Had to look it up or it was gonna bug me all day, it’s “Pawns of Chaos” by Brian Stableford
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dang i there are too many of those stories
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“witty” lol.
You have to go back to some of the very earliest stuff to find space marines not being visually heroic in marketing to sell minis, it has nearly always been like this.
Personally I don’t care that it isn’t being satirised every single second. I don’t need to be told again that imperium=bad once I know it is bad, and to be honest if it was getting thrust in my face every single second it would get pretty tiresome and I probably wouldn’t be into Warhammer.
I like the approach GW takes.
I distinctly remember buying Space Marine 1 when I didn’t know much about warhammer because I was impressed by the action in the trailers. Standard shoot em up with gigachad gun guy, sure, only to be surprised by some of the f-cked up stuff I was hearing in the audio-logs and the loud speakers, “We work for these people, lol???”
You can see similar stuff in Darktide, imperium=bad isn’t thrust in your face every second, you pick it up as you learn about the setting. I like how it is done in this way, it’s a smart way of doing it.
Do I want the setting changed just because of low IQ fascists who head canon out the bits they don’t like, or because a bunch of fascist witch hunters screech about it?
No. I’d rather the audience was respected as being smart enough to ‘get it’ at some point. Lord knows the community beats people over the head with “imperium = bad” enough that it is truly only the fringiest of fringes who don’t get it.
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i wholeheartedly agree with you,
and i don’t think the the way setting is written is in any way problematic.
and nothing should be changed about it solely on the Basis of outside factors like idiot fascist being too dumb, etc
BUT if it is true, (and im given this tim colwill guy the Benefit of the doubt)
that in Fact real (big emphasis on real) Neo-Nazi/ fascist sympathizer (not just people with a Aquila tattoo) where attending conventions AND spouted hate or were openly hateful to others, that would be condemn able for GW or the event managers (whoever is responsable for that event) should face heavy criticism if they allowed that to continue.
it’s currently the worst kind of satire, the kind where the people using it don’t know what makes something satire. keeps grazing against the line of “this is just vocally arguing for fascism.”
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Not trying to be rude but you know how hyperlinks work, right? The Colwill article links to another post from a spanish website that talks about the event in more detail and includes photos of the guy wearing the shirt with white supremacist symbols on it calling himself “The Austrian Painter”. Even with a shoddy autotranslation, the gist is pretty clear; the guy showed up, people noticed he was wearing Nazi stuff and that the name he used is an obvious Hitler reference, his opponent refused to play against him because of that, people complained, but he wasn’t removed from the tournament because of some sort of technicality in Spanish law (little unclear about the specifics on that one tbh). I don’t care if that guy is “actually” a Nazi or if he’s just being an edgy little sh*t, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, etc. He should have been removed from the tournament and banned from any future events hosted by the organizers, full stop, no need for all the “if he did it” hemming and hawing.
Now, I don’t really know how much control GW had over that situation but it’s still an event for their game and so far it seems like they’ve said nothing about it. That’s a bad look.
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i think i was clear that, i haven’t read all of Colwills article, and only skimmend over the article, why would i do then go to the lenght to translate reflink material from languages im not capable of.
im taking you at face value and if that is how it happend, he should have been disqualified and expelled, i agree fully.
but im also believing in the capacity for change in people, and as long as never does something so childish again, i.e uses references, wears, or openly talks about sensitive material, or obviously talks hatefully of others he should be allowed to return, after a Recuperation period.
PS. can anyone cite the spanish law regarding sensitive material on open events?
and if an host of an open event holds the right to remove anyone.
im interested in how and why they didn’t removed that person.
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It’s a fine article, makes some good points. Worth a full read if you’re on the fence about this topic.
I get not wanting to spend the time researching all this stuff and maybe you just don’t have the time to read right now but tbh it’s very frustrating when people in conversations like this are presented with pretty clear evidence of the thing they’re skeptical about and then skim it a little and go “well I’m not reading all that”. Makes it difficult to take seriously as good faith engagement, but didn’t mean to jump down your throat about it, that was unproductive of me.
I hope that guy grows up and realizes it’s bad to do Nazi stuff too, but if that’s the kind of thing you’re ever openly into I don’t think anybody owes you forgiveness if you eventually change your mind. If it were up to me he’d have to find a new town to play Warhammer in.
