Hi Catfish! I had a question that I thought others might find interesting about CMing that I was hoping you could answer, because you’re actually uniquely positioned to answer it! It doesn’t touch on direct interaction with any of us here specifically, or even on something that I see happen here on the FS forums very frequently, so I’m hoping you’ll have license to answer.
Warhammer 40k is weird and wild and colorful and interesting and, almost all of the time, depicts lore-relevant and important events on varying scales that also happen to be absolutely abhorrent but for the fact that they happen with space aliens and stuff. 40k is, essentially, a huge multitudinous genocide against everybody, by everybody (and there’s a whole lot of everybody to kill, mind) but even aside from the grand historical and military events and campaigns, there are details of this lore which are disgusting, rank, horrific, and morally abhorrent which are actual events that actually happened in a book somewhere.
What is it like moderating a brand with content like that? Like clearly there’s ways to detatchedly discuss awful and disgusting topics in a manner more clinical than the Grindhouse-by-way-of-Revelations that is 40k but there must be difficulties managing where that line is, right? How does a CM wrangle topics which are very reasonably and understandably taboo but actually happened within a Games Workshop 40k product?
When I consume warhammer 40k content I actually internalize everything and I can not seperate any of the fantasy from reality and I think it’s cool in a non satirical way
There is only one way she could be okay with this festering matter:
Summary
Fatshark company culture is centered around Nurgle. They have holidays for Nurgle. They denied hundreds of thousands of player requests to play Space Marines so they could protect Nurgle. They listen to Nurgle music. They elect a Nurgle Marauder as their CEO. They dress and act like Poxwalkers. They draw the entirety of their modern corporate culture from Nurgle. They post sassy gifs about Nurgle. They watch Pooball in worship of Nurgle. Their biggest event of the year involves throwing feces in honor of Nurgle. They use Nurgle slang like “Rejects” and “Ruinous Powers” when talking about their playerbase. When you say “God” they’re not thinking of the God Emperor. They’re thinking of Nurgle. Their server racks are completely overrun with Nurglings. Their Programmers sit around their work desks watching slime dry out, while their Community Managers sit in murky dishwasher water, watching Daemonhost talk shows. They worship Nurgle Demons like Kugath Plaguefather and Epidemius and Mortarion while attacking the Space Marines who actually built their offices before Nurgle took over. Their Live Streaming events are organized by Nurgle Plaguebearers and their music playlists in the breakroom are topped by Rot Flies. They send Great Unclean Ones to the Gaming Conventions and celebrate when a new Warhammer game featuring Nurgle is unveiled. They program filthy Nurgle games ad nauseum to a point where “Naughty Dog” does not make them think of another Gaming studio, but about blistered pox Hounds instead. They will tell you how much they hate Nurgle and how the Rotfathers’s law is a stale meme and they are just pretending to love Nurgle but the evidence speaks for itself in that Fatshark has always been and will always be a company of Nurgle loving Nurglings.
I spent a lot of time playing 40K tabletop & games such as DoW Dark Crusade and Soulstorm in my early to late teens, so understand that it’s all fictitious and have that line between reality and not.
Moderating it though is quite different, you do get quite a lot of people who just have no understanding that it’s satire. With the anonymity the internet gives means people feel more free to voice some god awful things, but that’s true everywhere online.
To be honest I moderate it in the same way as I moderate other spaces. Create a set of clear rules for the community to abide by, and if they break those rules they get warned or are removed. Generally As long as the members are talking about the fictional events, and not relating them to everyday life, it’s usually ok.
what if the fictional events are directly inspired by Real World events?
how the song of ice and fire books are by R.R.Martins own words are inspired by William the Conqueror?
or that The emperor and horus kind of vaguely mimic christian events (& the obvious iconography of the following 10k years)?
Case in point: All of Warhammer End Times has a strong industrial revolution and pre-WW1 veneer.
Both in architecture and character design (whenever human or human inspired). It’s very interesting, I love the time period and find that classic Europe then and before is rarely paid the attention it deserves.
We have to draw the line somewhere, and any discussions that talk about politics or real world events rarely go well. If you want to talk about something inspired by real world events you can reference it - but there is a point where it incites divisive discourse and that’s when it’s a no no.
With sites like Discord we have to be a little more cut and dry, as with close to 120,000 members we don’t want to wear out our hard working moderators who are absolute stars with what they have to put up with sometimes!
All that I will say on the subject is that if 40K was our reality I would NEVER join Chaos. I am not someone who will risk becoming a Throne-damned Chaos Spawn just personal satisfaction.
I’m pretty sure most reasonable human beings lack the fervor and conviction present in either the Ruinous Powers or the Imperium of Man… let’s face it: most of us would end up corpse starch fairly quickly in 40k.
