Re: [SG] Evil Empire

Alan and Carmel Brain wrote:

> 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.

My problem with the 40k universe is not that the human empire is as bad
as
chaos, but that human society is a warmed over corpse that hasn't
realised
that it is dead.  The implication is that only entropy has advanced in
the 10k
years since the Horus heresy.  Despite having technology that we cannot
distinguish from magic, they are in the mythical dark ages that did not
really
exist between the fall of Rome and the renaissance.  Technical knowledge
is
squirreled away by a priesthood that is not only unable to advance
knowledge,
but is struggling to keep things from being forgotten.	The other 'good'
guys
are no better off.  The eldar are a dying remnant of a once vibrant, but
decadent, culture.

The only group with any vibrancy and animation are the technically
backward,
but very innovative, orks.  Many claims are made that orks are no better
as
engineers than bees as architects (ie that their technical prowess is a
race
memory of a previous golden age), but these claims are made by humans.