Extra Punctuation: Hating Warhammer 40k and Space Marine

[Moses Wolfenstein]

...Of course, part of the problem is that more and more these days the background is taken at face value, by writers and players alike. That can be done well (e.g. Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series) or very very badly indeed (e.g. every Space Marine fanwank power fantasy that spews out of Matt Ward's pen...)

But the original background was tongue-in-cheek, to say the least. Just to give one example - Orks are basically soccer hooligans with green skin and big gunz... and buggies. Red buggies of course, 'cos as everyone knows, red wunz go fasta.

Just so.

Seriously, if you want an interesting perspective on the 40k universe, read Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor series. As Abnett noted somewhere, he started with the Imperial Guard and Inquisition because the Astartes are incredibly difficult characters to put at the center of a narrative. As has been mentioned here (and is brought up relentlessly over on RPS), Ultramarines are particularly bad in this regard.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Gears of War had about zero back-story (not even in the pathetically thin user's guide). But it never pretended to. It was just stupid big muscle-dudes with no helmets shooting bad stuff from behind cover.

What bugs me about WH40K is that it PRETENDS to have a back-story but doesn't really. There's just no real explanation of motivations, economy, politics, etc. And from the extremely limited story that is there, these other levels of detail are rendered impossible. It's just WE KILL THEM, and THEY KILL US. That's it.

What I couldn't ever understand is why those huge imaginary table-top army clashes were ever considered possible or even desireable. Since the invention of the rifle it's been bad form to mass troops and advance in large numbers. It's just too easy to put too much explosive power in a targeted area for the opponent to survive. So it's all about small unit tactics and staying out of sight and behind cover. The only reason human waves worked a little in North Korea was that they were HUMAN so tactical nukes weren't used. No such problem with Orks.

It's all just unrealistic bull that only the most juvenile middle-schooler would find engaging.

Admittedly, Gears of War didn't have much of a backstory beyond the Pendulum Wars, but it did DO something that I found commendable in an age where the future or the world is composed entirely of war: It showed that people wanted it to END, and it showed even more that there was something beyond WAR.

Adam Fenix, though he didn't get much development beyond redeeming father and whatnot, showed something that I found quite interesting in, well, all of these gritty game shooters. He represented closure. A finale. An end to this conflict. It makes you remember that the COG aren't genetically modified super soldiers, like John-117 and Noble Six from Halo; these people enlisted in the COG due to the events of the war, and had abandoned lives before it to do what they're doing right now. They had stuff beyond shooting people that shot back at them.

What was it that Adam Fenix desired for Sera, as cliche as it was? To live. To enjoy living. To go on living, despite what may have happened. Many shooters glorify the actions of their heroic battle or that final firefight with the big bad, going on about how badass they are and how they're going to enjoy doing it again. Gears didn't do that. Even if it was unintentional, what they did was bring a closure to the conflict. The Locust and the Imulsion are gone; Sera is at peace. Marcus, Anya, Cole, Baird, and the others can go on living what lives they had previously before the Pendulum Wars, because the ending showed that you don't fight war because it's war: You fight for the tomorrow. For an end.

Unintentional? Overanalysis? Maybe, but GoW presented that, and I've never seen it in any other shooters. It didn't glorify the COG or how they beat the Locust really good or showed off chainsawing numbers; it showed an end. The war is over. They can go on with their lives.

That's what pisses me off about things like Space Marine and, to an extent, CoD. In the end, it's only their to show how awesome the military is or how badass war is. People don't fight war on a whim in real life; we do it because we dream of a better future, of a glorious tomorrow, and we fight for that sake. Anyone who loses sight of that goal doesn't deserve to write anything involving war, because it becomes meaningless tripe.

 

[Super Fooby]

Space Marines making Warhammer 40,000 look like crap...can't say I didn't see this one coming.

