I am aware that the topic of fanfiction and "original" fiction is a hot potato, where strong feelings may be involved and trolls will do there best to get their way but :

Without evaluating the terms "fanfiction" and "original IP fiction" or "first party fiction" etc. - do you think there is a difference ?

Leading question : Is the work of the creator/creators respectively inventor/inventors of a fictional universe different from the work of, say, a fan who changes some parts of this original concepts and keeps others ?

Wherein might this difference lie ?

Can there be something like a "canon" as a useable aggregation of fluff when there are lots of contradictions within this canon ?

Do we need canon ? Can canon be flexible ?

Leading question : Is the work of the creator/creators respectively inventor/inventors of a fictional universe different from the work of, say, a fan who changes some parts of this original concepts and keeps others ?

The reason why I ask these questions is simple - it's a difficult topic and I'd like to hear different opinions on it (the topic was derailing another thread so I created a new one - to see how it startet check out https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/130475-warhammer-40k-and-internet/ )

A civilized discussion would be appreciated.

Regards MrMonstro

Well I don't know about the rest of what you said, but I do know that the beautiful part about this game is that ALL the contradictions are also canon and you can take it however you want. The Imperials say Abaddon the Despoiler is an armless failure. Chaos says he's the War master and kicks all the ass ever. Its your choice. Its so all encompassing that even the very core of the fluff, the Horus HERESY itself, can be open to.....debate. All the things about the imperium are open to debate at any time.

As far as I am concerned, i can agree with all that you wrote.

What you just described was - in my opinion - "in universe lore" - we have got the fictional universe of warhammer 40k therein we have various factions and all of them have different views and opinions.

Abaddon is part of the fictional universe of warhammer 40k - in the imperium he is feared and hated, in the eye of terror he is feared and envied etc....

But how did you learn about the fictional character of abaddon in the first place ? Who told you he was the despoiler (or maybe not) ?

What if I said - there is no Abaddon in the fictional universe of warhammer 40k - would that sentence be true ?

If abaddon wasn't true.....then he might be a bogeyman the imperium cooked up to cause fear. And it can be totally true. What if he was a lie the inquisition made up to keep people fearful and complacent? That's actually a good idea.

Take it from Gav Thorpe himself:

"To suggest that Black Library novels are somehow of lesser relevance to the background is to imply that every player who has created a unique Space Marine chapter or invented their own Elector Count is somehow wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."

I have gathered some more quotes from various influential writers such as Andy Hoare or Aaron Dembski-Bowden (who in turn quotes former Chief Editor Marc Gascogne in the linked post) here .

The tldr is this: Your fan-fiction is exactly as meaningful (or as little) as anything Games Workshop have published themselves, or the books published in license by Black Library and Fantasy Flight Games.

The problem is the fans who still think the setting has a true "canon" like Battletech or Star Wars, and who thus think some sources are "more true" than others, when it really just comes down to cherrypicking whatever the warp you want.

I have chosen to subscribe to GW's version of the setting over any of the other visions, whilst incorporating some elements from the latter I deem suitable/fitting. I have done so because their books are the ones I've "grown up with" whilst getting to know the setting, so their consistency is quite simply what I'm used to. Alternate interpretations simply feel like deviations to me, and since I prefer consistency, I had to make a choice.

At the same time, I must acknowledge that my chosen interpretation is not any better than someone elses, as it really is just a matter of preferences. At best I can claim that the material I cling to came first, as much good as that does.

*Snicker* Oh the nerd rage on that one.

I actually have a rather awkward history in that some time, several years ago, I was one of exactly those "raging nerds" who firmly believed 40k had a solid canon, simply because that's what I was told by other fans. It is like some sort of urban rumour that just won't die - aggravated by popular resources such as Lexicanum still selling this lie, rather than going by what the very writers of the material they go by have said themselves.

I got caught up in like a million fruitless debates because I was convinced that my understanding of the setting was the correct one, and that is precisely the reason why you may see me re-posting that quote link from time to time -- I'd like to spare other fans that are new to the franchise from living through the same frustrating experience, whilst reassuring others that their interpretation of the setting is just as valid.

I suppose you could say I am an Anti-Missionary.

Beyond that, who cares whether Ferrus Manus held his teacup with pinky extended or not twelve thousand years ago at the Emprah's birthday party?"

You'd be surprised!

*Snicker* Oh the nerd rage on that one.

I actually have a rather awkward history in that some time, several years ago, I was one of exactly those "raging nerds" who firmly believed 40k had a solid canon, simply because that's what I was told by other fans. It is like some sort of urban rumour that just won't die - aggravated by popular resources such as Lexicanum still selling this lie, rather than going by what the very writers of the material they go by have said themselves.

I got caught up in like a million fruitless debates because I was convinced that my understanding of the setting was the correct one, and that is precisely the reason why you may see me re-posting that quote link from time to time -- I'd like to spare other fans that are new to the franchise from living through the same frustrating experience, whilst reassuring others that their interpretation of the setting is just as valid.

I suppose you could say I am an Anti-Missionary.

Beyond that, who cares whether Ferrus Manus held his teacup with pinky extended or not twelve thousand years ago at the Emprah's birthday party?"

You'd be surprised!

Well, to be fair there are some things in the 40k-verse that are definitively true - in the broad sweep of things. The details ... those get a little murky.

Fact: The Emperor made (or had made) 20 Primarchs and 20 Astartes Legions after the Primarchs were no longer in the lab that was used to create the Primarchs on Terra.

Fact: The Emperor unified Terra under his control and then spread his control over the rest of Sol, making an alliance with Mars.

Fact: The Emperor used the Astartes Legions and their supporting levies to launch the Great Crusade to build an Imperium of Man.

Fact: The Emperor sought to stamp out existing religious beliefs.

Fact: Something happened to 2 of the Primarchs and their Legions relatively early on in the Great Crusade. What happened to them is effectively never spoken of afterwords, even by the remaining Primarchs.

Fact: When the Emperor decided to leave the continued conquering of the Great Crusade in the hands of the Primachs while he put together the infrastructure to hold it all together, he put the Primarch Horus in charge.

Fact: Horus and 8 of the Primarchs made an alliance of sorts, and fought against the Emperor, for various reasons, taking with them roughly half of the Imperium's war assets, and proceeding to engage those loyal to the Emperor in a rather brutal civil war now known as the Horus Heresy.

Fact: During the civil war known as the Horus Heresy, several of the Primarchs were killed. Lots of damage was inflicted upon the Imperium and its infrastructure.

