matters yet everyone is critical. Buying an extra second of life for a culture 10k years old. To be human in the most inhumane of times.
If you want to read some horus heresy, i got the first 4 books. You are welcome to them, i have family in the area that can ship them to. Always appreciate your content.
Thanks for the offer, but that won't be necessary. Any more anything I read casually has to be on a backlit ereader, my eyes are finally starting to go. Horus Rising is in the queue with everything else I want to read in the next couple months.
Ave Imperator!
The Modern rules are extremely not good.
Way I see it you have two options.
For free you have the "One Page Rules" series of knock off stuff that comes in several flavors and supports all your armies.
Or if you aren't afraid of creatively commandeering abandoned texts online by less than legal means I recommend looking at the Classic Rogue Trader from the 80s.
I am not a 40k guy, though I am a wargamer (more into historicals though) so I have dabbled in it due to ubiquity.
People like the lore and the models but most people think the official rules leave a lot to be desired.
What little I've done with 40K so far has already gone way into making up new rules frameworks on the fly. Like running Warhammer encounters like a D&D campaign, with a DM and a story around the mission, objectives that are actually objectives, more narrative than straight combat. The initial run was a bit janky but a lot of fun.
Trying to work a good balance between 40K's "move all your units while your opponent yawns" and One Page Rules' back and forth is still a gap. Some kind of an initiative thing to simulate having momentum to an advance or being constrained by fire/terrain/whatever.
@@feralhistorian Coming from historicals and roleplaying games as my bread and butter I definitely agree with the focus on narrative objectives. I'm a big fan of greater campaign level contexts to smaller scale actions.
It changes how players use their units, leads to greater characterization, changes how you approach battles, etc.
Hope it goes well.
I got into warhammer via epic in he early 90s. A straighforward set of rules that were relatively fast passed and allowed large(ish) scale battles. I did get into 40k 2nd edition. It definitely had bloated rules but they were a lot of fun, with all sorts of crazy weapons. But epic was always the far better actual wargame.
I finally got into Warhammer fiction during the Covid lockdowns after friends talking about it for years. I refuse to play the games because I simply don’t have the time for it. The Horus Heresy books are a great intro that require no prior knowledge of the setting.
Well said from the only literate man in media
hey farel historian what do you think about maybe doing comparison between the A24 civil war 2024 and the 1997 The Second Civil War movies
That could happen. Several months ago I rewatched Second Civil War but never did anything with it. Haven't seen the A24 film yet, but eventually.
damn i am always late to these, but i really like your take on why Humanity is the way it is
Personally though i throw my lot in with the GSC and just hope there is something in the grace of the star gods
If everything sucks, then you can just have fun, and let go
WH40K began as a tabletop game parody of 1980s British politics. The Orks were skinheads, the Eldar were the British aristos, the Imperial Guard were the disposable army grunts of the Falkland War, and the Space Marines were a joking parody of Arthurian knights. WH40K and WH Fantasy were a victim of their own success in the 1990s.
space marines were definitely a joke cos they were conscripted drugged up ex gangers turned space police originally. the gene stuff and knight lore got added later.
You could try killteam instead of the wargame
Warhammer 40k was never my favorite "humanity fighting a losing war against aliens story." The Imperium is strategically stuck in a metaphorical western front where it isn't losing but cannot win either. I always prefered Halo because unlike Warhammer the desperation is real, humanity is losing decisively and all measures are being considered to try to win or at least not lose. Admittedly Halo jumped the shark with 5, and 4 took place way too soon after 3 in my opinion. (Writers need to learn to let settings rest after titanic conflicts, WW3 wouldn't happen immeadiatly after WW2 because everyone would be too exhausted from the last war. A lot of writers seem to not know this.)
Halo Reach is a masterclass in what fighting a losing war feels like, every small victory you achieve is overturned by something going wrong somewhere else. Warhammer doesn't have the same sense of desperation, the Imperium could lose a hundred worlds and not feel it, the UNSC had a little over that to start with.
I largely missed out on Halo, like most games that launched as console-exclusives. One of these days I should speed-run the whole series.
