Re: [SG] Evil Empire

From: "Phillip Atcliffe" <Phillip.Atcliffe@uwe.ac.uk>

> The whole concept of the 40K universe is a Dark Future(tm) in which 
> There Is Only War(tm). There is no optimism, no honour (only twisted 
> reflections of it), no trust, and the whole thing "works" purely on
the 
> basis of Might Makes Right.
> 
> That's one of the reasons why I loathe GW. This is not a concept that
I 
> think should be aimed at children.

May I respectfully disagree?

On the surface, there is a veneer of respectability. Many Munchkins buy
into the whole "Emperor is the Saviour of Humanity" bit, swallowing it
whole. But the veneer is thin. Pretty soon, a large proportion start
saying "Hang on...". And without making the forces of Chaos out to be
the Good Guys(tm) they start to ask questions about "their" side's moral
superiority.

There are deep and powerful lessons here. You may laugh at the seeming
absurdity, but had a large number of Germans some 60-odd years ago been
exposed to the same "Gedankenexperiment", maybe, just maybe, the
National Socialist German Worker's Party might not have had such a long
run. As for those who never do see beyond the veneer, and there are
many,
it reminds us all that what happened in Germany could happen here and
now,
unless we're careful. The pimply adolescents happily slaughtering the
subhumans on the wargames table because it's "cool" and the Space
Marines
are the Good Guys would have made excellent little Hitlerjugend. And
still
could.

As for the dark Future: consider the dillemma of someone in Hungary,
say,
in 1940. Which is worse, Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia? And when
faced with a choice of two Evils, how do you choose neither?

I too loath GW for its business practices, which give new meaning to the
word "unethical". But as for the 40k Mythos - no. It's useful. IMHO.