There was a dude who showed up to a 40k tournament in nazi shit and GW had to like. “The empire sucks please it’s satire the empire is terrible it’s the entire point we Will ban you for being a nazi here.”
I think *everything* about the lore even stuff they still put out screams that they are fascist and evil and yet people still don’t get it, or actively are drawn to it anyway like yes they are fascist more of this please!
i’m gonna have to disagree with you on this, tbh–i think the fascists who love the empire are ‘getting it’ just fine.
sure, the stuff that comes out about the empire and space marines is clear that they are cruel and violent. but they are cruel and violent and right. but they’re also very very big on the heroism of the space marines, the glorious power of the god-emperor, how real the threat of chaos is. chaos as it exists in warhammer 40k is basically the fantasy of the fascist made reality–a creeping, ever-infiltrating, ontologically evil force that will take root and destroy everything if perfect purity and control are maintained for even a second. like, yes, the empire is very clearly fascist, but they exist in a setting in which fascist propaganda is fundamentally true. fascists are able to see themselves in the empire because empire is, again and again, justified and vindicated by 40k’s writing.
and tbh this was barely better in the early days, as much as people like to cry 'well it was meant to be satire’, but at least the empire used to be also extremely fucking textually useless and incompetent to the point where they were doing more harm than good. but over the years this has entirely given way to the hypercompetent Tough Men Doing What Needs Doing space marine wank that makes up 99% of 40k output nowadays
Honestly I even think ‘a universe where the premises of fascist mythology are true’ isn’t, like, an impossible conceit to do something interesting and worthwhile with. But 'and our protagonists are the literal spartinate unbermensch action heroes’ does kind of close off like 99.99% of them.
The Empire is totalitarian continental Europe as seen from late-20cen Great Britain: the Space Marines, all technologically-advanced ubermenschen stormtroopers but not enough of them, are the Nazis; the Imperial Guard, all masses of tanks and infantry kept in line by ruthless commissars, are the Red Army; and all the rococo gold-filigreed God-Emperor stuff and heresy-hunting are the Catholic Church
> The Empire is totalitarian continental Europe as seen from late-20cen Great Britain
For this reason, while the median Britisher would instinctively prefer the Empire to the race of Gundam-people, the ripoff of Heinlein’s tasteless metaphor for the Chinese, the robot Egyptians, and the worryingly French Eldar, only a clot would mistake that for actually liking them.
I maintain that the truly “British” faction in WH40K is the Orks, understood as a colorful bunch of football casuals going mental
Whose yob’s-eye-view of colonialism is a “gained an empire in a fit of absentmindedness” one where there isn’t a plan, raucous conquest is just their default behavior but sometimes they slam into someone else’s home
There was a dude who showed up to a 40k tournament in nazi shit and GW had to like. “The empire sucks please it’s satire the empire is terrible it’s the entire point we Will ban you for being a nazi here.”
I think *everything* about the lore even stuff they still put out screams that they are fascist and evil and yet people still don’t get it, or actively are drawn to it anyway like yes they are fascist more of this please!
i’m gonna have to disagree with you on this, tbh–i think the fascists who love the empire are ‘getting it’ just fine.
sure, the stuff that comes out about the empire and space marines is clear that they are cruel and violent. but they are cruel and violent and right. but they’re also very very big on the heroism of the space marines, the glorious power of the god-emperor, how real the threat of chaos is. chaos as it exists in warhammer 40k is basically the fantasy of the fascist made reality–a creeping, ever-infiltrating, ontologically evil force that will take root and destroy everything if perfect purity and control are maintained for even a second. like, yes, the empire is very clearly fascist, but they exist in a setting in which fascist propaganda is fundamentally true. fascists are able to see themselves in the empire because empire is, again and again, justified and vindicated by 40k’s writing.
and tbh this was barely better in the early days, as much as people like to cry 'well it was meant to be satire’, but at least the empire used to be also extremely fucking textually useless and incompetent to the point where they were doing more harm than good. but over the years this has entirely given way to the hypercompetent Tough Men Doing What Needs Doing space marine wank that makes up 99% of 40k output nowadays
Honestly I even think ‘a universe where the premises of fascist mythology are true’ isn’t, like, an impossible conceit to do something interesting and worthwhile with. But 'and our protagonists are the literal spartinate unbermensch action heroes’ does kind of close off like 99.99% of them.