Fact: At the end of the Horus Heresy, the Traitors were beseiging Terra and the Emperor's Palace/fortress. The Emperor killed Horus, but was grieviously wounded, nigh unto death, in the process.

Fact: The Emperor's battered body was placed on the Golden Throne.

Fact: The Traitors withdrew to the Eye of Terror, having failed to replace the leadership of the Imperium with themselves, but not having been decisively crushed.

Fact: The Imperium and its military underwent significant organizational changes in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy.

Fact: The Imperium is now heavily religious, with the Emperor having been deified into the God-Emperor of Mankind. His physical body is still on the Golden Throne.

Anything detailed is usually effectively in the realm of mythic or legendary events, and thus the details are suspect and tend to vary, whereas the broad general strokes can be laid out as "there was a war here in this timeframe, these dudes are the big names on either side", "this species of xenos was first officially confirmed to be encountered here at this timeframe (we're probably effectively at war with them whenever we encounter them now)".

@Lynata

Thx for the reply - i know the quotes and i think it was a clever move by the authors to take this position.

Clever and the only really viable one without loosing credibility because since the univeres depends so strongly on its fans (who create their own stories and armies and backrounds etc.) that a strict seperation between fanfiction and 40k© fiction would benefit no one.

I also like your elaboration on the "cherry picking thing" - for me it is kind of the same - i like the setting and accept most of the framework as beeing true (in terms of a fictional scifi universe)

But for me there is more to this topic:

While of course everyone is free to pick and choose from the fluff what he likes and remove or change what he doesn't like - there is still a problem here (in my opinion).

And that problem has to do with the idea of a certain amount of consensus - i like to speculate on 40k fluff and come up with interpretations etc. as well as most other fans but when writing in a forum about warhammer 40k © i somehow inherently take it for granted that all participants of the discussion agree on a certain framework to work with (for example that there is or at least at some point in time in the universe of 40k there was "the emperor")

If i talk about stuff that might have happened in the horus heresy and someone joins the discussion stating that the horus heresy never happened (again of course in the ficional universe of warhammer 40k) his opinion is of equal "worth" but we are not talking about the same univeres anymore therefor further discussion is pointless.

And that is a rather important thing to keep in mind (at least for me): While there may not be any one "legit" canon - If for Guy A.) 40k is a universe where the only sentient race to exist are the eldar, for guy B.) 40k is a universe where space marines are children in giant mech-suits who fight with rubber-chainswords and for Guy C.) 40k is is the universe established by Games Workshop (with it's own contradictions and stupidities) - they will have a hard time discussing anything concerning warhammer 40k.

So maybe you could say - in my opinion, while all interpretations of warhammer 40k are equal, the one with the books and the games (wich are by no means anywhere near coherent) is the one i (mostly) stick to - because it gives me the most interesting ideas to work with and the lots of other fans to talk to - without needing to establish if for example they accept that in 40k there is something called the warp at the start of every discussion, and because i appreciate the efford of building this large universe, i am willing to accept some of the more ridiculous stuff along with the stuff i like.

(cherries may be good, but too many make your tummy ache)

@Spatulaodoom

People may not care about Ferrus Manus pinky - but what about his head that he may or may not have lost on the sands of Istvan ?

Regards MrMonstro

Well, to be fair there are some things in the 40k-verse that are definitively true - in the broad sweep of things. The details ... those get a little murky.

And that problem has to do with the idea of a certain amount of consensus - i like to speculate on 40k fluff and come up with interpretations etc. as well as most other fans but when writing in a forum about warhammer 40k © i somehow inherently take it for granted that all participants of the discussion agree on a certain framework to work with (for example that there is or at least at some point in time in the universe of 40k there was "the emperor")

Oh, absolutely. Gav actually talks about exactly this in the blog my post on dakka links to, and GW does seek to enforce a certain minimum of consistency regarding the most basic points. That's part of why they still have editors at the Black Library, in spite of the notable amount of artistic freedom granted to the various authors. That being said, I've found that nobody ever contests those details, anyways -- but in retrospect, I should have probably still mentioned them, just for the sake of completion and to avoid the necessity of clarification by your posts.

99% of the debates in the fandom seem to concern the "free-floating" details, simply because people have been reading conflicting information in official sources. Stuff like ... how high are Space Marines and how old do they get, how does a bolter work, what does a Schola look like, how strong/powerful is X really, etc.

And that's the stuff where you just have to pick your preferred source. And for better or worse, this is where we as a community lack consensus. The challenge lies in just how we deal with such a shaky common ground, but I've found simply pre- or post-phrasing one's posts with disclaimers regarding the lack of canon works nicely, and mentioning which source one's own information comes from.

Sidenote:

Fact: The Emperor sought to stamp out existing religious beliefs.

I'm fairly sure this actually only appears in the Horus Heresy novels. He didn't seem to give a **** about religion in the Index Astartes -- and he didn't seem to have a problem with the existing religious beliefs of the Cult Mechanicus.

Here comes opinion:

I'm not entirely sure what the big confusion is here. IMO, "canon" is a collection of work, "facts", and assumptions on the part of the individual(s) who invented the franchise. Canon changes when the individuals in question say it does, usually for poor reasons involving money, or by people that the inventors sanction. For instance, George Lucas wrote Star Wars. George Lucas made three films telling the tale of that universe, involving Luke Skywalker, the Jedi, Darth Vader, the Empire, et al. At one point, GL was not continuing to work on his material publicly (read: making more movies or books), and the material, ripe for addition and growth, began to stagnate. Several individuals, such as Timothy Zahn, requested George Lucas allow them to write materials within his copyrighted universe, using names, personages, and locales, and he agreed, so long as he could sign off on them. That allowed said additional persons to publish, make money, and continue to flesh out the Lucasverse. In this way, "official" materials, published by LucasArts, incorporated events, such as Shadows of the Empire, Kotor, the survival of Boba Fett (he died, and Lucas realized later that he was stupid-popular; this is why we get Jango Fett, with most of the original Boba Fett's backstory in the prequels; Boba wouldn't be old enough [opinion])the marriage of Han and Leia, the birth of their three children, the death of Chewbacca and Anakin, the Yuuzhan Vong, the fall of Jacen, and the rise of Darth Caedus, the appearances of Mara Jade, and her eventual marriage to Luke Skywalker, along with the birth of their son, Ben, and eventually stuff like Legacy. All of these events were at least loosely made with GL's consent, possibly input, and permitted Zahn, Dark Horse Comics, and several other organizations to profit from their works. When Lucas sold out to Disney, because he really didn't want the trouble of making another movie, and getting up there in years, he needed to decide who would inherit his Empire (opinion), they gained the decision-making rights, and scrapped most of the material, in favor of their own money-making ventures. This is not the same thing as me writing stories involving Star Wars. My tale of young Jedi Ender Farstrider, who trained with the Dark Woman, the Aang'tii, and such, or the tale of Aedan, a young survivor from the Clone Wars, and his efforts to survive the Dark Times, regain his lightsaber from the horde of General Grievous, and find a place between love of a girl and his loyalty to the Jedi Code (a bit of a story made to flub a EotE character), or Jaden Loross coming to terms with two years of Inquisitorial torture, at the hands of the Emperor's agents, before his Mandalorian girlfriend and her cell saved him, and they go off to be rebels, and the escapades that come with them (my copy of Rebels, fearing it is too kid-oriented). I can write anything I want, certainly, and enjoy saying it. My Lord of Chaos Sorcerer in DC Adventures, Ethan Marius, was almost in a relationship with Supergirl (because I said so, of course), and upon landing in future Gotham, is teamed up with Melanie Walker. To say such things are as canon as official things is sort of ludicrous, even in a franchise that has so many separate universes, just to cover this oops-source.

