Benign Chaos

>>48415085

The warp was calm back then specifically because the gods had not been awoken or born yet. It's in the fucking name. They're called Chaos. You might as well ask why something called Murder isn't peaceful.

>>48415090
You can have a peaceful murder, though. Like a quick killing and painless poison. Or "humane" killing like a spike through the brain whilst sleeping.

The Chaos Gods do have positive attributes to go with the negative in WFB. I can see Chaos being, fluffwise, built around freedom of choice, the decision to do whatever in accordance with the Chaos Gods, instead of being part of a stunted Imperium lead by a Corpse God. It could be pretty cool; I always preferred the idea of Chaos Gods that weren't all terrible.

>>48415335

Yes, blowing up the world and then running around blowing other worlds is clearly something beings who "weren't all terrible" would do, right?

>>48415090
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG7VvMGw6w0&index=23&list=PLyiDf91_bTEgnBN0jAvzNbqzrlMGID5WA#t=11m59

All the chaos gods have good sides. OP is simply asking what a setting were these are the dominate traits would be like.

>>48415417
What are you even talking about? If we're talking about hashing out an AU based on different premises, especially one that throws out several basic assumptions of the setting fairly early in the backstory, then there's no guarantee of anything canon. Reread OP, it's discussing possible Warhams AUs.

That said, yeah, Chaos forces would probably still do a lot of vile stuff. Not just because they're Chaos, but because it's 40k and every faction is utterly vile and does utterly vile things. Moreover, in an AU that revolved around a kinder, gentler Chaos as the changed premise, Chaos would still do a lot of vile things because 'less vile than WH40K Chaos' still leaves a lot of conceptual space.

>>48415085
>chaos as an antitotalitarian rebellion

It already is, OP.

There are many ways to get labeled 'traitor' and few ways to be rid of the label. One needn't sell their soul to the setting's four Satans to be named an enemy of the state. Plenty of people who despise Chaos - even some of The Emperor's exalted Space Marines - are witch-hunted for summary execution because of suspected thoughtcrimes, or just because a datum some drunken, fat-fingered clerk misfiled two hundred years ago is discovered by a trigger-happy zealot.

"Chaos seeks symbiosis with life: the Ensouled and the Neverborn in
natural harmony. Union. Faith. Power ... Immortality and endless
possibility. Sensations beyond mortal comprehension. The ability to
feel maddening delight at any agony. The gift of ecstasy even when you
are destroyed, making even death a great joke, knowing you will
incarnate in another form over and over until the suns themselves go
black. And when the stars die, Chaos still lives on in the cold -
still perfect, still exultant, still pure. This is everything humanity
has ever dreamed of - to be unchallenged in the galaxy, to be
omnipotent above all other life, and to be eternal."
- Ingethel the Neverborn, on Ascension

>>48416057
2/2

Chaos has its propagandists, too.


"The Primordial Truth is in humanity's blood. You all reach for it.
You all know that something awaits after death. The faithful, the
loyal, will be judged kindly and reside in their gods' domains. The
faithless, the unbelievers, will drift through the aether, serving as
prey for the Neverborn. The warp is the end of all spirits. It is the
destination of every soul."
- Ingethel the Neverborn, on Afterlife

The problem with Chaos is that it corrupts people to their ideals and rewards them for it.
So a guy might pledge his soul to Khorne because he is the only survivor of his slaughtered village to gain revenge. Khorne heeds him and grants him the power to do it and the guy does it on his terms - no excessive slaughter and leaving inoccent civilians alive. Then he realizes that he can use his power for good and starts killing other evil folk. But all this time Khorne is whispering into his ear, slowly corrupting his ideals so that he breaks more and more of his rules and rewards him just enough to want more. In the end the guy becomes just another mindless berzerker, killing for the sake of killing and offering skulls to the skull throne.
If Chaos were "the good guys" that's missing. Their followers will still do wrong and evil stuff, but now it would mostly stem from their own corruption and powerlust. Chaos would still be a moral threat, but without their evil corrupting ways less people would fall. And the threat of Chaos is that almost anyone can fall for a variety of reasons, many of them completely inoccent.

>>48416466
>>48415417
>>48415090
>Missing the point

>>48415417

He's talking about Warhammer anon, not Age of Shit.

>>48415085
Then things wouldn't be such absolute shit because one of the greatest threats to the Imperium would no longer exist.

It's a fair question, not a new one by any stretch. You can largely infer the positive versions of the Chaos Gods (the Stable/Safe Gods?) from principles.

>Khorne
God of discipline, fairness and paying your debts. Encourages self-maintainance and preparedness, and responsibility for the consequences of your actions. Essentially a big boy scout.

>Nurgle
God of acceptance, absolute peace and humble sympathy. Encourages people to chill out and be decent about differences'n'shit. A big hippy.

>Slaanesh
God of fun and glory in the heat of the moment. Just a romantic god/ess really, sort of accepting but at the same time encouragings activities and following passions.

>Tzeentch
God of ambition, planning and forethought. Incentivises all things, by virtue of encouraging disciples to find their own motivations and follow them more truely and mindfully. Empirical-rational god.

You can clearly see the common thread throughout all the Stable Gods with their Chaos counterpart, yet you can also see the hard inversion. Boy Scout turns nasty and violent, Acceptance-Hippy turns foetid and sour, Passion Guy/Gal is selfish and cruel, Ambition loses his marbles.

>>48415085
The Warp was never truly calm.

According to the stuff in the Talon of Horus, the Old Ones constructed the Webway because they feared the dangers of the Warp.

Also the Chaos Gods, according to the Harlequins, were hiding in the depths of the Warp and they emerged later to plague the galaxy. So what appeared calm to you guys is the thin surface of the Warp. In the depths of the Warp, the Chaos Gods were raging and Warp horrors were breeding.

>>48416511
I didn't miss the point. Chaos in 40k is dangerous because it corrupts and twists ideals. If it didn't do that then it's just another generic deity. So OP should come up with a way for non-corrupting Chaos still be as dangerous.

>>48416656
Lets not forget that Be'lakor is possibly millions of years old. He has memories of the first Necrontyr necropolis and the first Eldar homeworlds.

There was always Chaos in some form or another. Evil that transcends time. That's why it's called the Primordial Annihilator/Truth.

>>48415085
>40k Lore talks about a time when the Warp was Calm, and the Chaos Gods were peaceful.
No, back when the Warp was calm there were no gods to begin with - just a grey inert sea. The Old Ones fucking with the warp by creating species with close connections to it is what fucked everything up.