MILLANDSON said:

I personally tend to regard the creation of Chaos (at the end of the War in Heaven) and the individual manifestation of the Chaos Gods in their current form (in the millennia after the Emperor's birth - IIRC, starting c.7,000BCE with Khorne) as distinct events, though the distinction between them is muddled due to the nonlinear and impermanent nature of the Warp. Essentially, the millions of years (from the material perspective) between the end of the War in Heaven and the 'birth' of the Chaos Gods allows for countless different Chaos Gods now long-dead and half-remembered, to have existed, and Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch may well have suffered the same fate, but for the events of the Horus Heresy and the power it brought them.

Drace said:

Yeah, "until". That's kind of my point. The chaos gods will push you farther and farther. Regardless where you start, why and how much you don't want to go on, you either die or you reach the stage where you are an evil killer. That may come for some sooner and for others later, but it's the same result. In my humble opinion the only way to remain a honorable battlefield champion of Khorne is to die early, before you like flowing blood so much that the heartbeat of your allies is a provocation to you.

Mjoellnir said:

Since when is that a bad thing though? Any blood is good for Khorne, and he isn't too picky about the skulls I hear either.

Then again, you have to wonder at how many of those that have gone to the point you are talking about care? Or how many have had their minds twisted by the forces of chaos that they still somehow see themselves as righteous. Look at the demagogue who sees the corruption of the Imperium and uses chaos to liberate the "idiot masses' from their forced idleness. By the time he is a chaos champion he could have twisted the liberating of imperial citizens to meaning he has to kill them all for them to all be truly free of the imperium.

I'm not saying he, or any chaos champion is good. They just may not see themselves as the evil scum they inevitable are.

Drace said:

Yes, they probably won't. Justifying things to yourself is easy (just look at the Imperium) especially if you are also twisted by Chaos. However it's not that easy to get good recruits that way if you land on a planet. "Hello, we are the good guys, we are here to free you from the oppression of the false Emperor and his lackeys. Now we need 1000 virgins as a sacrifice to summon a demon horde, our Berzerkers will go crazy if they don't get to kill something soon, and the Imperial forces are still two days away, do you have an orphanage where they could distract themselves? Oh, and the Noise Marines called dibs on everyone they like who's not a virgin for a nice pre-battle orgy. By the way you should start building temples to Nurgle, the plague marines are already spreading diseases and if you appease him you will maybe survive as some kind of festering abomination that will be useful in the coming fight.

See thats why you sent your demagogues and cultists to spread the word of chaos prior to your arrival. That way, when you do arrive, and give that speech, they will great you with cheers.

Foreplanning is the chaos lords friend. Sure you can easily justify your actions to yourself, but being the true 'good' chaos guy is meaning you can do it to others

Sergeant Brother said:

Excellent write up. I think it's the dark side of the above that creates Chaos. I don't think Chaos itself is eventually beneficial to mankind ... remember the mutation, the war-spawned horrors, the corruption, the madness

Have you never feel while playing Dark Heresy that you are bad guys?

You know, that thing of better killing a thousand of innocents than let a dangerous heretic to live. How much evil is that?

Vast majority of the imperium citizens are not slaves, but they are serfs. Feudal serfs, which is sometimes worse than being a slave. The reason is the path to heresy. You must stay your place or otherwise you are heretic and must be killed. Die for the emperor or die as an heretic.

I am not saying that chaos is nice. It isn't. But I understand why so many people turn to it. Many would feel that is better to destroy such a cruel and harsh Universe than being comdemned to live in it.

I remember reading the RPG Paranoia. In it, all people contrary to the distopian regime were executed as communist. Many people didn't know what communist were, but they wanted to be communists just because if the computer said it was evil, it must be good.

In the same way, if you realize how much evil the empire is, you could think that its enemy must be good.

The Imperium is pretty evil, but at least it's on the side of humanity!

Is it?

Are dictators on the side of their people?

Or maybe they use and abuse people in their benefit?

You mean kinda like how the Chaos Gods do?

Yeah. That was my point.

Lord Ork said:

Yes. The Imperium isn't for the betterment of humanity, or for the happiness of humanity: It's for the survival of humanity. It always acts in a pro-human manner and in no way cares for anyone or anything outside of the Imperium. All the Imperium seeks is the continuance of itself and humanity as a species.

Dictators have children and seek to carve their name into history. Both require that their race survive. Whereas Chaos doesn't really care two hoots about humanity in the long run.

Yeah. Dictators need their people to stay in power, also. That's the trick: convince people they need you so they don't realize you need them.

That's exactly how the empire operates. The god emperor saves you. The god emperor prevents you from destruction. The god emperor fights against human enemies so you can survive. In reality, it's the opposite: you fight and die so the Imperium can survive. Imperium doesn't save you: you save the Imperium.

I insist: chaos is not nice. It's evil. You must be crazy to turn to chaos. Or desperate.

But a miserable world as the imperium is, it's full of desperates. Vast majority of them don't know what the chaos really is. They know what the Imperium tells them. But, seriously, would you trust a government that continuously tells you that to think and doubt is wrong?

I didn't realize that it was the Imperium that the Orks, Eldar, and everything else, had a problem with.

So all humanity needs to do to be safe from all these various xenos races is to shrug off the yoke of the Emperor?

(actually, that sounds like a good motivation for a chatacter. Only the Chaos Gods can save us from <insert alien menace>!)

