bogi_khaosa said:

Although that might be reasonable, this kind of situation (i.e. lack of communication) will make Imperium even more antiscientific.

Not to mention that according to the "official fluff" like Gaunt, Eisenhorn, 13th Legion , etc. that kind of communication is not that rare as you describe.

Sure it's antiscientific. But we're talking about pop culture a la that that exists 2K Terra, not attitudes to science.

The fluff contradicts itself because it's written by different people who have different visions of the universe. However, the Cain and Eisenhorn fluff contradicts the DH fluff, and this is Dark Heresy. Plus, it doesn't make sense.

But you would have to look at the content of these songs and books.

They would ALL be vetted, perhaps only printed by the eccesiarchy. Only nobles have the ability to get books on sex positions printed and circulated.

The Imperium would tolerate only pop culture that fitted its ideals. Songs like My Heart Will Go On

Songs like smack my ***** up probably not - smack the heretic up definitely.

Basically if you think of modern culture but give it a more religious/morality spin. I'm sure there would be illegal stories circulated through the underclasses, but they would be supressed as not being in the interests of the people. Just look at north korea as an example. Media is controlled. You can only listen to/read/think about specific ideas that the state WANT you to think about.

It's a case of, 'sure you can have pop culture - THIS pop culture'. Everything would be carefully scrutinised. The inquisiton knows just how powerful knowledge is, there is no way they'd allow any sector to have a free range pop culture with magazines, movies, and songs about freedom. They'd be about duty, dying for the emperor, upholding virtues. The hero would ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS win. He would be shown strangling his own children because they were mutants. That would be shown to children. Children's shows would be about how to press the button at the factory that daddy presses all day. They would be about kids dobbing in their mutant parents and being blessed by the god emperor. Instead of Inspector Gadget we'd have Archmagos Gadget the thouroughly competent tech priest and his skitarii student Penny and her cybermastiff. They would be thwarting the machinations of tech heretics with the ease of blowing their nose.

Imagine the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting primer in animated form and that's pretty much how they would develop their pop culture.

So it would exist, but in a sickly twisted parody of modern culture. You definitely wouldn't find Britney Spears in 40k or Michael Jackson. Cosmo magazine's sex guides would be danerously heretical and they would be mainly about how being a woman in the Imperium means working hard and having as many babies as you can to fuel the mighty war machine.

In fact, if you think about it, pretty much flip the mainstream stuff today around and you've got it. Take all the bible belt religious songs, books etc, from the periphery and make them the mainstream culture. The current 'liberal' popculture would then be moved to the periphery where it would enjoy a dubious and most likely illegal status.

Hellebore

I generally agree with you Hellebore, but I think you're going too far. The Imperium is modeled crudely on the Dark Ages/Middle Ages, and never in the Middle Ages was religious propaganda the ONLY form of entertainment. Sure you had religious theater, but you also had folk songs on a variety of secular subjects, the Song of Roland, the Canterbury Tales, etc., plus the Divine Comedy, which while obviously religious doens't really fall into the propaganda category/ Nothing that contradicts the Creed will be allowed in the Imperium, but that doesn't mean that everything will be hymns and catechysms and religious themes all the time.

Not even in the most repressive theocracy or "totalitarian" state is everything all propaganda, all the time.

bogi_khaosa said:

I'm not talking 24/7 Hymnals: The Series. I'm talking about movies that require certain ways of doing things. EVERYONE in a movie that is a hero MUST be religious. And not a non practicing Imperial. If they have doubts they are not truly righteous. You can't explore someone wrestling with their doubts because it tells the viewer that you CAN have doubts. He might have a heretic trying to tempt him, but that's not the same thing. He will hold strong against the blasphemous blandishments of the heretic. But to infer he could doubt to begin with is unthinkable.

The Church controlled the printing for a very long time. They also controlled music. Mainly because they controlled education which is true in 40k. There are no secular schools in the Imperium. Everyone learns from the teachings of the Ecclesiarchy.

If you dissect current pop culture you find that it is a morass of many different things, all based around personal choice. The Imperium does not allow personal choice to the average person, which cuts a huge swathe from the list of story concepts that would be allowed to be printed. So long as a story didn't discuss subjects that were harmful to the state it would be allowed. Thus stories of the average man travelling to other planets, choosing his job, becoming the richest man in the sector etc would not be allowed. The underclasses of 40k are peasants and they are supposed to stay that way. Stories would be created that tell the peasant what a great honour it is to BE a peasant. They wouldn't want to give them the impression they could become nobles one day. That gives them ideas and makes them think. It infers their lot isn't good enough as is.

