Philosophy in 40k and Why People are Mad about Iconoclast

[BlazingScribe]

These are some musings I've had and conclusions I've come to since playing Rogue Trader, and reflecting on the setting its presents along with other materials on 40k I have read. Spoilers ahead, so be warned.

40k as a setting is relentlessly, comically grim, and that is intentional. That tone is a necessary component of the setting, partly because it is one of its defining features after decades of use and adaptations, and partly because many of rule-of-cool elements and character moments depend on that depressing background to work. Caiphas Cain would not work half as well in Star Trek as he does in 40k. The Salamanders and Lamenter's status as the "good guys" is only relevant because of the context they are in. The relentless darkness of the setting makes the frequent negative outcomes tolerable in light of the rare, but bright contrasts of the victories against evil. Plus, for those people who like seeing evil get its due, its an inversion of the usual formula. When the setting is working as intended, it's great, because you can enjoy heavy metal space operas without a trace of irony. It's just really a cool illusion. But its a narrow path.

On the one hand, there is such a thing as grimderp; when something is so grim, so dark, so inane in its cruelty that readers give up. The odds are no longer insurmountable, they're just dumb. Where this line is varies from person to person and author to author; a bell curve of acceptability. Act 3 in Rogue Trader is arguably this point. Your character being betrayed, captured, and likely failing numerous skill checks and encounters can be frustrating to a play that has grown used to having agency. More importantly, the player does not just resent the characters who placed in that narrative position, they resent the story itself for taking that direction. Investment is lost, and in-character desperation becomes frustration. We approach the "dumb" zone. That isn't a universal experience, but it is an example of approaching the "negative" end of the curve.

On the other hand, there is the positive end of the curve that is more insidious. This is the point where things become too noble, too bright, too optimistic for the setting around it to sustain. Much like horrific fascist dictatorships in real life, the Imperium of the 40k universe only works when the following statement is true: The horror is necessary. The Imperium is not even close to a "good" faction, but you can get around that and empathize with its collective if you accept that this is the best they can manage. If that ever stops being true, and a viable, more palatable alternative is available, then the horror of the imperium is accented and we approach the "dumb" zone again. This is what happened with the original Tau, a faction that originally appeared more moral and noble than the imperium, yet was still competitive. The usual arguments in favor of the imperium failed, it was shown to be evil and stupid by comparison, and so the illusion broke. Most can support a lawful evil empire if the context permits it, but no one likes a cruel idiot. How Iconoclast can be interpreted in this game has a similar risk.

The iconoclast narrative looks stuck in a no-win situation. The setting demands that idealist action backfire, that relentless dogmatism is the only way to survival and that is why all the common-place suffering is acceptable. If an idealist iconoclast does succeed in making their Utopia, it risks making the rest of the setting stupid-evil by comparison. But as a roleplaying experience, it sucks to pick a narrative route that ends with "rocks fall, everything dies." Saying "I warned you" doesn't make that outcome any more enjoyable, it just makes you insufferable and the recipient angry. I think this is why there are so many arguments about Iconoclast choices. it's an argument between people who understand the setting and accept it for how it is, and people who want the agency to push back against a status quo. Two different, be equally important narrative fantasies. Owlcat I think recognized this on some level, because they did something pretty clever with Iconoclast. Spoilers ahead. Seriously, do not read if you have not finished the game.

Nomos is the answer. Nomos solves every problem, both with the narrative and the setting, for everyone involved. Iconoclast players get their happy ending, or as close as they can manage. They get to play the benevolent ruler, who faces down both chaos and the Imperium and says "no, we're doing something different." They get a sliver of hope, and a promise at a future, and that's enough. For setting purists and dogmatists though, their justifications are not compromised. Getting Nomos for an Iconoclast run is a difficult gamble that might not even work, and requires a lot of compromises to achieve. It is long shot at best, and at worst heralds the "something worse" that is promised by alternatives. More important, the Nomos solution wouldn't work across the imperium at large; it's a miracle that it could work at all. The setting is intact, the grimdark still makes sense, the heavy metal space opera continues.

Rambling essay over.
TL:DR I think Iconoclast deserves a lot of credit for how it's been implemented and I think opposition to it from purists doesn't take the full picture into account. It isn't a "golden ending" exactly, it's a risky third path. A viable path to benevolence and a bright future, maybe, but a dangerous one, only accessible through guile, determination, and a lot of luck. All the effort aside, they got lucky this time. Isn't that grimdark in itself?

*Minor edits for clarity.

[Moonlight Knight]

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

No, Warhammer 40k was not made as a political satire. It was made as a it would be cool if we made some scifi versions of our fantasy range. Its entirely apocryphal that it was a deliberate satire of conservative thought. Rogue Trader was a goofy one off that no one took seriously that deliberately ripped off numerous scifi settings in a far more blatant fashion than fantasy at the time. It was a joke. It wasn't serious. It also wasn't satire. There was no sincere political thought or parody in Rogue Trader it was just saying wouldn't it be cool if we had Dune and Starship Troopers and they fought a scifi version of our Fantasy villains. It also wasn't really a setting, and going into actual development in later editions they shelved pretty much all of the overt joke about. Its completely irrelevant to the setting as it is today. So ultimately shove the politics. Its not warranted or really part of any of the discussion.

