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If Evil is intent then Chaos can't be evil, the Gods are just having a laugh, a little game to while away eternity. No harm, no foul.

Andrew1975 wrote: Chaos and maybe the Dark Eldar are the only Truly Evil Factions in the setting. Other factions do evil stuff all the time. It’s a distinction some people struggle with.

Yes and no. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Dark Eldar treat other species with cruelty, sure. Absolutely no dispute there at all.

But…..the sort of but so generous in dimension Sir Mixalot would scarcely believe his peepers?

It’s not that different to how we’ve treated animals in the past. After all, us humans are only sentient by our own definition. And as that definition is expanded to include other species on our world, our treatment of them barely improves.

And so, by their own standard? The Dark Eldar aren’t evil. Everything they do is in the name of survival, and usually done to, by their standards, cattle.

No I don’t therefore endorse or excuse animal abuse of any kind. No I’m not a vegan. Yes there is an inherent hypocrisy there, welcome to 40K.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Yes and no. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Dark Eldar treat other species with cruelty, sure. Absolutely no dispute there at all.

But…..the sort of but so generous in dimension Sir Mixalot would scarcely believe his peepers?

It’s not that different to how we’ve treated animals in the past. After all, us humans are only sentient by our own definition. And as that definition is expanded to include other species on our world, our treatment of them barely improves.

And so, by their own standard? The Dark Eldar aren’t evil. Everything they do is in the name of survival, and usually done to, by their standards, cattle.

No I don’t therefore endorse or excuse animal abuse of any kind. No I’m not a vegan. Yes there is an inherent hypocrisy there, welcome to 40K.

This argument falls apart when you consider that the Dark Eldar are also perfectly fine with backstabbing, murdering, and torturing their own peers. The Dark Eldar are certainly evil even if you excuse their crimes against "lesser" species.

The Dark Eldar are sheer caricature edginess in which each and every Dark Eldar is constantly gloating about how evil, cruel and smart they are until they get back-stabbed and tortured by another Dark Eldar.

The few ones that realize it is all stupid join a Craftworld, Exodite world or a Harlequin troupe.

There's a certain 80's-specific edgyness an nihilism present in the original Rogue Trader and early 40k stuff ('british' in the same way as 2000 A.D., 'No future' punk, anti-Thatcherism etc.) that contains themes of 'nothing really matters, all sides of the coin are bad, you can only choose between different types of evil' that was also present in fantasy and sci-fi writing of the time, and which is very thematically removed from the more 'heroic' presentations of the Black Library era, bolter-porn and video game Space Marines of today. Maybe a lot of the disconnect stems out of that divide.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Yes and no. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Dark Eldar treat other species with cruelty, sure. Absolutely no dispute there at all.

But…..the sort of but so generous in dimension Sir Mixalot would scarcely believe his peepers?

It’s not that different to how we’ve treated animals in the past. After all, us humans are only sentient by our own definition. And as that definition is expanded to include other species on our world, our treatment of them barely improves.

And so, by their own standard? The Dark Eldar aren’t evil. Everything they do is in the name of survival, and usually done to, by their standards, cattle.

No I don’t therefore endorse or excuse animal abuse of any kind. No I’m not a vegan. Yes there is an inherent hypocrisy there, welcome to 40K.

This argument falls apart when you consider that the Dark Eldar are also perfectly fine with backstabbing, murdering, and torturing their own peers. The Dark Eldar are certainly evil even if you excuse their crimes against "lesser" species.

Solely by our standards.

You really don’t need to go that far back in history to find such things being somewhat common.

Evil, once viewed from outside a given society is sadly mutable. I shan’t delve into real world politics here, but will instead bring up……

ORKS!

The Ork society, whilst Bloody Awful by our standards is a happy one. Violence, theft and abuse of position is rife. Yet, to every single green skin it’s completely Normal. Because sure you got all your Teef kicked out today, but you survived, and got a little bit ‘Arder, and so maybe tomorrow you can turn the table and kick all that git’s teef out his gob and wind up on the upper hand.