@feralhistorian If you want to get into it, I would recommend the Masterchief collection. It's on pc and gets you most of the games. The books are really good. The forerunner saga by Greg Bear is deep sci-fi and delves into the background of the setting. The short story collections in Halo evolutions are great. I certainly would like to hear your take on the setting.
A Space Wolf named Lukas from the book Lukas the Trickster has had kids, and the Salamander's have offspring I believe.
Salamanders don't have kids but they do visit the descendants of their families from before they became astartes, so every few hundred years some lucky Nocturnean kid might get to meet his great-great-grand-uncle Draksmith from the 3rd company.
funny I meet warhammer thanks to some parody when I was a pre teen then when I was a teenager I started reading the wiki on some factions and I tought it was to grimdark for me. But then I started understanding the Imperium and even respect some of his brutal factions like the Inquisition, becouse like you said against this kinds of enemies you don't have other choice than to fight and do henious acts to survive. Sadly since I live in south america is almost imposible to find warhammer 40k merch besides the videogames, but funny enough a youtuber from Peru by the name of huntleo have introduced warhammer 40k to the latin american community and now there is a big increasing fandom of warhammer growing in south america.
Changing subjetcs haye you see this mecha anime in youtube called "Obsolete"? it's really good since it have some cultural and political topics wich I think you may be interested
I'll give "Obsolete" a look.
You could always try the tabletop roleplaying games instead of the wargame
I'd say the current rules feel like US tax code compared to the old rules. Then again, maybe I'm just a grognard.
Mmmm.....FINALLY, you tackle 40k. A fair take. But I'm still waiting for your take on the Traitor Legions, the rebels. Perhaps once you've read the Night Lords Trilogy? Definitely one of the best (IMHO) at showing how "other" the space marines are.
I'm halfway through the trilogy now (alternating with a couple other books I want to cover) and I'm quite sure that there will be more Warhammer commentary in the future.
@feralhistorian Excellent! I hope that your enjoying them.
Mechanicus is the best faction .
Having often been in the position of fixing things for people that don't understand how they work, I feel a certain kinship with the Mechanicum.
@@feralhistorian "don't understand how they work" Hahaha that goes for Mechanicus most of the time
@@feralhistorian I like to believe that half their 'rituals to appease the machine spirits' are turning off and on again.
@@BoneistJ Cain reveals that one of the secret rituals for appeasing the machine spirits is to give the device's casing a good, solid smack. It's surprisingly more effective (and usually faster) than incense, votive candles, and attaching scripture.
There is a good faction that ork
It's funny that he thinks the rules are complicated now. Back in the day I felt like I could have gotten a law degree easier then understanding the rules.
Not true, Dorn is truly good
Nice
Or, to avoid the comparison with Fascism and Nazis you could have used a modern equivalent that would avoid all controversy... Slava Ukraini :)
Another excellent video. It's been over 30 years since my last game of 40K, but it's so ubiquitous in the SF/gaming space that I still know more than I normally want to.
If you seriously think that there is any connection between Nazisim and 40K, then you must be touched in the head or a Twitter user, take your pick.
Die for the Emperor, or die trying.
The no real heroes thing is why I struggle with lots of newer sci-fi & fantasy.
Yes chipmunks are malicious agents of chaos.
The rules are indeed Byzantine. As is the setting, really…
The game rules are understandable to left-brain people, the lore is understandable to right-brain people.
So the germans were about to face the same fate that drove them into hitler's arms n the first place. It is romantic to think they avoided that by fighting to the bitter end. What a wonderful fact that I did not know about WW2, thank you. I didn't know the allies at first wished to do much worse to germany.
On another note, I wonder if you heard of Black Lagoon.
Its actually ten quadrillions.
Terra and planets like Necromunda are in the quadrillions each, tens of thousands of other tens of billions of people hive worlds and the Imperium as a whole has anywhere from a few hundred quadrillion to low quintillions of souls in population.
No way hammer costs so much.
It is obscene. GW's pricing demands the use of proxies for . . . aa lot of things.
Fundamentally it probably wouldn't matter what the gender of the child was, given what we know about development and the array of techniques used in universe, a small child of either gender is going to turn out indistinguishable in the end. It just happens that the physical traits of a space marine align with an exaggerated idea of masculinity.