If I hopped onto the Warhammer wiki, it will say certain things, and those are what the audience of the franchise are to accept as "true". Some of it will overlap, some might even conflict, and GW has done their level best to even write in ways to explain that, the same way the Doctor is a member of a race of regenerators as much to cover departing actors, as anything else, or that there is a Zelda timeline, which there is, except Shigi said there isn't, except now he says that there was, there sometimes is, and...it's a good thing Zelda is my favorite game series, because they make me put up with a lot of crap, sometimes. I have written two separate, splotchy Naruto Future fanfics, one even for a gaming universe, and at least one and a half DBZ worlds after GT, but that doesn't mean audiences need accept anything I say as fact, regarding them; I'm not the author, nor an individual they have signed off on as capable of altering their work, and especially making money off of it, and that's fine; I still love adding to my ridiculous storyverses, and if something needs to change, or I don't want to change it, after "official" source material alters what I expected, that's fine, but there's stuff that is accepted, as from the owners, and stuff that is assumed, as from me.

By my reckoning, "canon" is defined as the facts set out by those persons who have a legal capacity to profit from that material. If you can't publicly publish your claim, for fear of the GW ban hammer coming down on you, you can't change the canon.

40k is a nice place because the GW people have, to some great extent, left us gaps to fill, and encouraged us to make part, or all of their efforts our own. You can invent a new Space Marine Chapter, write up an IG hero, or an all-female regiment, or whatever, and at your table, or in your game, these things might even be accepted as fact, but that isn't to say it's all equal, again, in my opinion. Still, I'm glad 40k lets me invent my own stuff; Gov-Mil. Krueger and his 1st Titanspire Skyshock troops, Aedan Qel-Drake, his Maidens of the Dragon, and the Exalted Wyrm, and several other little 40k inventions of mine are amongst my favorite "recent" creations, and being 40k, I even get to share them all with all of you. Some have liked them, some have found them juvenile (yes, Aedan has a certain anime twist to him that most 40k doesn't), and some have said how certain stuff "doesn't work", based on how they perceive the source material. Here's hoping 40k stays so open, even if I wish GW could be bothered to add a bit more "officially" to their events of import. I don't NEED them to move past the 13th Black Cusade's aftermath, but another big, fun event, something that galvanizes their universe could be cool.

So, we've already talked about this sort of thing a good bit, and I seriously don't have the flame shields to rebound five separate, yet concerted efforts on the part of others to inform me that everything I just said is stupid, so if you are going to more or less say that, maybe don't eat up as much space as I just did; I'll feel the vibes in the Force, or what not, of how you feel. Thanks for reading this far, anyway, and have a good one.

With respect to your opinion - but as per the people who actually write said official material, it is flawed.

I think there exists a degree of confusion in the community regarding "official" = "canon". That is not so, or at least not with how people commonly interpret the term "canon", by which most fans refer to a set of official "truths" set in stone and overriding anything else. The closest 40k comes to this is the most basic facts of the nature javcs listed. But in regards to entire sources ... is a GW codex canon? No. Is one of FFG's books? No. They are official products, but in terms of canonicity they are exactly as authoritative as whatever you write up yourself. By which I mean not at all. Which explains why there are so many conflicts between them.

---

If I hopped onto the Warhammer wiki, it will say certain things, and those are what the audience of the franchise are to accept as "true".

And this is what I regard as dangerously misleading for newer fans who don't know any better.

The many sources whose information is collected in the wiki were often not intended to be compatible, simply because it is not deemed necessary. The fan-editors at the Warhammer wiki and Lexicanum ignore this crucial bit of information and, in their quest for establishing a consistent setting against the will of its creators , simply pick and choose and manipulate the data so that, somehow, an internally consistent article comes out at the end. Check the Deathwatch article, for example, and see for yourself how it intentionally omits information from its sources just because it would not fit.

What they are ignoring is that this end result is still just their own personal interpretation of how to reconcile the many conflicts. Why should anyone else accept it as "true"? What is the difference between the fans working on that wiki, and the fans who don't?

There really is only one way to treat the IP, and that is that we all have our own, personal vision of the 41st millennium. Exactly as Gav Thorpe has said. That is why, for the purposes of roleplaying in a group, I recommend everyone at the table to sit down and compare their interpretations of the setting beforehand to establish the common ground that is necessary for doing something together.

That's the price we have to pay for such a ... Loose Canon .

Beginning with the post from the old thread, because for some reason Monstro decided to create this thread only after posting in the other one:

may you would be so kind as to tell me what (according to your views) is included in the warhammer 40k intellectual property or basically

This is a legal question. Intellectual property is a legally defined and defended concept. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not up to date on exactly what the copyrights on Warhammer 40k cover or who owns them, and you also haven't given any reason as to why I or anyone else should care. I'm not entirely certain you know what intellectual property is.

Moving on to bits of this actual thread:

Well, to be fair there are some things in the 40k-verse that are definitively true

Point me to an academic source on any of the "facts" you've cited. If you're going to claim they're facts, then back them as facts . Show me proof, reasonable real world scientific proof, that the Emperor created Primarchs.

