40k belongs on worldpolitics, and here’s why: 

nsfw
In this finkpeice I aim to prove that 40k not only belongs on worldpolitics, it belongs here more than it
belongs on almost any other 40k sub. To do this I will show that 40k is political and always has been,
that 40ks politics are more relevant now than ever, and that subs that don’t allow for political
discussion can’t meaningfully parse 40k. I’ll try to be beginner friendly, as worldpolitics has a lot of
people first being introduced to 40k. Also, before I lose your attention with a long-winded effortpost
and a barrage of references 40k deepcut memes: I dig the plants, but there’s a weird puritianical streak
in all the people posting to remove “thots”, and it kinda sucks that weirdly conservitive attitudes about
women is part of what people are first seeing when they see 40k.

I kinda want to get this mentality out that having a single Riptide is "OP" 
For the beginners, 40k is a setting created in the late 80s by Rick Priestley, for Games Workshop. In
many ways 40k is his baby, it’s an idea he had when he came to the company and he eventually found
a way to talk the people in charge into making it happen. (The conventional wisdom at the time was
that Sci-Fi didn’t sell miniatures, take from that what you will.) 40k has a mixed heritage though, for
pragmatic reasons it began as a spinoff of Warhammer Fantasy Battles IN SPAAAAACE!!! and soon
saw the addition of rules to utilise minis from other properties that Games Workshop was making
minis for. The most obvious example of this is the Adeptus Arbites being 40k Judges, but there’s a lot
of this stuff. 40k’s first edition was called Rogue Trader (not to be confused with the pen and paper
RPG by the same name, or the Killteam expansion) and was a wacky time that required a GM. It had
terrible vehicle rules, references to Doctor Who, and no Chaos (that came shortly later).

I’m not going to go through the full history of the game (that’s something for a later effortpost) but
suffice to say that it looked a little different than it does now. Space Marines were just the brutal
enforcers of the Imperium’s will, looking a lot more like an evil version of the Terran Marines from
starcraft in some ways; The Rainbow Warriors were a first founding chapter, and the Ultra-Marines
weren’t, but had a half-eldar member. This was a setting still in open beta that took a little while to be
solidified into the setting we know. However, in this early version some things were already here. The
Imperium was the “most brutal regime imagninable”, and enforced its will with plasteel boots. They
weren’t really “good guys”. Rick Priestley has been on the record numerous times about this, but he
shouldn’t need to be. He created an ur-fascist bureaucratic theocracy using fascist symbology (the
Imperial Eagle) that was explicitly from the first paragraph of the first book published “the most
brutal regeime imaginable”, and tried to impose it’s xenophobic (but less xenophobic than current
40k) will on the galaxy. That part has never gone away.

40k evolved some, the space marines became a weird blend of knight-monk-angels and brutal
enforcers of the Imperiums will. Novels were written. Some were weird, some were alright. If you’re
looking to read some 40k, the Eisenhorn Trilogy is a great place to start. It contextualises elements as
it introduces them, and it’s the only 40k books I’d recommend to anyone who wasn’t interested in
40k. Chaos was added. The Inquisition’s biggest enemy was still itself though, the shadow-war it
fought between it’s shattered factions only fueled by the existence of the theological position outside
the imperium. Ultra-marines lost their hyphen, becoming the Ultramarines. Orks became mushroom
men and people misread a section of lore and convinced everyone that their guns worked by magic.
Abbaddon did a 13th black crusade (the first time), Eldrad died. Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar were
added. Genestealers became a sort of Tyranid. The Horus Heresy was updated from Rick Priestley’s
copy of Paradise Lost with the 40k logo taped to the front and “IN SPAAAACE!!!” added at the end
to a series of articles discussing a mythic past from an in universe perspective that couldn’t
disentangle myth from history. Later they retconned Abbaddon’s first 13th black crusade, added back
dozens of weird bits that had been forgotten from the early lore, started the Horus Heresy book series,
digging into the creation myth of 40k, ignoring the themes of 40k and making the myths all true to
flesh out a prequel setting (30k) and 54 books later (you hacks!) they still haven’t wrapped up, but
they got their 30k into my 40k and I don’t like it. (But more on this later.) They also became more
corporate, put the marketing department in charge of more things, and gave Rick Priesley the boot.

