- live in an impenetrable fortress from which they launch raids on the innocent, never suffering the consequences of the evil they commit
- ruled by the most cruel and decadent amongst them, but don’t do anything about it because they dream of being on top of the horrific pyramid of torture and pain one day
- innately cruel and horrific society where seeing others suffer is the only source of pleasure
- slavers
- violence is the only language they understand
- sense of racial superiority
- entire sectors of society dedicated to coming up with evil and sadistic weaponry with which to commit war crimes
- hopelessly addicted to drugs of all kinds
- complete lack of compassion
- piracy
- love to torture
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Tyranids are the communists.
All the bad thing you hear about tyranids is imperial propaganda.
It fits too well. They supposedly formed an alliance with the tau to get the tyranid only to backstab them. Its dangerous to be the dark eldars enemy, fatal to be their friend.
I started getting into Warhammer and decided on dark eldar
I thought the Imperium was the US
The Imperium is
, conquering worlds in the name of a corpse on a golden throne.The Imperium is the EU: a mostly loose federation of varied individual states that exists to enshrine a few very specific rules or principles in its members, and despite the brutal, racist, authoritarian, and inequitable structures of its component states it’s continuously threatened by outbreaks of even worse and even more Fascist movements internally. That’s right, the Imperium are libs.
The difference is the Imperium comes down extremely hard on those even-more-Fascist movements since they do things like intentionally spread virulent plagues or turn societies into autocannibalistic bloodbaths and it makes literal daemons manifest to wreck shit up, instead of just clutching pearls while working with the little uwu smol bean nazis and antivaxxers.
It really is a funny consequence of the setting’s creators really pulling their punches and not understanding scale that the Imperium comes across as less evil than real institutions they’re supposed to be satirizing and it’s “there is only war” setting is much more peaceful than the real world. Like their literal death cult religion has nothing on Evangelicals, and their whole paranoia and brutal suppression shit is targeted at and done in response to these arch-reactionary might-makes-right cultists that line up exactly with real-world reactionary movements whether that’s the RFK style anti-vaxxer nurglites, silicon valley libertines, the segment of vulgar fascists who are just out to self-actualize through random acts of violence to feel like big strong manly warriors, and the entire political consultant class as a whole. Like it’s barely a joke to say the Imperium is more moderate on how to deal with those sorts of destructive reactionaries than a lot of people here are, because the Imperium are still fucking libs.
To put it another way, the Imperium are cartoon villains who formed in the crucible of the darker-and-edgier pop culture movement of the 80s and 90s, as written by people who don’t really get that real world powers are even bigger and more awful cartoon villains underneath their human masks. So they do the silly bad guy stuff but it’s all too sterile, and it lacks the real anger and fear and depravity of real world reactionaries who also do all the silly cartoon bad guy stuff but even more so.
This interpretation is so on point that even the franchise’s only canon example of a socialist polity (Gothrul’s Needle) is meet with Jakarta-style methods by local imperial authorities instead of what Nazis would do, which is drop Cyclonic torpedoes on a socialist Hive and kill everyone
They manage the Great Numerologia, a voting system that involves the hive’s eighty-eight million citizens in decision-making on a wide range of issues. This system is facilitated by spider-legged servitors controlled by a central ‘mother’ servitor. Despite its intent to ensure broad participation, the system is prone to manipulation by House Delaque and possibly Van Saar itself. However, the bureaucratic complexity often renders such efforts ineffective
As an aside, 40K Cybersyn is one of the funniest pieces of lore I’ve ever come across
This system is facilitated by spider-legged servitors controlled by a central ‘mother’ servitor.
40K Cybersyn
Spidersyn
in Warhammer Fantasy the dark elves live in canada and the usa.
what did they mean by this?Dark Eldar raiding parties make use of advanced anti-gravity skimmers to launch high speed raids on their enemy while still transporting a large number of their warriors. Due to their use of the galaxy-spanning inter-dimensional labyrinth known as the Webway, they are extremely mobile, striking from seemingly nowhere, with little or no warning, and vanishing with their captives before significant military reaction can be mobilized.
