So the new novel "Dark Imperium" raises the issue of knowledge about Chaos...

So the new novel "Dark Imperium" raises the issue of knowledge about Chaos. Girlyman repeatedly says that the Emperor hiding the existence of Chaos was a major mistake and that he cannot forgive the Emperor for lying about it and hiding it.

However, what do you guys think? Did the Emperor do the right thing by covering up the existence of Chaos? Is ignorance the best weapon against Chaos?

Self-Ignorance is never an effective weapon. If anything, self-ignorance is the equivalent of putting the barrel of the gun in your mouth.

In the end, what does it matter? Chaos does not need anyone to believe in it, it feeds off emotions no matter what those emotions are directed at, yeah?

If there was education about it available, so what, there are already those who are fanatical for or against and the huge unseen majority that doesnt want anything to do with it but they all end up feeding it one way or another.

Look at it this way.

Take one example of the Horus Heresy. Magnus knew there was a grave threat to the Emperor, but he had been forbade from contacting him using warp powers.

Now if the Emperor had said "Son, don't use your powers for now. I'm making an important psyker throne just for you to be the most important psyker of them all. whatever you do don't break through my protective barrier."

How much would have been prevented on just that little bit of knowledge?

According to the Emperor, he educated and warned the Primarchs enough about Chaos. It's not his fault that they fell. He simply choose not to call the beings in the warp "gods or "daemons".

>Is ignorance the best weapon against Chaos?
In the common masses sure, if you tell people how powerful the chaos gods are, they'll likely turn because holy shit they're real and have an infinite army of daemons. And that's before they find out that serving the chaos gods could give you literal immortality.
And we see with the Ordo Malleus and regiments like the Volscani (and even that very novel) that being allowed to live after fighting chaos can have very real and very negative consequences.
But at the same time the Emperor was retarded to try to keep literally everyone but him and Malcador in the dark about the extent of chaos gods' power. I think, based on the fluff that exists, the current Imperium has it right, keeping the everyman in the dark but educating people like generals and commissars and space marines.

Would it really have helped, to be honest?

Like, if you told Lorgar "Lorgar, there are Gods of Chaos. They're evil shits. Don't worship them." Lorgar would go "You mean...THERE ARE GODS?" like the dumb shit he is.

If you told Magnus the same thing, he'd nod, but then he'd be like "Surely they can't be THAT dangerous. Why, with the right incantations and warp-bindings I could OH NO I ACCIDENTALLY ALL OF PROSPERO".

Don't even get me start on what Mortarion or Angron would do.

Though he failed to mention what really fucked the Legions here, the slow burn corruption that isnt noticeable until too late. He describes the catastrophic warp phenomena which can cause Psykers to explode and such, but not the subtle influence on ordinary people and marines which was fostered in the Warrior Lodges.

Well, currently every single world in the Imperium have witnessed the power of Chaos and is being beset by the forces of Chaos or is supporting those who are beset.

The Imperium didn't collapse into...well..Chaos! I think the Inquisition overestimated Chaos's infectiousness.

Still at least it can be definitively said, in character, that the Emperor did all he could to warn them and that he was right.

This would be marginally better, which is the point. There would be no blaming the Emperor this time.

>Well, currently every single world in the Imperium have witnessed the power of Chaos
I don't know what this chaos business you're on about is but it sounds like you mean that great rift in the sky. That is, of course, the Emperor's punishment unto his people for not being faithful enough.

This.

They would be much less likely to turn from the Emperor voluntarily or have anger against him if even they knew he had done everything he could for them.

>YOU ARE MANKIND
>YOU ARE STRONG
>THE GALAXY IS YOURS
>but don't look in the closet cause there's a monster and it will eat you like marshmallows

>the emperor was just a parent from the 50s

...

No, Lorgar. That's not what I ffffffuckkkkk you Lorgar.

>too autistic to have a normal family life
the kids needed a momperor

That's some fine platitude, and I understand what you're trying to argue. But real life is neither logical nor rational, and keeping people from knowing about things is literally the best way to protect them from it.

The problem comes when you can't actually keep someone from learning about something.

Teaching celibacy can't work because kids still know sex exists simply by teaching them about celibacy, and want to try it because its mysterious. If you could somehow remove the concept of sex from the pool of human knowledge, you would have zero teen pregnancies.

I think that was the direction in thought that GW authors were aiming when they had Emps make that decision. That was ultimately the intrinsic character flaw in a "god", was that he was still ultimately a man trying to lead other men, and man is fallible.

Self-imposed ignorance isn't any worse than actual ignorance, in a vacuum.

For example, Magnus was essentially taught celibacy. He knew the warp was a thing, but was forbade from fucking with it without explanation beyond, "It's bad!". Since he already knew about the warp, the only solution was detailed education on what it was and why he shouldn't fuck with it.

