Souls aren’t a point in WH40K’s favor when you remember that a dead human is either
Cast into the Warp without a Gellar Field to protect them from even the weakest demons / warp phenomenon.
Eaten by the God Emprah of Mankind.
Grimdark is pretty much the opposite of ethical hedonism, so while it is much much cooler than most utopias you can’t make much of an argument for it in terms of utility. I personally would argue it from aesthetics, but while that’s not all less rational than adding up the utilons it’s not likely to score you points around here either.
Ah, but while that’s certainly claimed by some factions, it’s far from demonstrated. (I recently went on a WH40K jag, so I’m a bit better informed than when I wrote that comment.)
Most hope for souls comes in the form of the Imperial mythos, which claims—among many other, contradictory things because this is 40K—that He shelters the faithful after death (still fairly dark, but actually quite plausible); and, interestingly, that He was originally “the collective reincarnation of all Earth’s Shamans” (this doesn’t tie in that well with anything else, but is perfectly plausible and gets repeated a lot; and reincarnation is a great way to turn unfair settings into fair ones.)
On the other hand, the Eldar seem to know the most about souls—they can manipulate them—and they seem pretty certain that theirs are being eaten by Slaneesh; although this seems to only apply to them, as a result of their whole Fall thing, rather than being the standard fate for all the dead.
Only the devotees of the Dark Gods, as I recall, have been mentioned to believe the only way to escape eternal torment as the playthings of their masters / getting soulnommed is to be chosen by the Gods to serve them as Daemons; but then they would, wouldn’t they?
More seriously, 40K fluff is designed to be flexible, but I wouldn’t usually be desperately trying to twist it into a cunningly disguised utopia if I hadn’t been challenged to do so.
I will, however, note that any utopia ( though not necessarily wierdtopia) worth a dam will have immersive 40k VR games. So your aesthetics may be in luck yet.
Souls aren’t a point in WH40K’s favor when you remember that a dead human is either
Cast into the Warp without a Gellar Field to protect them from even the weakest demons / warp phenomenon.
Eaten by the God Emprah of Mankind.
Grimdark is pretty much the opposite of ethical hedonism, so while it is much much cooler than most utopias you can’t make much of an argument for it in terms of utility. I personally would argue it from aesthetics, but while that’s not all less rational than adding up the utilons it’s not likely to score you points around here either.
Ah, but while that’s certainly claimed by some factions, it’s far from demonstrated. (I recently went on a WH40K jag, so I’m a bit better informed than when I wrote that comment.)
Most hope for souls comes in the form of the Imperial mythos, which claims—among many other, contradictory things because this is 40K—that He shelters the faithful after death (still fairly dark, but actually quite plausible); and, interestingly, that He was originally “the collective reincarnation of all Earth’s Shamans” (this doesn’t tie in that well with anything else, but is perfectly plausible and gets repeated a lot; and reincarnation is a great way to turn unfair settings into fair ones.)
On the other hand, the Eldar seem to know the most about souls—they can manipulate them—and they seem pretty certain that theirs are being eaten by Slaneesh; although this seems to only apply to them, as a result of their whole Fall thing, rather than being the standard fate for all the dead.
Only the devotees of the Dark Gods, as I recall, have been mentioned to believe the only way to escape eternal torment as the playthings of their masters / getting soulnommed is to be chosen by the Gods to serve them as Daemons; but then they would, wouldn’t they?
More seriously, 40K fluff is designed to be flexible, but I wouldn’t usually be desperately trying to twist it into a cunningly disguised utopia if I hadn’t been challenged to do so.
I will, however, note that any utopia ( though not necessarily wierdtopia) worth a dam will have immersive 40k VR games. So your aesthetics may be in luck yet.