Confusing popular shared details with facts is the root of much creative stagnation in fiction in general. The idea that the 20 Primarchs is factually true leads to the idea that there must be a factual answer as to whether or not Ferrus Manus lost his head. That there are 20 Primarchs isn't fact and it is harmful to the discussion to pretend it is fact. What it is is a very popular setting detail which is to be ignored at a creator's peril. The actual fact is that quite a lot of readers will be upset with you if you try to excise any of the 18 known Primarchs, that several of them will be angry if you try to excise even the two unknown Primarchs, and you'll probably be immediately dismissed as pushing Mary Sue if you try to add a 21st Primarch. Messing with the number of Primarchs doesn't contradict any facts, it's just bad storytelling. And in a conversation in which we pretend that fictional universes have facts (which they don't) rather than stories (which they do) we're setting up the death of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Because in the fight between stories, Heir to the Empire still exists and is still good and can win people over, but in the fight over facts that aren't, Disney holds basically all of the cards.

The insistence on adherence to "facts" is also what chokes the life out of a lot of adaptations and reboots. While a lot of these never had much vision to begin with, even those that are built out of a genuine desire to retell a story are often harangued by fans who think that every difference in setting or plot detail, no matter how trivial, constitutes a flaw in the narrative. Of course, most adaptations and reboots are created by people working for a mass audience who really don't care about any of that, so the creators don't have to either, but nevertheless the fans aren't actually doing their media any favors by insisting that only a small, select group of people are allowed to innovate. Innovation should be #1 always encouraged and #2 judged on its execution, not its source.

Oh boy - here we go again - i'm wilfully ignoring the don't feed the troll sign -

@Lupa

Obviously you are not aware of the fact (and that is definitely a fact) that the whole topic revolving around "fiction can not be true" is a bit more complicated than you think.

There are various philosophical theories in the scientific community that deal with the issue - one of them for example stating that when talking about fictional events, beings ... whatever, statements about these things can have the attribut of being true : a simple expample would be the sentence "a pegasus is a horse with wings" is that a fact or not ?

And this is where it boils down to consensus - and when dealing with 40k this "loose canon" that Lynata referred to and that consists of the so called "official" stuff can (and actually does) give most people a framework (what you call "popular shared details") and a context for communicating with other fans and in this context statements that can be true.

In said context i would personally tend to the view that the heresy did happen.

Now you can (again) point out that it is fiction and that it never happened etc.pp but that just means you either willfully misunderstand the point or are not able to understand the point i try to make.

Here is another thing:

You seem to like Grand Admiral Thrawn or at least the stories featuring him - Disney erased him from the "canon" - Venkelos explained that nicely in his post - but, since according to you there is no canon - no harm was done, and since Heir to the Empire is just one (more or less liked) story among many, and since Thrawn never existed in the first place - what's the fuzz all about ?

BTW - it is not as if Disney erases all traces of the EU ever existing, so new fans of the franchise should be able to decide on there own what they like and what they accept as legit and what not.

regards MrMonstro

Lupa has a point in that at least in regards to 40k, there really are "no facts" per se, for as the creators of the setting have said themselves, everything is presented in the form of heritage, myth and legend. The history section of the 6E rulebook came with a preamble that flat out stated that everything that follows was subject to numerous revisions and "corrections" by various Imperial agencies.

The bit about "the Emperor creating the Primarchs" is actually a perfect example of this, because there was a short story published in White Dwarf, from the Games Workshop studio itself, that tells us that the Emperor no more "created" the Primarchs than, say, George Bush created the F22-Raptor. Big E pretty much walked into a lab and had one of his scientists tell him how Primarchs work. What I find fascinating about this story is that I can perfectly see how an absolute ruler that became deified would, many years later, of course be remembered as the one who came up with everything all by himself. North Korean propaganda is trying to do the very same thing right now!

As such, just about anything we know of the setting can be put into question. See Marc Gascogne's comment on whether Black Templars spit acid or not.

However, this special perspective on a setting still applies only to 40k, or IPs that have chosen a similar route when it comes to managing their background. Most fictional settings instead claim specific sources to hold the "ultimate truth" that overrides anything else. The classic definition of what constitutes "canon" in books and movies. Fans subscribe to it because they crave consistency, and someone must moderate a setting in order to achieve it. You can't play an RPG or even have a good debate about a setting without sharing a common ground.

This is delving into a discussion that we already had elsewhere, though, and does not actually have anything to do with OP's topic -- which is how 40k works as an IP.

Let me finish with a comment on "adaptations and reboots", however, with how *I* see them. For me, this does not have anything to do with who is or isn't legally "allowed" to make changes to a setting. For me, it's about respect . Both for the people who originally worked on and created the original, as well as the fans who grew to love that version.

To quote Brad Wardell from Stardock:

"If you're making a game that ends with '3,' or Something: The Sequel, it should be similar to the original game. Don't go off and say, 'I have my own artistic vision.' Okay, good -- so call it something else. Don't ride the coattails of the people who came before you to launch your own artistic vision."

The problem with reboots and remakes is that they're not presented and perceived merely as alternate retellings, but that they become "the new truth" simply on the basis of being newer, effectively shutting the previous canon down and locking it away (see various novels and comic series set in the old Star Wars canon being cancelled in spite of their popularity -- RIP, Legacy ).

It already says so right in the term: a franchise is rebooted , the story is being re-made.

So in the words of Brad Wardell: just friggin' call it something else then!

*Snicker* Oh the nerd rage on that one.

I actually have a rather awkward history in that some time, several years ago, I was one of exactly those "raging nerds" who firmly believed 40k had a solid canon, simply because that's what I was told by other fans. It is like some sort of urban rumour that just won't die - aggravated by popular resources such as Lexicanum still selling this lie, rather than going by what the very writers of the material they go by have said themselves.

I got caught up in like a million fruitless debates because I was convinced that my understanding of the setting was the correct one, and that is precisely the reason why you may see me re-posting that quote link from time to time -- I'd like to spare other fans that are new to the franchise from living through the same frustrating experience, whilst reassuring others that their interpretation of the setting is just as valid.

I suppose you could say I am an Anti-Missionary.

Yeah That's what Lorgar said!

After all: "Everything you've been told is a lie..."

Yeah I'm not gonna agrue with Gav Thorpe. (I don't want him to sic his mechanical hamster on me )

Don't get me wrong, I'll punch Matt Ward in the soul . But Gav is awesome.

The way i see it is: I got my headcanon* and everything else is heresy . And everybody else is free to have theirs, as their is no true canon.

Now I've heard there are a lot of nods in the FFG 40K RPGs to fanfiction. Wich would indicate that FFG is down with it.

* I actualy have two: One serious one (used to roleplay in) and one for laughs in wich everything is an alpha legion conspiracy and the emperor and malacdor are a comedic duo.

