At this point, I see a lot of variance between what different people think the average imperial citizen should know about anything.

Sometimes I wonder if its better to basically say "here's the primer i feel the inquisitor would give his acolytes when they entered service" because the average or median imperial citizen a menial laborer with no schooling and half the time not even literate. You have to figure out what you want players to know in character, but the more easily found fluff that's denied by fiat of "standard imperial citizen" the more likely people are going to meta-game around it, intentionally or not.

It could also be a sign of my limited ability to separate myself from my characters and mean I'm a bad roleplayer when i can't willingly disbelieve what i see and hear described to me based on the idea that my "character" shouldn't know what they are seeing... considering i got told to stop meta-gaming, when I was not even trying to. I don't know what to do then.

Problem is not about what can acolyte know. Acolyte can know anything. And as I recall any hiver at least (and vast majority of Imperial citizens are hivers) counts as literate.

Problem is what are people around acolytes know.

retired soldiers

IG don't retire. They die.

Most of your questions are coming from a very small fraction of people who DO experience these things. Normal citizens who see things like the Warp and Baddies and Xenos are simply execute en masse. IG get a book that says these weak pathetic creatures are to be shot. Most people won't read this book and those that do will probably die.

There's a reason there is no Common Lore (Xenos) skill. It's simply NOT common lore.

As for people asking questions about the Bad Stuff from witches: I don't think you have to stretch very far and just look back at our own history. Witches summoned demons, had deals with devils, and turned people into newts. They're BAD. No one asks for details about Satan and Hell beyond what we all sort of agree on, culturally. If you say, "that witch is going to summon demons" the proper response from an Imperial citizen is not "oh, from which Chaos god?" It's "Burn the witch!"

Questions are for people who aren't kept purposefully in ignorance.

IG don't retire. They die.

See? No. Reading propaganda about great victories on them? Yes.

Imperial citizens are humans. When you telling human child "beware aliens booo!" he asks "mom, mom, who is alien?" And when you tell adult human to be vigilant against xeno, he will ask you "sir, what exactly should I report?" You need some kind of boogeman.

That's not lore. People don't know anything about eldar, orks or tyranides except existence and, maybe, some kind of distantly related pictures priest shows them.

As for people asking questions about the Bad Stuff from witches: I don't think you have to stretch very far and just look back at our own history. Witches summoned demons, had deals with devils, and turned people into newts. They're BAD™. No one asks for details about Satan and Hell beyond what we all sort of agree on, culturally.

Yes, that's my thoughts exactly. There is Chaos that is BAD and source of all that is BAD, witches using Chaos power ergo they are BAD. They summon daemons so they are BAD.

But you have to have cultural agreement about Chaos and daemons (Hell and Satan).

The Imperium commits regular genocide against its own people, brainwashes all its citizens, lobotomizes its own citizens (servitors) conscripts soldiers against their will, wealth inequality is basically as bad as is possible, Imperial justice is a joke, no regard for the health or lives of their citizens or the environment of most of their worlds. How is this not the worst regime imaginable? It literally does every horrible thing that past regimes have done that we consider to be terrible.

Well, for example - it's not kind of "central government ordered - every planet complete" type. It's decentralized, so it's possible to find normal way to live (well, more normal than anothers).

And everything you describing was normal for Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or, for example, muslim states of Middle-ages. Or not muslim, to be just.

Adeptus Arbites is part of the overall Imperial government not part of the local government and is pretty much sanctioned to do and does all the things I mentioned on a regular basis. So the decentralized argument doesn't really fly. Part of the point of the setting is that most of the worlds of the imperium are awful and that all across the Imperium human life is considered to be cheap if not worthless and disposable.

Yeah, I know it was regular under those regimes (considered to be some of the worst regimes in human history). The Imperium does all the horrible things that these other terrible governments have done in the past but on an even large scale with more advanced tech and have been doing it for a far greater period of time. The point of the writers saying worst regime imaginable is to get us thinking about how bad ones of the past have been and dial it up to 11.

It would take the message being relayed through many astropaths (possibly dozens) to get news from say Cadia to Askellon.

Heh. I believe you don't get what is "propaganda" means.