The Empire is totalitarian continental Europe as seen from late-20cen Great Britain: the Space Marines, all technologically-advanced ubermenschen stormtroopers but not enough of them, are the Nazis; the Imperial Guard, all masses of tanks and infantry kept in line by ruthless commissars, are the Red Army; and all the rococo gold-filigreed God-Emperor stuff and heresy-hunting are the Catholic Church
The British themselves are… the orks, as a spirited, rowdily violent bunch of football casuals and assorted lads
The loose overarching relationship of said God-Emperor to the various practically autonomous, warring worlds and chapters of the Imperium is not unlike the relationships of the Popes and/or Holy Roman Emperors to various feudal states and structures
There was a dude who showed up to a 40k tournament in nazi shit and GW had to like. “The empire sucks please it’s satire the empire is terrible it’s the entire point we Will ban you for being a nazi here.”
I think *everything* about the lore even stuff they still put out screams that they are fascist and evil and yet people still don’t get it, or actively are drawn to it anyway like yes they are fascist more of this please!
i’m gonna have to disagree with you on this, tbh–i think the fascists who love the empire are ‘getting it’ just fine.
sure, the stuff that comes out about the empire and space marines is clear that they are cruel and violent. but they are cruel and violent and right. but they’re also very very big on the heroism of the space marines, the glorious power of the god-emperor, how real the threat of chaos is. chaos as it exists in warhammer 40k is basically the fantasy of the fascist made reality–a creeping, ever-infiltrating, ontologically evil force that will take root and destroy everything if perfect purity and control are maintained for even a second. like, yes, the empire is very clearly fascist, but they exist in a setting in which fascist propaganda is fundamentally true. fascists are able to see themselves in the empire because empire is, again and again, justified and vindicated by 40k’s writing.
and tbh this was barely better in the early days, as much as people like to cry 'well it was meant to be satire’, but at least the empire used to be also extremely fucking textually useless and incompetent to the point where they were doing more harm than good. but over the years this has entirely given way to the hypercompetent Tough Men Doing What Needs Doing space marine wank that makes up 99% of 40k output nowadays
Honestly I even think ‘a universe where the premises of fascist mythology are true’ isn’t, like, an impossible conceit to do something interesting and worthwhile with. But 'and our protagonists are the literal spartinate unbermensch action heroes’ does kind of close off like 99.99% of them.
The Empire is totalitarian continental Europe as seen from late-20cen Great Britain: the Space Marines, all technologically-advanced ubermenschen stormtroopers but not enough of them, are the Nazis; the Imperial Guard, all masses of tanks and infantry kept in line by ruthless commissars, are the Red Army; and all the rococo gold-filigreed God-Emperor stuff and heresy-hunting are the Catholic Church
The British themselves are… the orks, as a spirited, rowdily violent bunch of football casuals and assorted lads
There was a dude who showed up to a 40k tournament in nazi shit and GW had to like. “The empire sucks please it’s satire the empire is terrible it’s the entire point we Will ban you for being a nazi here.”
I think *everything* about the lore even stuff they still put out screams that they are fascist and evil and yet people still don’t get it, or actively are drawn to it anyway like yes they are fascist more of this please!
i’m gonna have to disagree with you on this, tbh–i think the fascists who love the empire are ‘getting it’ just fine.
sure, the stuff that comes out about the empire and space marines is clear that they are cruel and violent. but they are cruel and violent and right. but they’re also very very big on the heroism of the space marines, the glorious power of the god-emperor, how real the threat of chaos is. chaos as it exists in warhammer 40k is basically the fantasy of the fascist made reality–a creeping, ever-infiltrating, ontologically evil force that will take root and destroy everything if perfect purity and control are maintained for even a second. like, yes, the empire is very clearly fascist, but they exist in a setting in which fascist propaganda is fundamentally true. fascists are able to see themselves in the empire because empire is, again and again, justified and vindicated by 40k’s writing.
and tbh this was barely better in the early days, as much as people like to cry 'well it was meant to be satire’, but at least the empire used to be also extremely fucking textually useless and incompetent to the point where they were doing more harm than good. but over the years this has entirely given way to the hypercompetent Tough Men Doing What Needs Doing space marine wank that makes up 99% of 40k output nowadays
Honestly I even think ‘a universe where the premises of fascist mythology are true’ isn’t, like, an impossible conceit to do something interesting and worthwhile with. But 'and our protagonists are the literal spartinate unbermensch action heroes’ does kind of close off like 99.99% of them.
The Empire is totalitarian continental Europe as seen from late-20cen Great Britain: the Space Marines, all technologically-advanced ubermenschen stormtroopers but not enough of them, are the Nazis; the Imperial Guard, all masses of tanks and infantry kept in line by ruthless commissars, are the Red Army; and all the rococo gold-filigreed God-Emperor stuff and heresy-hunting are the Catholic Church
The thing about the WH40K Space Marines is they gave late-20th century British teenage military otaku a force of elite badass soldiers to identify with that wasn’t the Nazis