The other thing is that much of pop culture only exists because it makes money. If the Imperium did not allow people to make money from writing stories etc there would be far fewer of them.

So I don't think pop culture in 40k would be hymnals and aesops from the lectitio divinitatus, but it would be 'pop' songs ABOUT those things. There are christian rock groups around these days, and pop singers who sing 'christian' pop. That is what I'm talking about. It's not just droning out hymns but the subject matter is in a very narrow field.

Hellebore

double post

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

Ah, OK. I don't think we disagree really. However, the Bible itself shows people wrestling with their doubts (Jesus, no less!). One might not want to take the Christianity of the Middle Ages comparison too far, but I can imagine a protagonist that has doubts and either overcomes them, or does not and suffers horribly for it. Like Faust.

EDIT: I may be blurring the line between pop culture and folk culture, I think.

EDIT 2: It's not really true that pop culture is necessarily all about money. The USSR had a pretty big pop culture industry, centrally controlled like the rest of the economy.

The Bible was written as a way to salvation, not a means to control the population though. At least some may argue so

I think an interesting vision of popculture and media in service of a totalitarian government is presented in Orwell's 1984. And it's a vision quite different than grimdark sunday school. The Angsoc party relied on the lowest instincts and emotions to keep the population in line. In the 'middle class' of party members they had things like "5 Minutes of Hate" where everyone would gather and shout, insult and deface an image of the current enemy of the party, presented on a telescreen. They had Antisexual League centered around suppressing human desire to procreate as the only emotion not controlled by the party (which wouldn't probably fit into 40k because of Humanity's manifest destiny to populate the universe).

On the other hand the low classes of dehumanised proles had their own telescreen broadcasts and media, presenting the most disgusting pornography and violence, aimed to numb them down, make them more easily controlled and less sensitive to human suffering.

Well with quotes like 'blessed is the mind too small for doubt' etc you get the impression that the Imperium doesn't want its followerers to doubt at all ever.

The Imperium controls its population in a way the medieval church could not. Everything is done in an attempt to keep people ignorant because knowledge is power and can cause the deaths of billions. It's like lies to children. You describe gravity to a 10 year old you do it in simplifications that are technically lies so they can grasp the basic concept. Only as you get older do you get a more complete picture, which each set of subsequent lies getting closer to the 'truth'.

The Imperium treats its people like perpetual children, never explaining the truth in toto because it would cause problems.

The bible showed people doubting so people would empathise better. The emperor never doubted, the space marines never doubt and any open doubters are executed. With the population level the Imperium has it can kill billions of people every year for infractions like doubt without it having any kind of impact on either population levels or belief in the regime.

However, as the majority of humans are the underhive type, there is little law enforcement and little prospects. There could be whole sects of doubters amongst them and no one would know.

What I'm saying is that this is how the imperium runs, but it doesn't mean those that have slipped through the cracks care. There is a difference.

Hellebore

I can think of one medium of media that is at least sector wide, and that is the pornography, which is made available for the imperial guard. There are a number of sources, which suggest that such material exist and is heavily vetted for purity. Like Amsec, such materials represent a powerful tool of commissarial control of units moral.
I suspect calling it pornography is perhaps stretching it a little. My personal vision of it is more like 40's cheesecake pin ups, likely with strong religious and propaganda messages woven into it.
Due to the risk of corruption that impure material of this sort would represent, I suspect that it would be centrally manufactured and distributed. This means that regimental bunks all across a sector might well have the same Pin up of a wholesome looking beauty in lacy underwear and stocking, with the phrase, 'There is nothing i like more than a man who does his duty for the emperor' on a motto scroll under her image.

zombieneighbours said:

I dont think that pornography will have to be very "wholesome and pure" in the 41st millenium. After all, sex (without profylactics, which is hardly something widepread) leads to children. Which means more loyal subjects for the Emperor. ("fresh meat for the grinders!")