The battletech universe Elementals is a better version of space marines. no gender issues, can be either, both end up super strong but females and male remain distinguishable, and they use battle suits that make terminators look like paper. imagine a group of terminators leaping onto a warhound titan with jetpacks and ripping it apart with lasers and claws. Thats Elementals.
The main problem is that the astartes augmentation process fundamentally does not work with the XX chromosome, since the primarchs were all male and each legion is based on the genetic components of a primarch.
WAAAAAAAAAGH!!
All the talk about bloated bureaucracy but you only get to play with lame space marines, can we play interstellar taxes instead? No wonder the playerbase is so mentally underdeveloped.
Imperial bureaucrat isnt even playable faction but somehow they are the most influential.
Something close to half the factions are different branches of Imperial government.
Did it every occur that it's because 40k tabletop is - you know, a wargame? You can certainly explore the imperial bureaucracy in the TTRPG adaptations of the setting.
You did this in the Dark Heresy RPG where you might see more of the civilian side. In the original DH you are inquisitorial goons running around poking at high and low.
There was also Inquisitor, where you half skirmish wargame and half roleplay inquisitors and goons.
As some one that took part a few years ago in the "Female Space Marines" online debate in Dakka Dakka forum (with a somewhat middle ground position), this are my two cents on the issue.
-Space Marines are Cis Males pre adolescents that suffer a deep transformation before they became sexually active and therefore became metahuman leaving weapons.
-They cannot reproduce, its very clear in lore that they are sterile, By design. This is a very important element of the lore.
-Its most probable that Space Marines cannot experience normative sexual relationships... its implied that there sexual impulse its directed towards battle and combat. Since loyal and traitor space marines are so diverse, there might be some exceptions (I havent read all that many novels. Perhaps the Emperor sons can indeed have a estandar intercourse).
-There are in universe reason for this too happen. But the RW reason is that when 40K was born in the 80s and early 90s as a cohesive franchise the Space Marines where the most direct projection (avatars) of the teenage players that make up the bulk of the costumer base.
-From a social and performative POV Space Marine are young cis asexual men (with a more or less platonic homoerotic edge depending on the particular story).
-This could be reckoned with out a huge overhaul. But the impact on the setting wont be minor. Headcannon allow a custum made marine chapter or warband to have Ciswomen or transgender people in its ranks...altough as describe above it would make little diference since in practicall terms Space Marines are asexual pre adolescents with their personalities freeze before reaching sexual maturity.
The way it strikes me is that a Space Marine is so heavily modified from the base-model H-Sap that questions of gender are pretty much relegated to what parts get thrown away in the operating room. Encountering them in the field, I don't think anyone would be able to tell without stripping off the armor and checking where the scars are.
@@feralhistorian sure from a physical POV thats obvious, but they clearly performate socially as males (calling themselve brothers, and so on).
@@feralhistorian BTW I found the analogy between the IOM in 4OK and the Third Reich in 1944/45 to be brilliant.
You left out the grim arithmetic of the 41st millennium.
You are a cog, a piece of the machine. Your labor, your every action, your every breath, is accounted for. There are statistics and figures on the amount of water you produce into the atmosphere when you sweat; and somebody who's entire existence from birth to grave is to collate said statistics.
Your reproduction is likewise accounted for.
The Ordo Famulous handles this for the nobles but rest assured the genetic stock of the average citizen is also closely monitored. Mutation is often one of the first signs of heresy, after all. In most worlds you are not merely monitored but managed. Your role is given to you and for the overwhelmingly vast majority of people; it will never change. Likewise your partner is assigned to you and you are expected to produce further generations to perpetuate the machine.
In such calculations those with wombs are more valuable than those with dangly bits; and that is all the Imperium cares about. What role you play in the war.
@@grimjoker5572 not to mention that sexual "non-conformity" is _de facto_ worship to a literal demon-god.
Also for your mental health don't Google the daemonculaba.
I warned you.
Something tells me I should heed your advice on that one.