Victory Through Air Power is a 1943 American animated documentary propaganda film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists on July 17, 1943
Now who would the Necrons be? China? An ancient empire that went dormant, but it’s now reasserting itself once more.
The carbon sequestered in oil reserves.
China would be Leagues of Votann, advanced technology, healthy approach to AI, overlooked by Empire for a lot of time, percived as capitalist but it have no sense, respects ancestors, controls rare earth minerals.
I wouldn’t say the Squats have a healthy approach to AI, they’re just on the opposite end of the spectrum to the Imperium’s full(sans Cawl) Butlerian Jihad position, the Iron Kin are cool but the Ancestor cores(the ‘Votanns’ in Leagues of Votann) are essentially their deities which have been breaking down over time and becoming ‘senile’ due to memory degradation but they can’t do anything to fix them as they’re Inviolate in their culture that’s not a healthy relationship imo
Honestly Chaos who will use AI to spawn horrors(that’s a good thing to chaos guys) but not controlled by it(they have the gods and daemons for that lol), and especially the Ta’u who use limited(intelligence on par with ‘lower’ animals rather than on par or greater than an average T’au) AI in a ‘normal’ way in their drones and battlesuits but aren’t controlled by it have a much healthier approach
the Imperium’s full(sans Cawl) Butlerian Jihad position
The Imperium is a bit weird in that regard because they still clearly use machine intelligences, they just totemically house them in old human skulls so they can pretend it’s just a post-mortem augmetic modification to a person instead of something fully mechanical. Housing them in human remains may also diegetically help protect against warp corruption, since it means they’re being housed in relics that people believe to be inherently pure. There’s also the reading of machine spirits in general as AIs of varying levels, which shows up in some stories.
The hypocrisy and idiosyncracy is part of the point, imo. The Imperium is an inversion of expectations, cliches, and even its own themes in a lot of ways: it’s monolithic, unifying, and intolerant of any deviation from its monoculture on the surface, but actually extremely fragmented and autarkic, highly varied, and too overwhelmed to care about anything but the biggest “don’t make daemons, collaborate with outside states, or stop paying your taxes” rules; it’s completely inflexible and rigid in its application of its rules, except its enforcers just kind of do whatever they feel like and constantly decide whether a rule really mattered or not on the fly; they’re embattled and fragile and constantly being overwhelmed on the surface, except the one truly solid and unyielding thing about them is their endless war machine and how they’re dug in deep everywhere they touch; etc. Denouncing AI while actually making heavy use of it in specially permitted forms is extremely on brand for them.
So the approach that would (and did in their part!) prevent Men of Iron rebellion (Ironkyn are literally Men of Iron) is less healthy than subjugation of true AI, not to mention actually creating warped murdering monstrosities??? Wtf.
Partial agree about cores but it’s mainly because they are malfunctioning, while functional they actually not only allowed for survival in extremely hard conditions but actually helped to create one of less vile societies in entire universum. Also Leagues do know they are malfunctioning and want to fix them, it’s not blind dogmatic faith in crumbling machines like in case of AdMech, they just have the problem that nobody really know how to fix such advanced technology.
Yes essentially worshipping AI(especially one that you know is breaking down and can’t fix) is less healthy than not
While the LoV understanding of tech and AI is greater than the AdMechs (although since machine spirits are real they do have some knowledge Squats do not), but their beliefs are just as irrational in many cases such as believing that uploading a facsimile of a personality is a true afterlife
And if you’re making the philosophical argument that GAI deserves equal standing with organic members of a faction, and thus consider the T’au’s use of limited non sentient AI as subjugation(and if that’s your position then you should also consider the LoVs use of COGs subjugation), then chaos allowing AI free reign while not holding organic members in thrall is healthier even if you don’t like how the outcome looks, Chaos abominable intelligences and Iron Kin(whom I’m not convinced are the same as men of Iron as they can only simulate emotions, and do not naturally experience them like MoI such as UR-025 do) are both ultimately murder machines
Yes essentially worshipping AI(especially one that you know is breaking down and can’t fix) is less healthy than not
Definitely more healthy than worshipping eldritch evil nightmares from the warp or nazi golden corpse or outright ban which cause trillions of humans to be lobotomised and live centuries of nightmarish suffering.