Moving on to bits of this actual thread:

Well, to be fair there are some things in the 40k-verse that are definitively true

Point me to an academic source on any of the "facts" you've cited. If you're going to claim they're facts, then back them as facts . Show me proof, reasonable real world scientific proof, that the Emperor created Primarchs.

Confusing popular shared details with facts is the root of much creative stagnation in fiction in general. The idea that the 20 Primarchs is factually true leads to the idea that there must be a factual answer as to whether or not Ferrus Manus lost his head. That there are 20 Primarchs isn't fact and it is harmful to the discussion to pretend it is fact. What it is is a very popular setting detail which is to be ignored at a creator's peril. The actual fact is that quite a lot of readers will be upset with you if you try to excise any of the 18 known Primarchs, that several of them will be angry if you try to excise even the two unknown Primarchs, and you'll probably be immediately dismissed as pushing Mary Sue if you try to add a 21st Primarch. Messing with the number of Primarchs doesn't contradict any facts, it's just bad storytelling. And in a conversation in which we pretend that fictional universes have facts (which they don't) rather than stories (which they do) we're setting up the death of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Because in the fight between stories, Heir to the Empire still exists and is still good and can win people over, but in the fight over facts that aren't, Disney holds basically all of the cards.

The insistence on adherence to "facts" is also what chokes the life out of a lot of adaptations and reboots. While a lot of these never had much vision to begin with, even those that are built out of a genuine desire to retell a story are often harangued by fans who think that every difference in setting or plot detail, no matter how trivial, constitutes a flaw in the narrative. Of course, most adaptations and reboots are created by people working for a mass audience who really don't care about any of that, so the creators don't have to either, but nevertheless the fans aren't actually doing their media any favors by insisting that only a small, select group of people are allowed to innovate. Innovation should be #1 always encouraged and #2 judged on its execution, not its source.

...

Not "In the real world". In the real world, 40k, and the 40k-verse is fiction, ie, not fact.

"Facts" within the 40k-verse are different from facts in real life.

You appear to be fixated on 40k and the 40k-verse being fiction, and thus there are not, and cannot be, "facts" within a fictional setting/universe that are native and exclusive to that setting and are not true facts in the real world.

Since there's a Star Wars segue going on - it is a Fact within the Star Wars universe that the Force exists, that Hyperspace exists, that humans, along with most of the other species extant in Star Wars, are native to the primary Star Wars galaxy. None of these are facts in the real world, and therefore, by my understanding of your arguments, they are not facts within the Star Wars universe either.

All we have to say that they are facts within the Star Wars universe are things from the Star Wars universe, there is no real world scientific proof to say they are facts, because it's a fictional universe .

At least, those were facts in Star Wars pre-Disney.

Let's toss in a Star Trek example for good measure. In the Star Trek Universe, the original Trek-verse, not Abrams-Trek, Khan Noonien Sighn, and the other Augments, were born out of a 1990s-era genetic engineering project to fight a war. Now, obviously, that's not a fact in the real world, but in the Star Trek universe, it is a fact.

Or, to go for a less unsettled and conflicted setting, in the 2001: A Space Odyssey universe, the Soviet Union never fell, there are rail-launchers to orbit, in 2010, the USSR and the USA cooperated on a mission to see what happened to the USS Discovery in the events of 2001:ASO, competing with the Chinese. The Chinese ship landed on Europa and was destroyed. Jupiter was induced by the Monoliths into becoming a functional Star.

Clearly, none of those are true in the real world. But in the 2001:A Space Odyssey universe, those are concrete facts.

We are discussing a fictional universe. Nobody is trying to say that 40k, or any other fictional universe/setting, can be called real world truths. Something in a fictional universe can be called a fact within that universe , without being called a real world truth or fact. When discussing a fictional universe, it is generally assumed that anything said is said with the caveat "within the context of the fictional universe or universes being discussed", and not necessarily the real world.

As for the Emperor "creating the Primarchs", I said "created or had created". This leaves wide open the possibility that he had teams of scientists doing most, if not all, of the work to create the Primarchs per his orders. Somebody created them, and did so because the Emperor wanted the Primarchs created. As for the semantics of in saying "the Emperor created them" versus "the Emperor ordered somebody to create them", we say that "Lincoln freed the slaves" - he didn't actually free each one, he directed that they be freed, and somebody else did the dirty work; or we say "Truman nuked Japan" - he ordered it, but didn't personally drop the bomb himself. Throw in the passage of time, deification, and the probable secrecy of the Primarch project, and the difference between "the Emperor created the Primarchs" and "the Emperor ordered the creation of the Primarchs" is negligible. "The Emperor created the Primarchs" can be taken to mean either he did it personally or he directed somebody else to do it, however one prefers.

As for how many Primarchs were created, 20 were created by/at the Emperor's direction, something unknown happened to 2 of them, and then 9 fought against the Emperor, in a civil war called the Horus Heresy. During course of the Heresy, several of the Primarchs died. How exactly they died is, by and large, a matter of the finer details that are murky, as is what happened to/with their bodies after their deaths, for most of them. We can also say that of the Primarchs who survived, there aren't any left actively involved with the Imperium by the time of 'current/modern' 40k, though some are believed to still be alive, or their fates are unknown.

The number of Primarchs created is not one of those murky details. What happened to/with the 2 missing/lost Primarchs definitely is one of those murky details.

Sure, from a meta-perspective, GW left out 2 of the Primarchs and their Legions so that players could replace them with homebrew/custom forces. But, those player-made Legions aren't really the Legions of the 2 Lost/Missing Primarchs (otherwise, it wouldn't be 2 missing Primarchs and Legions, it'd be thousands of them). GW is probably never going to allow any source to present an official version of what happened to the Lost Primarchs and their Legions.

... Except that of the HH novel "Legion" it is revealed that the primrach of the Alpha legion is actualy a pair of twins called Alpharius and Omegon. So now we have 21 primarchs...

Emperor: "Malacador where are you?"

Malcador: "Busy scrapping the canon M'lord!"

Emperor: "Well stop that and come help me count my kids! I've lost track of again!"

Oh boy - here we go again - i'm wilfully ignoring the don't feed the troll sign -

A troll is someone who posts with intention to upset others. That my disagreeing with you is so upsetting does not make me a troll. Quit hurling accusations around.

Obviously you are not aware of the fact (and that is definitely a fact)

If it's a fact, you can cite it, prove it, back it up. Do so.

There are various philosophical theories in the scientific community that deal with the issue - one of them for example stating that when talking about fictional events, beings ... whatever, statements about these things can have the attribut of being true : a simple expample would be the sentence "a pegasus is a horse with wings" is that a fact or not ?