@@feralhistorian You should…
Chipmunks! 😊 Honestly, this is so excessive on the grim and dark that it's neutralized. There's nothing warm or "pretty" for contrast. It's boring.
I actually kind of like the aesthetic. I've always found Gothic architecture appealing, there's a certain beauty to that towering, spiky cathedral with insufficient lighting look.
But then I really like Saruman's cluttered study at Orthanc in the Lord of the Rings films too, so my taste is somewhat suspect.
@@feralhistorian Legolas (Orlando Bloom) was a most handsome elf.
I just want to toss in my 2 cents on this, while the world written about is the stuff of antifa's nightmares, its not really.
First off, there are nice worlds, they just never write about them. There are worlds in varying levels of technology from medieval to some that might even be higher tech than Terra or Mars omnissiah forbid! I forget how many worlds there are but I do vaguely remember the tables to roll on to determine the details of generic world X that you happen to need to generate off the cuff and while yeah those tables contain nightmare hellworlds, they also contained the possibility to roll up Eden.
2nd, the reason for the extreme authoritarian control and repression is because if society was a bunch of free thinkers, demons show up and kill everyone. To quote "an open mind is like a fortress with its gates open and unbarred", it's not some nazi wet dream it's humanity attempting to survive against demons that can literally invade your mind.
3rd, while everything is basically shit and GW keeps inventing new foes, the Imperium of man stands strong as the most powerful faction with the god emperor set to ascend to true godhood upon his death, the Imperium of man with a legit god leading it would likely lead mankind to an unrivaled time of peace.... Mind you, that's the logical thing that should happen but I'm pretty sure Dan Abnett has all but confirmed that GW is going to subvert our expectations and do something stupid instead.
PS if you just started digging into 40k lore and came up with this cliff's notes synopsis, good job! I think you got it all correct. Oh and borrow a friend's army and play, it's kind of fun but not really worth over a grand on the models. Oh and you can always buy used armies, people quit just as frequently as they start.
Yes, the presence of actual demons complicates things. And now that I've gotten into it a bit, I too am braced for GW to ... disappoint.
@@feralhistorian it's what they're best at, clever authors love to subvert our expectations rather than just tell the tales.... tedious
@@grazzitdvram putting the snark aside, I am impressed with all the Warhammer authors I've read so far with how they manage to tell interesting stories set in a world that they can't fundamentally change. It gets harder to do as decades of lore pile up.
@@feralhistorian I appreciate them trying but they're also the ones that casually break the rules of the world.... Which they've gotten much better at avoiding but now you have GW directing them to rewrite lore in the 30k novels which I find even worse. *shrug* it is what it is and it's still interesting.
40K is something I just can't get into. To me, the scale of it rises to such absurd levels that I just can't come to care.
Stalin's quote, et cetera et cetera.
And for the visuals, Blizzard stole it and made it cooler (objectively cooler) with Starcraft. And the scale in Starcraft is approachable. If you lose a planet to the Zerg, we understand the significance of it. It would be like losing a continent on Earth to the zombie horde. We get it.
The Imperium losing a few dozen planets? Eh, that's just a Tuesday.
----
I do not share the idea to fight on, no matter what, just to preserve "life".
At a certain point, your actions to preserve yourself reaches the point where it is no longer worth it.
If you sacrifice humanity to save humanity... Then... what's the point? You have already given it up. You have already lost.
Fighting bitterly against an invading enemy to prevent the slaughter and enslavement of your people, is an understandable cause to fight for.
But if that defiance reaches the point where, for fantasy and conversation's sake, the defender then starts sacrificing hundreds of virgins a day on some blood altar in front of the Reichstag. Then you have reached a point where slaughter and enslavement is perhaps not the worst of the two outcomes.
If the whole occult thing panned out, and they open a portal to Hell itself...
Even Soviet occupation and enslavement would be better than that.
"In 'Possible Worlds" Professor Haldane pictured a future in which Man, foreseeing that Earth would soon be uninhabitable,
adapted himself for migration to Venus by drastically modifying his physiology and abandoning justice, pity and happiness.
The desire here is for mere survival.
Now I care far more how humanity lives than how long."