 

[Beach_Sided]

I think, as a few above have said, this review just comes down to Yahtzee not actually knowing much about the history and universe behind the Space Marines. So he just sees the very basics of it and judges it on being shallow. It's just the same as seeing the Roman Empire as just the wars they fought. There is a huge amount of cultural and political information behind that, but you don't see that initially.

 

[ChupathingyX]

That's nice and all, but it doesn't change my opinion at all.

I love the W40K universe and accept it fully for what it is; a gritty, over-the-top, stupid slug-fest of crazy, batshit insane religous zealots ripping each other apart in various different ways.

I do not take it seriously like some kind of philosophical piece meant to inspire me or anything like. If I wanted to imagine what Nazis, Soviets, America, Britain and Lord of the Rings would be if they were thrown together, put into space and told to be as crazy as possible...I would just look at W40K, because that's basically what it is, with some robotic zombies thrown in for good measure.

 

[thiosk]

I was pretty happy with this article, because so far, any time I mentioned to someone who knew what 40K was that it takes itself way too fucking seriously for something with such a dumb setting for me to enjoy, I get bitched at.

Thats because they take it seriously. I enjoy the setting and the stories, because I consider it to be awesome dipped in nightmare sauce. Try telling the pony people that the ponies are dumb. They take that really seriously, too.

 

[Normandyfoxtrot]

Gears of War had about zero back-story (not even in the pathetically thin user's guide). But it never pretended to. It was just stupid big muscle-dudes with no helmets shooting bad stuff from behind cover.

What bugs me about WH40K is that it PRETENDS to have a back-story but doesn't really. There's just no real explanation of motivations, economy, politics, etc. And from the extremely limited story that is there, these other levels of detail are rendered impossible. It's just WE KILL THEM, and THEY KILL US. That's it.

What I couldn't ever understand is why those huge imaginary table-top army clashes were ever considered possible or even desireable. Since the invention of the rifle it's been bad form to mass troops and advance in large numbers. It's just too easy to put too much explosive power in a targeted area for the opponent to survive. So it's all about small unit tactics and staying out of sight and behind cover. The only reason human waves worked a little in North Korea was that they were HUMAN so tactical nukes weren't used. No such problem with Orks.

It's all just unrealistic bull that only the most juvenile middle-schooler would find engaging.

Admittedly, Gears of War didn't have much of a backstory beyond the Pendulum Wars, but it did DO something that I found commendable in an age where the future or the world is composed entirely of war: It showed that people wanted it to END, and it showed even more that there was something beyond WAR.

Adam Fenix, though he didn't get much development beyond redeeming father and whatnot, showed something that I found quite interesting in, well, all of these gritty game shooters. He represented closure. A finale. An end to this conflict. It makes you remember that the COG aren't genetically modified super soldiers, like John-117 and Noble Six from Halo; these people enlisted in the COG due to the events of the war, and had abandoned lives before it to do what they're doing right now. They had stuff beyond shooting people that shot back at them.

What was it that Adam Fenix desired for Sera, as cliche as it was? To live. To enjoy living. To go on living, despite what may have happened. Many shooters glorify the actions of their heroic battle or that final firefight with the big bad, going on about how badass they are and how they're going to enjoy doing it again. Gears didn't do that. Even if it was unintentional, what they did was bring a closure to the conflict. The Locust and the Imulsion are gone; Sera is at peace. Marcus, Anya, Cole, Baird, and the others can go on living what lives they had previously before the Pendulum Wars, because the ending showed that you don't fight war because it's war: You fight for the tomorrow. For an end.

Unintentional? Overanalysis? Maybe, but GoW presented that, and I've never seen it in any other shooters. It didn't glorify the COG or how they beat the Locust really good or showed off chainsawing numbers; it showed an end. The war is over. They can go on with their lives.

That's what pisses me off about things like Space Marine and, to an extent, CoD. In the end, it's only their to show how awesome the military is or how badass war is. People don't fight war on a whim in real life; we do it because we dream of a better future, of a glorious tomorrow, and we fight for that sake. Anyone who loses sight of that goal doesn't deserve to write anything involving war, because it becomes meaningless tripe.