There's also some throwaway line in the fluff (or the previews) about every world in the Imperium experiencing conflict of some sort.
I mean, yes, *some* of those conflicts could theoretically not involve Chaos, but seeing how Chaos could really use some love right now, I assume if you asked GW, it's all Chaos.

Is that a desirable outcome?
Like, is there a nice, usable gray area in between 'Emperor is perfect and did nothing wrong' and 'Emperor is a goddamn fuckup'?

There is no reason not to have the Emperor be objectively or at least justifiably correct in the eyes of his people and sons, rather than blind religion or as is right now "Why didnd't he WARN US!"

Instead of "I wish I listened to dad. He was right all along."

We might have a lot less or at least less zealous rogue primarchs if they knew he was right because he fucking told them so, rather than kept them in ignorance.

>Like, is there a nice, usable gray area in between 'Emperor is perfect and did nothing wrong' and 'Emperor is a goddamn fuckup'?
No, of course not. Simply absurd.

Fair point.
As much as I like the idea of the flawed, 'Greek tragedy' nature of the Horus Heresy, it does feel like half the time, it's just being used by the pro-Chaos writers at BL to air out their daddy issues.

The Emperor is Lex Luthor, not Achilles.

>Is ignorance the best weapon against Chaos?

Yes, there's a lot of degeneracy in the rich classes of 40k, can you image what they would do if they all knew about chaos?

>oh wait there are literal gods I can pray and ask gifts for? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP

did girlyman not learn anything from all the wish-in-exchange-for-your-soul stories?

The Interex proves guilliman right, educating your people from childhood on the horrors waiting to murder-rape them helps stop chaos worship. It was so effective Horus had to wipe them out.

>The Emperor is Lex Luthor, not Achilles.
According to who? Fucking ADB?

For sure, the thought of killing your boss, and actually doing a ritual murder in the name of Khorn, must have different impact on the power gained?
That's at least how I have interpenetrated it how the chaos powers work.

>We're not looking for notes on the direction of Warhammer 40k.
Seems weird he'd have to type this out because:
1) That invites mob rule, and while I think a lot of what they have done is pants-on-head, the only way it could be worse if it mob-rule got involved. Just look at some of Veeky Forums's homebrews.
2) The guy who says, "Some people have said ‘oh wow, now that finally makes sense, I really like it!’ while others say ‘what’s the point in doing it? It’s a stupid idea anyway, and you’ve just made it worse!’ Okay, if you didn’t like it before and you still don’t like it now – great! I still got to tell my story, not everyone’s going to like it." clearly isn't out to please anyone but himself. Which, going by the "Everything is Canon" theory of 40k canon, isn't even a bad thing.

Although the Interex wasn't the horrible place to live that the imperium has become.

>educating your people from childhood on the horrors waiting to murder-rape them helps stop chaos worship.
I mean, the Imperium does this too in Schola, and Commissars and Sisters are renowned for their loyalty when they know all about the Dark Gods. But I'd imagine it's a logistics thing, the Interex was small, and I doubt the Imperium, especially the current one, could do as thorough of a job balancing education of chaos and indoctrination against chaos, on a hive world as they do in the small setting of the Schola.

Angron would go all Kratos on Gods of Chaos.

Actually, Mortarion might have been saved. He always had a raging hate boner for warpcraft and daemons.

Alright, this is just probably gonna sound like bait, but here goes - this encapsulates the whole problem I see with 8th edition and all the narrative development they've been doing. I think GW just doesn't understand what the tone of 40k is supposed to be. A big factor in what creates the "grim darkness of the 41st millennium" is that good, honest actions are simply impractical and a fast way to loosing everything you are trying to build - "forget the promise of progress and understand, for... there is only war." This is a world where it is absolutely possible for your very soul to be destroyed, meaning there are forces in existence that not only want to dominate reality, but that pose a threat to your existence in a substantial, tangible way - being good guarantees no one an afterlife, you are either strong or you are deader than dead. The Emperor hid the existence of Chaos because it was more practical to let them starve by keeping their existence a secret. The Emperor launched the Great Crusade, committing genocide on innumerable species and human races on far flung worlds, because it was more practical than allowing those species to threaten man and those deviant cultures to further divide humanity. Everyone in 40k does everything because the alternative to not doing what's practical is being enslaved, slaughtered, or doomed. You could say that the reason why everything is terrible in 40k is that there is no one willing to do what's right, even if it means taking a loss, but either way that is what makes the setting so wonderfully terrible and interesting - how truly terrifyingly awful and selfish all the actors are. If GW is putting Guilliman on the throne and seriously planning to have him make the Imperium honest and just, then it shows that they really don't understand what makes this world unique.