@crabussy

as someone in the field of ecological conservation, I can promise without a shadow of a doubt that people DO care. SO MANY people care.

I have to race to sign up to volunteer trips because even with dozens of spots available, people rush to devote their unpaid free time to helping the environment. these trips often fill up within hours. people care.

you will see a lot of bad news because that is the kind of news that people pay the most attention to. I know this more than you'd think from my optimism- not only do I live somewhere facing some of the most extreme ecological issues on the planet, I also spend my time studying the Bad Stuff every single day.

to see all of this firsthand and stay hopeful is proof enough that there IS hope. I promise there is good news, brilliant news, all the time. it's just less visible. but it's no less important or impactful.

Look at classic children's novels. As recently as the 50s and early 60s, being obsessed with horses as a girl was depicted as strange and tomboyish, and the very concept of being obsessed with horses from early childhood and loving toy horses and desperately wanting your own horse being a "little girl thing" and not a "little boy thing" would send someone from the 1800s and earlier into a coma.

There's maybe a point to be made here somewhere about how when keeping and riding horses stopped being necessary to the functioning of society and became a more "frivolous" thing, it was rapidly rebranded as silly and girly and for women, but what do I know.

Not only did horses and their care stop being 'necessary for society' in certain areas of the world, horses also became militarily unnecessary.

Because automatic weapons, barbed wire, landmines, chemical weapons, and more accurate artillery were invented. Precursors already existed, but the advances made into military technology before and during WWI outmoded the use of cavalry for pretty much everything.

Limited military use cases for horses still remain, but in the past horses pretty much held the roles we give to tanks, APCs, trucks and light vehicles today. Or, the versions of those roles that existed without access to other technologies that enable modern logistics like refrigeration, real-time communication, timekeeping if you go back far enough.

Horses didn't go away overnight, and had been in decline for a while by the late 1800s. When firearms became portable and accurate enough to be wielded as the primary military weapon, a firing line could potentially shred cavalry. Then automatic weaponry allowed only a few operators to do that. By the 1910s it was pretty much over.

The reason I am saying all of this is that today, all of the tack, clothing, equipment, and practices attributed to the most widespread (read: post-colonial) equestrian styles are former military technology. I do not just mean 'english style' riding, 'western style' riding also is: just with more steps in between, from the cavalry use during the Spanish Reconquista (they kept the moorish influences, though!) that informed later use of horses by Conquistadors in Mexico, who brought cattle to Mexico, which necessitated cattle workers also learning equestrian skills, etc. Today, western-style riding has also been adopted by certain modern militaries as well, for the use cases that still call for horses. So there is no dodging the militarism there.

This is why horses used to be a 'boy thing' in many parts of the world. Today, horses being a 'girl thing' means that a lot of the equipment those girls & women are stereotyped using are deadass just formerly military equipment. When the use of short-range munitions becomes outmoded I suspect it will become a 'girl thing' to go to your bunker and lovingly fondle your collection of lockheed hellfire missiles.

This is exactly the question I raised in this post.

I grew up as a horse girl reading (some of) The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley, written for middle-grade readers. Most of the novels follow the relationship between Alec Ramsey and the titular horse. The first novel in the series was published in 1941.

In 1971, Farley's novel The Black Stallion and the Girl was published, and the hook of the story was how astonishing it was that a girl was good at around horses, partly (at least implied by the book's synopsis) because taking care of horses involves a lot of physical labor.

The cultural gender shift probably started a good bit earlier than that, but it just took a while for Walter Farley to notice.

I can totally see how it started with boys losing interest when horses were no longer a military necessity. But the other half of that is girls gaining interest. My personal hunch is that, as boys (generally) left the equestrian sphere, making friends with a horse became a common power fantasy for tween girls (at least as a daydream, even if they never get to meet a horse in real life).

In my experience, the fascination with horses really kicks in around 8 - 10 years old, when girls start becoming aware of how they're the focus of the heteronormative male gaze. So having a best friend who weighs half a ton, and literally allows even a small girl to look down on adult men, is very appealing.

Maybe someday, a bunker full of hellfire missiles will provide the same comfort.

Found a "Horse Boy" on YouTube:

(and yes, he's wearing the hat. But he's no 'cowboy'. His primary income is from being a dog groomer for city folk. Just a young man who loves animals.)

@tytftyhgb: scale might affect some, but it does not change the underlying point: that the Imperium has the best version of every single thing. That even things which are meant to be the forte of other factions (Jetbikes, forcefields for Aeldari, disintegration for Necron, basic firepower for T'au, genetic engineering for Haemonculus or the Hivemind) the Imperium simply ultimately does best.

The most powerful jetbikes are Imperial.

The most powerful gene-constructs are Imperial.

The strongest Psykers are Imperial.

The strongest Forcefields are Imperial.

And so on and so forth.

To look at some of the specific examples you brought up:

Necron Warrior Gauss weapons aren't even powerful by normal standards. You can just watch Pariah and see that even 40+ Necron Warriors firing at two regular Space Marines barely injure them. The Gauss Weapons of Necron Warriors are not only weak when compared to Adrathic, they are weak when compared to much lower grade Imperial tech as well.

And Adrathic is monumentally better than Gauss if we go by stats and what happens in lore. We again just have a precedent where the Imperial version of a technology is simply superior at its height to that of a faction who are meant to be more technologically advanced.