No, there aren't. I am quite confident that there are precisely zero physicists, biologists, or sociologists who are debating, as a matter of profession, philosophical questions. Because if they did, they wouldn't be scientists. They'd be philosophers. The answer to the pegasus question is that yes, a pegasus is a horse with wings. Pegasi are non-existent, but a word doesn't have to refer to something extant to have a consistent definition. That's not a scientific question, it's a language question. "Pegasus" the word exists, as is evidenced by the fact that we have both just used and understood it. Pegasus the creature does not exist. That the word "pegasus" happens to be tied to a very specific anatomy in language has nothing to do with how real or not they are. Basilisks and bugs are both words that conjure up very different images in the minds of those who hear them, in the former case because basilisks are fictitious creatures who are defined by their deadly gaze rather than their anatomy and "bugs" is a slang term that can refer to either insects specifically or anything that is creepy crawly, including arachnids and other related creatures. It's a language question and a total red herring. All you're demonstrating here is a lack of familiarity with the philosophical concepts you're trying to educate me on.

Here is another thing:

You seem to like Grand Admiral Thrawn or at least the stories featuring him - Disney erased him from the "canon" - Venkelos explained that nicely in his post - but, since according to you there is no canon - no harm was done, and since Heir to the Empire is just one (more or less liked) story among many, and since Thrawn never existed in the first place - what's the fuzz all about ?

Because the idea that fictional worlds can have facts and that corporations control these facts is ubiquitous enough that people accept it even to their own detriment . This is some crazy dystopian ****.

Nobody is trying to say that 40k, or any other fictional universe/setting, can be called real world truths.

Yes, I know. I understand your argument perfectly, so you can stop restating it louder and louder and acting as though you've made a new point. This is not an argument about whether or not fictional universes are fictional. I understand that you are aware that they are fictional. The reason I'm demanding real world proof that there are twenty Primarchs is because I am aware that you will find that concept absurd. The point of that demand is to demonstrate the absurdity of your model of fictional universes. You believe that certain people can make something factually real within a fictional universe, but that is a contradiction. If something is fact, you can prove it, so if it is a fact that there are twenty Primarchs then go cite some sources that prove, factually, that there are twenty Primarchs. No, sources from Games Workshop are not good enough, that's appeal to authority. To prove it as a fact you must have sources that can be traced back to firsthand evidence. Obviously this is impossible, therefore your suggestion that something can be a fact inside the context of a fictional universe is wrong. It's called reduction to the absurd.

Because the idea that fictional worlds can have facts and that corporations control these facts is ubiquitous enough that people accept it even to their own detriment . This is some crazy dystopian ****.

I think it's the opposite. People accept this control because they crave a certain level of consistency and common ground. Without an authority to exert control over a setting, the likelihood of disagreement and discontent between all participants in a discussion - or in a roleplaying group - grows proportionally larger the more participants you have.

Why do we accept that a Gamemaster has control over whether or not our characters can do something? It's the exact same reason and has nothing to do with dystopia, but because we need rules to make this work .

People who don't wish to play ball can refuse to opt-in whenever they feel like it. Nobody will hold a gun to your head and demand that you accept some corporation's canon or your GM's decision - but if you want to participate as a member of a certain community, you better get in line, or face the consequence that your contributions will be ignored so as to preserve everyone elses enjoyment of the game/setting/whatever.

You believe that certain people can make something factually real within a fictional universe, but that is a contradiction. If something is fact, you can prove it, so if it is a fact that there are twenty Primarchs then go cite some sources that prove, factually, that there are twenty Primarchs. No, sources from Games Workshop are not good enough, that's appeal to authority.

Technically, it is a fact that some books say some things, and the physical evidence would be the page where it says so. This includes the existence (or lack of) guidelines for fictional settings.

You don't have to subscribe to them, but people who do are discussing the facts that something is said in some book. That does not make "something" real - it doesn't have to be. For them, the point is that it's written in an official source, and this can be easily verified. The reason for this voluntary limitation? See above.

The whole argument about fictional settings not being real is really just splitting hairs and does not contribute anything to this community. We Know. We Don't Care. This Isn't What We're Talking About.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, and I have no intention of antagonising or belittling you. I just don't see why this keeps being a point of contention at all.

You've forgotten where the argument stems from, Lynata. This is all ultimately traced back to someone saying that a gamemaster shouldn't use the noosphere because it is of dubious canonicity. My point is and has always been that a gamemaster is under no obligation to care in 40k or any other setting .

Now, there comes a certain level of deviation from previous material at which you are no longer building upon, but are rather entirely divergent from the original work. But the discussion to have there has nothing to do with quoting original sources or whatever. It revolves entirely around what your audience is familiar and how much a change disrupts the existing continuity, and most importantly in that conversation a GM is just as much a valid authority as whoever happens to own the IP. A GM can say things like "there are no midichlorians" and anyone who tries to claim that they're no longer running "true" Star Wars is flat-out dead wrong . Because the only detail that's been changed is one that most fans hate and want to see changed anyway. If the IP holders made that retcon it would be a good retcon, therefore when a GM makes that retcon it is a good retcon, because GMs are creating a work for an audience and therefore are just the same as IP holders (except in that IP holders are going to reach a much larger audience, but that is only relevant if we are discussing people outside of the GM's audience, which typically when talking to a GM we are not).

This mindset requires that we acknowledge that fictitious universes are fictitious and that anyone who hears about them can and often do end up with their own interpretation which is only mostly the same as that pushed by IP holders (if they bother with consistency at all), that corporations do not determine the facts and that indeed it is impossible for anyone to determine the facts because there are none, that everything is dependent upon audience buy-in. And that a GM would cede his creative authority to a corporation even when both they and their players dislike the direction that corporation is nothing short of madness. If you're allowing a corporation to dictate your imagination to you, you may wish to reconsider whether you'd want the back description of a novel of your life to describe it as a comedic look into the life of a neo-feudal serf living in a cyberpunk dystopia.

On a sidenote, I consider it worrisome how so many fans - apparently including you - have missed how insignificant midichlorians actually are. They changed nothing . How exactly would a setting profit from omitting them? The only thing you'd achieve would be to remove a valid scientific explanation for how the Force can be detected by technological means, as has been done looooooong before the Prequels.

But hey, whatever floats your boat. As long as your entire group is onboard.

And that a GM would cede his creative authority to a corporation even when both they and their players dislike the direction that corporation is nothing short of madness.

Nobody has ever argued this.