“To me the background to 40K was always intended to be ironic. [...] The fact that the Space Marines were lauded as heroes within Games Workshop always amused me, because they're brutal, but they're also completely self-deceiving. The whole idea of the Emperor is that you don't know whether he's alive or dead. The whole Imperium might be running on superstition. There's no guarantee that the Emperor is anything other than a corpse with a residual mental ability to direct spacecraft. It's got some parallels with religious beliefs and principles, and I think a lot of that got missed and overwritten.” - Rick Priestley, Dec 2015 interview with Unplugged Games

[Darker Sheep]

Origineel geplaatst door Moonlight Knight:

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

No, Warhammer 40k was not made as a political satire. It was made as a it would be cool if we made some scifi versions of our fantasy range. Its entirely apocryphal that it was a deliberate satire of conservative thought. Rogue Trader was a goofy one off that no one took seriously that deliberately ripped off numerous scifi settings in a far more blatant fashion than fantasy at the time. It was a joke. It wasn't serious. It also wasn't satire. There was no sincere political thought or parody in Rogue Trader it was just saying wouldn't it be cool if we had Dune and Starship Troopers and they fought a scifi version of our Fantasy villains. It also wasn't really a setting, and going into actual development in later editions they shelved pretty much all of the overt joke about. Its completely irrelevant to the setting as it is today. So ultimately shove the politics. Its not warranted or really part of any of the discussion.

“To me the background to 40K was always intended to be ironic. [...] The fact that the Space Marines were lauded as heroes within Games Workshop always amused me, because they're brutal, but they're also completely self-deceiving. The whole idea of the Emperor is that you don't know whether he's alive or dead. The whole Imperium might be running on superstition. There's no guarantee that the Emperor is anything other than a corpse with a residual mental ability to direct spacecraft. It's got some parallels with religious beliefs and principles, and I think a lot of that got missed and overwritten.” - Rick Priestley, Dec 2015 interview with Unplugged Games

That's one person, and certainly not the setting was written as a deliberate political satire. Its also odd that someone who would write that would seem to ignore the religious beliefs and philosophy of Chaos which would be completely against said satire or be satirizing something other than conservatism. Chaos is an indulgent, nonrestrictive and liberating force and the result is you become a horrifying monster ruled by your own demons. If you look at Chaos, and say oh that's clearly intended as satire of the indulgent modernist politics that are tearing down all barriers of society and this is what it gets you. Hell under that interpretation you can look at the fall of the eldar and say that is a political satire of the free love movement and the AIDS crisis. That's all there from the beginning and I'm going to tell you, none of it was intended, and I suspect Rick Priestley would be the first to say thats not the case. A quote like that is him puffing himself in retrospect and trying to make his setting more profound than it actually ever was. Even then its not stated nearly as strongly as you put it. Priestly is also a pro chaos guy. Always played Chaos. So of course he thinks of the Imperium as more of a bad guy because it makes his clearly evil side more heroic and he gets to be a bad guy against a bad guy. When in reality. The Imperium is bad but Chaos even from the beginning was always far far worse. At the end of the day just shelve the politics. Its so unnecessary to the discussion and it has no real basis in the setting.

[Megapewpew]

Origineel geplaatst door Moonlight Knight:

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

No, Warhammer 40k was not made as a political satire. It was made as a it would be cool if we made some scifi versions of our fantasy range. Its entirely apocryphal that it was a deliberate satire of conservative thought. Rogue Trader was a goofy one off that no one took seriously that deliberately ripped off numerous scifi settings in a far more blatant fashion than fantasy at the time. It was a joke. It wasn't serious. It also wasn't satire. There was no sincere political thought or parody in Rogue Trader it was just saying wouldn't it be cool if we had Dune and Starship Troopers and they fought a scifi version of our Fantasy villains. It also wasn't really a setting, and going into actual development in later editions they shelved pretty much all of the overt joke about. Its completely irrelevant to the setting as it is today. So ultimately shove the politics. Its not warranted or really part of any of the discussion.

“To me the background to 40K was always intended to be ironic. [...] The fact that the Space Marines were lauded as heroes within Games Workshop always amused me, because they're brutal, but they're also completely self-deceiving. The whole idea of the Emperor is that you don't know whether he's alive or dead. The whole Imperium might be running on superstition. There's no guarantee that the Emperor is anything other than a corpse with a residual mental ability to direct spacecraft. It's got some parallels with religious beliefs and principles, and I think a lot of that got missed and overwritten.” - Rick Priestley, Dec 2015 interview with Unplugged Games

This isn't saying the lore is a satire. You can actually read an interview of his from a few years ago that talks about his lore inspirations with barronbifford.

He really wasn't making any political statements he just pulled a lot from Dune and early christiandom/schisms.

People I think just like to infer intent more then there ever was. He just wanted to make a cool setting for his wargames.