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he might be, but i found things, red flags i called them earlier, that i don’t find to be objective reporting.
wich led me to be skeptical about his whole article. im sure he raises good proxies and that his points are worthy of discussion.
well tbf, you guys didn’t presented great evidence for many of the claims here.
and when you leave your conversation partner to look up evidence on his own, there’s gonna be discrepancies. could have taken the exact point of relevance from the article and quoted it. just as an example.
i wasn’t talking about forgiveness really, if that idiot came back to an event i still would think of him as an absolute moron.
what im talking about is an opportunity to regain (or well gain) respect.
show that your sorry and have changed, through action etc.
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You seem to really hyperfocus on fascism. And it seems you conflate fascism with there being discrimination or racism inside an established system, but that isn’t it’s definition per se.
Discrimination and Racism are not markers of any economic or political system, because they can be part of any system where you have an intolerant society, which is hostile to outgroups and favorable to the ingroup.
A fascist system by definition is a system that has nationstate and corporations as well as military-complex morphed into one apparatus of power, wielding this power against the individual to bring them in line.
Now there is certainly a case you can make for the Imperium fulfilling this criteria: It has big corporate and military apparatuses and it uses them to violently enforce a nation state of sorts (I’d argue it goes beyond that, since this is galaxy wide and no longer about a singular nation state).
So it’s not exclusively fascist, but it has strong hints of it.
It also has a God Emperor, making it monarchist in theory. Yet this God Emperor is sort of disempowered and not fully in control, making Him a front. This motif is similiar to modern day politics where many ruling “monarchs” have actually little executive power and are mostly around for diplomatic / public relations reasons.
The power in the Imperium of Man is mostly held by the Inquisition (Theology) and by the Astartes (Military-Complex).
If I had to find a definition for it, I’d say the Imperium of Man in 40k is a technocratic Theology-Military Hybrid State with a monarchic front and strong imperialistic tendencies.
It’s not a classic fascist system because there is so much more tied to it. It’s constant reach with an attempt to unite the galaxy through force gives it also globalist undertones. And it also features oligarchic elements since the leadership of the Imperium forms it’s own class of aristocracy.
So it’s convoluted. I wouldn’t call it a jab against fascism alone, because that doesn’t do it justice. If you really want to make the argument that it’s satire, it’s not just satirizing fascism but also satirizing the military-industrial complex. It’s additionally satirizing any Theology that is about and basing it’s claim to power on religious motifs. And it’s also satirizing any autocratic system that uses technology as a means of control.
It’s essentially a total mockup of several non-democratic ideas rolled into one.
The discrimination you are talking about is really just ‘extra’. Without it the Imperium would still be all the things described above. But having it in there doesn’t make it any more fascist or autocratic than it already is - Because racism or discrimination aren’t the core principal of fascism or autocracy. The concentration of absolute power in this state-corporation-military “marriage” and the wielding of this power as a collective against all the individuals living under this system is what makes it fascist / autocratic in nature.
Just figured I’d put that out here, because people seem to confuse racism / discrimination with fascism and it’s highly inaccurate. They’re not one and the same. The former describes a hostile or negative behavior towards people of an outgroup, the latter is a very strictly defined politic-economical system of control. But since people throw the term “fascism” around loosely this knowledge is slowly being watered down in society.
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I mean, if you’re looking for something like “Warhammer 40k scored 56% on the racism scale, fascist problem confirmed!” I doubt you’re ever gonna get that.
I’m being glib, you probably don’t actually expect that (though I don’t know how you get more objective than actually having photos of the guy wearing the Nazi stuff at the Warhammer event to substantiate your claims that maybe there are some fascism problems in 40k). Regardless, it’s worth pointing out again that the article isn’t really meant to be “objective reporting” though, to the extent that “objective reporting” even exists (imo it doesn’t unless we’re talking about unedited footage of an event with no commentary and the subjects don’t know a camera is there, or strictly technical criticism). The essay has a specific perspective and ideological spin, like every piece of writing does. That doesn’t make the information worthless unless you just categorically reject anything you don’t immediately agree with.
There’s definitely some stuff in there that I think is kind of off base or needs more thought put into it (I legitimately think he just forgot to add a comment about how the whole female space marine argument is stupid because it’s often hinged on the idea that kidnapping children and turning them into genetically enhanced brainwashed killing machines would somehow be better if some of them were allowed to be women, because that whole section kind of goes nowhere without a conclusion like that. It’s very “Diversity Win! Meet the First Female Drone Pilot”) but idk it’s important to be able to sus out the good from the bad. This is going way off topic though so that’s all else I’ll say about it, I’m starting to ramble and nobody needs to watch me grade this dude’s homework.