To us, that’s a truly horrific system. But to an entire species? It’s just……normal.

If anything, Ork society is the only society where the vast bulk of the population is actually genuinely happy with the situation.

 Gert wrote:

Again to reiterate the Imperium practices genocide as a day-to-day task. We're not even talking Orks or Tyranids but legitimately peaceful species or those who are fine co-existing such as the T'au, Interex, or Diasporex.

So you're agreeing that genocide is acceptable, just quibbling with who makes the list.

By the way, those peaceful peoples are totally in the wrong setting. I'm reliably informed that in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

Maybe they could move to Star Trek's setting.

Angronsrosycheeks wrote:
If Evil is intent then Chaos can't be evil, the Gods are just having a laugh, a little game to while away eternity. No harm, no foul.

No, Orks are in it for the LOL's, there is no doubt on that. Chaos is pure Malicious Machination. Literal Demons from hell. Their followers are out to gain favor by general doing evil stuff. Their intent is pure evil. Just because they call it the grand game, doesn't make it so.

Dark Elves are really really no good bad eggs and their intentions are Evil, they treat each other as badly as they treat other species, so yes they look at humas as cattle, but really each Dark Eldar looks at everything that isn't him/her as cattle. If they only stole souls to extend their life.....then maybe not evil, thats just survival, but the needless inhumane torture makes them evil.

Their intent is pure evil

They are literally just manifestation of emotions of the mortal species. If they are evil, then so are mortals in 40k (and they most certainly are. Humans in 40k are basically skaven). Khorne doesn't choose to collect skulls and fight forever, no more than the ocean chooses to erode the shoreline.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Yeah, just like the "gray area" with the poor misunderstood Nazis who really did need all that new territory to survive. Sure, they genocided millions and planned to genocide millions more but it's not like they had fun doing it!

Seriously, the Imperium is evil. Its fundamental concept is to ask the question "how many atrocities can humanity commit before it is less evil for us to simply go extinct". The worst horrors of the real world are repeated countless times per day across the entire Imperium. Trillions are enslaved in the most brutal conditions, trillions more are slaughtered for the slightest of heresies. If you think there is anything even remotely morally defensible about the Imperium you are either badly missing the point of the setting or are getting deep into IRL sociopath territory.

I like how half of the people saying 'Imperium is evil' completely misses the point of the setting and can't seriously debate morality

40K is in its essence the deconstruction of evil. Burning 'witches' in real life? Undoubtedly evil, no two words about it. Burning witches in 40K, where absent of organization that can deal with them, like Black Fleets, it's a choice between killing a psyker and dooming whole planet with its population to literal invasion of Hell and everyone being horribly tortured forever? Suddenly a much less clear proposition. Hating aliens in real life? You can argue it's evil. Shooting aliens on sight in a setting where with 99% certainty said alien is an ork, tyranid, DE, slaught, or something other horribly tainted by chaos or really evil in some other way? Again, much less clear proposition and even states Imperium bashers say are 'good' like Interex or Tau agree they should be exterminated, go figure.

Does this mean Imperium doesn't have evil bits? Of course not, all that obscurantism, religious zealotry, fanaticism, oppression etc can be called evil, sure - but funnily enough, none of that was supposed to be in the original design, and most of it was purely a reaction to the setting that crept in along the way (and then there is hamfisted grimdumb which is a whole separate topic on top of that). But it's like calling the real nazi victims 'nazis' just because they adopted increasignly harsh measures of fighting back merely to survive, a really dumb proposition if anyone thinks about it.

Picture abused dog that was beaten for years and now attacks humans on sight without trying to determine if some are good - only an absolute clown would claim said dog is evil. But that's the level of discourse almost virtually every time in 'ImPeRiUm BaD', when only the bits that could be easily defended or excused are used as an argument of the state sucking, while the extraneous, really evil bits that can be bashed are virtually never mentioned (often, funnily enough, because people making this argument identify with these evil bits in real life and don't see them as a problem, which leaves only the excusable stuff above as an avenue of attack).