I’d immediately be outed as a heretic for grumbling about how grueling and thankless my crappy little hive job would be too loudly around the wrong people and oops I’m just food now.
if 40k was your reality you wouldn’t know any of the repercussions of anything and in many cases joining chaos would be the first choice given to you in your entire life.
Hammer & Bolter ep. Bound for Greatness shows quite well how easy the path to corruption would be for RL people imo and that guy has a rather comfortable lot without too much physical labor
Oh, you just missed a topic in which we discussed W40k genocide applications in our real lives. I don’t know what I would do without the W40k moral guidance.
that’s the joke. chaos is meant to be so obviously a terrible option that it makes any other option look good, but then they made 40k SO BAD they come back around to being acceptable to beat the satire about authoritarianism into the ground. every time this bit fails to land it depresses someone with reading comprehension.
Reasonable stance. You can’t entertain any of that because religious and political lines of debate are usually hard-drawn lines of conflict going much deeper.
Beyond that, discussion also proves pointless because the stances are too entrenched to change either way. So it devolves into two or more sides arguing to the blood over beliefs they carried for years and will also likely take into their own graves with them.
You never know. I always find it easy to say “I wouldn’t do that”. It reminds me a lot to the real world in a manner of ways, but just as Catfish just said let’s not go there.
You can’t forget that most people within the 40k universe are peasantry / hive gangers isolated away from a lot of truths.
The Ruinous Powers know this and use it to their advantage. An example:
A cult of Tzeentch isn’t going to waltz through the streets and declare “ZE GREAT LORD OF KNOWLEDGE IS HERE”. That’s escalation only happening when it’s way past 12 and there is no way back.
More likely, some friendly bois and gals on their off-time invite you to their book club. It might look really organic, them approaching you near their library. They claim to have some great material that you probably haven’t seen before and it’s something else from the usual drab slop you get to read.
Your interest is piqued. You say “that sounds pretty great” and join that small friendly looking circle of booknerds.
Before you know it, you are reading unknowingly through thick ledgers of material that has not been sanctioned by the Imperium. As they make you a member and draw others in, they slowly escalate by getting you hooked to ever greater lengths of more secretive material.
Your world view gets shaken to the core.
Lies you were told from the very first day of your life of the Imperium are exposed, terrible truths uncovered you would have not expected.
And as you discover your life has been exploitative madness and how much things could be different, the feelings of betrayal set in. You pledge to not accept this injustice. And that’s when your new book club buddies tell you there’s a way. A better way to live. To serve true justice. To learn even more about this world.
A voice suddenly echoes in your mind. It is… beautiful. It speaks of a new, better age. Of Enlightenment for the Masses. You cannot resist it’s charme. You proclaim that you pledge allegiance. Never will you be who you once were.
You are now an Acolyte of Tzeentch. Spread the truth of the false Emperor, disciple. The world must know of this injustice!
The infestation of a Hive World can be a very slow and insidious process. Wether it is a Chaos Cult or Genestealers or Taus preaching a cosmos of peace - It can take years or even generations before the ripe corruption shows it’s face.
I think the true essence of Chaos Corruption and any other type of Corruption is very seldomly truly explored, because it wouldn’t be 24/7 action.
A game about such slow creeping corruption could easily be a multi-chapter mystery “who dun it?” RPG Simulation game (think Deus Ex or Never Winter Nights).
You can’t really do the universe and it’s full writing justice by just focusing on one type of element. GW focusses on action.
I wager that my theoretical corruption would most likely be due to falling to Khorne in all honesty, he’s just got it where it counts for me. Killing people for a living with no consequences? I could finally settle some debts.
In regards to Nurgle, the best treatment for any of his “gifts” would be a bullet or two between my eyes, please and thank you.
If anything, I would despise Slaanesh Cultists the absolute most… but I do want to be beautiful.
I’d be a huge failure to Tzeentch and he’d definitely turn me into a Chaos Spawn due to my significant lack of multitasking skills alone.
From my understanding, it used to be, but over time, it has gradually lost that kind of satirical disconnect, and it takes itself incredibly seriously now. I haven’t played tabletop WH40K, and I don’t know jack about Rogue Trader, but what I know seems to say that it’s gradually become more and more serious over time, while still keeping that same kind of absurdity - giving it a little bit of an identity crisis.
no see, back in the 80s, there was a LOT of that in horror. chaos is satire of that stuff, it’s literally just what it looks like on the tin and people fall into chaos because “it can’t just be a big beat-yourself-up machine, there must be some deeper meaning” and there literally isn’t. everyone’s don’t the slow creeping horror bit ages ago, chaos is the cheap circus sideshow of slow creeping horror that whacks you in the face with the horror in five seconds and then runs off with your money/soul.
