Yes, on some worlds it’s even rather pleasant, comparatively speaking.
Most of the invasive totalitarian regimes of history only lasted a few generations at best before collapsing, with ample opportunities for the constituents to access information about the time before “Year Zero” from family members, teachers, old books that had been overlooked, people on the border with whom the regime necessarily has to trade, etc, etc.
The Imperium, to put it mildly, isn’t like that.
Yes, and…?
Being a prisoner doesn’t necessarily mean that you abandon all of the values that you had before you were imprisoned. Two of each of the non-Zealot classes (including the Psykers) are openly devoted to the Emperor, and are unlikely to take the Loners smack-talking about their God kindly (in fact, the Professional Veteran will actually threaten to shoot the Loner for blasphemy from time to time).
And of course, the Zealots go without saying.
Remove some of the Loners’ more abrasive, makes-you-wonder-why-they-don’t-go-over-to-the-Moebian-6th dialogue (alternately, dramatically increase the number of dialogues where their teammates threaten to kill them for being blasphemous, heretical assholes).
Look at Necromunda, and the wide variation in cults, gangs, outlaws, etc of all sorts of beliefs and creeds which represent mere fractions of a single underhive’s denizens. Despite having all the available tools on modern day earth and tens of thousands of years of history, I know of no cultures where juiced up cannibal cults wielding chain weapons have yet developed to clash with extravagantly attired splinter factions of ancient warrior amazon clans sporting exotic automatic weaponry for supremacy of the streets of large cities.
Worlds fall in and out of the Imperium all the time, sometimes cut off for thousands of years or forgotten and rejoined or reconquered millenia later. Hive cities of tens of billions can be so big and convoluted that entire cultures of untold millions can develop in isolation from the larger Imperial fold for hundreds of years.
There are also just things that are plainly absurd or rotten that everyone can see and understand aren’t working properly, and even the Imperium has it’s own visions of justice and honor. Sometimes the Imperium fights amongst itself about these things. The first war for armageddon was immediately followed by the space wolves going to war to keep armageddon’s refugees from all being hunted down by the big-bad meany Inquisition to prevent them talking about Angron’s romp-around, and the Ordo Malleus and Grey Knights just…give up in the end. The Inquisition has the writ to command the untold billions of regiments of the Imperial Guard and millions of Sector battlefleets, finds the single world of Fenris with its thousand Space Marines and couple dozen ships too tough a nut to crack apparently and the refugees too dispersed to pursue. It’s a painfully mary-sue story, but it’s long established lore.
Even the most ardent supporters of many of the most authoritarian and controlling regimes can find themselves opponents when they run into those regime’s uncaring machinations. That’s the core of much of the Horus Heresy story. Magnus was genuinely trying to do the right thing by the Imperium when he damned himself. The Iron Warriors just had had…enough, never having grand ideals of better societies or delusions of cosmic godhood. Fully half the entire original Space Marines turned traitor, genetically engineered psycho-indoctrinated warrior monks ended up looking at the Imperium and going “on second thought…hard pass”, and for ten thousand years there’s been a steady drip of Space Marines, up to entire Chapters, following suit for an array of different reasons.
I would suggest that smack talking blasphemers are exactly the types that tend to find themselves in the cells of the Inquisition, given death sentences, and thrown into suicide missions as expendable assets. That they’re not immediately and routinely killed by their own overzealous teammates for being mouthy can probably be explained by the fact that said teammates find themselves similarly made penitent, and they have literal divine orders from His Majesty’s Most Holy Inquisition to accomplish an objective and offing an asset without permission and endangering the mission tends to be frowned upon.
It takes a surprising amount of effort to actually start this game.
Gotta hit the desktop icon, wait for the launcher to load. Then click “play” on the launcher. Then have to hit “space” through several brand promo animations, then hit “space” again on a holding screen before you even start loading the character select screen and select a character to play.
That is a somewhat absurd number of discrete actions to have to take and wait for before getting to play the game, and is especially frustrating after a crash (which will also often present you with a report screen to deal that adds just that much more time to get back into the game even if you just close it). Thankfully there are mods that can help with this, it would be nice if there were a native way to at least skip the promo animations and holding screen and just let the launcher drive you directly to the character selection.
Oh and forgor: There seemed to be no mention of Sustained Fire (60% Toughness Regained and Ranged Weapon Instantly reloaded on Ability activation) for Executioner’s Stance.
Now with the spot opening from Relentless, I think that is well reasoned to return.
