If Warhammer 40K was supposed to be satire it fails miserably at this.

There was a controversy lately that popped up in the Warhammer 40K community. It involved what my friend summarized as "buzz from right aligned, anti-woke fascist misogynistic man-babies over the game, because they included a female 'Astartes Custodes' in a game manual." He went on to say that these people see the "crippling authoritarian xenophobic race of man [in the game] as right up their alley because they envision themselves to be a space marine and not a sump-diver." But, you actually don't need to know what any or all of this means to read this blog post. Rather, what I wanted to talk about is something that popped up in passing in an article about all of the above, where a writer claimed that the game of Warhammer 40K got its start from satire aimed at the British, especially their noble classes. When I read those words, I was like...whaaatttt?

This idea that the Space Marines from Warhammer 40K were supposed to be a satirical read on the British actually kind of blew my mind. This then led me to understand just how bad a vehicle satire actually is. Allow me to explain. In order for satire to be effective it needs to be understood. But just like any form of humor, it can fall flat depending on who is consuming it. For example, I had some door-to-door salesmen knock on my door earlier this week and they opened with a joke. "We were just at your neighbors and they said you are having a party so we are here for that." I looked at these two young men strangely and said, "There's no party here." And then one of the salesmen said, "It's a joke. I'm trying to be funny. And then he went into his sales pitch." Needless to say, they didn't sell me anything, and I think the experience all around was what I would call "flat and a waste of time for both of us." But it wasn't completely useless. It was just the latest example of how a joke isn't funny to some people. You need to know your audience.

I think satire is this same kind of thing. Furthermore, without having written satire, I can say that my experience with it is that effective satire needs to be a one and done thing. That's kind of what Saturday Night Live does with their skits. It is rare for them to revisit a skit, and when they do, it is never as funny as the first time that they do it. So for the most part, a lot of their skits are "one and done." If not, then they certainly try to change up the situation so that it at least is different the next time you see it.

But the idea that you could set out within the framework of capitalism and create a game that you expect people to buy from you over and over with new rules sets and new miniatures, and painting guides and literally a whole community and expect everyone to buy into this as "satire" feels like a disastrous idea. And it has been, as the company, Games Workshop, is in a bit of a pickle with its fanbase that it has carefully curated and grown for decades to become a billion dollar company.

You see...the people who love the game like all of this authoritarian and fascist stuff. And the "Empire of Man," which is categorically evil (if not one of the lesser evils--but this is debatable) is their kind of jam. Furthermore, Warhammer 40K also got "cool." So you have all of this "Nazi-esque" stuff, and it's all brightly painted, intricate, has some incredible lore, and on top of that...yeah...it's cool. It's the same kind of cool that any of us who have watched World War 2 films feel when you see a sharply-dressed and handsome Nazi soldier in uniform and you think, "I hate that I find that visual attractive, because it is evil." From the standpoint of making money, it's absolutely a "no-brainer" for the company because people will buy stuff like this. It is appealing. It looks cool. It's fun. However, from the view of those who would like to remove money from the equation and just live in a healthy society...it is so anti that. So what has actually happened is that a company set out to satire and lampoon a thing and their message got lost but they made a ton of money and managed to make evil look like the ideal. That is so weird to just think about.

For years and years the community around this game has grown, and it has attracted more and more people who have a safe space to discuss all of their ideas about fascism because they assume that everyone that plays this game must be like them. And you know what? This is actually a good assumption. It is logical. Why wouldn't it be that unless it was blatant satire? But that satire message is so buried in history that it surprised even me when I learned about it just yesterday. This "joke" was not done well at all. In fact, it may be one of the worst jokes ever told.

It will be interesting to see if Games Workshop can even deal at all with its toxic fanbase. In capitalism, you are dependent (as a company) on your supporters. If you've made all of your supporters fascist and you want to preach the opposite of that, you will go out of business. They don't want to go out of business, so my guess is that they will just have to swallow all of the crap that takes place on their message boards and just sally on, making money, and hoping they don't do anything to piss their base off. And meanwhile the rest of us get to hear about the consequences of all of that, because there is no place for bravery to stand up for things like morality in capitalism. There is only profit.

 

If you like your science fiction and fantasy to be dark and full of terrifying monsters you should probably try Angels of Death on Warhammer plus.

Once I got past the fact that Warhammer miniatures, and more specifically, the 40K line of miniatures had managed to launch its own streaming service in 2021, I actually signed up to watch one of two series that were on that network. Does it seem absurd that a gaming company has its own streaming channel? Yes, it does. However, let's move on from the ridiculous of that and talk about what I watched.