Most wars are waged for petty flippant tripe, it's the soldiers who fight and die for their futures and their dreams not politicians or kings they only have their pettiness or greed to drive them most of the time. That's true even in 40k most guardsmen simply want to go home or win a new home so they can be done with the hell their leaders have imposed on them for a while.

 

[Godhead]

The Space Marine game was meh

40k is still great though, fun chess style game. The lore is so manly it has 4 balls and all of them have rock hard abs.

you puny humans just don't get it

mind you it's went downhill in recent years.

Eh, Games Workshop is just in one of it's pissy fits. That's why I keep telling myself I'm so lucky to have made my last 40k purchase over two years ago when things really took a turn for the worst. But I don't think it helps that it was a Forge World Bio-Titan. (I want my invulnerable saves back D

 

[MysticMongol]

It's a pity, really. The original Warhammer 40k setting was written as a big, goofy parody. It's right there in the slogan... "Tn the grim darkness of the future there is only war." Then you've got the space marines, who are each and every one a mighty action movie hero, and the imperial guard who march into combat and die with their flashlight weapons. You've got the aliens who eat planets, and the other aliens who eat planets, and the aliens who are soccer hooligans, and the rebellious humans who betrayed the golden Jesus and worship demons and shoot their demon bullets out of guns made out of giant demons while they drive their tanks made of screaming demons accross vast alien planets that are actually enormous demons. And people who pray to the spirits in the coppy machines and people who ride horses into battle against giant robot space elves and space dwarves and try to pike them to bits with wooden lances.

This is a light, goofy setting perfect for a setting where any two players can pit their armies against one another in combat without worrying if it made any sense or not. No, it didn't. Nothing in 40k made sense. Everything in it was silly, from the imperial doctrine to the space elf zombie robots, and that was great.

Then, people started taking it seriously.

It's always a problem when people don't get the joke.

 

[Normandyfoxtrot]

-snip-

I have to disagree everyone in our club and the three main clubs we play with all agree that it pretty much is silly and frankly funnier because it takes itself too seriously and considering out of the thirty of us only four played prior to 3rd edition we've never even seen the "true WH40k".

 

[-|-]

I know nothing about WH40K - I've never played any of the table top games, or read any fiction. And I'm not interested in finding out either.

Still, I bought the game. It's ok, not great, but decent enough that I will play it through to the end and mostly enjoy it. Most reviews seem to give it at the 7/10 level - which seems fair to me.

As for the protagonist and the lack of emotion or whatever. This titus dude is a caricature - sure, it's over the top, but the complete lack of angst is actually quite refreshing and I'm quite liking him because of it.

(oh and goatees really are a pretentious affectation as is wearing a stupid trilby or whatever kind of hat it is)

 

[nyysjan]

I has always bothered me that the 40k universe is essentially a massive fascist theocracy where any sort of departure from the dogma of the state is eliminated with extreme prejudice.

There's no one to side with. Space Marines are battle-crazed fanatics. Chaos is hell. Orks are well... orks. Tyranids are insectoid monsters. Eldar would exterminate mankind without a second thought if they could. Tau are space communists. Imperial Guard are part of the aforementioned fascist theocratic space empire. Cultists are either alien or chaos mad. Necrons are space-undead-robot-gods or some shit.

I always thought the emperor should be more like a space-pope. Then there could be multiple human kingdoms/federations/confederacies/compacts.

But no, any difference will be purged by a bunch of insane fanatical jihadist. Bah.

Um...that was the whole point? To get away from those Star Trek style utopian settings in a big way. One reason I absolutely hated the introduction of the Tau.

