One should never put one's faith in Google Gemini. (I learned this after discovering that searching for information about The Lord of the Flies resulted in the AI spitting out false information pruned from a wikipedia page about the Tongan Castaways.) But if you Google, 'Are the space marines the goodies?', you get an interesting response:
Unequivocally then, our tech overlords have spoken. The Space Marines are baddies. They are part of a tyrannical and oppressive regime and all is GRIMDARK.
This chimes with what I have heard from people much more deeply embedded in the world of Games Workshop than I am. I played a huge amount of Warhammer 40K when I was an adolescent, and what I remember was that in those days the Imperium generally and the space marines specifically were sort of implicitly the good guys in the Warhammer universe - and that was indeed what made them, to the eye of a teenage boy, a little bit boring and lacking in edginess. But it seems now times have changed and all the factions in 40K are supposed to be baddies in their own way - a war of the shits.
One could do a calm and considered sociological analysis of this and doubtless come to the conclusion that it says something important about our age's discomfort with the idea that something called an 'empire' could be good - and especially if it is vaguely coded with Roman imagery. And this seems linked to a problematisation in particular of the male hero who carefully calibrates the use of violence and force in the interests of a civilisation which is inherently better than others. We live in an age with quite a clear idea about what is right and wrong in some ways, but we have by and large become less and less comfortable with the idea that these things are inherent within a particular civilisation or other. In this respect, the old school interpretation of space marines as Goodies all feels a bit too cowboys-and-Indians.
This is understandable to a certain respect. I'm not here to post a rant complaining about the purported wokeness of Games Workshop. But I do think there would be something genuinely refreshing, given our prevailing cultural mood, about making it explicit that there is something good about humanity as such and that, in a galaxy populated by orks, tyrannids, chaos mutants and eldar that there would be something to be said for actual heroes: defenders of humanity against enemies that are simply objectively worse. These heroes might have to do deeply undesirable things (the 40,000 AD equivalent of bombing Dresden or dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima) but they would bite the bullet - and deal with the guilt - of doing so in the interests of what they would percieve rightly to be the greater good: the continuation of human civilisation per se.
In a world dominated by mean-spirited, bleakly nihilistic content I think there would be something rather interesting about more openly foregrounding a goodies-and-baddies narrative in 40K. Perhaps it does already and everything I have heard, including from the AI oracle, is simply wrong. I hope so.
I think Space Marines being bad has been part of the setting for a long, long time. But I think it was never so simplistic as goodies vs baddies. I think there was always an intentional wiggle room and ambiguity, because of course this is a game setting, and also a bit of fun and not a serious attempt at having a moral message. But Marines started as hypno-indoctrinated criminals serving the most oppressive regime Priestly could imagine. It's on purpose because it's a wargame and the idea is that every faction can feel justified fighting every other faction because that's more fun.
ReplyDeleteOver time, the Imperium being the main protagonist with the most relatable characters resulted in that being softened, and by the 2010s it had sort of shifted, and I'd actually say in the modern game it's much more the case that Marines are sort of the good guys than it was back then. This inevitably leads to criticism from various quarters and so GW have been pretty explicit in saying that they're actually quite bad, because they want to have their cake and eat it I think. Got more to say (I love 40K) but the toddler just came back from her walk so I'll come back later!
I think having to yell all the time that "Space Marines are EVIL!" is a bit over the top. It's a game, not that deep, and it's mostly designed to facilitate playing toy soldiers. If you want your Space Marines to be grim anti-heroes doing what must be done to save humanity from threats so great there is no other choice, I think that's perfectly fine and you can find lots of examples in the background to support exactly that POV. It's not "fascist apologia" because it's an imaginary world and you're just playing around with ideas. I'm not someone who believes that is "harmful" or dare I say "problematic" and I think believing it is is a symptom of taking fictional stuff too seriously.
DeleteI personally prefer the "roided up scum hypno indoctrinated to believe they are the good guys" way of doing it, and I like to see the Imperium as another antagonist faction in a universe full of them. If I was going to set a game in the 40K universe I'd have it be a human world outside of Imperial control, perhaps with the threat of being taken over by the Imperium in the background. But I'd want to give the players hard choices about whether to ally with the Imperium against the myriad of other threats or to really try to go it alone.
Anyway. A lot of words to say - there is nothing wrong with making Space Marines grim "doing what it takes" Space Paladins and I think the discourse about it is really just designed to signal what a good person those doing the discourse are to their peers and to feel like your utterly trivial, wasteful hobby is Really Important Actually. I'm fine with it being trivial and I'm fine with people playing any kind of pretend they bloody well like.
Utterly trivial and wasteful - why don't you tell us what you really think, John? ;)
DeleteBut basically yes, I agree.