Called Angels of Death, the show featured ten episodes that ran various lengths from 15 minutes to about 22 minutes on the heavy end for like mid-season finale stuff. It was all done in black and white, and it was completely computer animated kind of like those video game trailers that Blizzard and Warhammer stick onto their products for people who play their games. After I got done watching the series, I thought to myself, "That was like watching a movie that was a video game trailer." So anyone that has ever wanted that kind of thing (I think) would be pleased with Angels of Death.

That being said, the storyline was pretty weak. It was simply about some Space Marines of the Blood Angel chapter who were on the run from a massive tyranid fleet. They fled into "The Warp" to escape this tyranid invasion in the sector in which they were fighting, but going into "The Warp" unexpectedly had some serious problems for them as their primary navigator was dead. So they had to rely upon their secondary navigator to find a psychic pathway to a safe port in the "Warp Storm."

To anyone that doesn't know how "The Warp" works, it's essentially this timeless expanse that has no features by which you can navigate visually. It also is the place where a lot of Chaos collects, and in the situation of Warhammer 40K, Chaos is very bad...and when I say "bad," I'm really wanting you to think Hellraiser-esque demons bad. Additionally, the Warp has several properties, the most important of which is that it is "unknowable." This is both very simple and very complex. But if you think you understand what The Warp does or how time works, you don't. However, it's the only way to cross vast distances of space. It's just that by doing so, literally anything can happen even if it is in contradiction to events that have already passed. Got that? Good :)

So, Angels of Death itself doesn't pull any trickery with being stuck in The Warp itself. The ship that houses the fleeing space marines on it is stuck there for about 40 days before they find a psychic trail that leads to a so called "safe port." But it isn't. They arrive at a world that on its surface is very welcoming, and they dock at an enormous space elevator above a planet that has been ravaged by war. There is only one city on the planet, and the space elevator goes right to it. At this time, their ship gets a signal from the planet that is very curious to them, and the space marine captain goes down to the planet to investigate with a squad of other space marines. They get ambushed by "Gene Stealers," who are humans that are completely corrupted by Tyranid mutations, and they number in the thousands if not millions. The planet is completely infested, and all of these "Gene Stealers" are calling out desperately to their Tyranid god (whom they worship) to come and rule over them (or whatever it is that cults want). The only thing is that the Tyranid's don't care, and they will just liquefy everything on the planet down to biomass and suck it all up through a straw and move on. That's what they do.

So, the Captain gets stuck on this planet with his fate unknown...and the rest of the story orbits around the other space marines that are back on the ship that is docked at the top of the huge space elevator. They decide to go and rescue their captain, and shortly after that, it becomes clear that the entire planet is infested with a cult of tyranid gene stealers and all hell is about to break loose. The cool thing in the telling of this story are the many combats with the gene stealers. There are so many different kinds of them, and they give off strong "xenomorph" and "Alien" movie vibes (if you are a fan of that franchise). These monsters are clearly inspired by Giger's work in that movie (the artist). And the space marines are just really effing cool in their power armor, slaughtering everything as fast as they can and wading hip deep through the gory remains of alien monsters. The fight with the patriarch of the gene stealers, a towering monster that (I think) used to be human but now resembles a xenomorph queen (from the movie "Aliens") is the climax of the series. 

Anyway, if you like your science fiction and fantasy dark and filled with monsters, I'd say give Angels of Death on the Warhammer streaming service (Warhammer +) a try. You could watch the whole thing in one sitting, and it only costs $5.99 and you can cancel when you are done. I'll link a trailer below so that you can see the animation. You'll note that the animation is all black and white, but the color red shows up as an artistic element. It reminds me a lot of the movie, Sin City, which was also black and white but featured splashes of color here and there for dramatic emphasis. When they come out with another series, I'll probably sign-up again. Despite the artistic-ness of the black and white, I think I prefer full color overall.

The lore of Warhammer 40K is a good thing but can we have good things these days?

I'm currently going down the rabbit hole of online content surrounding the lore of the Warhammer 40K universe, and it's so vast that it will take weeks for me to explore all the facets of it. I'm currently listening to some very slick and polished videos on YouTube that explain the lore behind the different factions, and I find it all to be fascinating, entertaining, and deeply satisfying. But at the same time... I've got these thoughts (about one layer deep) in my head that are appalled with the fascism of the whole thing. Allow me to explain.

Warhammer 40K really goes a long ways to glorify people who are elite due to exceptional natural endowment. On the surface, there's nothing wrong with that, as it's just a fiction...a story. But I know that there are people who love this "aspect" of the 40K universe, because it strokes some deep-seeded desire to get away from a life that is (to put it bluntly) boring. Joseph Goebbels, who was the chief propagandist for the Nazis, once said that what he was doing was more like art than politics. By saying this, he meant that their task was to create an alternative mythical reality for Germans that was more exciting and purposeful than the humdrum reality of liberal democratic politics.

