Genestealer Cults and the Diverging Political Paradigm of Warhammer 40k - Warhammer Conference 2024

'Who is the Enemy? Genestealer Cults and the Diverging Political Paradigm of Warhammer 40,000' by Aasa Timonen and Dr Ian Sturrock.
This video has been uploaded as part of Warhammer Conference 2024 - the world’s first academic conference dedicated to all things Warhammer. For further details, see our website: www.warhammer-conference.com.

[@deldrinov]

The lack of an eye in the Aquila tells me everything I need to know.

[@spyro1132]

The transformation of genestealer cults from upper class parasitism to lower class insurrection is really interesting, but I don't think the distance-reading word frequency methodology is the best way of exploring what that shift represents, since cleaving closely to the propagandistic words used to *describe* the cults within the source material ignores how ironic and ambiguous those phrases often are in their full context. Adrian Tchaikovsky's Genestealer Cults novel, "Day of Ascension" is a really good example of this since that story is mostly told from the perspective of a genestealer cultist raging against the Imperium's oppressive structures that make the lives of their community a living hell. Tchaikovsky's fiction frequently explores the theme of empathy for alien minds and he makes the cults into the sympathetic protagonists of their own story, which has this horrid dramatic irony overlaid onto it because you, as a reader, know what the tyranids really are and what their "liberation" represents. The effect is very uncomfortable and probes at conflagrationary fantasies of liberation via revolution in a more interesting and ambiguous way than the reactionary metatextual rhetoric of the cults as 'parasites' and whatever initially suggests.

[@wyattbooth6372]

The thing you need to understand is that 40k is satire. The Imperium and by extension their views, are meant to be abhorrent. The opening tag line says they're "the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable". The first edition codex even contains the crass logo, a British punk band, so it's fairly obvious the writers aren't fascists. It's also widely thought that the Ork Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, is named after Margret Thatcher. The Imperium treating xenos and mutants as the enemy other is a direct and intentional reference to both fascist ideology and Margret Thatcher's concept of the enemy within, and the Imperium are bad guys. However 40k is also grimdark science fiction. So while the genestealer cultists do come from an oppressed background, there is also a layer of tragic irony with them becoming very real dangers to mankind. The genestealer purestrains are creations of the tyranid hive mind, designed to weaken the defenses of a planet using a cult so that Tyranids can then eat everyone. There is an element of scifi horror with the fear of loss of humanity: people can become genestealers after being infected by a purestrain or having kids with someone who is infected, and the generation hybrids that are indistinguishable from humans then give birth to new purestrains restarting the cycle. Furthermore genestealers are a commentary on multiple very different things. While they are an other feared by fascists, they are also an example of cults preying on vulnerable people to gain power. Ultimately the Genestealer hybrids are victims.

[@qwertzy321]

The sheer amount of mental gymnastics needed to come to conclusions like these baffles me. Who has more sway over you, slaanesh or tzeentch?

[@Slouworker]

This is why any soft study even remotely related to philosophy stuould be mocked and then disregarded

[@Anarcho_slimer]

I've been kicking around my own ideas on this very subject for a while and then I find out some very smart people have already done a bunch of the work. Brilliant stuff.

[@20x20]

Got any links to the smart people evaluating it?

[@chrisjones6792]

I have been wishing the wargaming community would engage with their hobby as art worth analyzing for a while now, and here you are.

[@fenris225]

Was playing Rogue Trader and ran into the very beginnings of Gene Stealer cult on the ship. One of the themes I think you missed was how they choose to bed down in or distort cultural or traditional areas to warp to their own uses. In the game the bed down in and nest in the ancestral crypts of the rogue trader’s family line. A place of reverence for the rogue trader’s family and the people who earned a place alongside them typically outstanding senechal’s or others that uphold the status quo. A metaphor for progressivism as a parasite or cancer on the bones of tradition?

