What did he mean by this?

>You'd have to be a complete retard to miss the satire in 40k. It's as subtle as a brick to the teeth.
The setting was satirical originally. It started to take itself seriously awhile ago.

Wasn't there some article written by a super liberal dude who was trying to rationalize the nature of 40k's setting? I swear I've seen something like that posted here before. I think the basic idea is that, while the imperium is abhorrent to our modern day sensibilities it makes sense why they have to do the horrible things they do because everything wants humanity to die or worse.

>The Imperium
>Fascist
ITT people who don't know what fascism is. The Imperium is a theocratic state that has more in common with Iran than it does Italy.

So they get free gender reassigments?

What?

Iran is the country with 2nd most gender reassigments in the world. Maybe this explains girlyman.

No shit? The Ayatollah must be pissed about that.

Iran isn't a fan of gays but they've been known to "offer" sex change operations as an alternative to punishment.

>The Ayatollah
Nah, he is okay by following his predecessor lead.

But the imagery IS cool, you can enjoy the aesthetics without missing the message, if anything it makes you more receptive to the message because you've lowered your guard and empathized with these fascists.

You can acknowledge that SS uniforms were pretty cool without being a nazi and you can read animal farm without being a communist.

...

>tfw space fascist dystopia is still preferable to how you live now

If you have time for Veeky Forums shitposting I can guarantee that it is not.

Let's check the Merriam-Webster.

fascism
noun fas·cism \ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi-\
1: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Seems like the Imperium fits the bill fairly nicely. Exaltation of the state(FOR THE IMPERIUM), veneration of the leader figure(THE GOD-EMPEROR OF MAN), centralized, autocratic government(The High Lords of Terra), social regimentation(enjoy your mandatory 14-hour workday and non-existent social mobility) and forcible suppression of opposition(The Inquisition says hello) are certainly all present. It's technically a fascist theocracy then, such as various sharia-law countries, because it combines the veneration of the state that comes from classic fascism, with the theocratic practice of blurring the lines between the church and the state.

The imperium is the worst by canon come on kids.

>You'd have to be a complete retard to miss the satire in 40k.

Or you just got into the franchise in the past, oh, 15 years or so.

Show me any of 40k much often mentioned 'satire' that was published in the last decade. Or two decades.

>2: : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Wait so "fascist" now means someone who supports more centralized powers? when did this happen?

If you think the message of animal farm was "communism is cool" you should read it again.

It's also necessary by canon, because there isn't any way to exist in the 40k setting without being oppressive. The Imperium isn't mindlessly evil, it is the way it is for very good reason. It has to be ruthless in order to survive.

The Emperor begun the Great Crusade and formed the Imperium as a secular absolutist "enlightened" monarchy. Certain client states and planets had more leeway than others but everyone paid a fee and listened to Terra if it ever asks for something. It was basically like a space Prussia (Cue the Legends of Galactic Heroes references). It wouldnt be accurate to call Prussia facist so neither would it be this imperium.

Then he went on the golden lazy boy and his worst fears were made manifest as the Imperium warped into a Theocratic state. An earlier user had it right, the Imperium is more like Space Iran than Space Fascist Italy.

There are ideas that are similar to fascist lines of thought such as the super human and the elimination of aliens, mutants and any non standard lines of thought but these ideas dont belong only to the Imperium.

If he was, the practice would be banned or at least not publicly funded. But it's not, so he's obviously fine with it since it's official state policy.

It was written by George Orwell, who was a staunch socialist.

socialist =/= communist

That's besides the point. Even assuming there was no alternative to fascism in 40k, it's still by canon the worst regime imaginable.

Plus the Tau and Eldar invalidate that argument they seem to be doing ok without being the cruellest regimes imaginable.

Yeah you should read it again m8, he was a very vocal anti-communist who actually ratted out communists to the British government

But that's not true. We have seen other cultures that were much more successful at warding off Chaos than the Imperium is, largely because the Imperium is such an ignorant shithole that Chaos spreads like wildfire in it.

If the Imperium wasn't such a Xenophobic shit, they could have allies instead of enemies and not have to waste precious resources putting down hundreds of tiny alien empires when the big threats are still unresolved.

If the Imperium wasn't so fucking stagnant, they could advance their tech and actually SOLVE their problems instead of existing in an endless stalemate with the guys who haven't had a new weapon in 20000 years. Orks weren't a threat to DAOT man because we used to have a fungicide that just straight up killed them and all of their spores. But the Imperium, instead of spending a couple thousand years trying to work the formula out for themselves, just holds its breath for infinity and dreams that one day someone with find the recipe in perfect condition with all of the work done for them in the sock drawer of a drifting spaceship.