When I realized what was going on in all the myth-building of Warhammer 40K's lore, a lightbulb came on. I suddenly was able to explain why I've had many negative experiences with gamers as I've tried to get people together for tabletop roleplaying games. In other words, games that have fascist ideologies (that celebrate the super-human) attract real life wanna-be fascists probably about 50% of the time. And people who like or crave fascism are not fun to be around, and they aren't fun to play games with, because they crave power, and they construct their characters or their builds that throws the balance of a game off. In game circles, they are labeled, "power gamers." But I think there's a better term that I want to coin: fascist gamers.

There are so many complicated thoughts I have regarding this topic. The lore of Warhammer 40K by itself is brilliant and highly enjoyable. I also can step away from it, separate from it, and think...wow...what a strange vision of a future. It's so oppressive that there are two words (a phrase) to describe it that's pulled from the Warhammer 40K tagline: "Grim Dark." The territory of "grim dark" is where you get to when you move beyond actual dark fantasy. You know where Game of Thrones stopped by showing the White Walkers defeated? In "grim dark" stories, the White Walkers wouldn't have gotten defeated. They would have conquered the world and the story would have been about the last vestiges of humanity struggling against impossible odds. There's a place for those stories, as reveling in darkness and misery (for some) can be a lot of fun, because it isn't real.

Unfortunately, however, there are a lot of people who do want life to be a real struggle so that they can prove how elite they actually are. And a lot of them are completely deluded about their own abilities, which plays into the Dunning-Kruger effect. Life (especially in the United States) doesn't afford these experiences, because overall, most of us have it pretty good. And that's got to be absolutely aggravating to those who embrace varying degrees of elitism whether it is in a survivalist mentality or a physical perfection mentality or a racial superiority mentality or a capitalist/wealth mentaility. Taken to extremes, these things are toxic to a society like the one in which we live.

I'd say we are lucky that we don't have entertainment that appeals to people in society who desperately crave elitism, because (doing that) would turn a smoldering bunch of logs into a huge bonfire. However, if I said that, I'd be lying. Games (not just Warhammer 40K) are doing exactly that as a side-effect of telling stories wherein characters need to be the elite of the elite just to survive. These games provide a culture that rewards rudeness. Cutting the weak from the strong is a means to achieve rarified goals. It's not too difficult to realize that the non neurotypical boy who feels powerful in a game, but weak in real life, may become an adult who struggles for ways to feel powerful in their identity (and maybe secretly desire that a zombie apocalypse actually happen so they have an opportunity to prove how elite they are). The United States provides a very easy means to feel powerful: it is to own and brandish guns, to threaten politicians in State houses over quarantines, and to join groups that blame others for all the negative things that happen to you in life. A lot of people just want the myth, because the myth is so much more interesting than the reality of the situation.

In finishing these thoughts, I do want to say that Warhammer 40K lore is incredible. And there are a lot of people who I think would really have a good time immersing themselves in the "grim darkness," which is taken to absurd levels. There are stories filled with all manner of grotesqueries and powerful beings...chaos gods with armies of demons destroying mankind...and elite space marines where only 1 in a million recruits actually survives the training to become a part of a brotherhood devoted to warring against evil. And by "survive," I literally do mean that, as the training grounds for these soldiers is littered with the bones of recruits that tried and failed. That's how absurd this lore is, but it is all "constructed" as necessary, because the evil happening in the 40K universe is so powerful that even the elite of the elite are barely enough to push back the tide of darkness.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's just sad we can't have good things like this without "some people" in society taking it too seriously. I'd love to see Warhammer movies, a television series, and other kinds of media. But I worry that doing so will just feed the fascists, who will go on to create more fascists and create more problems for our society. We already have a disturbing amount of them at the head of our government and making it difficult for us to deal with a pandemic. Myths are supposed to be myths. They aren't real. The trouble happens when you get people who love a thing so much that they invest their identity in that thing. No one knows how to combat people who don't care if what they believe is true, and who view calm, factual rebuttal as an aggressive attack on their identity. That's where all of us get completely f*cked, and our society circles the drain.

We can't have good things, because people ruin everything. Que sera sera, right? At least now I know why finding good players for tabletop rpg's I want to play is so hard. I think I've got a 50/50 chance of running into a fascist in gaming circles, and now I know why.

Many of us are currently living in a grim dark dystopia that isn't too far removed from Warhammer 40K.

