Warhammer 40,000

I can only think of one faction that is directly nourished by atrocity (the Dark Eldar, namely, since they need to torture sapients to the very extreme in order to sustain themselves). The four major factions of Chaos aren't so much nourished by atrocity themselves than their gods being the ones who are nourished by specific expressions of emotion that doesn't necessarily have to be atrocious (though it certainly helps if it was).

edited 3rd Oct '14 4:38:34 PM by MarqFJA

Remember that what the Tyranid Hive Mind does as standard policy meets most reasonable definitions of "atrocity" and it extracts nourishment from committing those deeds, and the Orks are strengthened by the very fact of being at war, which fits a colloquial definition of "nourishment", at least, and often features atrocities.

Also, remember that daemons - as envoys of the Chaos gods - tend to be summoned through fairly grisly sacrificial rituals that easily qualify as atrocities.

(As it turns out it was about the Dark Eldar, but I stand by the claim that depending on how strictly one defines the terms it could very easily mean five different factions!)

edited 3rd Oct '14 4:47:43 PM by CountDorku

yeah but atrocity in warhammer is always link to the dark eldar, tyrands wants to eat, and the chaos marines doing for the lulz

but for the dark eldar atrocity is the central pillar of their existence

I assume this is a linguistic thing, but speaking from its usual definitions, wiping out an entire city to get high off their bodies (see also: Emperor's Children) would be considered an atrocity.

It is, but they do it with the sole aim of getting high from the experience; it doesn't matter to them if it's atrocious or not, so long as it gets them the desired sensory high. The Dark Eldar are different; on the one hand, they must to atrocious things to sustain themselves lest Slaanesh devour their souls, and on the other hand they more than willing to perform atrocities just for their own amusement rather than any useful purpose.

edited 3rd Oct '14 10:58:56 PM by MarqFJA

...I have no clue what I'm arguing any more.

edited 3rd Oct '14 10:59:34 PM by CountDorku

If there is a word that describe chaos is....well chaos, they do thing because they just can

But the Dark eldar pretty much based they entire life feeding from atrocities so they can live more

edited 3rd Oct '14 11:09:43 PM by unknowing

Hang on, let me see if I can get my thoughts straight.

No, because if their sole aim is getting high, there are much easier ways to do that than planetary genocide, even with the Chaos Marine predilection towards excessive violence. If it was their sole objective, I'd expect to see way more stories where they land on a new planet to see if the native plants have any interesting psychoactive compounds and run into Orks or something.

And yet whenever they're offered "Atrocity" vs "Non-Atrocity" they always, always pick the former.

True, but replace "lest Slaanesh devour their souls" with "in order to stay manifested in corporeal reality" and you have a fairly accurate description of most Slaaneshi, Khornate and even Nurglish daemons.

As are Chaos Marines. Remember the time the Night Lords terrorised an entire city into committing suicide without actually benefiting in any way?

Not really, no. Chaos is not named "Chaos" because it acts randomly or arbitrarily, but because its goal is a destruction of the established order of the universe. Most Chaos warbands in fact have very predictable behaviour patterns - the World Eaters will charge at you screaming, the Iron Warriors will shoot artillery at your face, the Night Lords will kill your loved ones and nail their still-screaming corpses to their tanks, and so on. They have objectives which are carried out according to doctrine that is usually fairly consistent within each Legion.

And the ultimate goal of many Chaos champions in both 40K and WHFB is to kill enough people that the Gods grant them strength and long life, with immortality as the ultimate goal.

But is a goal, the dark eldar dosent really have goals, only to live forever with the sufering of others, only the tyrinds(since they are animals) and Orks(because they are sociopaths) have lower goals.

Let me put it this way: the chaos marines comit atrocities, the dark eldar ARE atrocities given mortal form.

Okay, now I have a question: is this what they've done in the latest codex? Have they really scooped off all of the Dark Eldar's personality? The gloating pride they take in rubbing their superiority into other people's faces, like when they came to Iyanden's defence just to rub in that their Craftworld kin had been forced into deeds they considered abhorrent? The jockeying for position and influence within the razor-edged social hierarchy that is Commorragh? Did this stuff just...not make it in? Have they really been reduced to Torturebot 9000, with no desires beyond putting sharp things into prisoner meat? Because that's really, really boring compared to the Dark Eldar as they appeared previously - motivated as much by sheer unmitigated arrogance as by craven self-preservation.

I find your understanding of Dark Eldar psychology questionable at best. The Dark Eldar are not "atrocity"; they are "arrogance". They are arrogant enough to consider their lives worth more than everyone else's. They are arrogant enough to deliberately rub in their superiority at every opportunity, be it by charging into battle virtually naked or by putting their own lives at risk just for the chance to be smug at Iyanden's expense. Everything they do is founded in that colossal, all-consuming egotism - even their cruelty, because it is that arrogance that causes them to conclude that the suffering of others isn't important compared to their own entertainment.

