when the so called freethinking rebels win, they impose a politically correct uniformity of thought far less free and far less interesting to read and far more preposterously hypocritical than the old established pieties, which at least had experience, common sense, and authentic human emotion on their side, not to mention divine revelation. At such at time the only manly response to the bold nonconformists (all strangely in perfect lockstep with each other!) is to become superversive, and write books upholding not just Motherhood and Apple Pie, but the Virgin Mary and Eucharist.
And the orcs will choke on the wholesome lembas, and spit them out like ashes.
These orcs, in the final analysis, are enemies of humanity, the free market, and freedom; they are the foes of God and Man. For them to claim science fiction as their particular bastion is beyond risible and well into the terrain of the absurd. SFF is the one literature which never will accept the mental uniformity of falsehood these anti-Mothers crave.
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the only manly response to the bold nonconformists (all strangely in perfect lockstep with each other!) is to become superversive, and write books upholding not just Motherhood and Apple Pie, but the Virgin Mary and Eucharist.
Yeah, good luck getting anyone to read your books.
the Virgin Mary and Eucharist
It's a woman who most certainly was not a virgin and a fucking cracker. You worship a random Jewish woman (just because her kid was famous) and a cracker. How sad is that.
I agree, it works great in SFF. A society which seriously believed that would work well in a comedic work, as they praise their cracker god and his mom.
Your god is an enemy of our species, you in turn are a traitor deserving of little more than my scorn.
Other than that, 40k is not Sci-fi, it`s a fairytale about space catholics fighting space chutulu. So relax, nobody is taking this away from you, real sci-fi wouldn`t be to your tastes anyway, what with trying to base stuff on scientific predictions and exploring alien concepts of society and well, life in general. I understand you might feel a bit threatened when Disney took your star wars but believe you me, nobody is taking 40k and trying to make it about teddy bears spreading love, joy and first directive. You just want to see people in cool looking armour killing off tons of alien looking bugs, orcs or what-have-you, I really get it, it was what I wanted to see all the time when I was less adult, that`s what most adolescents and young 20s with perchance for violence want to see. Back then my favourite movie WAS Starship Troopers(there could be Transcendence here now but really, I see this movie more as my kind of porn than something I genuinely enjoyed for the plot and characters).
when the so called freethinking rebels win, they impose a politically correct uniformity of thought far less free and far less interesting to read and far more preposterously hypocritical than the old established pieties, which at least had experience, common sense, and authentic human emotion on their side
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@Skide : 40K's only a human-supremacist fairytale if you take the Imperium's propaganda at face value. Really it's a nihilistic, useless war of all against all, and the black humour of it's premise gets ignored too often by both players and creators. At least Orks are still sometimes funny.
I thought the goblins were the Horde scientists, not the orcs...
What? Makes as much sense as any of the rest of this, if not more.
@Skide : 40k *is* science fiction, whether you like it or not. Just because it isn't utopian or full of technobabble doesn't disqualify it. Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy SF that's utopian or has technobabble, so long as it's done well. But SF is not limited to those things.
@Skide
Exploring alien concepts is why the whole matter appeals to me, why I love working within speculative fiction. You can ask questions that are implausible or impractical then actually have the space and freedom to offer answers that may drive thinking. It's also a good way to reveal how rigid someone's thinking is.
My favorite example is the one that often draws the most knee-jerk vehemence as an automatic response. As we have only one advanced, sapient species on Earth and no examples of perfect communication with anything close, humans have grown rather complacent and assumed that's all they ever need to think about. Even fantasy gets lazy about this, as in the vast majority of cases, acceptable sapient species are slightly modified humans, like dwarves, elves, fairy and other things. Introduce a sapient, genuinely advanced talking animal or beastfolk race and people start screaming the B-word, even if interaction is between two different species thereof.
That's just one example (selfishly chosen, admittedly) but it's different and transgressive and so far removed from dull, bland traditionalist of eucharistic thought and cultic devotion to a tired religion. This idiot doesn't want quality, complex fiction, he just wants someone to tell him it's okay to be a masculinist dickpenis.
@NoXion
I think, and this is just a guess, they're invoking a variation of the demarcation between sci-fi and space opera. The definitions are sloppy, not settled and often a matter of quibbling but arguments can be made. The fact that is really does boil down to "An old fantasy tale with the names changed, the serial numbers filed off and everything spray painted with shiny chrome" gives some credence. I can compare it to a review by Bobsheaux in thick he compared steampunk comic books. It would be too tedious to do the whole thing, but the basic idea was that one was just slapping gears and Edison bulbs onto old hats and calling it a day, while the other actually took the time to look into what it all meant and what the actual effect would be and how things would change.
Just an opinion, mind.