And then inevitably the Emperor gets the blame for everything, which is hilarious in the case of Imperial Church when he did everything in his power to not let that happen and instead wanted enlightened, empowered population, with even some bashers recognizing this but attacking him anyway, because atheism bad. Or something. Go figure.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yes and no. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Dark Eldar treat other species with cruelty, sure. Absolutely no dispute there at all.

But…..the sort of but so generous in dimension Sir Mixalot would scarcely believe his peepers?

It’s not that different to how we’ve treated animals in the past. After all, us humans are only sentient by our own definition. And as that definition is expanded to include other species on our world, our treatment of them barely improves.

And so, by their own standard? The Dark Eldar aren’t evil. Everything they do is in the name of survival, and usually done to, by their standards, cattle.

No I don’t therefore endorse or excuse animal abuse of any kind. No I’m not a vegan. Yes there is an inherent hypocrisy there, welcome to 40K.

Really now?

First, animals are not sentient. This tiny difference alone demolishes it right there. But let's keep going. Second, we only treated animals that way for survival and once we got more options, the treatment of them vastly improved (vile capitalist for profit practices notwithstanding) even as it continued by inertia, but it's exactly why some people argue our current treatment of animals, improvements and all, is evil now - because we have options and alternatives our ancestors didn't have so we should be doing better.

Dark eldar had options and alternatives from the start, see the other eldar strains with multiple solutions (or use science to develop mindless meat puppets that can still be tortured without any higher brain functions to make them more ethical or something). They choose to use none of them and instead picked the most vile, depraved, and evil option on table. Third, they treat the other eldar (and themselves, too, TBH) with the exact same deranged evil - it's postulating eating steak from time to time is equal to constant cannibalism.

Fourth, it has nothing to do with survival. It's like postulating killing a wind animal when you're hungry is the same as modern trophy hunting donkey-caves who shoot dozens of animals from a machine gun mounted on a helicopter just for cheap thrill, then eat the meat till they are obese with gluttonous abandon, all while leaving 90% of corpses to rot, murdered pointlessly just to be discarded, for kicks. It has nothing to do with survival, or challenge, or nothing, it's just pure sadism coming from scumbags deliberately making the universe worse just because they can.

Etc, etc, no amount of moral relativism ever will make DE, orks (no, doing chaotic evil behavior for lulz doesn't make it any less evil), chaos, arguably tyranids too, etc, etc, evil bottom of the setting in any way 'good' or even 'grey'. They are not victims. They are the oppressors who never tried anything better, and were evil from the get go. You can argue the morality of Imperium, Craftworlders, or Necrons despite everything they have done, but the above crossed the line so fast and hard there is really no point in doing so

Burning witches in 40K, where absent of organization that can deal with them, like Black Fleets, it's a choice between killing a psyker and dooming whole planet with its population to literal invasion of Hell and everyone being horribly tortured forever? Suddenly a much less clear proposition.

Every other race in the game that is psychic found a way to not do that and not have constant demon incursions. Everything "evil" that imperium does basically stems from the fact that Imperium started life as a totalitarian regime and so every problem it has is solved with force, to the point where even completely harmless alien species are killed off just in case. The Imperium isn't some innocent victim being attacked on all sides, Imperium started as one incredibly incompetent fathers' attempt to forcibly unite humanity and purge every other species, neutral or hostile, from the galaxy. Great Crusade was a war of conquest and extermination to begin with, and Emperor's "vision" was so gak that the second he and his "sons" disappear, the whole thing devolves into a mess that ultimately has to fail because the Imperium is the direct anthithesis of what made humanity successful in the earlier eras. The Imperium is everything that is wrong with humanity given political form, but the stories GW tells expect us to treat it like it isn't.