[@markhynes1230]

The Less Academics are allowed near Warhammer the better, not everything has to be Vivisected and Scrutinised and thereby cheapened by the marxist/post-modernist lens.

[@WarhammerConference]

And yet here you are watching videos about it...

[@Asmogan]

​@@WarhammerConferenceeveryone enjoys a clown show from time to time

[@markhynes1230]

@@Asmogan yo dude! Love the vids

[@Asmogan]

@@markhynes1230 thank ye lad!

[@superReyRey]

Busting out the heavy flamer just for you guys!

[@Slechy_Lesh]

4:50 What a fantastic community!

[@Wolfways]

Wow, you've discovered that humans create stories based on human experiences.

[@FourOf92000]

in which the academic humanities prove that yes, they can make everything worse

[@WarhammerConference]

Do you care to elaborate?

[@RRNZ1995]

@@WarhammerConference overanalyzing "problematic themes" in a tabletop wargame ? thereby continually pushing the narrative that there is "something wrong" with warhammer, and its "political paradigm" needs to diverge.... from what ?

[@HimeDelia]

@@RRNZ1995 Read the abstract. It's has nothing to do with "problematic themes." it is about comparing the portrayal of the GSC to the landscape of the UK's politics between their introduction and now. Is it really a crime to look at a game / setting on a level deeper than KZbin shorts doing plot summaries or reading a small excerpt from a novel?

[@Magot.]

​@@RRNZ1995 Maybe you should start doing some analysis too, it’s a core functionality of that brain of yours, don’t be afraid to use it from time to time !

[@christinagrimwade8702]

@@RRNZ1995 Hi, you must be new to Warhammer. I'd recommend watching the video before you comment on it. :)

[@HimeDelia]

excellent video. Finally love to see someone examine warhammer on a deeper than surface level.

[@chaseherrington]

I heard a lot of claims and “evidence” but no further explanation proving the point made or connecting the dots. I’ll be honest, I think your current world view derail a lot of the argument (see minutes 13 & 14)

[@barnebyoconnell8176]

Fantastic

[@uclearwhale]

Warhammer is a fictional setting designed to sell plastic toys, any attempt to analyze the setting is absolutely the most pointless thing you could do

[@FreerunningGamer]

Yikes

[@barnebyoconnell8176]

Disabling comments will be a net benefit for this channel unfortunately.

[@WarhammerConference]

I mean, I'd like to hope people could behave like adults on the Internet... I'm going to leave them open as long as I can.

[@WarhammerConference]

(wishful thinking I know)

[@boycottwarhammer6016]

What a strange thing to say

[@Fisthammet]

_"If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."_

[@chaseherrington]

@@WarhammerConferencegood for you!

[@Kajiyaification]

man if only someone would present this who had an actual telling voice, at this point you can use an AI and it would sound more pleasant than this soulless reading... no this isnt reading this is is soulless squabbeling. Use some punctuation, add some flair to your voice, do small pauses for effect, highen and lower your pitch when you reach the end of an sentence. Apparently you guys are academics? If so no wonde rthe american school system is failing, if teachers teach like this. Once more, but this time with some sort of passion and emotion

[@WarhammerConference]

I'm sorry but you seem to be under the impression that either of the speakers are American. They aren't. Indeed, one of the speakers is presenting in their second language. I also suggest to you that it's actually quite hard to present research in front of a room of academic peers. Especially when you are both online and presenting remotely from different countries. As my dearly departed nan used to say: 'if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all'.

[@fenris225]

Was playing Rogue Trader and ran into the very beginnings of Gene Stealer cult on the ship. One of the themes I think you missed was how they choose to bed down in or distort cultural or traditional areas to warp to their own uses. In the game the bed down in and nest in the ancestral crypts of the rogue trader’s family line. A place of reverence for the rogue trader’s family and the people who earned a place alongside them typically outstanding senechal’s or others that uphold the status quo. A metaphor for progressivism as a parasite or cancer on the bones of tradition?