just as irrational in many cases like laying down your life to protect a core or believing
Laying down your life to protect essential piece of machinery or cultural heritage is not that much irrational, even communists did that a lot in let’s say WW2 or other wars.
uploading a facsimile of a personality is a true afterlife
What is “true” afterlife?
thus consider the T’au’s use of limited AI as subjugation
I don’t, Tau don’t use true AI, they seem to be wary too but their wariness stem more from the cautiosness than fear (though i believe they will reach true AI eventually and probably soon) i more thought about Men of Iron.
whom I’m not convinced are the same as men of Iron as they can only simulate emotions, and do not naturally experience them like MoI such as UR-025 do
What is your source that Ironkyn are different from Iron Men? Also Ironkyn looks just like Men of Iron with some variations.
are both ultimately murder machines
Yes there is no philosophical difference whatsoever between Ironkyn and some chaos AI /s. Btw chaos don’t really make their own AI, they just put a daemon inside the machine, so i would say neverborn count as AI even less that they count as live beings.
Finally, i don’t adhere to the popular US sci-fi trope that AI need to be bad. It is, ultimately, a human creation. When raised by comrades in communism, it will likely become a comrade. If raised by the US military, it will cause untold suffering.
Definitely more healthy than worshipping eldritch evil nightmares from the warp or nazi golden corpse or outright ban which cause trillions of humans to be lobotomised and live centuries of nightmarish suffering.
Come on that’s in bad faith and you know it. I explicitly didn’t say that, I only commented on the health of their respective approaches to AI not the health of their cultures in general, I even made a point to mention the gods and daemons that replace the cores as objects of worship in Chaos cultures
Laying down your life to protect essential piece of machinery or cultural heritage is not that much irrational, even communists did that a lot in let’s say WW2 or other wars.
That’s a fair rebuttal if there is a chance of recovery or successful defence of the core
What is “true” afterlife?
In 40k souls are real, a true afterlife is one where that lives on and not just a chatbot imitating someone’s personality no matter how accurate. A craftworlder’s soulstone being put into an infinity circuit or a chaos worshipper being elevated to daemonhood are examples of ‘true’ afterlives in the setting
What is your source that Ironkyn are different from Iron Men? Also Ironkyn looks just like Men of Iron with some variations.
The following article(don’t be thrown off by the ‘community’ in the URL these articles are written by GW staff and are canon)
“Though designed to fulfill certain roles at the Votann’s behest – such as the mighty Steeljacks, born with larger and stronger frames – these designations are not set in stone, and the Ironkin may gravitate towards a different calling as their knowledge and experiences grow. Nevertheless, their programmed nature means they are not able to truly experience their own emotions and drives, so it is a rare Ironkin that shows ambition or a desire to command.”
And the UR-025 short story Man of Iron which features him spontaneously emotionally reacting to events, I don’t have it to hand to find a better excerpt but here’s a post with some examples https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/fj4pmd/short_story_excerpt_man_of_iron_ur025_disposes_of/
"It targeted the Kastelan first. Pinpoint hits stove in the bigger robot’s metal vision plate and shattered the sensorium behind. It staggered back two steps, sparks flashing all over its armoured shell, before recovering. Though blinded, the Kastelan returned fire. Bullets flaring with phosphor burn smacked into UR-025’s shoulder, spoiling its aim. This irritated the older machine. It switched targets to the slave robot’s elbows and shoulder mount, shattered them all so that its guns hung uselessly. Ranged weapons disabled, the Kastelan lumbered towards UR-205, head down to batter the older robot into submission. UR-025 stepped aside, smashing the larger machine’s knee with its power claw. The Kastelan could have taken a blow like that easily, but on the unsafe walkway it was fatally upset and stumbled sideways. Its huge mass snapped the guardrails with a pair of sharp metallic twangs, and it fell with a mighty splash into the water and was swallowed up without trace.
'Threat eliminated,’ said UR-025 with relish."