No one in this thread suggested to make the Imperium less cartoonishly evil I don't think, the whole point of it is to be a nightmare dystopia that makes some people think hell-demon worship is a better option, just stop writing the stories like they're the good guys we're supposed to cheer and gloss over the absurdity of Imperium by saying "well they're fighting for the good cause", cause they're not really. Apparently humans in 40k don't really rebel against their opressive government unless they're acted upon by external forces like aliens or chaos.

And yes, this is all basically just pointless because GW absolutely will not do that, Marines and IG as Defenders of Good sell far too well to ever go back to the more dystopian vibe.

Angronsrosycheeks wrote:
Every other race in the game that is psychic found a way to not do that and not have constant demon incursions.

Have you heard of the Eldar? I think they had a pretty serious fail in that regard. Epic. God-level, so to speak.

Anyhow, the whole point of the setting is that everyone is a bad guy and you just get to pick what kind of bad guy you think is cool. Joyful slaughter combined with VROOM and DAKKA? Orks are for you.

Meticulous sadism and a witch fetish? Dark Eldar are waiting.

And so on.

If we want to look at history, we know that violent uprisings - even ones for what we consider good and justifiable reasons - have a tendency to get taken over by bad elements. Now add in the potential takeover of them by actual demons and cultists who want to serve everyone upon the planet as a buffet.

Is it even possible to overreact?

I for one enjoy the completely over-the-top mentality, and if people aren't into that, check the label again, because it very clearly says "there is only war."

Go play Starfleet Battles if you want a morality play.

Angronsrosycheeks wrote:

Burning witches in 40K, where absent of organization that can deal with them, like Black Fleets, it's a choice between killing a psyker and dooming whole planet with its population to literal invasion of Hell and everyone being horribly tortured forever? Suddenly a much less clear proposition.

Every other race in the game that is psychic found a way to not do that and not have constant demon incursions. .

Which psychic race has found a way to deal with Chaos? Orks, Nids, Necrons are basically immune to Chaos, they didn't find some way to beat it. The Interex were not immune to it, they had such little understanding of it they thought the Empire was chaos and the left deadly choas artifacts just lying around unguarded DANGER! They were not immune, they lacked any real experience with it for some unknown reason. They really only knew about "Kaos" from being told about it by Eldar, Its possible they had not developed enough psychicly to attract its attention.

Again any rebellious movement that gains any momentum even here on earth gets subverted from the original idea in one way or another. Its really not that hard to believe that Chaos or Genesteeler cults would be chomping at the bit to pile on any rebellion that they themselves didn't start.....however there are still examples where as far as we know there were pure uprisings for one reason or another.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Angronsrosycheeks wrote:

Their intent is pure evil

They are literally just manifestation of emotions of the mortal species. If they are evil, then so are mortals in 40k (and they most certainly are. Humans in 40k are basically skaven). Khorne doesn't choose to collect skulls and fight forever, no more than the ocean chooses to erode the shoreline.

Being a manifestation of emotions does not mean they have no agency, in fact they have quite a bit of agency and use it to maliciously and with intent do evil. They actively encourage their followers to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible.

The Empire for all its badness doesn't maliciously and intentionally inflict the maximum amount of pain and suffering that it can just for the LOLs.

Off topic but does anyone else find it weird Andrew keeps calling the Imperium the "Empire"? Makes me feel I'm in Star War debate.

There have been more people doing that of late. Especially on Youtube. IDK what it is. Must be the kids these days...

 Irbis wrote:

First, animals are not sentient.

Errr, yes they are? Just google "are animals sentient".

I'd also imagine a cow would find us pretty evil if they knew what we're doing to their species world-wide (mostly in the name of capitalism, like you mention). Can you inagine having your entire species farmed for meat?

Good and evil are relative and depend on your definition. I don't think any of the factions think of themselves as evil (dark eldar and chaos possibly do, as they're essentially evil twin factions?). The imperium didn't think they were evil as they exterminated the interex.