That message will be relayed from Cadia to Terra. As every report message will. So on Terra it will be readed (in some time), analyzed and transfered to "Officio Propaganda", or how this Administratum division is named. There it will be analyzed again, and, it time (year or two, I believe), will be created some kind of propaganda resume. That resume will be included to every package going from decade (for example) based message every sector gets from central authority. News? Who the hell need news ? The least used word in soviet press was "yesterday". Nothing happened "yesterday".

In your previous comment in this post you say that the Imperium is decentralized in its oppression. If its decentralized in how it oppresses its people then why would the propaganda be centralized to the degree of sending everything to Terra and then back out again. You can't have it both ways. If most of the opression is on a planetary government basis then so would the propaganda. Propaganda generation seems like something that would make far more sense for a sector government or even planetary government to deal with especially since they could target the propaganda to more local issues. Whatever branch of the Admin would be responsible for this they would have offices all over the imperium generating propaganda with more local relevance rather than it all coming from Terra.

Sector's do not have such regular unnecessary communication with Terra.

If the propaganda has to travel from the source world to Terra and then from Terra to everywhere they want to use it it is still a convoluted overly complicated mess to transmit everything and go over the near unlimited amount of data from all over the imperium to find good examples to use and then disseminate it all.

What I'm saying is rather than the Imperium talking about Armageddon in the Askellon sector as an example of how amazing guard are at killing orks, why not use a more local victory against the orks.

Because it's not any real difference for Calixian (sorry, I prefer 1st DH sector, but it's true for Ascellon I believe) to have a piece of propaganda about combat with orcs on Kulth or Armageddon. Both are "somewhere not here".

But Armageddon is a place that everybody know (orks included). Why? Because sometime after First War somebody of Terra decided that Armageddon can be good example for propaganda. That's all. Cadia is something another, but only because it's natural choise for pan-Imperial propaganda, not more.

Also you need to remind people that they are living in, well, damned Imperium, that included Cadia and Armageddon. All hail the Great Imperium!

Who would decide Armageddon is a good source of propaganda?! Its in ruins and the current war is going poorly. The First War also involved a classified marine chapter (Grey Knights) fight 100 bloodthirsters (also classified) then the Spacewolves and Greyknights nearly killed one another over whether to purge all the guardsmen. It is one of the absolute worst off examples of an Imperial warzone/defense and that sector's trade routes are in shambles because of it. It would take so much work to sterilize this failure to make it sound like a success. Why not pick an actually well off warzone with a distinct victory to celebrate. Or you might as well just make up a successful campaign from scratch. It would be about the same as having to change nearly every detail about Armageddon and if people already would have no clue about that planet then why even use a real one. No one in a far off sector would know the difference.

The ability to control minds and destroy tanks isn't a curse but it is a curse to acidentally turn off gravity and kill yourself and everyone you love around you, or to cause all the nearby food to spoil in an area already suffering a famine, or to cause crazy "hallucinations" (visions of the warp) to everyone around you or just generally going crazy and possibly taking a crowd with you or to blink out of reality or to electrocute yourself or to mutate uncontrolablly etc. Its also a curse to be taken away from your family and friends in the middle of the night to either locked away and eventually be fed to the golden throne because you can slightly sense other emotions or to be taken away and forced to train and then serve essentially as a slave somewhere. Its a curse that because of how people fear you and are disgusted by you that if you use your natural abilities in public it might get you burned at the stake or stoned to death. Astropaths lose their eyes and often die young from the strain placed on them even with juvinate treatments.

...and you think saying imperial citizens all above is better for security and vigilance that just saying them "psykers will be eaten by daemons, because their power is Chaos-based"?

You see, admiting existence of Chaos and daemons are not complications for propaganda, quite the opposite. You don't need to invent rational explanations if you can use daemons!

None of the things I listed are "invented rational", most of them are straight off the psychic phenomenon table. They are all legitimate dangers of having a psyker nearby and are all far more likely to occur than anything related to a daemon and they avoid telling citizens that their are literal magic monsters. One of the biggest dangers is just a psyker going off the rails and killing indescriminately like in the second Eisenhorn book when the psykers escape the parade.