There are also parts with his internal monologue which make this clearer
Despite being outwardly aesthetically similar, the ability to experience emotion or lack thereof makes Ironkyn and Men of Iron very different from each other
Btw chaos don’t really make their own AI, they just put a daemon inside the machine
That’s not true, Chaos specifically the Dark Mechanicum and Iron Warriors make use of true AI and also sometimes combine it with demonic possession in a single machine, but they(AI and Daemons) are distinct, if you think I’m wrong on this point say so and I’ll find some excerpts that support my position
Finally, i don’t adhere to the popular US sci-fi trope that AI need to be bad.
Neither do I, and I don’t think anything I’ve said indicates the opposite, this was discussion about AI in the fictional setting of 40k not irl, but I also think that putting human’s under the direct control of AI with no human oversight could be bad i.e. using AI for central economic planning could be hugely beneficial but if there is no human oversight to decisions it makes it could possibly lead to bad paperclip-maximiser scenarios but that’s a entirely different discussion about irl AI guardrails and safety which is beyond the scope of this argument
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Only thing with the Tau is they are a class based hiarchical society. Regardless of their approach to tech and AI.
Yeah I always point that out when people call them ‘space commies’ and such, no faction in 40k is the ‘good guys’, there’s also the 4th sphere expansion faction who want to purge the T’au empire of all humans and other auxiliary non-T’au races(because they are more physic than the T’au race and their belief in the ‘greater good’ as given birth to the Goddess T’au’va warp entity which they consider an abomination as the GG is meant to be a secular materialist philosophy and not spiritual/religious)
Still the quality of life for the average human citizen or auxiliary in the main T’au empire is much better than that of the average hive-worlder or guardsman in the Imperium, its only when you take the threat of Chaos into account that you can argue the Imperium is ‘better’(for humans at least)
But getting off track with tangential opinions here, I only meant to comment on the varying relations to AI between factions as why imo the T’au’s approach to AI is healthier than that of the LoV
In the future I hope we get some more canon info on the Demiurg, who are squats that have joined the T’au empire(or are at least mercenaries for them like the Kroot are) and their specific use of AI, could be an interesting avenue to explore some of the issues around artificial life
I would argue the tyranids are about as close as you can get in terms of being “good”. Just an intergalactic force of nature consuming anything in its path indiscriminately for survival.
This is actually impressive. I can’t believe I never made the connection. Does that make us the Orks? Might be a bit tortured but there could be something there vis a vis critical mass and the Waaaaaaghhhh and the power of belief could be applied to pessimism of the intellect optimism of the will. Revolution is only possible if enough of us believe it is possible. Obviously the Tau are the one good faction but iirc they ret-conned the part about them being commies and it was revealed they are all under some sort of mind control which was such a dumb “twist”.
Orks are nazis and Tau are NATO. Can provide better explanations with citations if you want.
The Tau were never commies because the caste system has always been a part of their foundation. Their best analogue is probably the Incan Empire, safety, security, and plenty as long as you are comfortable in your spot on the hierarchy. Also the whole mind control thing has always been largely imperial propaganda. The newest Tau book, Elemental Council, provides strong explanations for why the Ethereals are followed without resorting to mind control nonsense.
Oh neat. Any place someone on a tight budget might find said book for relatively cheap? (Bonus points if audiobook ADHD brain must save that amount of mental energy for reading theory and posting).
Epub (Sorry it’s not Catbox - it seems to be down for me right now. Use an adblocker and use your discretion.)
Audiobook (1gb m4b)
Same caveat as the other link - I’m not familiar with this site etc. etc. but I can upload it somewhere else if you know of a better site.
Now where do I go to collect my points?
All canon I don’t like is imperial propaganda
This is unironically how GW decide to retcon the necrons
Actually true
I apply this to any media basically. The author said some dumb shit? No he didn’t. The sequel revealed this thing was way less cool than you imagined? No it didn’t, what sequel?
But it’s canon you can’t just make up your own explanation and say it’s just as valid!!!
watch meThis is even true canonically, there’s no omnipresent narrator in 40K and even 1st person PoV can actually lie or be lied to.
There’s this ttrpg that I’ve been running for my friend which is so perfectly awful I’ve been treating the entire book as a hostile source written by the villains to besmirch the good name of the obviously heroic faction.
RaHoWa lol
I mean honestly if it’s all just fiction then who cares
‘This guy wrote down his imagination and his imagination has more validity than my take on his imagination’