If the Imperium wasn't so fucking ignorant AND oppressive, Chaos cults wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Imperial citizens are indoctrinated not to ever question authority, ESPECIALLY authority wearing a religious themed hat. On top of that, its policy to never let them know chaos exists. This means that any chaos cult leader can waltz into an Imperial church, start preaching the glories of 'Saint Khorne', and everyone in that room will follow blindly and never question why there are so many blood sacrifices at church these days until demons start crawling out of their toilets. Because they don't know to be wary, wouldn't recognize the signs even if they did, and consider it suicide to question the guy on the pulpit in the first place.

The Tau are just as bad as the Imperium, if not worse.
The Eldar are completely inhuman psychologically, and thus have totally different options when it comes to society. Also, most of them are Dark Eldar, who live in a city that is worse than anything in the Imperium.

If you centralize to the extent of a single person having universal or near-universal control yea.

Which is 100% true, Imperium became what it became to survive

Golden age of humanity was way more tolerant and happy go lucky but got fucked by AIs, warp storms and other shit

Yeah the Tau are not as bad, they've never been described as the cruellest regime imaginable.

Of course the Eldar sre inhuman. They also have not been described as the cruellest regime imaginable.

It's like you're not even trying.

You missed the point of animal farm completely. Arthur Blair while a romantic idealist for the early part of his life saw what communist was in spain and hated people like Stalin and what they were doing.

wtf i hate fascism now

>Single person
But the Imperium isn't controlled by a single person...

Also it doesn't exalts a nation or a race above others, is the Imperium the most liberal gobernment so far?

>The Tau are just as bad as the Imperium, if not worse.
Citation needed because literally everything in the lore seems to destroy your point

>Also it doesn't exalts a nation or a race above others

It exalts humanity above xenos and it goes out of its way to exterminate mutants, witches and heretics.

You would be blind to not see the parallels to german brand of fascism.

The Tau suck in different ways but only a complete idiot would choose to live in the Imperium over the Tau Empire.

>You'd have to be a complete retard to miss the satire in 40k. It's as subtle as a brick to the teeth.

You do know that there is a fuckton of people who dont see that and thing that the imperium is the best thing ever and we shold strive for it?

>The setting was satirical originally
do you actually know what satire means

40k is pastiche

>The Tau are just as bad as the Imperium, if not worse.

When the Imperium abandoned millions of its own guardsmen in tau space, the Tau gave them homes and lives and jobs, in many cases with a better quality of life than they had ever known back home.

If the situation was reversed, the Imperium would have just shouted "XENOS" and massacred fucking everyone.

Have we EVER gotten an account of a human who joined the Tau who didn't think that life was just genuinely better under the blueberries? Sure, you occasionally have to deal with Ethereal bullshit, and the Tau still sort of have humanity on probation, but its still better than living on a hive world or being chained to a ships engine as a deck slave and dying of slow radiation poisoning in the dark.

Xenos are an entirely different species, not a race. Check mate.

I would go of my way to exterminate witches and heretics too because those want to exterminate you. As for mutants, depends, you have Ogryns, Ratlings, sanctioned psychers, etc so your argument is kinda invalid.

>Good luck trying to rapidly respond to the constant attacks

Humies are getting their shit kicked in. The only reason they exists is because it's so big and because half the people masturbate to SM so they have to win every time.

Fascism doesn't make you better at war.

To be fair a lot of these people are fascists & fascist sympathizers.

The Imperium is abhorrently evil by modern standards but is somehow the lesser of every evil in the galaxy, is that not the setting's schtick?

>the lesser of every evil in the galaxy
Not really, Imperium is the only faction that wants the best for humanity, that doesn't mean he's the lesser evil. Tau are less evil than Imperium though they don't care about races or species, only the greater good.

Parallels, son.

Humanity is one race one empire one God-Emperor.

"Cruellest" by defintion means other regimes in 40k are less cruel.

>Orwell
>Anty-communist
Nigga go read his biography, Orwell was a far leftist, he didnt like stalinists and was agients them, but at the same time thought that antycapitalist systems were a good idea and thought of himself as a socialist

Technically it is. It's just that the single person who controls it has probably been dead for ten thousand years. The High Lords are technically subservient to the Emperor.

>Orks weren't a threat to DAOT man because we used to have a fungicide that just straight up killed them and all of their spores
Got a source on this? not calling bullshit or anything just curious

The Imperium isn't centralized though. It's more feudal and heavily decentralized than anything.

I am extremely familiar with Orwell.

Again he compiled a list of communists for the British government, considered himself a libertarian socialist, and was vehemently anti communist.

That's the thing. 40K is a setting wherein fascism is entirely justified. The other races do really want to exterminate you. People who fall outside the norm really are incredibly dangerous for the stability of the nation. Cultural degeneracy really will have immediate and horrible consequences. It really is us against everyone else.

But the fact that fascism is justified doesn't stop it from being fascism.