Tsagualsa wrote:
There's a certain 80's-specific edgyness an nihilism present in the original Rogue Trader and early 40k stuff ('british' in the same way as 2000 A.D., 'No future' punk, anti-Thatcherism etc.) that contains themes of 'nothing really matters, all sides of the coin are bad, you can only choose between different types of evil' that was also present in fantasy and sci-fi writing of the time, and which is very thematically removed from the more 'heroic' presentations of the Black Library era, bolter-porn and video game Space Marines of today. Maybe a lot of the disconnect stems out of that divide.

Yep. I despise what 40K lore has become. Like this thread demonstrates, to many people it now reads as apologia and glorification of genocidal totalitarianism.

-Guardsman- wrote:
Emperor knows that the citizens of the Imperium have no lack of legitimate reasons to revolt—massive wealth inequality, ruthless resource extraction, the Ministorum's religious extremism, conscription for wars many lightyears away, the general apathy and incompetence of the authorities, etc. Yet in the fluff, whenever there is an uprising trying to overthrow a planetary governor, no matter how justified, it always turns out to have the taint of Chaos, genestealer cults, or something similar.

Next thing you know, the oppressed citizens are now blood-thirsty monsters who can be butchered without guilt so that the status quo may be restored.

I think it would be plausible for a planetary governor's propagandists to deceptively paint a revolution as being Chaos-influenced, in order to obtain military support from off-planet under false pretenses to help the governor deal with the fallout of his own failed policies. It would certainly fit GW's political satire about tyranny, instead of coming across almost as an endorsement of the Imperium's tyranny.

.

I liked that the two later Seige of Terra books (by Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Dan Abnett) touched on this a little bit when they were telling the story through the eyes of Abaddon. That there was a legitimate reason for them to rebel, such as the grievances you have mentioned, but the rebellion itself has been supplanted by Chaos' efforts.

Adrian Tchaikovsky's book Day of Ascension is another good one, as it does pick up on the grievances and horrible living conditions of a hive world. Yes it is about Genestealer Cults, but there is a lot of commentary about social conditions too, even while there are hints at where it might lead.. (In fact, if you haven't read that book, stop whatever you are doing now and go out and get it! It's an absolutely wonderful bit of writing, and a very fresh take on the 40k universe).

shortymcnostrill wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

First, animals are not sentient.

Errr, yes they are? Just google "are animals sentient".

I think in this context the point is that they have no free will. They operate based on instinct.

I'd also imagine a cow would find us pretty evil if they knew what we're doing to their species world-wide (mostly in the name of capitalism, like you mention). Can you inagine having your entire species farmed for meat?

For one thing, you have no idea what cows think or how they think. You're just assuming they think like you and would feel things and concepts that you feel. But you don't have a udder, aren't a ruminant, don't have hooves, etc. So not only don't you know, you can't know.

I'm not going to get into the ethics of farming because that's against forum rules.

Good and evil are relative and depend on your definition. I don't think any of the factions think of themselves as evil (dark eldar and chaos possibly do, as they're essentially evil twin factions?). The imperium didn't think they were evil as they exterminated the interex.

It's a grim and dark setting. Sez so right in the name, and there is only war. Hard to miss.

I'm assuming that peaceful peoples are thrown into the fluff as part of dark comedic joke ala Monty Python or Douglas Adams.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

shortymcnostrill wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

First, animals are not sentient.

Errr, yes they are? Just google "are animals sentient".

I think in this context the point is that they have no free will. They operate based on instinct.

I'd also imagine a cow would find us pretty evil if they knew what we're doing to their species world-wide (mostly in the name of capitalism, like you mention). Can you inagine having your entire species farmed for meat?

For one thing, you have no idea what cows think or how they think. You're just assuming they think like you and would feel things and concepts that you feel. But you don't have a udder, aren't a ruminant, don't have hooves, etc. So not only don't you know, you can't know.

I'm not going to get into the ethics of farming because that's against forum rules.

Good and evil are relative and depend on your definition. I don't think any of the factions think of themselves as evil (dark eldar and chaos possibly do, as they're essentially evil twin factions?). The imperium didn't think they were evil as they exterminated the interex.