- C.S. Lewis. From "God in the Dock", from the chapter "Willing Slaves of the Welfare State." (which I have quoted before, but it seems to stay relevant on this channel).
There is nothing in 40K that is worth fighting for.
This notion to fight on in the hopes that some "evolution" is to save the day, really makes me uncomfortable.
On the one side, there is the Pagan defiance that interested Tolkien. Where the Norse fought on, knowing that it would all end in Ragnarok. And not believing in any sort of Salvation.
Then on the other, there is the modern Progressive view, that all things will just get better by itself, because the entire ideology is dependent upon it.
Where our modern world is a sort of twisted marriage of these two ideas, where the end result is some horrid result that makes the hairs on my back stand up.
Sacrificing our young men to fight for "our way of life" and whatnot. A blood sacrifice for Social Democracy and Globalism. Blergh.
So, that is the second reason I can't get into 40K.
It is one of the most anti-New Testament fictional settings out there.
Not as in, it tries to tear it down or any such thing, no not at all.
But that the world portrayed is so fundamentally opposed to how I view... everything. That it becomes impossible for me to interact with it.
The 40K "Grimdark", to me, is close to synonymous with "Why even bother?".
Why bother fighting to preserve the Imperium? Why bother reading about it?
That's not too far off from my initial impression of it way back. Somehow though, through exposure to it, I've started thinking of it in terms of a parable for all the questions about where that line between doing what's necessary for survival and not deserving to survive lies. And it always brings me back to Tolkien's eucatastrophe. It's so grim, so hopeless, it just drips in this thick ooze of despair that it would be so easy to just sink into and quit. I've been there in my own life, and 40K reminds me of that stubbornness of staring into the abyss and saying "piss off you, today could be the day it turns around." And sometimes it is.
(edited for typo)
@@feralhistorian to read something in the same vibe you have "The dead and the living" (translated from spanish, translated from russian so perhaps not correct) about the battle of Moscow.
Its Stalinist propaganda but its well ment propaganda and it captures that feeling of fighting against all odds on spite the lack of hope.
That's not an unreasonable take away.
For me the selling point is pre-heresy Big E. The empire he wanted to create isn't "good" by our standards, given the necessities of the universe it exists in I don't think it ever could be. Yet the Emperor's goal was certainly far from the totalitarian all controlling regressive theocracy that the Imperium has become. The current Imperium being a product of a heretical fallen son of the Emperor.
So at its core there is still that progressive human civilization that almost was. Even if it's buried deep the core of the Lex Imperialis is actually remarkably permissive and liberal; again as much as it can be given the universe it exists in. Even as it is, suffocating beneath a mountain of ten thousand year old bureaucratic bloat you still have noble ideals desperately trying to assert themselves.
It is precisely the ridiculous scale of the calamities which make the ever shrinking glimpses of that hope all the brighter. There is a way out of this mess. It's getting harder to find with each year but there is still some hope.
Then why come to the video then and drop an essay saying "I don't care for this, because this it upsets me hew, hew, hew."?
Yes it's a setting set at minute to midnight, that is what makes it cool and despite modern GW and these faggy (((lore))) channels, the new fluff, it ain't good. The old stuff, while hardly Dickensian, allowed wiggle room to play and create, write and indeed do your own thing in any part of this apparently "grimdark" galaxy (although it's been overtaken several times in that respect since its inception!).
Now it's just corporate slopola, with all that entails, including a grown man going it's "ohh it does the goose step" female marines (which wouldn't even make sense, as given the implants you would get very much the same end result - assuming she survives the trials, does the uploader hate women?). There is a reason they are selected from the male of the species. But how does that connect to my view of 40K you ask?
Easy. Go back to primary sources, forget YT, forget audiobooks, forget even modern GW go back to RT, 2nd, 3rd and 3.5 and 4th editions and read them for yourself, they are easy to find in PDF form, give it a chance. Take the art the quotes and the atmosphere, you never know... You could become one of us.
@@grimjoker5572 The absurd scale also lets you have hundreds of stories about this one time the light wasn't extinguished without breaking the setting's grimdark nature, because we presume that there were thousands of stories that happened off-screen where it was.