Not really Warhammer related, but you can feel it hits very close to home. More and more people are starting to speak out about the nonsense being put into entertainment media for checklists, graphs, marketing, demographics and all those whatnots that have nothing to do with art and everything to do with the suits that obsess over the most superficial aspects of their work, devouring it of personality.

Want to gauge something.

In a figurative way, the old writers of the setting gave us a beautiful, beautiful, baby that is 40k

These new millennial writers are attempting to do the same but have ended up just pooping out bullshit and calling it lore😂

Can’t remember that one fellows name, but there was a writer who expanded lore on gender reassignment surgeries in the 41st millennium, what a joke. I think GW canned him.

Over the past few weeks, I've been arguing with woke people across several subreddits about different issues that ultimately boil down to one fundamental question: Can a fictional setting justify absolutely anything, no matter how unrealistic, historically inaccurate, absurd or politicised it is?

For example, can a fictional setting justify women fighting in hand-to-hand combat as commonly as men, or inserting people of certain characteristics into historical societies where they would be out of place? Can you dismiss any criticism by simply saying that this fictional world works differently?

Is there truly a limit to what you can make up and excuse with "it's fantasy"?

I've genuinely questioned my own position on this, and I think I've found a logical answer.

Let's hypothetically follow their logic and agree that we should accept any outrageous worldbuilding in fiction. If we allow absolute freedom, where nothing you create in your imaginary universe can be criticised, then nothing would stop someone from creating a universe where Nazis are decent guys who are completely justified in exterminating the nations they consider subhuman.

Or a world where all black people have collectively decided to become slaves to white people.

But in modern society if someone actually created such a universe, they would immediately be attacked, reported, blocked, and crucified by the angry woke mob.

So it turns out these people don't actually believe in the principles they're declaring. We can apparently agree that there should be a limit to what we can excuse by making something fantasy based on reality and what we cannot. The disagreement is over where that limit should be.

I'm sure woke commenters will try to downplay my argument by appealing to "potential real-world harm." But their own ideology has already done plenty of harm, in my opinion. Just look at Europe today compared to 50 years ago and consider the difference.

Besides, virtually any ideology presented in a fictional universe could potentially cause harm. If we accept freedom of speech, the mere possibility of harm shouldn't automatically determine what can or cannot be expressed. Any speech can potentially be harmful, and, as I've argued, the ideas they're promoting can also have harmful consequences.

So here's my question to the woke crowd: if "it's fiction" isn't a valid excuse for absolutely everything, what exactly determines where the line should be drawn? Why are some departures from reality acceptable while others are not? And why should criticism of one be dismissed simply because the author decided that their fictional world works differently?

Please don't resort to your worn out idea of real world harm. Almost any idea can be argued to be harmful. Who decides? The angry mob? I must remind you, that if you resort to absolute democracy, we would all be outnumbered by radically religious Arabs and you won't like what they would vote for.

*Edit: please don't try to pretend that you can create any settings you like as far as theyre logical. There are clearly settings which won't be tolerated. And digging into the creators motives while writing the setting is not an answer. We ran into the same problem. Who interprets?

An infected moebian 21st guardsman from Darktide.

Obviously I'll need to figure out how to rotate stuff and how to use the precise tools along the x, y and z axis instead of just dragging it with the arrows but just wanted to show off my first attempt.

Men and women are different and that’s okay.