I've been reading a Warhammer 40K novel by author Ben Counter that's called Daemon World. I started reading it, because I wanted to explore (more fully) the world of Warhammer 40K ahead of some movies and possible television series that are going to be headed our way (assuming that Covid hasn't permanently stopped those plans).

Anyway, Ben is a good author, but I'm not yet to a point where I'd recommend a particular book in my Warhammer 40K exploration. They are...different, and yet oddly the same. The one called Daemon Lord is constant fighting, pretty much from the first chapter to the last. I've never read anything like it with just constant exposition, and pages and pages of exhaustive descriptions of this and that "named thing" killing this or that "other named thing" in the most gruesome way possible. When I explain these things to people I know who play the game, they say, "Yup...that sounds like what this world is like. In the future, there is only war." This quote is actually from the game material, and it's from the page just inside the cover. I'll post the quote below:

"It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

"Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds...they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants, and worse.

"To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war."

One of the weird things that occurred to me in my reflections of the stories I've read is that this "mantra" of the Warhammer 40K world could be rewritten for what's going on for many of us in the world today. So, I gave it a shot. Here's how it came out:

"It is the 21st century. For more than four years a King has sat on the golden throne of the most powerful country on Earth. He is the master of deception by the will of his cultists, and has the inexhaustible might of his armies giving him providence to threaten and rage. He is the Carrion Lord of end-stage capitalism for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day to a dreaded disease, so that he and his cohorts will never have to physically labor for anything.

"To be a man in such times is to be one among untold millions. It is to live in a cruel regime that calls its wage slaves by the term 'essential worker.' Forget the power of science, for half the population has turned away from such learning, and few of them understand the technology that they use everyday. Lies are spread like truth as long as there's money to be made, the disabled are vilified, and the lazy and entitled are everywhere. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only toil and drudgery.

"You will never earn enough to stop working, and work itself will expose you to a deadly disease. You will work for every hour of your life, from morning until night, with no end, for as far as you can see. And the world burns without end as a result of human caused climate change." 

So what do you think? It seems legit, and it allows me to sort through some thoughts about our modern times. Folks, many of us are living in a grim dark dystopia that isn't too far removed from Warhammer 40K. Lucky us.

A Warhammer 40K television series has finally been greenlit by Games Workshop and it may be the perfect doorway for us non-players to begin exploration of their universe.

Warhammer 40K is finally getting a television series. I've never played the game, but I've been in and out of game stores pretty much all of my life, and I've had friends who have collected some really large armies, painted them to gorgeousness, and fielded them against foes sitting across from them at conventions amidst startlingly cool tabletop terrain. I was always content to be just that: a spectator. I never really wanted to play. It looked too involved, too time-consuming, and honestly too heavy to carry around from place to place. And then there was (of course) the problematic issue of storing it all once I did start collecting. So nope, I never started. But that doesn't mean I wasn't a fan.

I played a couple of the video games through the years, and I found them pretty intoxicating. Warhammer 40K takes place in a distant future where humanity is ruled by an emperor who is pretty much a god (made so through some kind of dark science) and he is served by armies of genetically enhanced humans called space marines. These guys are immensely powerful, and their power armor is extremely impressive. They go to war against all kinds of enemies. The most intriguing of these enemies (to me) were things that resembled alien xenomorphs (I think they were called tyranids) and the followers of dark gods like Slanesh and Khorne. In the Warhammer universe, these entities are very real, and they have destroyed entire worlds by remaking them into versions of nightmares Clive Barker must have on occasion (he's the creator of Hellraiser).

In fiction, Warhammer 40K is kind of inaccessible. There are stories and novels, but it's hard to find a recommended reading order or even a place to start as they are all different. I think Games Workshop has done a tremendous job in managing their intellectual property. However, I think the screws are so tight on a lot of their stuff that it has made it hard for someone like me to really explore their universe without playing the actual game (which may be their intention as the game is what makes them money). And they usually concentrate around a particular character, which you may not understand if you haven't played the game, so there's that too. But maybe with this new TV series, there's a break in the ice that's forming.

A tv series will need to appeal to more than just the fan base (although the fan base is extremely important in any endeavor). So they'll need to explain in detail about Earth, the Emperor, the roles of the Space Marines, and the enemies of the Space Marines. They'll need to give us bits of information over time regarding how the universe works, the threats the good guys are facing off against, and whether or not there are even good guys to work for (kind of like in Game of Thrones). This has got me excited, because from what I've seen, the universe of the Space Marines has always been extremely intriguing, but very daunting, to explore.

Anyway, I guess we'll all see where it goes.