Yup. They are cool. Rogue is the 5th of the best X-mens ever, Cyclope is the first. Between them are Wolverine (practical immortality), Kitty Pride (phasing and pet dragon) and Prof (mental powers enough to control practicaly everybody) - that's not mine opinions (mine are another), but result of voting. Also people love Deadpool, who is crazy and have inoperable cancer torturing him non-stop. Ability to cripple another man by touch or to ruin your school with a sight is not a bug, it's a feature. Especially when as a result you get cool uniform and a position to command a squad. To be quite more serious - there are psycological and sociological researches declaring (persuasively enough for me) that people love characters who can and have a means to solve problems. The best are the characters who have that means "just that", where everybody can. Everybody can suddenly became a mutant. Every damned nerd who is beaten in school.

And this is our happy world. When you are speaking about Imperium... well, what another option imperial low-lifer have to defend himself? "Ok, it's possible I'll became insane and kill all my family. Problem is yesterday some noble was entertaining himself with combat-issue weapons so I have not any family now. What else do you have?"

First of all you completely missed my point. Second there is a difference between liking a character and wanting to have that characters same exact abilities. There is also a big difference between being a reader existing outside the xmen universe and being somebody in that universe. Yeah having super powers is cool but, using Rogue again, it would be pretty terrible to never be able to have physical contact with any loved ones ever again without hurting them terribly. Just like turning things to gold by touch is cool until you realize it applies to everything including food and other people. Rogue's story arch through all the live action movies pretty much revolves around getting rid of her powers and the horrible burden they are to her!

"or to ruin your school with a sight is not a bug"- This is the thinking of a psychopath. This is the exact sort of thinking that leads to things like school shootings and demonstrates my point that normal people should be afraid of people who think like this and have superpowers. The whole superhero/mutant registration story arches in the Marvel universe play off the sort of fear I am talking about.

"Especially when as a result you get cool uniform and a position to command a squad. "- this shows you have no understanding of the position of psykers in the 40k universe or how others view them. Few psykers get put in command of anything. They are stollen away from their loved ones, locked away for as long as it takes for a blackship to show up and to get sanctioned then they are sent somewhere against their will and told to do a particular job. If they refuse or even just mess up badly they will likely be executed. They are basically slaves.

Let me try another example, the average Imperial citizen views psykers like the Westboro Baptist church would view gay people if gay people had superpowers and could completely by accident break the laws of reality maiming or killing hundreds of people around them. Many people in real life do not need a reason to hate others if told to do so by an authority figure and Imperial citizens are told to hate psykers by their church and government and on top of that have legitimate reason to fear for their safety in the presence of psykers. None of this requires a knowledge of Daemons.

I can't rid a thought that when you're speak "education" you mean something modern, some kind of process to make a man to think broader.

Look, if a common Imperial citizen is a fanatic for some creed, he has to catch this creed somewhere. If he believes he should not be heretic he should know a doctrine. Where, do you believe, he catch this doctrine?

His education is some kind of classes, where some priest tells him about the Emperor, psykers, Imperium and imperial institutions and so all.

P.S. Just in case. There is a difference between a common question that every child will have when he hear some command or statement and compex philosophical question. Imperium don't like his citizens to have questions, so it gives him common answers, not leaves them to think! That's why fanatics are everywhere. They learned some answers, they had their brainwashing, so they are, well, brainwashed now.

And in your case it looks like "nobody never learn them to think one way, but they all are by unknown means".

When I say education I do mean in a modern way, because many of the example questions you've written are ones more likely to be asked by a modern human not by a brainwashed religious zealot of the 41st millennium. Many people today when confronted with a contradiction or missing detail related to their faith, rather than digging deeper and trying to find an answer, simply lash out or make something up that agrees with their pre established notions . This is how I feel most imperial citizens would be. If presented with the story of Noah's Ark no average imperial citizen would think to question how all those animals fit on the boat or how they were kept fed all that time or how animals from other continents crossed the ocean. It is just not in their nature to think of stuff like that.

Well, it's kind of compicated - I did my kind of research.