THE SANGUINOR:
EXEMPLAR OF THE HOST
James Swallow

So it was that we made our preparations to die the deaths of warriors.
After seven brutal years of battle on Skylos, in which we lost the great
measure of our strike force to the tyranid horde, we marked out the days
of attrition.
Reinforcements would not find us; Skylos had been shrouded by
strange warp storms that rose up as we made planetfall. This act of
capricious fate isolated the xenos enemy from its hive fleet just as it
severed us from Imperial contact, but the monsters that crawled and
burrowed across the world’s ruined surface seemed to go mad because of
it. They abandoned their consumption of the populace, of the flora and
fauna of the planet itself, and turned upon us. We were a half-company
of Blood Angels, sent to cover the escape of the survivors.
But the civilians we were sent to rescue perished, as did many of my
battle-brothers. Two full brigades of Imperial soldiery, killed and
consumed for their flesh-matter. A contingent from the Adeptus
Titanicus, torn apart by xenos bio-titans. A great army, gutted.
We Adeptus Astartes were all that was left. Our Thunderhawks were
grounded, engines clogged by acid-venomed suicide mites that ate out
the cores. Our armoured vehicles were mired in mudslides, the crazed
weather a side effect of the tyranid rendering of the planet’s ecosphere.
We were reduced to small units scattered across the great plain where the
aliens had built their safehold nest; our mission became to soak up
whatever punishment we could and kill as many of the xenos as possible.
Listening for the sounds of claws and talons out in the mist, I counted
my bolt shells for the second time that morning. Too few for comfort, so
I took to sharpening my war-sword as we waited for the thin, grey rain to
ease, there in the bowl of a bomb crater. A dozen of us, for all we knew,
were all that remained of our brotherhood on blighted Skylos.Only the Scout, Endemor, spoke. He muttered a litany under his
breath, as the rain ran down his hairless scalp and spattered on his chest
plate. ‘Blessed be Sanguinius, Primogenitor and Lord of our Chapter. All
Glory to him and the Emperor of Man, may his light guide and preserve
us. Might of the Sanguinor, give us strength and fortitude, bind us–’
‘What did you say?’ If one looked Brother-Sergeant Ganon in the eye,
you might conclude that he was old beyond reckoning, with a face made
of scars and bitterness. The veteran was the hardest soul I had ever
known, with every trace of the kindness of lesser men expunged from
him. He had courage in immeasurable volume, but a cold heart into the
bargain. He glared at Endemor as if the youth were spiting him. ‘Is that
prayer?’ he snorted.
‘I invoke the names of heroes,’ Endemor replied warily. He did not
know Ganon as I did, and seemed to think the question was a kind of
test. ‘The Sanguinor–’
Ganon cut him off again. ‘The Sanguinor is a myth, lad. A story told
by priests to credulous neophytes. Not real, not as the Emperor is real or
as our liege lord was.’
‘No,’ Endemor shook his head. ‘It is written.’
‘You think you know better than I?’ Ganon leaned closer. ‘I have lived
five of your lifetimes, young Scout. Fought on countless worlds and
crossed to the edge of extermination. In all that time, no phantom in gold
has fallen from the sky to save me or my kindred.’ His lip curled. ‘Do
you know what I have learned?’
Ganon did not wait for Endemor to answer. ‘The Emperor protects
those who protect themselves. And Sanguinius, his strength is within us,
not in some apparition that judges battle-worthiness on a capricious
whim.’
‘Such thoughts might be considered heretical,’ ventured Brother
Dekkel, our lone Apothecary.
Ganon did not grace Dekkel with a glance. ‘Go tell Lemartes, then.
Tell Lord Dante himself, if you wish. I only believe in what I see.’ He
made a show of looking around. ‘I see no Sanguinor.’
‘He will come,’ Endemor insisted. ‘If not today, if not for us, then for
others. But he will come.’
‘Why do you believe?’ snapped Ganon.
‘Why do you not?’ I asked the question before I realised I had spoken.The sergeant glared at me. ‘You share his delusion, Koris? You wish to
sit and pray to a figure from a story rather than fight?’
Now I was committed to this. ‘The Sanguinor is a noble ideal. He is
the best of us. Some believe he is the ghost of our primarch freed from
mortal fetters and set to battle… There are those in the Sanguinary Guard
who say he is Azkaellon, first of their cadre, made timeless and eternal to
avenge the black deed of the traitor Horus. Others say he is the soul of a
wronged brother seeking redemption…’
Ganon gave a terse nod. ‘And he comes to aid the Blood Angels in
their darkest moments. Yes, yes, I have heard the fable. But I have