DeleteHaha, look I have a massive collection of warhammer stuff and I love it, I paint it and play games with it, but I'm not a fan of deluding myself that the stuff I'm into like that is important or valuable outside of the enjoyment it gives me. And I think the urge to make all of this stuff have "A Message" is a sort of guilty reaction to knowing you're wasting time and money on something so trivial. I think you see it a lot with people wanting to make their fantasy games match their politics because that means it's Serious Business Actually, and I'm just not a fan of the impulse.
Delete100% agree.
DeleteI would have said that part of the point of 40K -- and part of the fun, certainly -- is that it's a setting in which factions that in most franchises would be obvious villains become protagonists by virtue of comparison. This means that if you want to have a standard "heroes/morally upstanding citizens" campaign in a roleplay version of the setting, you either emphasise the slivers of virtue-as-you-understand-it that, in spite of everything, still shine through, or you embrace the idea that your "lighter shade of grey" is going to be far darker than is usually the case. Either could be a rewarding experience. And of course that's not taking into account campaigns that are based around immersive role-playing and adopting the moral standards of the setting.
ReplyDeleteA few months back, someone on a forum I visit posed the thought experiment of how you apply a D'n'D style alignment system when dealing with, for example, an Aztec high priest, who must sacrifice slaves and prisoners of war, etc., to ensure that the world doesn't end. My answer is that it depends on how immersed your player characters are in that society. If this is Aztec Empire: The Immersive Game, then the High Priest is Lawful Good. If you're approaching it as characters to whom human sacrifice and/or slavery are unacceptable, he's Lawful Evil. If your characters have no qualms about killing slaves or prisoners but have no patience for these people's silly superstitions, he's Lawful Neutral.
This is roleplay, after all. It doesn't matter if *I* think we should purge the heretic or not. Does my character? It's a cooperative game, so presumably players would have decided beforehand what sort of game it's going to be, and how the characters are going to work together. Anyone familiar with 40 K would understand that it's not your standard setting. Like most people, I doubt I'd be interested in "Dark Eldar Torture Dungeon: The Game", or something, but if I were playing an Ork I'd be happily krumping some oomies with da boyz and thinking the rockets blasting apart those families are right orky, and if I were an Imperial Inquisitor I'd be sure to blind and lobotomise the scholars I forced to research the cultist symbols once they were done.
Again, part of the fun of the setting is that the "good" factions are, in any other franchise, obvious candidates for the overbearing evil:
The Imperium of Man, a combination of a fascist industrialist state and an organised church hierarchy at its most repressive and fanatical, where human life means essentially nothing other than as fodder for the machine; here, the bastion of humanity against literal demonic forces that would extinguish it.
The Tau Empire, silver-tongued, expansionist conformists seeking to assimilate all into their caste system for the Greater Good, with implications of mind control, ethnic cleansing, etc.; here, close to being the "good guys" of the setting, in that they're pretty much the only faction which, in annexing your planet, might actually *improve* your quality of life.
The Harlequins, psycho circus clowns led by/worshipping a deity who is close to being Pennywise the Dancing Clown; here, the brave resistance to the demonic powers consuming their race, loyal servants of the one active force for a better world they have left.
Why, it brings a tear to the eye.
Which is possibly the first sign of Nurglepox or something, so I should be detained as a potential heretic or summarily executed to be safe.
Remember your Imperial Thought For The Day: "A questioning mind betrays a treacherous soul." Which is of course just a rework of the real life observation that "the translator is traitor".
I'm an arch-traitor, me.
Heresy. *Blam*.
Yes, I get all that. But to me it makes the setting feel a bit 1990s. The idea that 'all the factions are evil in their own way' felt edgy back then. Now I think the pendulum has swung in the other direction and we're crying out for more positive stories about good and evil.
DeleteI'm not deep into WH40K lore but to the best of my knowledge you've got things precisely backwards. The Empire was always supposed to be the worst of fascism, Stalinism, Medieval Catholicism, and the Roman Empire mushed together into a horrific jumbled inefficient mess with things like the Empire wiping out all human life on a planet due to some paperwork being misfiled. Think Brazil (the 1985 movie) writ large while horrific atrocities being routine.
ReplyDeleteThe Empire being an example of horrific tyranny was part of the black humor of early WH40K. Another example of this black humor is that the empire was (relatively speaking) the good guys because everyone else was EVEN WORSE with humanity constantly having to defend Zombie Soul-eating Stalin because it's the only thing standing in between them and Demon Hitler, etc. etc. etc.
Over the decades the Empire has been whitewashed a bit with a lot of the 1980's dystopian black humor being gradually worn away by kids thinking Space Marines are cool. The current view of the empire by WH40K fans is generally waaaaay waaaay less evil than the totalitarian hellscape version of the empire that was more common back in the 80's.
Fair enough - although back in the 80s Warhammer and Warhammer 40K were just more humorous in general, so the black humour of the Imperium being really awful made sense in context. Now things are much more po-faced so it would seem to make sense to me to be po-faced about heroism too!