First of all, there is more then one primer used by any given Guardsman. There is main, standartized Primer that is declared by Lord Commander Militant, that should be known by any Guardsman or he will be flogged at least. There is some specialized Primers, that ALSO should be known - such as Armored Warfare primer. There are some tactical instructions, such as Tactica Imperialis. And there is local additions to such as Damocles one, that included local specifics. For guardsman and officer convenience they are collected under one cover, but it's different documents. Shortly says, Primer is not the only document Guardsmen needs to know, but it is a document he need to know in any case.

But, of course, they are not printed in ONE typography or ONE planet. A dozens, hundreds maybe, planets get one text with astropath message and print it exactly. If they change a word... well, they better not to. They are changing, of course, but each time they are changing another text should be written, approved by Lord Commander Militant, another message should reach typographies, another exemplars of Primers should be given to EVERY Guardsmen,,, so that's not something that happens very often, so to say. Today, for example, used only 960th edition, that is not so great for 10 thousand years. Not so small too, of course.

And, well, there is a stating you search just in the headline of the Primer, in explanation what is it. "The Benedictions of Emperor, Inspiration Source and Uplifting Creeds for all Infantryman... ". Selection is mine.

And problem with Tyranids is that splinter fleets can be everywhere, not to mention their ability to attack from outside Galaxy plane. I believed previous edition of Primer didn't include Tyranids, and, maybe, if Tau became imperial-wide threat ( "This horror, this abomination, has thought and purpose which functions on an unimaginable, galactic scale", so it's speaks about nids), two or three editions later they will appear in Primer as well.

I'm under the impression that hive fleets and splinter fleets tend to be pretty slow and easy to track and therefore that they really can't show up anywhere, at least not without warning. If they weren't predictable in this way exterminatusing planets in their path to slow them down wouldn't be as effective a strategy as it is and most starmaps wouldn't have such big obvious markings showing where they are.

That's not exactly true.

They usually do, of course. But there is a retirement for maimed, for amasingly lucky, or some regiment can be granted with a colonial rights for heroics (that's named as Right of Settlement).

Agreed. Guardsmen are occasionally shown as being able to retire. Not very common but it happens

Normal citizens who see things like the Warp and Baddies and Xenos are simply execute en masse. IG get a book that says these weak pathetic creatures are to be shot. Most people won't read this book and those that do will probably die.

See? No. Reading propaganda about great victories on them? Yes.

Imperial citizens are humans. When you telling human child "beware aliens booo!" he asks "mom, mom, who is alien?" And when you tell adult human to be vigilant against xeno, he will ask you "sir, what exactly should I report?" You need some kind of boogeman.

That's not lore. People don't know anything about eldar, orks or tyranides except existence and, maybe, some kind of distantly related pictures priest shows them.

The creations of human imagination are often far scarier than reality. The best horror movies tend to be the ones that show little of the threat and just generate tension and use the audiences imagination against them. In this same way often the generic boogy man will create more fear than a detailed description of particular alien species or showing off pictures. Its better just to teach citizens to fear anything that is different.

The adult human in your example would be told "report anything that doesn't look or act human you idiot" he would not get an elaborate description of what a genestealer looks like.

Imperial citizens are taught from an early age to shun information. Their thought process does not lead them to wanting more detail than they are given or asking followup questions.

If they aren't going to be given any information on an alien race what is the point of giving them even the name. If just further risks generating the kind of curiosity the Imperium likes to avoid.

As for people asking questions about the Bad Stuff from witches: I don't think you have to stretch very far and just look back at our own history. Witches summoned demons, had deals with devils, and turned people into newts. They're BAD™. No one asks for details about Satan and Hell beyond what we all sort of agree on, culturally.

Yes, that's my thoughts exactly. There is Chaos that is BAD and source of all that is BAD, witches using Chaos power ergo they are BAD. They summon daemons so they are BAD.

But you have to have cultural agreement about Chaos and daemons (Hell and Satan).

I still strongly disagree with this. Bigotry doesn't require complex details and reasoning. It definitely wouldn't require any mention of daemons considering how dangerous and unhinged pyskers can be all on their own and most of the reality breaking phenomenon they can actually generate don't even directly involve daemons.

Yeah, I know it was regular under those regimes (considered to be some of the worst regimes in human history). The Imperium does all the horrible things that these other terrible governments have done in the past but on an even large scale with more advanced tech and have been doing it for a far greater period of time. The point of the writers saying worst regime imaginable is to get us thinking about how bad ones of the past have been and dial it up to 11.