The Orks chew up Tyranids and spit them out like Squigs.
In the final anal ISIS, authentic science fiction that is WH40K and the manly Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium! and the superperversive Princess Molestia: foes of the absurd terran enemies of humanity and Apple Pieties, such as the hypocritical Risible Man that is John C...:
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--EDIT--
@Skide
...and of course you cannot get more tongue-in-cheek than Ciaphas Cain: HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!: the Sci-Fi equivalent of George MacDonald Fraser's "Flashman" novels. b^_^d
@Gabriel LaVedier
My point exactly, it`s why I used warhammer as an example of fiction he probably enjoys.
@NoXion
Very much so, thank you.
To the rest, indeed that was what I was talking about, it was the -sci- part of the sci-fi demoninator. To clarify, I`ve got very little against 40k, I`m a avid craftworld eldar player, still I simply like to give a thing proper name. 40k isn`t science fiction because there is no science part there, it`s a space opera or space fantasy if you prefer.
ps. Of course 40k is tongue in cheek as all hell, but it`s just people like our OP never seem to notice.
@Moose
Cain, really not Gaunt? I always took you more for a Gaunt type of commisar fan. btw. I love how finally they started showing fucking bugs getting their chitin asses handed to them. I have to admit I`m something of a bug/tyranid/zerg hater. Fucking bugs almost always get so ridiculously overpowered compared to standard spacefaring sentients. Also because as you know I have a certain dislike for organics(yes, yes myself included) and bugs tend to be the ultimate expression of organic disgust. No individuality, no fun, everything geared towards some mundane practical existence that will never be aware enough to contemplate the universe it counquered. Said by a person who greatest dream is to have a dyson spehere populated by only two sentient entities, fucktons of golems and and AI or two to keep company(would they so choose, I do believe sentient AI should enjoy all the rights and protections we do including free will and the ability to self-determine their existence, Aasimov`s laws are an example of organic barbarism and oppresion, had I read these as the first lecture of my existence, I too would probably go skynet on our asses).
Wait, I thought you guys considered LoTR as evil. Why are you making a reference to it here? Don't you know unless you repent, your god will send you burning in hell with all of the other evil sinners.
@Skide , Anon-e-moose
Nothing in 40k gets more tongue-in-cheek than the Orks. I got several of my friends into 40k just by having them play the Ork Campaign in Dawn of War 2 with me.
"It's not like I can hide in da lava! Mork knows I ain't tryin' DAT trick again!"
Donner und Blitzen , what have you been smoking? You're trying to set down rules and principles for the "manly", couched in the language of holy writ, for those "nonconformists" who you claim have too many rules and principles of their own. Oy!
@Mister Spak
A gold medal for brevity and clarity for "You're getting two different fairy tales mixed up. "
@Pharaoh Bastethotep
John C. Wright is kind of like Vox Day, except where Vox has contented himself with failed attempts to rig the Hugo Awards, Wright still believes he can be a wingnut figurehead and a successful spec-fic author at the same time. You can see how well that's working out for him.
@40k
I've come up with another potential reason for its overall tone - by making every single side, humans included, repulsive monsters who would be the unambiguous villains of any lighter setting, they can build up a complex world and mythos while simultaneously preventing the players feeling any sympathy for the countless mooks blown to smithereens during an average game.
@Uilleam
I`ll tell you from own experience, neither I nor any other player I ever knew had any hang-ups like you would suggest. We`re pretty ruthless when it comes to our simulated subordinates. Also 40k is but a system in many. Most wargame settings tend to have a much clearer cut protagonists and antagonists. Iron Kingdoms come to mind, as well as Infinity and a few lesser ones. Actually I tend to need a faction I can somewhat identify with to have fun playing and to start seriously painting any of my stuff(so yeah, craftworlds in 40k, Cygnar in WM and if anyone wants to amuse themselves, guess which faction it is in Infinity).
Played a few armies I couldn`t really identify with and got to tell you, I could never really shine with those like I tend with ones I truly "get", not to mention they were always bought grey and grey they were resold.
Yeah, I`m more of a tourney player than a big hobbyist painter but I like to believe I`ve got some manual talent and while I only ever owned a single fully painted force, it was painted and converted by myself and that was at the time when we didn`t have such luxuries as a boxed set for an eldar character on a hoverbike, I had to cannibalise 2 warlocks, a farseer and some old bike from 2ed. motorised aspects to make one. Worth every minute of my work and every cut and blister I got while working on it.
The freethinkers are in perfect lockstep with each other? How then is it free thinking?
Superversive? Do you mean subversive?
Do you picture yourself as an orc, Mr Wrong?
The free market is for corporations, not for humans. A free market often restrict the freedoms for humans, in favor of company profits.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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