It's a grim and dark setting. Sez so right in the name, and there is only war. Hard to miss.

I'm assuming that peaceful peoples are thrown into the fluff as part of dark comedic joke ala Monty Python or Douglas Adams.

The "what would a cow think about this" was meant as a comment on good/evil being in the eye of the beholder, not as a statement on a cow's cognitive abilities. Also it's roooode to just assoooome my species

I was responding to Irbis' assigning of good and evil labels to some factions where that is debatable, depending on whose side you're on (eg. orks, nids, imperials). My "actually yes animals are sentient" comment was in response to Irbis using that exact word. Free will is a different can of worms entirely.

mithril2098 wrote:
It is also worth noting that rebellions without those elements often get co-opted by Xenos or Chaos agents. Look at Vraks. it started as a loyalist effort by a Cardinal of the Ecclesiarchy, who wanted to launch a crusade, an effort which the Ecclesiarchy and the Administratum wasn't authorizing. so in his religious zeal, he started organizing one in secret, using the Administratum armory world Vraks as the rallying point for a 'peoples crusade' of religious pilgrims in arms.

I'm a bit late to the party, but wanted to add:


While Vraks was outwardly 'instigated' by the cardinal in question it was internally instigated by his assistant. I think his name was Mamon? He was a secret devotee of Nurgal who had cardinal's ear and had been lightly pushing him towards rebelliousness for years, and the entire reason the cardinal was on Vraks was because Mamon had pushed him there to start the rebellion and such. Vraks is also an example of many of the "non chaos" rebel forces were marked with chaos symbols and such believing those were the marks of the emperor. So while Vraks may not have started with CSM, Chaos was the very heart of the rebellion's source from the words go.

I bring this up because, if Vraks is a qualifier for "not originally a chaos rebellion", than anything which doesn't START with CSM and Chaos cults also qualifies as not "initially" chaos. Because while the CSM and Demons weren't there immediately there were chaos-sigils, mutants, and the influence of chaos at the highest reaches from the very start.

I remember in the Last Chancers novel that the problem was the higher ups in one hive city rebelled, and said to the pleebs that everyone ELSE is a heretic! This pretty much encased the main problem with the Imperium: you indoctrinate your populace to blind obedience to those over you.. but if those "betters" get corrupted/ rebel?

Well, see- there was this guy called Horus...

Of course, in the end the nobles of the hive were infected by a Genestealer, so the Inquisition was justified in bombing the living daylights out of them, but they still touched on the notion that most Imperium soldiers will follow orders, even into unintentionally rebelling.

Are the Night Lords Chaos?

The core concept of the Imperium is ignorance of the masses and never doubting the will of the Emperor. Once the doubt starts to foster (i.e. why are our lives just endless living nightmares under the ceramite boot of the Imperium?) Then other creeping things can wriggle their way in. And before you know it your whole system is up in flames and there's all these aliens and traitors running amok.

In direct answer to the OP, it is not necessarily Chaos or Xenos influenced. However, it's very easy for these factions to stir up discontent. You could argue that it's very helpful for Imperial authorities to say that behind every rebellion is the heretic and the alien because at least that gives a simple target and allows for the system of oppression to continue.

If the Imperium wasn't that evil Chaos would have a much harder time. Chaos is as strong because the Imperium is the way it is, not despite the Imperium being the way it is.

Interpreting it otherwize would actually mean 40K is promoting fascism.

In a desperate situation you take any help you can get. During 2nd World War communists accepted help from capitalist states, despite their ideology at that time saying capitalism and fascism are two sides of the same coin.
That Nurgle guy might be a bit smelly and he's probably not here for something nice, but he brought some cool stubbers we can use against the governor.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
If the Imperium wasn't that evil Chaos would have a much harder time. Chaos is as strong because the Imperium is the way it is, not despite the Imperium being the way it is.