I didn't realize that it was the Imperium that the Orks, Eldar, and everything else, had a problem with.

The Eldar probably would leave humanity mostly alone if the Imperium wasn't around to constantly meddle in affairs that must not be meddled with by anyone insufficiently pointy-eared - they can't spare the manpower for anything less than relevant to their own interests.

However, to return to the present topic, the question is not "Is the Imperium interested in humanity's survival?", but "Does serving and continuing the Imperium ensure the best chance of humanity's survival compared to, for example, turning to Chaos and providing humanity with far stronger champions that could supplant the dead Emperor, with enough of them not going bat-**** insane too soon?"

Siranui said:

Not quite true. The imperium takes great delight in conquering any other human worlds it finds and forcibly drafting them into the imperium. In fact there have been **** few planets since Mars that willing joined the Imperium and the Imperium now contains millions of worlds. The emperor was pretty much an asshat before he became an insane, soul eating, undead glowbug, things haven't improved since then. If the imperium ever found another human empire that could match them in strength they'd probably go to war in a heart beat. Heh ... Can you imagine if the Imperium made contact with the Federation from StarTrek? "Kill the Xenos loving, godless heretics!" They'd like Kirk better than Picard of course.

You know... that could make a great character concept. Someone who lived on some isolated, idyllic world of peace and prosperity, which was brutally and without warning invaded and conquered by the Imperium. Their leaders killed, their cities smashed and their people now impoverished by the fearsome tithes the Imperium demands. And your character watched it all happen, saw the cities burn while the guardsmen pillaged and raped and the Space Marines laughed and slaughtered anyone who dared to ask why. He watched his brothers rounded up to be drafted into the Guard so they could bring terror and death to the next innocent paradise unfortunate enough to be found by the Imperium. So now he's turned to Chaos hoping that through them he can gain the power to rip the Imperium apart so that no one else every has to go through that again.

Andor said:

Not a bad idea.

Cifer said:

No, not really. Eldrad Ulthuan steered Warboss Thraka in to Armageddon and the Imperial history books, killing billions of humans and laying waste to most of a world because a few hundred Eldar might have died otherwise.

If some humans were to accidently settle on a Maiden World, without knowing what it was, the Eldar are very likely to take offence, and show up demanding they leave... and give them some piddling and altogether insufficient amount of time to evacuate the entire planet before they attack. Or if they're the Biel Tan, they don't even give that much, and just show up and start killing every human they can find.

And then there's the Dark Eldar, 'nuff said about them.

So no, much like the Tau, the Eldar are a bunch of pricks who don't really care for humanity at all.

As for Chaos, while I look forward to the opportunity to play a follower of the Ruinous Powers, I have absolutely no illusions to how benevolent they are, or that turning all of humanity toward their worship would be good for us in the long run. That way only madness lies. It's not like the Chaos Gods were ever forces of good, that somehow got corrupted by some mysterious Warp Herpes that was floating around. They've always been maleavolent primordial forces that exist and think in ways that are many orders of magnitude beyond humanity.

Once he's fully in the thrall of Chaos, he really needs to go and despoil some wonderful little paradise world himself though. And then fend off the Imperium when it 'invades' and attempts to save everyone.

Blood Pact said:

Ah, the external enemy. A classic in the dictator sourcebook... Maybe this time there is real danger, but I fail to see how having out space horrors justifies burning every poor person that happens to not love the emperor enough. Or attacking every citizen who thinks that reasoning is a good activity.

Also, as pointed by other posters, many human worlds lost in the imperium do exist. And they have survived so far out of God Emperor's reach. Also as pointed, many times the enemy that awaits them are not vicious aliens, or chaotic sorcerers, but the imperium coming to the planet and imposing their fanatical religion.

Andor said:

Cool.

Recently I designed a character based on a similar concept. Kajor was a world recently discovered by the Imperium of man, few centuries ago. There were still a few cults devoted to an old religion of life adoration and celebration. The character is a girl among the very few that escaped from the inquistion purges following the cult discover. They declare that the old religion (nothing more than the usual superstition) consists of Chaos adoration and all the cultists are burnt as worshippers of the Ruinous Powers, as they are forced to declare their culpability. Soon, the luminous Kajor is painted with the dark oppresion of the empire.

So, this girl grows thinking that Chaos is the beautiful deities their friends worshipped, and hopes to find the opportunity to contact them and strike the imperium in the way. Also, the harsh experiences and drug abuse have made her a bit deranged before any chaos interaction.

To all upstanding Imperial Citizens :

Please explain the necessity of the genocidal methods used in welcoming the lost fragments of humanity ( those unwilling to submit ) to the False Imperium . While at it please explain why the lost humanity needed to submit to the Imperial rule in the first place ( after all it did survive and thrived without it for many millenia ).

Please explain the shift in the Imperial policies concerning the existence of Gods ( and spirits etc etc ) after the Great Crusade . Please explain the part of the False Emperor in this .

Please explain the existence of the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition and their role in the False Imperium of Man .

The False Imperium of Man , needs Man as its slave and will stop at nothing to achieve it . The truth is there for all to see . Just open your eyes to it .

Horus , the only humanitarian , failed and as the proverbial tragic hero sought to destroy what he failed to protect .

We need only finish what was left unfinished .

We , the enlightened .

Yes , we are trembling with anticipation for this new RPG .

It's time someone set things straight .

Yay .