If all you're going to do is shout that the majority opinion is the only one that should be recognized, you don't need to spend multiple paragraphs on it. It only takes one sentence. Also: You're going to have to give up on Thrawn. Because the majority don't really care about him, and once Disney starts pumping out large amounts of contradictory material the bulk of the fans will follow that. Thrawn will retain supporters and because of the immense size of the Star Wars fandom he'll even have enough of them to sustain a community of writers, GMs, etc. etc. working to produce unofficial content in the version of the universe where he hasn't been excised, but every time someone says "Disney said he isn't real" as though that's some kind of actual criticism of the work of Timothy Zahn or anyone else who builds on them is contributing to a barrier that prevents new people from finding those stories and joining that community.

You say you agree with my opinions a bit. You don't. You agree entirely, and just don't want to rip off the band-aid and recognize that you can no longer use majority opinion or corporate backing to try and bludgeon competing interpretations of Star Wars into submission, because you've lost the latter and will lose the former as soon as Disney gets its merchandising machine churning out EU material for the JJ Abrams version. If all you care about is what the largest chunk of the audience thinks, then I'm going to have to ask you for a third time now: Are you giving up on Thrawn and the other EU materials? Because you seem pretty committed to sticking to what came before, except then you turn around and talk about how only IP holders have the right to change things. So which one is it? Take a consistent goddamn position on this, because you are constantly contradicting yourself by going back and forth between condemning JJ Abrams for completely ignoring the existing work in a canon and then condemning me for supporting your condemnation of Abrams. You can't have this both ways: Either the IP holders have absolute control over how a fictional universe works or they do not. In the actual real world the answer is that they do not because fans can and do ignore it when the IP holders do something they don't like, but saying that they do would at least be internally consistent.

You assume, for some reason, that when I say that the only thing that matters is whether or not an audience will accept your changes, regardless of what IP holders say, that I am pushing for thoughtless revision to the setting. This is completely disingenuous because I have stated repeatedly the difference between good and bad changes to a setting . I have brought up in the past the considerations someone has to make when changing an element of the setting, and there are costs to how much you can change the setting, and I can dig these up and quote them for you if you desperately want me to prove that yet again people are responding to the words shoved in my mouth and not what I've actually said. Hell, let's look at that again:

On a sidenote, I consider it worrisome how so many fans - apparently including you - have missed how insignificant midichlorians actually are.

If it's so apparent then you should be able to point to my actually saying as much. All I've actually done is point out how many fans aren't on board with it, something you also do in literally the exact same sentence. According to your own standards of what makes something "apparent," you apparently agree that midichlorians are bad. Seriously, I don't know why this is so hard for you, but if you want to have a productive conversation with anyone about any disagreement, you need to learn to respond to what people have actually said and not what you assume they meant .

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot:

Nobody has ever argued this.

Yes, they have. Every time someone recommends against something purely on the basis that its canonicity is shaky or that it is non-canon, they are arguing that the corporate IP holder should be dictating the events of your game. If you're going to defend a setting element, you should defend the actual setting element, not just argue from authority.

This is completely disingenuous because I have stated repeatedly the difference between good and bad changes to a setting .

Whether changes are "good" or "bad" depends on perspective and preferences, which will be different from individual to individual. You are not in the omnipotent position to make this call.

If it's so apparent then you should be able to point to my actually saying as much.

You explicitly stated that removing midichlorians would be a "good retcon". This is your personal opinion, not universal fact (see above), so obviously I took this to be your sentiments about midichlorians. Am I wrong? Do you like them?

Yes, they have.

I'm sure you can provide examples to back this statement up. I find it hard to believe that anyone would explicitly state that a GM and their group should be forced to play a version of a setting they dislike, or not play at all.

I'm not saying, or even less shouting, that "only the majority should be recognised". Because as far as standards and common ground for the fandom are concerned, that is already the case

There are two things wrong with this. Firstly you hop from what should be and what is and pretend they are necessarily connected to one another at the hip. Unless you want to start arguing that the Rwandan genocide was awesome, you might want to pay more attention to disentangling the two. I am already aware that a lot of GMs feel they're required to stick to the word of IP holders even when both they and their players dislike that word, and that is the entire problem. You can't just point to the fact that something exists and then claim that this is a justification for it.

Secondly, you're also factually wrong. Some setting details laid down by the IP holders are so commonly reviled that you are going to get a good audience reaction by rejecting them. Midichlorians is one of them, and that's why I brought it up. Now, midichlorians is reviled because it became a memetic symbol of the general failures of the Phantom Menace, which is a pretty terrible reason to hate something so much, but even dedicated fans do not tend to go read about cinematic (or literary or whatever) criticism enough to get a handle on the basic vocabulary of things like a lack of strong character arcs or sideplots whose only function is to resolve themselves and thus are a waste of time, so they latch onto something that emotionally, viscerally stands out as a departure from form. Midichlorians revise the Force from being something mystical and unexplained to implying that it's scientifically quantifiable but failed to do anything interesting with that, and that's emblematic of the prequel trilogies generally abandoning the simple, strong, and archetypal conflict of the Rebel Alliance vs. the Galactic Empire and replacing it with poorly explained nonsensical galactic politics in which it is implied that the Trade Federation is unjustified in their invasion because the scary music plays whenever they're winning, but despite wasting multiple scenes on politics the political and economic landscape is never fleshed out enough for a viewer to even have an informed opinion of whether or not the Trade Federation was in the right to establish their apparently legal blockade.

The OT conflict is similarly simplified but does not punch the momentum out of its narrative by wasting scenes on referencing complicated political machinations that never actually receive a coherent explanation. A few throwaway lines about dissolving the senate are used to establish that the Empire are autocrats, tossed into a scene whose main purpose is to introduce the characters of Darth Vader and Princess Leia, and that's basically it for political discussions in the entire OT. Contrast to the entire Coruscant sequence from the Phantom Menace or the Naboo scenes from Attack of the Clones. Fans recognize that the PT political scenes are time wasters but generally lack the vocabulary to express this, so they latch onto midichlorians, which serve as a symbol of the PT's tendency to pollute the simple and strong narrative of the OT with pretending at complications that don't actually add any depth, and mostly serve to waste momentum and obfuscate the narrative.

None of that really matters, though. What matters is that fans hate it and retconning them out of existence makes you more likely to carve out a niche, not less, and no amount of George Lucas or Disney insisting that fans embrace midichlorians will make it happen.

That does not mean that I have to cross my arms and stomp my foot, acting like said subjectively preferred interpretation is in any way comparable to the official canon. I am not that delusional.