So even though the Imperial Creed preaches purity in faith, I dont believe that the Creed has tha same narrow view of sex as the Catholic church has. If sex and procreation had to wait until after the wedding in the 41st millenium then there would be no Imperium at all. It would've gone under due to depopulation a long time ago...

Sex in the imperium is very much tied to the procriative act.

Sex for pleasure is not really a consideration. It is entirely in keeping to consider the Imperium to have a generally repressive set of sexual moores.

Sex generally waited until after marrage in most of history. most of history was feudal and every bit as bloody as the 41st millenium. No i suspect on more Imperial worlds atleast, young marrage, with woman engaged in child rearing and cottage industry and men involved in labour is the norm.

Remember, you have atleast two chaos gods who can gain significant power through sex. Nurgal through the spread of disease and Slaanesh by through shame and perversion of sex. There are very good reasons to promote certain types of relationship across the imperium.

zombieneighbours said:

Ok there are two things I fin being wrong here. The first one being the "Sex generally waited until after marriage in most of history". This is just blatantly untrue. Although the MORALS through history expected sex to occur usually after marriage, human nature goes against that fact, and human history is laden with famous love affairs and out of wedlock intercourse, so no sex DID occur A LOT outside of marriage in most of the human history. The only detail is that it was considered something shameful so it had to be kept a secret.

Second, i find it hard to believe that our feudal history was as bloddy as the 41st millenium. Compare the rather small skirmishes in our history to exterminatus in WH40K where the population of AN ENTIRE PLANET is exterminated in a single stroke. An the only results this mass extermination gets in Imperial history is a little side-note signed by a buearocrat of the administratum. The 41st millenium is a whole lot bloodier than our feudal history, in fact you cant even compare the two. One single murder in the feudal ages was a big thing in a town or village. In a normal hive city people are getting murdered by the truckload every single day without anyone even raising an eyebrow. In fact not even our own modern cities "everyday" murder or manslaughter can compare to the amount happening in the 41st millenium.

Just sayin'

bogi_khaosa said:

Ah but in the age of sail and much much earlier there were popular novels and fashion etc that travelled across the globe - now given by the time it arrives with you it no longer news (in fact the opposite) say in London but to you in America or Africa or Asia it is the "latest" thing. Plus the Imperium does have some date storage capacity well beyond the Age of Sail or Roman Empire etc.

Many millions on a world may await the monthly supply ship that brings food, news and the latest exploits of the favourite Imperium approved stars (or the new ones) - touring performers may have plays based on holo-vid shows and the like as much as the Imperiums versions of the Bibile, Aeneid and Shakespeare.

re astropathic comms - whilst some may require time to work - one assumes that weeks is not normally the case unless the distance is incredably long?

Point 1:

Average Age of marriage is historically earlier

Average age of pubitiy is historically later.(primary factor for this seems to be exposure to television screens of all things)

This combines to theocratic regimes leads to a state were most woman will enter marriage a virgin. Certainly more men come to their marriage bed with sexual experience, but historical litriture, biography and anthroplogy shows a great many examples of me who don't partake of sex until they are wed.

You also have to remember the absense of Profilactics means that historically Sex, as opposed to other sexual activities, was a lot more dangerous, something not to be taken lightly.

Believe me, i am in no way prudish, nor do i believe that no one ever had recreational sex in the past, but the facts are pretty clear on this. Much higher proportions of sex happened within marriage or during an affair, then happened before marriage.

Point 2:

With perhapes the exception of exterminartus, yes our history, both recorded and evolutionary is every bit as bloody as that of the imperium. In fact, i would go further, our history is bloodier.

Certainly the numbers in 40k are larger. Many time larger, but so is the scale. We

Example: The black death

45% to 50% europe die in the space of 2 years. How would this translate proportionally to the Imperium...Well its like half the worlds in the segmentium ultrimar winking out of existance in the space of 100 year. Events on this scale simple do not occure to the empire, and if they did it would likely result in the complete collapse of the empire.

Early historic wars in which genocides took place are proportionally more bloody than entire crusades in 40k.

If by "pop culture" we just mean "stuff carried by people from one place to another," sure that's always existed. The Roman Empire had that. That's not pop culture in the sense of "we deliberately try to spread our cultural material to every place we can," as is the case in the modern entertainment industry.

I do however realize that the lines are blurry between where pop culture stops and where folk culture and literature begin, so...