Unless, as said above, they have been reduced to Torturebot 9000 with no jockeying for position, no arrogance, no self-indulgence, just 10 TORTURE PEOPLE 20 GOTO 10. Which would be a shame.

edited 4th Oct '14 12:23:34 AM by CountDorku

arrogance is the craftworld stick, no the dark eldar one, the craftworld eldar never learn about their past and still think they are more importan that anyone else

the reason they help iyanden was because it was funny for them and it would be very boring if they just die, they need the misery of other to live and they live to spred more misery, its what they do and they don really care for the rest of the galaxy(after all they cut almost all contact in comoragh)

I think that different flavors of Eldar can share some schticks, and I think that a species that treats all other species as cattle and chattel to be abused, tortured, used and killed at will could be described as "arrogant."

indeed, but the dark eldar are diferent, the craftworld eldar are more "is a shame that exist other life that are not us" while the dark eldar are more "we can do whatever the hell we want, deal with it"

edited 4th Oct '14 2:13:04 AM by unknowing

Arrogance is the Eldar shtick, regardless of affiliation, and the Dark Eldar are waaaay more arrogant than the Craftworld Eldar - the Craftworld Eldar are loyal to the Craftworld above themselves, while the top priority of virtually every Dark Eldar is himself. The Craftworld Eldar also generally try and spend the lives of "lesser species" efficiently, working towards a greater goal, while the Dark Eldar will kill for their own personal amusement.

You mean the Craftworld Eldar who noticed the Eldar tendency towards obsession that led to the Fall and restructured their entire society to use it productively? Those Craftworld Eldar? Because I can't think of another 40K society that learned as much from their past as the Craftworld Eldar.

"You are of no consequence. If you had not been captured by my servants and did not fall foul of some illness or mishap, you would still die within another twenty of your planet's short years. Why should I not use such a pointless creature for my amusement and sustenance? You are prey-species. Nothing more." - Asdrubael Vect, who you may want to note is a Dark, rather than Craftworld, Eldar

So, basically, you're saying that they helped Iyanden out of something other than an all-consuming thirst for self-preservation.

Thankyou. That was my point: the Dark Eldar have not "pretty much based they entire life feeding from atrocities so they can live more", as you put it earlier. They have taken steps to ensure a plentiful supply of misery to keep them fed, so that they have time to devote to other pursuits they find more amusing, like hurting people just for their own amusement (because they want to rather than have to), fighting to climb the greased rope of barbed wire and razor blades that is the Commorragh social hierarchy, or, if they are high up that hierarchy, exulting in every indulgence they can access due to position.

Iyanden proves - conclusively - that as long as they've got the pain food sorted for a while, they will happily coast along seeking out opportunities to amuse themselves at the expense of other people, even if it does nothing to extend their lives and may even work to shorten them (like fighting to defend a Craftworld just for the chance to gloat at how low they have fallen).

What is that greater goal? themselves, the eldar dosen have any issues in using other races so they can avoid death, not so diferent to the dark eldar who capture people so they can live much longer

Also that quote of Vect proved what im saying, they consider themselves predators, they see something and take it, they pretty much fall into a complete sociopathy, not careing what everyone else say or think

Also, one of the reason the dark eldar atack each other is because a eldar soul is much better than a regular one

Sounds pretty arrogant to me.

To me, it looks like there's more to the Dark Eldar than atrocity (not that any of it is in any way pleasant) and other species survive solely by doing things that we would regard as atrocious. Dorku's confusion over the title made perfect sense. I'm not sure what this debate is accomplishing, actually.

Not really. The Eldar use others as pawns to ensure the survival of their species, certainly, but most individual Eldar warriors are also willing to lay down their own lives to protect the Craftworld. Each Dark Eldar mostly kills to ensure his or her own personal survival, and once they've ensured their survival for a certain time they start killing for their own personal amusement. "Your life is worth expending to ensure my race's survival" is in fact quite a bit less arrogant than "Your life is worth expending to ensure I don't get bored".

I didn't disagree with that part. I disagreed with the claim that the Craftworld Eldar were the only ones defined by arrogance, by pointing out that the Dark Eldar are also incredibly, incredibly arrogant.

Who is more likely to "win" in the end in this setting?

Games Workshop.

You're right... Specially since they refuse to move the plot forward.

Who will win? Not the Tau.

In fact is quite a surpirse they manage to stay that long

The Orks will outlast everyone else by being uber-determined super-propagating warrior-survivors incarnate, even if they don't actually defeat them themselves, and thus they will win.

Hey, it's possible! I mean, if a single Ork-infested world can fight the bulk of the latest Tyranid hive fleet and neither of them seem to have any edge over the other, imagine what all Orks across the galaxy — who explicitly vastly outnumber the already immensely populated Imperium of Man in terms of population/manpower, and thus by proxy outnumber all but perhaps the Tyranid Swarm's still-unshown main mega-fleet — can do when united under the banner of one uber-Warboss.

edited 4th Oct '14 3:26:14 PM by MarqFJA

Uh...
Well, general Orkiness aside, I cant see the Tyranids not winning.

Also Necrons.

this necrons are to fraction to acomplish something greater, i cant imagine them losing(since they already lost) but neither winning