They're abominations that feed on the emotions of sapient beings. So if you really hate your enemy? They feed on that. Do you really love your spouse? They feed on that too. The Emperor had a slight misunderstanding of them, thinking they simply fed on faith, which just added to his hatred of religion. The Imperium, post-Heresy, just ditched the atheism because it wasn't as popular as worshipping the Emperor. Plus, it provides 1) a social glue for a *galactic empire, and 2) worshipping the Emperor means that all that emotional energy is directed into him instead of the Chaos Gods, thus weakening them.
* As much as it can be said to have any nice aspect, 40K is one of the few SF works that actually gets the staggering scale of a galactic empire right. Given that it's 40K, it uses that scale to add to the hopelessness of the setting.
If you do want to acquire it, I'd recommend either Eisenhorn (http://www.amazon.com/Eisenhorn-Warhammer-40-000-Omnibus/dp/1844161560) or Gaunt's Ghosts (http://www.amazon.com/Gaunts-Ghosts-Founding-Dan-Abnett/dp/1844163695/ref=pd_sim_b_2) as a starting point. They come in cheap, handy omnibuses. Three books each for ten bucks. If you want to do it for free, you can lose hours just in the massive TV Tropes entry (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/Warhammer40000?from=Main.Warhammer40000).
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branchandroot
Re: 3/3
Date: 2012-09-08 09:30 pm (UTC)* As much as it can be said to have any nice aspect, 40K is one of the few SF works that actually gets the staggering scale of a galactic empire right. Given that it's 40K, it uses that scale to add to the hopelessness of the setting.
If you do want to acquire it, I'd recommend either Eisenhorn (http://www.amazon.com/Eisenhorn-Warhammer-40-000-Omnibus/dp/1844161560) or Gaunt's Ghosts (http://www.amazon.com/Gaunts-Ghosts-Founding-Dan-Abnett/dp/1844163695/ref=pd_sim_b_2) as a starting point. They come in cheap, handy omnibuses. Three books each for ten bucks. If you want to do it for free, you can lose hours just in the massive TV Tropes entry (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/Warhammer40000?from=Main.Warhammer40000).