Jump to content

Master of Mankind - Review or Spoilers?


Scribe

Recommended Posts

Allow me to pour the cleansing bleach of sanity onto this slightly stinky wound of personal recriminations...

 

Just because, thematically and philosophically, Chaos will win does NOT mean that we know the nature or time of that victory. I've always seen it as a mythologised version of universal entropy - the inescapable and unavoidable heat-death of the universe. Order slides to chaos (small c) and tightly focused pockets of energy and matter become diffuse and spread across apparently infinite distances.

 

I like the Star Wars analogy given above, actually. Who "wins" Star Wars'? I mean, even in the films it's difficult to say...

 

Ep1 - The 'good guys' (kinda, although they are contributing to a greater victory later for the 'bad guys'!)

Ep2 - Again, kind of like the good guys... maybe... except we can all see what's coming...

Ep3 - Bad guys, obviously. Be careful who you vote for.

R1 -

Good guys sort of win, except we all always knew that it was a hard-fought thing with MASSIVE sacrifices.

Ep4 - Good guys, for real, finally. Except now we know that the good guys have loads of assassins, saboteurs, murderers, right-wing fundamentalist nutjobs too. Are they still 'good'?

Ep5 - Oh, bad luck. Bad guys win again. (Poor old Luke...)

Ep6 - BOOM! Another big win for the 'good guys'. Looks like a new age of peace and happiness.

Ep7 - Oh, crap. What fools we've been. Nothing changes, good guys turn bad, the endless cycle of war continues...

 

The idea of point-of-view being important to the concepts of good and evil are fundamental, of course. Babylon 5 had a great storyline in the Shadow War, being that the vorlons (who were apparently benevolent and shepherding the younger races through the darkness) were actually just prideful, spiteful gits who wanted to beat their ancient rivals one more time. The 'shadows' on the other hand were not as EVIIIIIIL as they'd been made out to be, but wanted to encourage natural selection and evolution. It was order vs chaos, not good vs evil at all.

 

In 40k, the Emperor wanted humanity to avoid destruction, which was inevitable. If the eldar could fall so spectacularly, after "winning" for so many countless millennia, then it would be crazy to assume that mankind wouldn't as well. Warhammer is a human-centric setting - mankind is the keystone in the galactic drama. Their fate will decide the fate of the galaxy... which WILL eventually fall to Chaos.

 

(Perhaps even BECAUSE the Emperor tried to upset the usual cycle of Chaos?)

 

We can go all the way back to the basics of Ian Watson's fiction, and the Rogue Trader setting, if you like? The material universe, everything resulting from the Big Bang, is just passing and transient - a weird little anomaly. Everything immaterial beyond that (which we know, in part, as "the warp") is the domain of "Chaos", great entities that want to hasten the materium's ending, and a return to formlessness. The Emperor wanted humanity to survive that transition. That was all.

Just because we know the inevitable ending of the universe, does not mean we shouldn't enjoy the setting. Every victory and defeat is completely insignificant, and subjective, and yet because of the nature of mankind we love to fixate on them like they are the end of the story.

 

Plus, as has also been pointed out, we don't know WHEN the ending will come. Almost certainly not with the Thirteenth Black Crusade... not by a long way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Allow me to pour the cleansing bleach of sanity onto this slightly stinky wound of personal recriminations...

Just because, thematically and philosophically, Chaos will win does NOT mean that we know the nature or time of that victory. I've always seen it as a mythologised version of universal entropy - the inescapable and unavoidable heat-death of the universe. Order slides to chaos (small c) and tightly focused pockets of energy and matter become diffuse and spread across apparently infinite distances.

I like the Star Wars analogy given above, actually. Who "wins" Star Wars'? I mean, even in the films it's difficult to say...

Ep1 - The 'good guys' (kinda, although they are contributing to a greater victory later for the 'bad guys'!)

Ep2 - Again, kind of like the good guys... maybe... except we can all see what's coming...

Ep3 - Bad guys, obviously. Be careful who you vote for.

R1 -

Good guys sort of win, except we all always knew that it was a hard-fought thing with MASSIVE sacrifices.

Ep4 - Good guys, for real, finally. Except now we know that the good guys have loads of assassins, saboteurs, murderers, right-wing fundamentalist nutjobs too. Are they still 'good'?

Ep5 - Oh, bad luck. Bad guys win again. (Poor old Luke...)

Ep6 - BOOM! Another big win for the 'good guys'. Looks like a new age of peace and happiness.

Ep7 - Oh, crap. What fools we've been. Nothing changes, good guys turn bad, the endless cycle of war continues...

The idea of point-of-view being important to the concepts of good and evil are fundamental, of course. Babylon 5 had a great storyline in the Shadow War, being that the vorlons (who were apparently benevolent and shepherding the younger races through the darkness) were actually just prideful, spiteful gits who wanted to beat their ancient rivals one more time. The 'shadows' on the other hand were not as EVIIIIIIL as they'd been made out to be, but wanted to encourage natural selection and evolution. It was order vs chaos, not good vs evil at all.

In 40k, the Emperor wanted humanity to avoid destruction, which was inevitable. If the eldar could fall so spectacularly, after "winning" for so many countless millennia, then it would be crazy to assume that mankind wouldn't as well. Warhammer is a human-centric setting - mankind is the keystone in the galactic drama. Their fate will decide the fate of the galaxy... which WILL eventually fall to Chaos.

(Perhaps even BECAUSE the Emperor tried to upset the usual cycle of Chaos?)

We can go all the way back to the basics of Ian Watson's fiction, and the Rogue Trader setting, if you like? The material universe, everything resulting from the Big Bang, is just passing and transient - a weird little anomaly. Everything immaterial beyond that (which we know, in part, as "the warp") is the domain of "Chaos", great entities that want to hasten the materium's ending, and a return to formlessness. The Emperor wanted humanity to survive that transition. That was all.

Just because we know the inevitable ending of the universe, does not mean we shouldn't enjoy the setting. Every victory and defeat is completely insignificant, and subjective, and yet because of the nature of mankind we love to fixate on them like they are the end of the story.

Plus, as has also been pointed out, we don't know WHEN the ending will come. Almost certainly not with the Thirteenth Black Crusade... not by a long way.

THAT WAS BRILLIANT! Ty Laurie - you had me with 'to upset the usual cycle of Chaos?' biggrin.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nevertheless, I haven't seen the movie and I was afraid to get spoilered. ^^

 

Of course I know that a lot of them will potentially die. Do I want to read anything regarding the movie nevertheless? No, sir. ;)

 

So I don't know what he actually wrote over there. ^^

Just for the sake of potential spoilers. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my humble opinion you could probably have the big E resurrected in official canon and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to the setting purely because He can't be everywhere at once.

 

But hey I'm hoping the Astronomicon breaks for good and the golden throne explodes just for good measure.

 

Keep positive I say.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.