I don't get it, I love WWII planes but I don't like a second WWII, people can like the aethetic of something even if they don't like that something. Can the artist understand this?

But if fascism is justified and literally necessary for the survival of humanity, it's not bad.

Same thing happens with Judge Dredd, which is a pretty big influence on the Imperium, second only to Nemesis from the same anthology series.

>vehemently anti communist
He was anti stalinist not anti communist, that's like saying that someone who is against direct democracy is overall agents democracy

Is it the cruellest in the galaxy or the cruellest in human history? I always interpreted it as the latter

I thought they added some really dodgy stuff to the tau fluff like sterilization of allies and the possibility that the vespid are actually being manipulated through their mind controlled elders? I guess it's chump stuff compared to the Imperium but aren't their goals both the same, survival/expansion of the species at all costs?

If you need fascism to survive, you deserve to die.

>Cultural degeneracy really will have immediate and horrible consequences
40k is extreamly culturaly degenerate, like most high-culture tends to be

When does fascism actually help you survive?

Find one piece where he says communism (not socialism) is good.

Well yes, but whereas cultural degeneracy in our world leads to people arguing about societal values, cultural degeneracy in 40K leads to literal demons from hell popping in to murderfuck everyone.

The main diference between Tau and the empire is that the tau have a end goal that in theory will change shit, the empire will continiue to be as it was even if they take over the galaxy. Plus the empire is fuck huge, there is really no reason why it should be shitty everywhere. Not to mention that the Tau are actually advancing scientifily

Sterelization did happen, sure, but after that group of humans continously rebelled for generations. Tau were "stop it, plz", "plz, stop it", "dudes, its been 80 years staph it", "come on", "ok, that's it, no more kids for you".

>inb4 if life were so good why did rebelled?
Because they were indoctrinated by the Imperium in the xenos bad kill xenos, they had a better life quality thanks to Tau, they have freedom of religion thanks to Tau, they had everything better except the fact that they weren't in the Imperium and that they were working for the greater good, that didn't go well for those humans

Still, sterelization of those actively going against the Tau is, imo, less worse than outright executing them. And again, it took generations to reach that point

For the Vespids, dunno, some fluff says there's some mindcontrol in there, some say there isn't. I think they want to leave it vage on purpose

Tau were always extremly naive and trusting, now they're slowly realizing that in 40k setting you can't survive that way.
I remember them sending diplomatic envoys after diplomatic envoys to a tyranid tendril just to see them getting nom nom everytime, to then send a new diplomatic envoy

Yeah, it used to be just hinted at but they made it a bit more explicit later on. In xenobiology the inquisitor finds an organ in the head of an ethereal which could be used to harness psycic energy and influence people. Being a member of the Tau empire pretty much means you're a slave to the ethereals. Makes sense, seeing that Farsight defected once the ethereals with him died.

Which one is better depends on what you value. The survival of humanity as a whole or a better quality of life for individuals.

Which leads to a more interesting question: Is 40K actually anti-fascist?

In 1984 for example, the external conflict is entirely manufactured by The Party in order to create both an excuse for their atrocities, and a rallying cause for the populace. There is no war. The enemy is fictitious. So not only is The Party irredeemably, irrevocably evil, but they're also entirely aware that they're evil. They hold on to power for the sake of holding on to power. Thus, the work is clearly anti-fascist.

In 40K, the external conflict is 100% real. The government is fighting an actual, balls-to-the-walls war for the survival of the human species. They have actual reason for committing their atrocities, as the entire Imperium is built on the ideal of killing a thousand to save a million. So when the work is built around making a state where fascism is entirely justified, can the work really be considered anti-fascist?

>Which leads to a more interesting question: Is 40K actually anti-fascist?
it's not a question, though

40k isn't anti-fascist, and has never concerned itself with social commentary. Everything is geared towards guys with laser guns shooting aliens in the face. People who think there is some deeper meaning to it are completely wrong.

>Because they were indoctrinated by the Imperium in the xenos bad kill xenos, they had a better life quality thanks to Tau, they have freedom of religion thanks to Tau, they had everything better except the fact that they weren't in the Imperium and that they were working for the greater good, that didn't go well for those humans

This should happen more often. It's quite silly the idea that the Tau can invade an Imperial world with a dozen hives with billions of people and occupy them no sweat because they offer people 3 meals a day or what have you.

Americans couldn't control a neighbourhood of 2 million in Iraq without getting blown up and you want me to believe Tau can control billions across a world? Get the fuck outta here.