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well this is what i specifically question, its one example where is that proof of a systematic problem?
no i don’t that’s why i engaged with it in the first place, but fair enough on the inability to be objective in general. maybe i judged too soon, but i had the very strong feeling, that he tried to create specific reactions from his readers, regardless of proper evidence.
haha yeah, i do however question the creation of the primarchs to be male only, it makes 0 sense to try to represent humanity’s greatest aspects, with only males, + govern with male thinking patterns only, and i don’t take the “great warrior excuse” being in the middle of the fight for your greatest assets makes no sense.
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Not the only example he gives, to be fair. There’s more examples of fascist sympathizer youtubers, quotes from interviews with GW writers talking about how the tone of the game has changed, and general 4channer nonsense that anybody who has been online and into 40k for long enough almost certainly has first hand exposure to. The example of the tournament Nazi is just a more recent example with very clear evidence.
This is actually an interesting take on that argument which imo, reveals that The Big E is probably not the enlightened benevolent visionary the lore would have us believe. The idea that the guy who is revered as a literal god by a bunch of backwards freaks in the current timeline is actually just another power hungry “right place right time” case with very human character flaws like sexism and misplaced faith in technology, who inevitably falls back on achieving his goals through the same old violent conquest that have plagued humanity since the beginning would actually be pretty good and relevant satire of the modern world and the kinds of leadership people have begun to respond to in real life.
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forgot the creator who covered that, but TL:DR
he argued that his upbringing I.e being part of humanity’s upbringing itself and the patriarchal structure during his childhood imprinted heavily on him.
doesn’t speak for his wisdom if thats the case.
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I appreciate your response and explanation.
I’m a bit surprised you haven’t mentioned the word hierarchy given how core the belief of a natural social hierarchy is to both the Imperium and fascism.
It’s true that racism, sexism and other -isms aren’t inherent to the existence of a fascist system or society, though I find it certainly helps in recognizing when something or someone may display fascist tendencies. Since seeking to oppress different peoples is usually not an isolated belief.
I think that’s understating just how much the Imperium worships the emperor (and subsequently, the power that the emperor holds over people) since I believe we both know just how zealous the imperium is about an unquestioning faith to the emperor and killing any that are branded heretics. Despite that I still feel like calling that specific aspect as authoritarianism and a cult of personality would still understate it, so idk what to exactly call it.
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Beware the space liberals! Lol
Really though I think adding lady space marines makes sense. We can recognize the imperium as fascist by the family resemblance to existing fascism not because it targets the exact same minorities/outgroups that real fascists are always whining about. Except for women it seems? The image of the invulnerable, benevolently sexist, white guy in shining armor is like catnip to fascists. Just take a look at the public Wikipedia page for fourteen words (which I will not link too), the first example is about protecting the precious purity of the aryan maiden. It may seem like some girlboss nonsense from a lore perspective putting women in the jackboots but I think it might actually be a somewhat effective way to turn off fascist 40k fans and it can be done with next to no lore changes. Plus, let women have fun with the space chad power fantasy a bit.
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I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking for, but if you really want I could provide a lot of examples of some people within the community being terrible. I’ll also just point to Arch’s existence as someone who previously was one of (if not the) biggest youtubers for warhammer lore who basically got disowned/banned by GW a few years ago.
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Eh, call me idealistic but I’m firmly in the “more diverse oppressors is not a win” camp.
Tbh the female space marine debate is insanely boring to me and I have no real investment in it so don’t take me too seriously, but my somewhat problematic 40k opinion that has managed to get both sides of that argument mad at me in the past is this: Space marines should either be totally sexless trucels for the Emperor and Primarch, or they should be gay and polishing each other’s swords off after every battle, but it’s fine that they’re all guys. I like the whole cloistered warrior brotherhoods of antiquity thing, I think it’s cool and fun and adds to 40k’s fantasy elements, and women are represented in enough other roles that male only space marines doesn’t really bother me that much, but I am also not a woman, for whatever that’s worth.
But more than any of that, I think Primaris tacticool marines are one of the dumbest and worst additions to the setting in a while, so GW can do pretty much whatever at this point and I’ll just keep my headcanon.
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Let me get this right. Dog/Cat posting got shut down but this topic which has veered into real life politics with all of its implications that comes from such discussions is still standing? I ain’t complaining. I’m a free speech advocate and am the last person to say anything about this. I’m just butthurt that Dog/Cat posting was the straw that broke the other thread.
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It’s honestly been a pretty tame and even occasionally productive thread, especially for something politically charged.