Ok, let's imagine worse regime.

Imperium is kinda culturally and religious tolerant - to some borders of course, but it is. I can simply imagine such a regime that will be Exterminate every planet with Imperial Credo differ for any least detail. Or where humans speaks Gothic wrong way.

In your previous comment in this post you say that the Imperium is decentralized in its oppression. If its decentralized in how it oppresses its people then why would the propaganda be centralized to the degree of sending everything to Terra and then back out again. You can't have it both ways.

Why can't I?

There is central government in Imperium. There is Adeptus Terra after all. There is Imperial Guard, and your planet regiment can be found all over Imperium. You will give your tithe up there and you will get commands down here. Well, there is Synod, that's discussing every **** Credo detail priests meet in Imperium and giving their verdict!

So there is Imperial propaganda, sectoral propaganda, there is subsectoral propaganda and there is planetary propaganda. Because you HAVE to make your citizens thinks like Imperial citizens.

****, if we telling about "the worst regime", that means there is one regime.

If the propaganda has to travel from the source world to Terra and then from Terra to everywhere they want to use it it is still a convoluted overly complicated mess to transmit everything and go over the near unlimited amount of data from all over the imperium to find good examples to use and then disseminate it all.

Well, yes. That's kind of the information fills innumerate data vaults of Terra.

Who would decide Armageddon is a good source of propaganda?!

I don't know but Second and Third (not First) Wars for Armageddon described in Codexes as they are.

None of the things I listed are "invented rational", most of them are straight off the psychic phenomenon table. They are all legitimate dangers of having a psyker nearby and are all far more likely to occur than anything related to a daemon and they avoid telling citizens that their are literal magic monsters. One of the biggest dangers is just a psyker going off the rails and killing indescriminately like in the second Eisenhorn book when the psykers escape the parade.

So we just tell our citizens details about what psykers do?

"or to ruin your school with a sight is not a bug"- This is the thinking of a psychopath. This is the exact sort of thinking that leads to things like school shootings and demonstrates my point that normal people should be afraid of people who think like this and have superpowers.

Ok, let's be deadly serious, topic deserves it. This thinking is something leads to school shooting, after-school violence, something Stiven King described in "Kerry" (about psykers btw), something Golding described in "Lord of the Flies", love for the napalm smell and so on. This kind of thinking creates a vast majority of domestic violence issues. A border between "normal human" and psychopath is very, very thin. And it's kind of borders breaking easily under pressure.

And one of the points of Marvell mutant stories is exactly "I have some kind of powers I can use to self-defence and my gain - WHY THE HELL SHOULDN'T I?!" That's kind of "evil" mutants kind of thinking, sure. But it is. And Max Eisenhardt/Erik Lehnsherr type (who was a ghetto and concentration camp prisoner) develop this kind of thinking easy. And we speaking about billions of people living in concentration camps effectivly.

This kind of reaction cames from "nobody will never injure me again", and it's kind of healthy reaction as it is, normal human being tends to minimize injury.

"Especially when as a result you get cool uniform and a position to command a squad."- this shows you have no understanding of the position of psykers in the 40k universe or how others view them. Few psykers get put in command of anything.

I know. Point is Marvel mutants ARE NOT W40K psykers, with another relations with world around. But you brought Marvell mutants to this discussion.

Let me try another example, the average Imperial citizen views psykers like the Westboro Baptist church would view gay people if gay people had superpowers and could completely by accident break the laws of reality maiming or killing hundreds of people around them. Many people in real life do not need a reason to hate others if told to do so by an authority figure and Imperial citizens are told to hate psykers by their church and government and on top of that have legitimate reason to fear for their safety in the presence of psykers. None of this requires a knowledge of Daemons.

That's brilliant example. Something I'm trying to say.

Why gay people are bad? Because gay relations are sin. Not because they hurt anyone by their existence, right? Westboro Baptist don't need gays to have superpowers. Gay people are bad. God says so. They're going to hell, and they will bring hell on earth. Point. Stamp. But you need that kind of doctrine with sins and hell.