[Darker Sheep]

I figured he was taking that out of context but didn't have time to look up the quote. Thank you.

[sleeve]

Origineel geplaatst door Wraith:

Origineel geplaatst door HermitKermit:

i didnt read any of the spoiler-tag content, but from what i can tell in reading this and glancing other threads, is that the iconoclast option is something they bungled.

this is disheartening as someone who has ~some~ time in the game, but not a lot, and who wanted to try paths other than marching as one with the imperium towards the greater good by burning the bodies and souls of those deemed lesser because . . . because?

if there is a story that you HAVE TO NOT follow, that means there are others that you DO HAVE TO- and that is contradictory in essence to rpg/crpg/tabletop concepts in general, from my understanding.

am i understanding correctly?

At the end you are given several choices that will lead to different outcomes

People keep spreading rumor that iconoclast and the imperium cant get along

But there an ending that said otherwise

Thanks was hesitant to continue my iconoclast playthrough because of that misconception!

[His Divine Shadow]

Lol dude gets a direct quote and sources the interview and y'all are just like "nuh uh"

[Darker Sheep]

Origineel geplaatst door His Divine Shadow:

Lol dude gets a direct quote and sources the interview and y'all are just like "nuh uh"

Because its out of context and doesn't say what he is claiming.

[Moonlight Knight]

Origineel geplaatst door Megapewpew:

Origineel geplaatst door Moonlight Knight:

“To me the background to 40K was always intended to be ironic. [...] The fact that the Space Marines were lauded as heroes within Games Workshop always amused me, because they're brutal, but they're also completely self-deceiving. The whole idea of the Emperor is that you don't know whether he's alive or dead. The whole Imperium might be running on superstition. There's no guarantee that the Emperor is anything other than a corpse with a residual mental ability to direct spacecraft. It's got some parallels with religious beliefs and principles, and I think a lot of that got missed and overwritten.” - Rick Priestley, Dec 2015 interview with Unplugged Games

This isn't saying the lore is a satire. You can actually read an interview of his from a few years ago that talks about his lore inspirations with barronbifford.

He really wasn't making any political statements he just pulled a lot from Dune and early christiandom/schisms.

People I think just like to infer intent more then there ever was. He just wanted to make a cool setting for his wargames.

I'd be really interested to read this interview, because I still remember the whole interview I just cited and he went into a lot more detail than just that about it, but the site it was originally hosted on went down.

Origineel geplaatst door His Divine Shadow:

Lol dude gets a direct quote and sources the interview and y'all are just like "nuh uh"

Right?!

[His Divine Shadow]

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

Origineel geplaatst door His Divine Shadow:

Lol dude gets a direct quote and sources the interview and y'all are just like "nuh uh"

Because its out of context and doesn't say what he is claiming.

How is it out of context? How could that be out of context?

Clown show

[Darker Sheep]

Origineel geplaatst door His Divine Shadow:

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

Because its out of context and doesn't say what he is claiming.

How is it out of context? How could that be out of context?

Well its I misunderstood where the quote was taken from. Eitherway my point still stands. The quote doesn;t support his original assertion.

[Moonlight Knight]

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

Origineel geplaatst door His Divine Shadow:

How is it out of context? How could that be out of context?

Well its I misunderstood where the quote was taken from. Eitherway my point still stands. The quote doesn;t support his original assertion.

It does, though? You can make something for fun and still be making a point through it.

[Darker Sheep]

Origineel geplaatst door Moonlight Knight:

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

Well its I misunderstood where the quote was taken from. Eitherway my point still stands. The quote doesn;t support his original assertion.

It does, though? You can make something for fun and still be making a point through it.

That quote says he was referencing some themes of belief and religion, that it was somewhat ironic in how it was written. I think reading Rogue Trader that absolutely is there because Rogue Trader was goofy as hell. However to say it was a deliberate satire of conservative political systems and belief? You are extrapolating a hell of a lot from that.

[His Divine Shadow]

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

Origineel geplaatst door His Divine Shadow:

How is it out of context? How could that be out of context?

Well its I misunderstood where the quote was taken from. Eitherway my point still stands. The quote doesn;t support his original assertion.

It's definitely always had political satire mixed in to everything at the very least.

[andriysurzhenko]

Iconoclast seems too close to be heretical, not chaos heretical, but not way of the "good" person. You cannot be savior that simply helps people in this world. Most probably it will be recognized as weakness and cause dissent in the domain.

[His Divine Shadow]

Origineel geplaatst door Darker Sheep:

Origineel geplaatst door Moonlight Knight:

It does, though? You can make something for fun and still be making a point through it.

That quote says he was referencing some themes of belief and religion, that it was somewhat ironic in how it was written. I think reading Rogue Trader that absolutely is there because Rogue Trader was goofy as hell. However to say it was a deliberate satire of conservative political systems and belief? You are extrapolating a hell of a lot from that.

It's definitely a satire of extreme conservative ideology

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/19/the-imperium-is-driven-by-hate-warhammer-is-not/