Because, what, the IP holders' material is objectively real and true and pure? The delusion is in thinking that having a copyright on something makes the content of the stories more valid. It doesn't. Stories and setting details that originate from the community do sometimes gain penetration sufficient enough to set up their own niche or even overtake the official explanation in popularity, again see midichlorians: Most fans are happy to accept a version of the setting where they don't exist. Specific reinterpretations gaining momentum within certain niches isn't even uncommon, and to throw a temper tantrum over the idea that someone might argue in favor of such a reinterpretation by insisting that only the IP holders can ever produce legitimate content is both juvenile and harmful to a community. Whether you accept it or not, what you are arguing is that only the IP holders' interpretation of the setting is worthy of discussion and that fans should only be discussing that interpretation.

You hide behind the excuse that this is just how things are while quietly ignoring that you are the reason this is how things are . Disney is not sending out brownshirts to break the kneecaps of people who seriously discuss alternative Star Wars interpretations. It is not a fundamental law of the universe that the majority of fans must refuse to accept community-created interpretations of the setting even when they like those interpretations better, it is a result of prevailing cultural attitudes, attitudes which you contribute to by pedestalizing IP holders' interpretation to the point of not only refusing to discuss alternatives but shaming people who do so. You cannot disclaim responsibility for contributing to something just because you didn't create it from scratch. When your justification for why a certain attitude should go on existing is that it already exists, you are arguing in defense of literally every terrible thing that has ever happened in all of human history, from trivial stuff like this right on up to sustained campaigns of genocidal hatred brought about by racism or century-spanning tyranny brought about by misguided revolutionaries. The argument of "arbitrary reverence for IP holders interpretations should exist because it already does exist" is so incompatible with any coherent moral philosophy that I'm amazed I have to explain it at all.

(which it obviously is, given that you have chosen to deviate from the original material, which you did not invent nor possess legal rights over).

You're bringing up legal rights even though they aren't relevant. Midichlorians were a deviation. They were also created by IP holders. Some deviations become more popular than the original. Some become popular enough to sustain a niche. Some fade away entirely. Which is which is not determined by legal status.

Whether changes are "good" or "bad" depends on perspective and preferences, which will be different from individual to individual. You are not in the omnipotent position to make this call.

Then I guess it's a good thing I incessantly refer back to audience approval when making my arguments? You are fast exceeding the limits of my patience for having words shoved in my mouth. I am sick to Hell of you claiming that I have said literally the exact opposite of what I have actually said, so cut it the **** out. My argument is and has always been that a story stands on its ability to be read and retold, not its legal status. Your argument is that the IP holders' version of the story holds some special significance, you are the one ascribing legitimacy to a story above and beyond its ability to retain an audience and inspire other creators to build on it, though you then immediately bounce back to claiming the opposite. You still can't have it both ways: Either the IP holders' version of events has some special significance above and beyond its ability to retain an audience, or it does not. The correct answer is that it does not, but if you claimed that it does and actually stuck to that you would at least be consistent.

You explicitly stated that removing midichlorians would be a "good retcon". This is your personal opinion, not universal fact

I'm going to quote that post you're cherry-picking from in full:

You've forgotten where the argument stems from, Lynata. This is all ultimately traced back to someone saying that a gamemaster shouldn't use the noosphere because it is of dubious canonicity. My point is and has always been that a gamemaster is under no obligation to care in 40k or any other setting .

Now, there comes a certain level of deviation from previous material at which you are no longer building upon, but are rather entirely divergent from the original work. But the discussion to have there has nothing to do with quoting original sources or whatever. It revolves entirely around what your audience is familiar and how much a change disrupts the existing continuity, and most importantly in that conversation a GM is just as much a valid authority as whoever happens to own the IP. A GM can say things like "there are no midichlorians" and anyone who tries to claim that they're no longer running "true" Star Wars is flat-out dead wrong . Because the only detail that's been changed is one that most fans hate and want to see changed anyway . If the IP holders made that retcon it would be a good retcon, therefore when a GM makes that retcon it is a good retcon, because GMs are creating a work for an audience and therefore are just the same as IP holders (except in that IP holders are going to reach a much larger audience, but that is only relevant if we are discussing people outside of the GM's audience, which typically when talking to a GM we are not).

This mindset requires that we acknowledge that fictitious universes are fictitious and that anyone who hears about them can and often do end up with their own interpretation which is only mostly the same as that pushed by IP holders (if they bother with consistency at all), that corporations do not determine the facts and that indeed it is impossible for anyone to determine the facts because there are none, that everything is dependent upon audience buy-in . And that a GM would cede his creative authority to a corporation even when both they and their players dislike the direction that corporation is nothing short of madness. If you're allowing a corporation to dictate your imagination to you, you may wish to reconsider whether you'd want the back description of a novel of your life to describe it as a comedic look into the life of a neo-feudal serf living in a cyberpunk dystopia.

I've bolded a few things for you so that maybe you can track down the context that apparently eluded you the first time around. My posts are more than one sentence long. If you are going to respond to them, you are going to have to start parsing entire paragraphs, not just individual sentences, and I am sick of clarifying my position by reposting, sometimes literally word for word, something I've already said. Whenever you disagree with something written, the very first thing you should do is go back and reread it and look for anything that contradicts what you assume they said, and then doublecheck to see if they're being internally contradictory or if you just made bad assumptions.

Yes, they have.

I'm sure you can provide examples to back this statement up. I find it hard to believe that anyone would explicitly state that a GM and their group should be forced to play a version of a setting they dislike, or not play at all.

That isn't what I said, so again I will have to ask you to respond to what I have actually said and not what you assumed I meant. What I said is this:

[T]hat a GM would cede his creative authority to a corporation even when both they and their players dislike the direction that corporation is nothing short of madness

You will note that force is not involved. The whole scenario draws its Orwellian nature from the fact that GMs willingly cede their creative authority to an entity with absolutely no capability to enforce their interpretation of a fictional universe, despite the fact that they recognize that this is worse for both them and their players. As for who has seriously argued it, here is the relevant quote regarding the Noosphere that got all of this started:

Not to mention it's from a Hours Heresy Novel which are stated to be possibly not accurate reflections of the truth.

To say that Games Workshop's opinion on the Noosphere should be relevant to whether or not a GM personally wants to use it is to say that GMs should cede their creative authority to Games Workshop regardless of whether or not they or their players actually like what Games Workshop is doing, and that is madness. People arguing for this sort of thing don't realize their insanity, because they have signed up for a version of reality in which fictional universes contain facts without examining that assumption closely enough to realize it is insane.