You have two ways to make people to hate and afraid psykers.

First is "senator Kelly way". He have exactly good point, point you're using. There is a branch of humans who have superpowers, often uncontrollable, they can lose control, they can turn bad, we need to control them. Rational points. Problem is humans in Marvell Universe hate and are afraid of mutants, but every damned teen who is beaten in side alley WANTS TO REALIZE MUTATION, put some iron claws out and rip his offenders. Yes, in the end this kind of thinking can lead a man to school shooting. That's why school shooting HAPPENS. They are hated not only because they are dangerous but because they can do things we can't. ****, imagine a girl who is gang raped. Don't you think she wants to have Rogue powers?

Second is "Westboro Baptist way". They are bad because they are sinners. They are condemned to the Hell and they can take you to the Hell with you. It's better to be raped that to have that kind of abilities because if you have them you're going to the Hell, and it's BAD PLACE. Then there are some baptist desriptions of the Hell. I'm living in cultural secular country, plus traditional religion here is not very fond about passionate descriptions of the Hell, but I've read some baptists description and yeah, if I am a child it can impress me. I don't want to be in the Hell, so I don't want to have powers. Girl better will suffer the **** but not use this kind of powers.

You can use both. But first way demands information what exactly psykers can do (truthful or not, it's not matter!). And second way demands doctrine that brainwashing you about hell and demons.

Any kind of this description can be as far from real Warp and real daemons as priests wants, of cource. But that concepts you need.

There is one more brilliant example, about Ark. That's a question Imperial citizen think here, but we know how medieval people thinked, and really common imperial citizen is a medieval one who living in industrial world. Well, to be honest there is a lot of that kind of people here and now.

First of all, there is an answer how they were kept fed. " ²¹ And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them." Yup, a question "how can you put such many food to the Ark" (that demand abstract thinking) will not be asked by normal people but a question "what did they eat" will.

Medieval legends are very concrete and very detailed. When you're trying to have a critical analysis, you don't catch a sense, but if you don't you're good.

"And then sir Somebody from Somewhere run into them and beheaded forty enemy knights by one strike, because he was very great warrior and had his magic sword Lady Someone gave him". You don't ask how magic works, but if this will not be mentioned listeners will ask - how, how he managed to behead forty enemies in a time?

Thing is priests and bards of that times knew it well, so explanations was included into the tale itself, before somebody asks.

I'm under the impression that hive fleets and splinter fleets tend to be pretty slow and easy to track and therefore that they really can't show up anywhere, at least not without warning. If they weren't predictable in this way exterminatusing planets in their path to slow them down wouldn't be as effective a strategy as it is and most starmaps wouldn't have such big obvious markings showing where they are.

And splinter fleets are not so predictable, that's why they're so dangerous. Big hive fleets are, but not splinters.

The scattered remnants of the great attack by Hive Fleet Kraken on Ichar IV fled towards the galactic core, eventually driving within the Imperial defensive perimeters that had been erected to contain the Kraken. These so-called splinter fleets have, if anything, become an even greater threat as they feed upon unsuspecting and ill-defended worlds far from the major war zones. (I haven't access to rulebooks here, so using wiki, sorry; but I can at the evening use books too).

The creations of human imagination are often far scarier than reality. The best horror movies tend to be the ones that show little of the threat and just generate tension and use the audiences imagination against them. In this same way often the generic boogy man will create more fear than a detailed description of particular alien species or showing off pictures. Its better just to teach citizens to fear anything that is different.

That's work for modern, abstract thinking.

And that's not working good for normal medieval human.

Didn't you saw any medieval legends? They're pretty detailed. Absolute nonsense, of course, but absolutely detailed. Monsters there are absolute detailed too. It's the best way to shun curiousity. IF you telling him "hey, there are aliens outthere, you should hate them and report them, but we will not tell you who they are" - THEN you're generating curiosity. And you can't really stop rumors.

So, I'd ask once again - are you declaring every damned Imperial citizen KNOWS THE TRUTH about reality breaking phenomenon, how it's occured and what's happening?

In my option it's rare and forbidden knowledge (well, "FL: Psykers"). Anybody who actually saw psychic phenomenon will be at least isolated.