Still it remained at its core a pastiche of satires, that lacked a single coherent thesis, but espoused
many ideas in a sporadic mess. “Fascism Bad”, “Racism Bad”, “Religious traditionalism will lead us
into a quagmire from which we can only regress and lose the hard-won progress of knowledge and
science.”, and “Bureaucracy Bad”. It never really explored these ideas in depth, but it was a wargame
setting first and foremost, an excuse for your toy soldiers to fight their toy soldiers. Suffice to say that
the setting had these themes, even if they weren’t deeply explored.

James Workshop and Context 

(Note that this joke was stolen from Wib and Snipe, not GW)

You might say that the above themes were incidental, or inherited from Dune, 2000AD and the other
settings that poured into the pastiche that was 40k. However, Games Workshop has a history of being
political like this, in their older game, Warhammer Fantasy Battles (the precursor setting to Age of
Sigmar). There’s a lot to be said about this, but the best example is the Battle of Dungal Hill in the
classic McDeath campaign. Een McWrecker and Arka Zargul have clear real world analogues in the
British Coal-mine Union Strikes under Thatcher. This was contemporary politics, and Games
Workshop unapologetically took the side of the Unions, being the filthy leftists they were. “I ho I ho
go slow.” A close second place goes to Mag-gies Death Banner, aka “The Banner of Doom”, which in
place of the traditional symbol of evil has Thatcher’s face. (Note: There’s a popular myth that
Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka’s name was based on Thatcher, this seems not to be the case, but Andy
“Overfiend” Chambers sure didn’t express any love for her when denying it.

Going back further, the very old pictures of the GW staff have included a few punks and at least one
picture I can’t track down anymore of one with a SHARP (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice)
badge prominently displayed. (If anyone can find that old photo, I’d be very grateful.) 40k has always
been adjacent to the alternative scenes in England, at one time having its own music label, signing up
bands such as D-Rok and Bolt Thrower (a band known for their music third, getting into fights with
neonazis second, and being that band that GW signed up that time first) and these alternative scenes
have always eschewed the political centre, veering far right (skinheads, nazi punks (can fuck off), and
neonazi metal) or far left (SHARPS, real punks, bands like Rage Against the Machine and System of
a Down). Suffice to say that GW has a history of being leftist.
 

WAAARGH! Ugh! What is it good for? 

So I’ve (hopefully) established that 40k is political more so than most things, but what does it matter?
How does this politics affect how we discuss 40k? I mean, aside from the bit where politics matters
because it changes lives, etc. Firstly it gives us all important context for why the setting is how it is.
The in-setting reasons can be interesting to discuss, but so are the out-of-setting reasons. But
secondly, it’s because if we, the fans, don’t, who will?

Bring Back Squats! 

In more recent times, GW has largely ignored the political history of their company and their settings,
because that doesn’t make as much money and public companies never let integrity stand in the way
of profits. This has caused them to portray Space Marines and the Imperium as a whole as
unironically heroic, and bring back the Ur-Fascist-but-less-religiously-indoctrinated Ultramensch
“Robert Guileman” from 30k to 40k. This is a problem because they haven’t really retconned the
Space Fascist thing, so they’re just presenting the fascists as unironic good guys in a lot of their
media. No wonder that the alt-right jumped onto 40k - except that wasn’t new either. A lot of people
missed the satirical parts to start with, because it wasn’t really consistently pushed being a wargame,
and frankly making satire that people won’t genuinely support is hard. Since at least the mid-2000s
and quite possibly earlier, Neonazi groups online (such as Stormfront) were actively and deliberately
infiltrating hobby spaces around video games and other geeky subcultures to recruit and spread their
ideology. As an edgy teen I saw this going on and actively participated in raids from 4chan to
Stormfront, getting the parts of the forum dedicated to rpgs and tabletop gaming locked down in flame
wars about balrogs having wings (or not having wings as the case may be). Yes, parts of 4chan used
to actively work against far-right recruitment online, oh how the turns have tabled.

But back on the thrust of the topic at hand, using 40k imagery became popular with far-right groups
such as neonazis and the alt-right (the distinctions between the two are largely academic, but that’s
another issue for another day), and memes of God-Emperor Trump once joking about their love of
Gold on Gold on Gold decor were repurposed as unironic support for Trump by comparing him to the
ultra-xenophobic Ur-Fascist theological autocrat of a crumbling empire falling apart under its own
weight. No wonder that this image was directly ported and played as satire by many. To many, this is
the real world context for 40k, which is a shame, because at its core the setting is directly against this
stuff, but the core has been covered up in marketing and such to allow it in an allegory to how
unconstrained capitalism allows and supports the spread of fascist ideas and ideology that some would
call a bit on the nose.