40k isnt anti-antyhing, it might of have been once, but now when people take it waaaay too seriously, it has lost all the commentary one might have found within it's bowls. Take the world at what it is, grimderp turned up to 11 and have fund with it. Just dont try to read any fun stories because you might realize that 40k writers are shit (good god, i still cant belive that love and kriege got me actually interested in buying kriege units way more than any official lore might have ever done)

It's more levels of bureaucracy than actual decentralizing of power with the Imperium. The Imperium is simply so fucking huge that even lower levels of the bureaucratic machine wield tremendous power. What actually makes it less powerful is the division power between the Highlords of Terra, the Ecclesiarchy and the Ad-Mec.

Except Tau give you way more than just 3 meals a day. They change your quality of life entirely, that's why so few people resist, because the change is very tempting, add to that you're treated like a person and not a disposable slave.

Also the worlds invaded by Tau tend to be far away from the Imperium fantatic spectrum.

So, in conclusion: 40K's message really is "Space Marines are cool".

More like everything is cool

> Americans couldn't control a neighbourhood of 2 million in Iraq without getting blown up and you want me to believe Tau can control billions across a world? Get the fuck outta here.

Why not? 100 Space marines can conquer and hold 20 worlds without backup or resupply, and they only had to reload their bolters once in that whole campaign.

In 40k, a "planet" is really just a couple square miles. All of the lore makes much more sense that way.

yep

The next time anyone tries to say 40k was originally satire, tell them that GW had their own death metal label in the '80s.
youtube.com/watch?v=QL19beIJSE0

More like "Space Marines are cool, and looking back maybe some of our writers read Mein Kamph more times than was really needed, but its too late to change it now so we are stuck with it."

the same people have tried to summon a succubus

>mfw there were literally thousands of xeno species the Imperium could've allied with against Orks, Chaos, Necrons, etc., but because of all their 'RACIAL HUMAN PURITY' nonsense they've willingly set themselves against the universe

Also, 40k universe/Imperium of Man isn't so simple that it's either 'fascist' or 'antifascist.'

Sorry I misspoke, what I should have said was, you can empathize with the animals in animal farm, even the pigs without being a communist.

Tbh all they probably had to do was kill/scare the crap out of the planets rulers to conquer them.

Before the orgy that spawned Slaneesh humanity had a lot of alien allies and had a good relationship with them, but after that every race watched for themselves and humanity took this in the bad way

planets in 40k are like city states in medieval Italy. You can "conquer" a place and the populace will be completely fine with it as long as you don't charge as much tax as the previous emperor and let them practice their religion.

>Except Tau give you way more than just 3 meals a day. They change your quality of life entirely, that's why so few people resist, because the change is very tempting, add to that you're treated like a person and not a disposable slave.

Yeah but we see in the real world humans often rejecting a better quality of life because it comes to them from 'invaders' or 'occupiers'. It should be no different from humans living in the imperium because they are even more backwards/corrupt/brainwashed.

And sure I can give you the fringe worlds are far from imperial control but Tau are starting to invade Major imperial worlds now and everyone is throwing their lot in with them with no resistance. Naw doesn't sit well with me.

It's going to be even worse if the 4th sphere expansion that disappeared in the warp ends up on the other side of the Imperium and core Imperial worlds join them with no resistance.

Under 40k logic, sure.

But lets be honest. If a goup of 100 dudes showed up on Earth, killed our leader and nuked 2 cities and then said "we own you now, someone else will be along eventually to tell you what to do" and left, what would we do?

The answer is prepare for fighting space war so we don't lose next time. Especially since, given 40ks stupidity, it could be hundreds of years before we get a followup.

I'm hoping Gillyman gets the Imperium to get its shit together since, to my knowledge, the Ultramarines' system was as close to idyllic as human worlds get in 40k. I'm also hoping that the Imperium finally brokers some long-term shit with the Eldar, but I doubt that'll happen.

Yeah. And then, during the great crusade, whenever the IoM found communities of humans and aliens that had stuck together and honored their treaties, they killed the xenos and killed any humans that tried to defend them.

Any claims to legitimacy that the Imperium might have had for their xenos policy died with the Interex.

> You can "conquer" a place and the populace will be completely fine with it as long as you don't charge as much tax as the previous emperor and let them practice their religion.

That might be a bad example, considering that the IoM most certainly WILL NOT let you practice your own religion, and they are probably going to tax the living shit out of you. More than one otherwise loyal Imperial planet has rebelled because the Imperium was taking so much from them that they were literally starving to death.

The thing is, you don't even have to broker shit with ALL the Eldar.

There has to be ONE fucking craftworld out there that is willing to say "Listen, what if we just, you know, STOP shooting each other and focus on guys that we both hate together. Like chaos, and the Necrons".

It has to be easier to just ring up a space marine chapter and say "Hey listen, our world is going to be under attack in 150 years, can we book an appointment?" then their usual convoluted shit of "If we lead this ork waaagh to this human world, we can set off a chain of events that averts the invasion of our craftworld in 150 years. Maybe. Probably."

This isn't the 40k setting we know and love, GW.