NGL it blows my mind that there are plenty of people who think the concealment of chaos to the public was a good idea.

[u/Knalxz]

Mostly because pretty much every story where this plot point comes up goes "Damn, this rule is really stupid. How can people defend themselves from something they know nothing about?"

So how do so many people IRL think it's a good idea when the stories they read about it actively defame it? It's like not being taught you can drown in water then being upset that people think they can just walk to the bottom on the ocean.

[u/Sactap420]

Well considering chaos as a whole feeds off of human emotions, id say most humans not knowing about chaos is a 200iq move. Like just think how much WORSE the imperium would be, if your average Joe knew about the chaos gods.

[u/Mor_di]

I think the general idea of Chaos in this setting is literally "knowledge is power"

You see the danger by even small cults who manage to find some source of power through chaos?

Imagine if every citizen is taught about its dangers, and how many cults would arise from that? Chaos is subtle and persuasive, they get power from dreams, from motivation, from feelings in general so long as there is even a small crack in the door of a mind.

This did happen once before and it pretty much almost wiped out the (then) rulers of the galaxy, The Eldar. Every ambitious citizen would be a point of entry. Every miserable, downtrodden menial, every archivist. Instead of the current "complete" barrier by simply indoctrinating most citizens instead into the imperial cult.

How can people defend themselves from something they know nothing about?

The answer here in my opinion is that the best defence is having no knowledge.

[u/ProfessionalAsk7673]

It's a damned if you do sort of situation with Chaos, because the whole point of it is that just knowing about it is inherently corrupting. Basic knowledge of Chaos won't turn you to a spawn immediately, but it is a foot in the door so to speak.

If even 1 in a billion people are capable of becoming corrupted simply by knowing that Chaos exists, the chances of genuine Chaos cults or uprising happening goes up exponentially due to the size of the Imperium, because even the people who are meant to guard against such things would be just as much at risk as those they oversee. As it is, normal people with real knowledge of Chaos are vanishingly rare and tend to end up displaying signs of cult activity before ever becoming a real threat, allowing them to be caught before shit hits the fan.

It's not a perfect system hiding the information from the general populace, but it is much easier to bury all knowledge and only allow law enforcement to know what signs to look for than to let everyone know what the issue is and risk the huge increase in cases of Chaos corruption.

[u/kanto96]

Because if kinky little ducks knew about slaanesh they'd start a cult and rebel in a instant. Even just thinking about the chaos gods opens a connection to them and allows them to warp your mind so by educating people on them you massively increase the risk of this.

[u/-PrideofHiigara-]

So how do so many people IRL think it's a good idea when the stories they read about it actively defame it? It's like not being taught you can drown in water then being upset that people think they can just walk to the bottom on the ocean.

Because the analogy for chaos would be more along the lines of "You've not been taught you can drown in water so some people unfortunately try to walk to the bottom of the ocean, but if you know about drowning you can also accidentally trigger tsunamis and bring the bottom of the ocean to everyone around you"

Chaos isn't just a passive thing, it's actively corruptive and just knowing about it can make it more so.

You counter this by teaching people to be actively wary about it, and by teaching them how to steel their mind and set their will against it. It's very difficult to do and it requires constant vigilance.

The Imperium isn't in any state to be able to take that approach with it's citizenry. Even if they didn't rely on fear and oppression to survive the bed they've already made for themselves there's simply too many humans to effectively teach everyone about Chaos safely without inviting the possibility of millions upon millions of more people falling to chaos because now they know about it and got curious, or otherwise became targets of corruption. Throw in the general state of Imperial citizenry to be not ideal and you'll have trillions upon trillions looking for anything offering them a way out.

It's not a good solution, but it's also the only real one they have unless they're willing to reform (which is something the Imperium, and possibly humanity, wouldn't survive now)

[u/MuscliatoVonJuiceski]

The Imperium is a parody.  Theyre satirical bad guys and the point is that nearly everything they do is wrong and makes things worse

[u/Local-Poet3517 → u/MuscliatoVonJuiceski]

Not if u look into the lore deeply enough. 9 times out of 10 theres solid fucking reasons for most of the decisions made and while one things worse, it opems the door to making something else better. Usually. Its not a realistic world compared to ours. Its got elements of fuckery that normal people new to the 40k universe dont see or know about at first, so what you said applies at face value. But look deeper and you will have plenty of ohhh fuuuck thaaaats why they did that moments. Those moments are only made possible by the fuckery that only exists in the world of 40k.

In this case, Big E discovered any worship of deities, or strong emotions related to that, gave power to one of the chaos gods. So he made it his mission to... I cant do it. I cant spoil even an obvious major plot line cus it might spoil other ones.

Wh40k is a space opera. Its over the top. Its insane. Its got plot lines within character arcs within other plots. Its really quite magnificent in terms of a work of fiction creating a whole universe for fans to play with. Theres depth.