What would this "Chaos-proof" Imperium look like? Have we not seen democracies regularly succumb to subversion and manipulation?

Representative government is extremely fragile while monarchies and empires can endure for centuries.

Moreover, it is a grim and dark setting. There is only war.

So the government you get is the USSR in 1942. Forever.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
What would this "Chaos-proof" Imperium look like?

Non-existent. By forcibly conquering the galaxy and uniting it under his rule, the Emperor planted the seeds for his own downfall.
As the Princess once said:
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
If the Imperium wasn't that evil Chaos would have a much harder time. Chaos is as strong because the Imperium is the way it is, not despite the Imperium being the way it is.

What would this "Chaos-proof" Imperium look like? Have we not seen democracies regularly succumb to subversion and manipulation?

Representative government is extremely fragile while monarchies and empires can endure for centuries.

Moreover, it is a grim and dark setting. There is only war.

So the government you get is the USSR in 1942. Forever.

I don't think the average factory worker in a hive or peasant serf on an agri-world or feudal world cares overly much about representative government or even what form of government, not compared to caring about their material quality of life. When you are at the brink of starvation or being overworked to death, the value and temptation of a little material relief from that is great. That is why demagogues and cults thrive in the Imperium. When the state religion becomes intolerable, cults offering a more personalized or messianic vision beckon. A demagogue delivering or even promising an improvement in living standards would win followers among the oppressed underclasses, such as the very poor of the Underhive or the mutant workers that work in de facto slavery. Why do you think cults (Genestealer or otherwise) often use the front of being a charity organization? That's because it wins public support, recruits, and helps shield them from in-depth investigation.

An example I cite would be the short story Broken Sword by Guy Haley. Basically it tells of how Imperials that surrender to the Tau are taken to another world and settled. The Tau provided clean food, water, decent living quarters, and medical care. The Imperials thought they had gone to paradise and fairly rapidly abandoned their loyalty to the Imperium. They did not have repesentative government and were clearly under Tau supervision, but they didn't care. After some of them became gue'vesa and died in battle against the Imperium, their surviving spouses were even given the equivalent of widow pensions. The Tau didn't experience full scale daemonic invasions with these human populations, as evidenced by how their later 4th Sphere Expansion was surprised by daemons. The Tau are an oligarchy with a caste system, but it still seems to have worked for these gue'vesa.

Although I wouldn't say it's a guarantee (the Dark Age of Technology fell apart partly as a result of psychic powers and warp shenanigans), providing a decent material standard of life seems to reduce the threat of Chaos. There is less incentive to conspire and revolt against the system if one's needs are being provided for.

The Imperium's practices of squeezing the planets under its rule of material resources breeds resentment and causes privation. Its lies and propaganda cause disillusionment among those inquisitive that finally see through or delve deeper and discover secrets. The inequality and hypocrisy of its ruling classes, who have lavish luxuries compared to the toiling workers, breeds decadence in the rulers and further resentment in the working classes. The Imperium would need to improve on all these fronts. However its other competing need is to sustain its war machine against the various external enemies attacking it, as well as launching its own crusades of expansion. The excuse of sustaining the war effort becomes an easy go to excuse to not attempt meaningful reform to address these societal problems.

The story of the returned Guilliman illustrates the erosion of any high minded ideals that Guilliman might have retained against the needs of the war effort. We see him repeatedly defer any confrontation with or reform of the Ecclesiarchy, as he concludes that faith is a useful tool against daemons and the warp. He shelves any attempts to rationalize the dating system for later, when he has time (i.e. never). His time on Terra is spent solely on getting the resources for his Indomitus Crusade, and little time is spent on resolving the bureaucratic nightmare of Terra beyond the absolute minimum to get Indomitus off the ground. Guilliman basically enacts the decline of the Imperium as ideals are repeatedly given up in the name of pragmatism and expedience.

One alternative from the Minka Lesk novels: Goge Vandire cults/rogue Frateris Militia. Nothing's quite like the Imperium's own fanaticism biting the hand that feeds.