It doesn’t help that 40k’s themes if looked at shallowly or poorly portrayed can be interpreted
(especially by people making willing interpretations to confirm their existing worldview) as being
pro-fascist. GW making marines unironic good guys (with eagles on their chests, fighting to enforce
the militaristic will of a silent autocrat as their culture of heroes best interprets it) means they’re
making the fascists the good guys. This isn’t deliberate, this is just the result of starting with
something with a message and then ignoring the message because it’s inconvenient for sales. So GW
won’t talk about the fascists infiltrating the hobby, because that will be an awkward conversation that
won’t help sales. If we don’t, nobody will.

If we don’t talk about 40k’s politics, we’re going to let it get hijacked by people who see the franchise
as a vector to recruit and radicalise people. Because there are unironic fascists who hide in the 40k
fanbase and deliberately use it as a vector for their politics - and that’s something that bears keeping in
mind.

60 Multimeltas 
This subversion of 40k’s core identity by political ideas that oppose it is often seen as equivalent to
asserting its core identity in many spaces. Some people just want to grill play with toy-soldiers and
not think about politics, and that’s fine. But nothing is completely devoid of politics and refusing to
take a stand on a political issue is itself taking a stand (that you’ll do nothing and try to ignore it) and
these concepts are baked into 40k in a way where discussing it without touching anything arbitrarily
called political (usually relevant to current politics) is tricky enough without the ideas at the core of
the setting becoming very relevant. Fascism is on the rise. Australia reports the biggest threat is
far-right terrorism. America has its own issues with the far-right. Other nations have their own shit
going on. Suffice to say that the spectre of xenphobic authoritarian governments is a relevant concern
today. If you’re not convinced of that, there’s links above, and beyond that, this is beyond the scope of
what is essentially a longform shitpost crossed with a ranty infotainment dump. Similarly, if you need
to be convinced that “Fascists Bad.” that’s beyond this effortpost - but there’s this cool setting called
Warhammer 40k that has it as one of their core themes in their older work, and I can suggest a few
books to start with.

Bobby G’s Fascism: Or How we all got along after the Ultramensh 
A couple years back 40k lore got the biggest shakeup it has yet, with the biggest changes in a long
time. Roboute Guilliman returned, asked Cawl how we was going with the Space Marine 2.0 project,
Abbaddon rehashed his 13th Black Crusade: Crimson Boogaloo and this time when he rolled it out he
broke Cadia and the galaxy in two - a problem which we’re told is a big deal but largely seems to take
the role that restrictions on Warp Travel did in older lore. The end result of this is we got yet another
marine rollout, this time with all new biggermarines that don’t fit the rest, and Bobby G got a big new
mini to sell. This was marketing being marketing, selling more of the product that sells (ignoring that
it sells because it’s what they sell most of - support will make any faction sell well and GW by their
own admission didn’t do market research the last time they gave a non-marine line a serious amount
of support). But it also affected the lore. One more step towards cleaner, more heroic Space Marines,
and a new protagonist from 30k to 40k. Problem is that their new protagonist is presented as an
unironic hero for pushing a “more reasonable” face for a facist faction. Despite GW’s lore putting a
recent facist-fetishising spin on what is essentially an antifascist work, GW itself has been pretty good
outside of this. It keeps production in the UK, mostly treats its production staff pretty well, and seems
to be starting to address some of their other issues slowly.

But what does this all mean in the end?

Not a lot, frankly. It’s a lot of context for what boils down to a setting for tabletop wargames, but for
people who are interested in discussing the setting in depth, understanding the context helps a lot.
Secondly, given that it was and is still used as a vector for extremist far-right recruitment, it’s worth
being critical of any fan-takes that seem a bit fashy - but that’s true of a lot of properties without a
distinct leftist history. Nazi Punks didn’t need to be invading leftist spaces to be told to Fuck Off, and
similarly, there’s no reason to put up with fashy fuckwits in geeky spaces either - but you didn’t need
me to tell you that. Mainly this is a discussion about how to have a discussion about 40k. That answer
is that we want to talk about it in a context where we can address the politics where relevant and that
also gives us a where to discuss 40k, and the where is r/WorldPolitics. After all, 40k is the politics
between many worlds (over a million) which is many more worlds than American politics (which
isn’t even one whole world, despite what their baseball players will tell you).

Tl;dr: Posting 40k on r/worldpolitics is an admission that 40k is political (and also GW used to be
much more political) and that we shouldn’t shy away from talking about its politics because the
community contains people acting in bad faith to advance some pretty ugly agendas.