I never said that the alternatives should be like Trek. And I didn't say that you need to get away from having the empire. I just thought it would be more interesting and more human to have alternatives. So the empire are Space catholics and you could have a reformation producing space protestants who might offshoot and form space puritans and maybe you have a little corner of space orthodox and space jews with maybe some space muslims emerging later.

Each could be it's own federation/empire/kingdom whatever. Or each could have multiple kingdom/ empires/whatever.

The 40k universe as it stands is restrictive. Sure you've got many different types of people and world but they're all forced to follow the same awful religious dogma or apparently turn into chaos. The only people who seem to have any sort of freewill are inquisitors who do the torturing and extermination.

Edit: Spaaaaaaaacccccceeee!

They have all of those, or some variations of them (except maybe space jews), Imperium is hardly monolithic, while the administratum and munitorium are mindblowingly huge monolithic bureocracies, and adeptus arbites are fairly monolithic empire wide police force (but they are few, sometimes only one member for a planet, sometimes not even that), planets have extremely wide ranges of religious, political and cultural differences, and ecclesiarchy accepts very differing forms of worships aslong as you A. worship the emperor, B. kill anyone who does not worship the emperor, C. hate chaos, D. kill all mutants/psykers/aliens (unless given exemption, ogryns for mutants, navigators for mutant/psyker hybrids, and sanctioned psykers for psykers, and there are some trade and negotiations between races, but it's very rare, and extremely tightly regulated).

And WH40K is not really that restrictive, anymore than any other fictional universe with inbuilt canon, the Empire of Man is so bloody HUGE, and so parsely mapped, that you can tell any story you want in it (with some restrictions to canon, for example, there are no female space marines, you need to use sisters of battle instead), from almost any time period you want (some planets are stuck in stone age, some in medieval times, just take your pick and run with it), it's nomore restrictive than any other pre existing universe.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Ouch!

IMHO, he does the backstory a serious injustice. Or, rather, he's missed the opportunity to complain about the really specifically crap bits, rather than just the vague premise.

Like how Khorne lends his bloodletters to a psyker? Or that the Inquisition openly dares to accuse an Ultramarine Captain of heresy?

 

[ACman]

snip

snip

snip

snip

But you never really hear about space Germany invading space Russia. Or Space England having a long standing space-naval war with Space-France and Space-Spain. Or Space Constantinople being overrun by Space-Arabs.

The empire is heterogeneous but it's still an empire. All its enemies are external or defined to be horrible horrible perversions.

I guess its how you interpret the fluff but I see the 40k universe as being lots of individual planets that are defined by their industry/geography with the majority of interrelations being carried out by inquisitors and warrior zealots (space marines) all enusuring some sort of theocratic hegemony.

It would be more interesting to have Earth be like Space-Papel States. Let the Inquisition be it's Authority. Let the Space Marines be Warrior-Monks/Knights with chapters spread through humanity's sphere of control who only fight according to their own set of principles (eg Like the Templars in the crusades.)

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I has always bothered me that the 40k universe is essentially a massive fascist theocracy where any sort of departure from the dogma of the state is eliminated with extreme prejudice.

There's no one to side with. Space Marines are battle-crazed fanatics. Chaos is hell. Orks are well... orks. Tyranids are insectoid monsters. Eldar would exterminate mankind without a second thought if they could. Tau are space communists. Imperial Guard are part of the aforementioned fascist theocratic space empire. Cultists are either alien or chaos mad. Necrons are space-undead-robot-gods or some shit.

I always thought the emperor should be more like a space-pope. Then there could be multiple human kingdoms/federations/confederacies/compacts.

But no, any difference will be purged by a bunch of insane fanatical jihadist. Bah.

You ARE aware that the Emperor is Incapacitated and on life support right? He can't really do much.