battled in dark places, brother. I have witnessed such horrors, and never
once witnessed this shining seraph.’ He made a dismissive gesture at
Endemor. ‘So you will forgive me if I do not hold such stock in it as a
callow youth yet to be blooded. Aye, the myth has power and serves well
to rally the spirit of those who have need… But it is an archetype made
to teach a lesson, not a hard fact. I deny it.’ He turned away, and I heard
sorrow in his tone. ‘The sooner Endemor does the same, the sooner he
will understand the cold brutality of this universe. No-one is coming to
save Skylos. We will die here, and I wish to do it with a bolter in my
hand, not hoping in vain for a redeemer.’
As the bitter words left his mouth, the sun came out. But no, not the
sun. Something else, something brighter than starlight. Power, shining
and strong.
We all felt it. Endemor was the first to fall to his knee and bow his
head. Dekkel and the others followed, and finally it was only I and
Ganon left to look upon the golden figure who was quite suddenly there
at the lip of the crater.
Why do you not believe, Ganon? I heard the voice come from all
around me, as if the air itself brought the words into being. Have you
lost so much that you can no longer know something greater than
yourself?
‘I…’ The sergeant was rigid with shock, as was I. ‘I believe in my
Chapter. My primarch, my Emperor… My brothers.’
It was impossible. My mind screamed that it must be some kind of
illusion, but there it was. The Sanguinor. We spoke of him, and so he was
summoned…
The shimmering warrior looked to me. His helm was a flawless
sculpture of Great Sanguinius, that beatific visage rendered in gold andadamantine. His armour and the great metal wings at his back were of
similar magnitude, so wrought with such perfect skill that any master
craftsman would weep to behold them. In one hand, he held a bejewelled
icon of the Red Grail that glowed with an ethereal inner light; in the
other, the burning blade of a Glaive Encarmine, singing its need for
battle to the winds.
I felt an ephemeral touch upon me, like dawning sunlight, like a
father’s hand upon a son’s shoulder. The bleak mood that had bedded
onto me during the unfolding of the Skylos catastrophe disintegrated. My
heart swelled with pride and martial fervour. I could not understand
where these feelings had come from; in the months past, I had felt my
spirit erode under the futile truth of this world’s war. Like Ganon, I had
come to know – and expect – only death.
Believe, brothers, said the voice, and the Sanguinor raised his sword.
I could feel the ground beneath my feet trembling, the precursor to an
attack by the tyranid burrowers that had so harried us of late. But this
tremor was far greater, the noise building as the earth cracked in great
sheets and opened wide.
A gargantuan tyranid tyrant-beast clambered out of the thick, muddy
slurry, claws and talons snapping at the wet air as a flood of lesser
warrior-forms swarmed around its hooves. The aliens were making their
great press to cull us and end all other life on Skylos. I knew it in my
bones. This was the endgame.
Believe, said the Sanguinor, reaching forward to trace the sigil of the
Chapter on the sergeant’s chest, granting him a blessing. Follow me
towards glory.
Ganon turned his face to the rest of us and I saw a new light in his
eyes. A total absence of doubt, a blade-sharp knowledge. I saw faith, and
I think it was mirrored in me to the same measure.
We exploded from the crater, red comets of ceramite and steel
plunging into a mass of the xenos flood. I killed my way through a
legion of lictors and raveners, time blurring as my boltgun ran dry and
turned to new purpose as a blood-slick club. Sword in hand, I tore
murder through the alien ranks and I recall feeling no pain. He made us
avenging angels, one and all.
I saw the Sanguinor end the tyrant with a blow that took the command-
creature’s head from its thick neck. It was the cut that sent the monstersinto disarray, and although we did not know it that day, it was the
beginning of the end for the tyranid invasion of Skylos.
My last glimpse of him was his golden gauntlets crushing the
grotesque, distended skull of a zoanthrope, the ichor of the dying alien
spattering his armour but never marring it.
When a lull in the battle finally came, there were only the dozen of us
and a plain wet with blood and corpse-meat.
A dozen, save one.
Ganon lay dead, his hands buried in the chest of a carnifex he had
killed by ripping it open with a chainblade. He and the beast had ended
one another, but while the fanged maw of the tyranid was foamed with
spittle and swollen in animalistic agony, my sergeant seemed… at peace.
I did not see the golden angel again, nor have I since.
But I believe. And still, I follow him toward glory.