DeleteDoesn't one of the first appearances of the Space Marines have them patting down a grafittiing punk, casting them not even as this epic unstoppable fist of ultimate tyranny, but a classic petty "fascist pig"?
ReplyDeleteI agree that the "subversion" of the simplistic goodies and baddies narrative is widespread, systematic, and most importantly rote enough to call for a subversion in (and of) itself: stories about good people doing good.
But given all of the Space Marines' history, imagery, position, all of those both from in-setting and real-world perspectives, I don't think Space Marines are the platform for those stories.
Do you think so? I reckon it would be great. Space knights fighting chaos! Now that's good people doing good....
DeleteNo, space knights fighting chaos sounds great, pretty much the same thing as the classic D&D paladin (which I've long thought is due for a revival of the original tropes by now buried under all the attempts to avoid cliche), just in space.
DeleteBut I don't think Games Workshop Warhammer 40K Space Marines are the appropriate platform. Authoritarian caricatures turned authoritarian masturbation material turned conspicuous consumption luxury items masquerading as both of former to extract value from both poles... too many layers of ick there for me to approach it with anything close to the earnestness you describe.
Emperor of the Fading Suns captures a lot of the same aesthetic for me, definitely covers space knights fighting chaos, with a lot less friction from unwanted connotations. Possibly just because it's less well known, less scrutinised, less criticised, but that's just it: I don't see the value of using Space Marines specifically, when they come with all this baggage that works against the premise.
Also worth mentioning the "Space Knights" of the vapourware SJGames Hot Lead line (which was meant to be like GURPS but for wargames!). As we never saw anything in print, we only ever got the Ral Partha miniatures of the Space Knights and their cyborg undead enemies, the Necrovores, and the Psions.
Deletehttps://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Space_Knights
And Alternative Armies have the rights to the old Firefight/ Ion Age setting with its own space knights ("Retained Knights") which even include (gasp!) lady knights.
Fair enough, but I think what I'm arguing for is unwinding/deleting the 'ick' you describe. Yes, no doubt you're right that a lot of unpleasantness has accreted around the 'space marine' concept but that's no reason not to reclaim it. Your mileage may vary!
DeleteThe aesthetics of the Imperium, at least early on, were heavily informed by Nemesis the Warlock (especially those gothic battleships!), so it isn't a stretch to imagine a WH40k rooted in a struggle between good and evil, although humanity probably wouldn't be on the side of good!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't even heard of Nemesis the Warlock before. Thanks for this.
DeleteOh, you're in for a treat!
DeleteExterminatus!
ReplyDeleteImperial Thought For The Day: "He who permits the alien to exist, *shares in its crime of existence*."
DeleteI'm a real sucker for that sort of thing.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1CQ7Vwz8Eo
DeleteYou've missed the entire point of the games lore if you think that anyone is good in the 40k universe. It hasn't changed for decades. There's nothing new going on there.
ReplyDeleteI apologise for missing the entire point of the game's lore.
DeleteSHAME, NOISMS! haha.
DeleteI never played 40k, but I remember associating it strongly with Judge Dredd, and thought of the Space Marines as antiheroes in the same vein (not that the concept of antihero, or dystopia, or satire, would've been terribly familiar to me). They were fighting an abominable (that is, awesome) evil and they were amoral fascist oppressors. That moral ambiguity, a big humorous middle finger to a good-vs-evil setup, was a big part of the appeal. I later came to think of that as a specifically British feel, as I saw the same kind of tongue-in-cheek reveling in an over-the-top nightmare setting in many of the 2000 ad stories as well as heavy metal acts like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden that didn't present themselves quite as seriously as comparable American offerings.
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely a much stronger tongue-in-cheek element to British culture which is at the same time perhaps its best and worst quality.
DeleteI think if you want 40k with good guys you have to go back to the OG Rogue Trader, Fantasy-in-Space set up where the Imperium, Eldar and Squats are all equally "good" factions and the intolerant/oppressive elements in their society are obstacles to them working together which need to be overcome for victory.
ReplyDeleteThe move to make the Imperium's intolerance totally dominant, retconning out all the abhuman batallions, half-eldar etc is the point where the villain protagonist syndrome sets in. Later editions vary in how much they play it up but you can't really make the Imperium the heroes while completely foreclosing on the possibility of them reconciling with the other heroic factions.
Fair enough - I do remember the abhuman battalions well.
DeleteI feel compelled to point out that the first article on the Ultramarines (WD 97) actually a Chief Librarian Astropath who was half eldar:
Deletehttps://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Illiyan_Nastase
Any mileage in the idea of a band of space marines/ space knights and their xenos & abhuman allies going on a quest to bring back the Gods of Law from the WFRP setting?
ReplyDeleteYes. Lots of mileage!
Delete