And has been for the past 10,000 Years since he killed Horus and received a mortal wound himself... Thank you Golden Throne, also Imperial Guard are awesome to play, normal guys fighting for an extremely large facist empire against aliens and what is, as you said, hell. And you know who the real winner is? Tzeentch the Lord of change, whenever something changes state, living to dead, gas to liquid, etc. Tzeentch gains more power, so no matter what everyone is fuelling the fire of Chaos inadvertantly

Nah. The Real winners here are Khorne and Nurgle. Khorne loves him some bloodshed, and that has been an unending thing ever since the Eldar started jerking things around. Heck, the Emperor's crusade is probably the reason why Khorne is standing as the strongest Chaos god right now!

As for Nurgle, well death is part of his domain and you can't make Khorne stronger without helping dear old grampie Nurgle.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Ouch!

IMHO, he does the backstory a serious injustice. Or, rather, he's missed the opportunity to complain about the really specifically crap bits, rather than just the vague premise.

Like how Khorne lends his bloodletters to a psyker? Or that the Inquisition openly dares to accuse an Ultramarine Captain of heresy?

Actually, the Ultramarines are probably one of the chapters more likely to cooperate with Inquisition accusations. As for the open accusation, that's kind of what the Inquisition DOES!

Now, if it was a Space Wolf accepting the accusation, THEN we'd have something to gripe about!

 

[Hristo Tzonkov]

What should be mentioned about WH40k is that it has as much depth as you are willing to put into it.Yeah it's a mindless slaughter that screams steroids and masculinity but it also shows a shade of gray in war that you'll see nowhere else.Nobody is right,nobody is wrong.Some just have it in their genes,others are so engulfed in fanatism that they can't see a bigger picture.Haters really can't give proper reasons why they don't enjoy the universe because they aren't as invested in big story.I suggest just saying "not my cup of tea" and stopping there.

 

[JesterRaiin]

The newer edition - the stupider WH40k is. I don't like to sound like an old fart, but hell, a few editions earlier WH40k setting was still raw, crude and unpolished. It was almost non-existent. We - players - had to invent some things on the fly. I mean : those of us who actually cared about background.

With each new edition WH40k grew bigger, darker and also more comical, stupider and unliveable - and that also affected computer games based on this setting.

"In the grim darkness of 40th milleniu" (to quote) there's no place for normal "things" like civilians. Everything is big, powerful, devastating, each thing bears a name like "Mortuus Gravus" or "Hellspawned semi-conductor" while on the other hand things like economy, politics or diplomacy doesn't exist at all.

WH40k setting sure had it's potential once, but lost it. Now it is only trampoline for "bigger, stronger, faster". Also, more armored and overpowered, like my friend here :

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1710176a_99120107003_DreadKnight01_873x627.jpg

By the way :

Patrick Courtemanche
As a soldier with two tours in Afghanistan, the last one being combat, and a familiarity with the 40k universe I have to disagree with Mr. Croshaw.

What in God's Almighty name have Afghanistan to do with personal opinion about non existent sci-fi world ?

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Actually, the Ultramarines are probably one of the chapters more likely to cooperate with Inquisition accusations. As for the open accusation, that's kind of what the Inquisition DOES!

Now, if it was a Space Wolf accepting the accusation, THEN we'd have something to gripe about!

They mostly fix their own problems internally when it comes to heresy, let the chaplains and librarians do their job first before letting the inquisition drag a captain in for questioning. But I might be mistaken.

However I really hope the sequal will let Titus be a Grey Knight.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I'm a big fan but I can't really fault anyone for not getting into the back story of 40k. Even I admit that it's pretty silly bordering on ridiculous at times.

I'm not going to give you an itemized list of why a lot of the stuff you claim about the setting is incorrect because

A: I assume there's been a lot of that already and B: I'm the guy who kinda gets a kick out of watching fantasy nerds go red in the face when I tell them I haven't read Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time because I've already read the Lord of the Rings and don't need to read it again.

As for the game...yeah it's clearly geared towards folks who are already a fan of the property who will be predisposed to overlooking the fairly simplistic gameplay or slightly unpolished mechanics because they're already interested in playing around in the 40k universe.