Another way to put it is: the scale doesn't change anything because of how the lore is written. Necron having 'more' doesn't meaningfully help them. Custodes already have more known victories under them than the Necrons as a species do and so clearly scale doesn't make a difference.

The idea that their 'small numbers' is a drawback isn't really a drawback because of how GW and BL approach lore: namely that Marines/Custodes are always where they need to be anyway and there doesn't seem to be a problem of numbers because every single major war and battlefield has them in it already.

So, not only does their supposed weakness of small numbers not actually translate into a weakness on the field (they win 99% of all battles and campaigns) but they also are in 100% of all major campaigns and battles to the point that we know far more wars and campaigns featuring Space Marines or Custodes than we know which do not.

On top of this being the case we then also have the problem that not only does the small numbers not actually in any way disadvantage them, but their best version of a thing is still always better than everyone else's.

To be blunt: why do Custodes need hyper-advanced better than Necron Gauss guns? They already have better armour, better speed, more strength, overall higher fighting capabilities and a billion other things, why not let the overall tech of Custodes be less advanced than that of the Necron, the species explicitly said to be the most advanced species in the setting?

Jetbikes have the same problem, although that one I am sure will be compounded as the moment I saw Repulsors I have been counting down, and still am 100% confident, we're going to see Space Marine jetbikes as core units sooner than later and they will, of course, 100% outperform Aeldari ones as Custodes do.

The 3+ invuln is admittedly dated, that was because for much of 40k Stormshields gave 3+ invulns whilst the Aeldari, described in their own Codex as the 'masters of Forcefield technology' were never given anything comparable.

Putting all this aside though, at the end of the day, for me the bigger thing is just...why does the Imperium need to be the best at everything? Why can't other factions have niches which, at the highest levels, they simply are the best at?

That's how I feel anyway.

Thank you for recontextualising everything like that, I hadn't quite looked at it from that perspective. It makes me think of how even with the whole Dark Age of Technology tech how many times Imperial tech outclasses other species' tech, like with the Adrasite spears, but also how much Custodians are doing? I don't catch up on the lore extremely often and I'm shocked how many victories they have, considering most of them should be on Terra.

No problem.

Imperial Tech has long (in the lore) actually been better than everyone's (like their psychic). Saw it expressed best in a recent lore thread about Mechanicus:

"The Mechanicus has in a few years managed to reverse engineer Necron blackstone, reinvent DAoT era AI, create hover-vehicles superior to anything used by the other factions, fix all stability issues with plasma, and invent a new higher quality mass producible variant of Space Marines."

Only the Necron in lore technically still sometimes get more hype (with things like the Celestial Orrery) but because narrative demands that Necron lose as easily now as all Xenos this diminished with time (the biggest culprit here being the 4 books and 2 campaign supplements in which Cawl takes over entire tomb worlds by himself by just hacking them).

But Eldar and Tau tech has been functionally in-universe worse than the Imperium always. Same for Eldar psychic which has always just been pathetic compared to the Imperium. Even the Imperium's seers are superior to the Farseers (which isn't saying much, Farseers are up there with Ork Warbosses, the Swarmlord, Greater Daemons and the Avatar of Khaine as the single most pathetic things in the setting).

As for the Custodes: yeah since 8th they are way more active off Terra than on Terra. GW cranked out a LOT of battles for them quick at a time when in other Codices they dropped timeline segments and mentions of achievements Custodes continued to get nonstop litanies of specific battles they won.

It isn't really surprising; to be honest, this is all just a consequence of the same trend we've been seeing since 8th began: Horus Heresy-fication.

The success of the Horus Heresy convinced GW that the key ingredients to make 40k popular are:

Primarchs.

Even MORE Space Marines but now with family drama thanks to Primarchs.

Custodes.

And they probably were right. A consequence of this is just that, like in the Horus Heresy, everything that isn't relevant to this (see all Xenos) just become more and more marginalized than they already were (which was a lot).

Cawl's a strong guy, but there should be no way he can hack an entire tomb world, even with his previous contact with the Necrons. And Mephiston or Tigurius being stronger than Eldrad in terms of psychic might does straight up seem like they forgot about him, like hasn't he stopped time multiple times?

I understand the reasoning GW uses to have the Imperium, and especially Space Marines, win constantly. But it just doesn't make sense, like if they want a whole "good wins over evil" thing like they constantly frame it as, it doesn't work cause they're just not supposed to be the good guys. And even so, seeing your favourite faction win every time without taking a hit gets boring, like in my mind GW has already probably printed a book where Armageddon is won by the Imperials and it just doesn't feel earned as an Imperial victory.

I'm really hoping that GW eventually comes to their senses. Books on the Phoenix Lords and their aspect warriors would be so interesting I feel, or a T'au book about the Water Caste negotiating with a potential new addition to the Empire. And a book on Ghaz's perspective of a victory over Armageddon and sticking it to that random Space Wolf would be incredible I find, especially with how good the Ghaz book I've read was. Or maybe even a book where an Avatar of Khaine chokes Fulgrim to death.

Thank you for the book recommendations too! I'll be sure to take a look.

'Stopped Time' isn't the most accurate way to put it, rather he has halted people's perception of time. He's not Mephiston who can actually just stop time.

Eldrad's never been an impressive Psyker and, sadly, is an even worse seer. It is actually a bit surprising GW's committment to making his predictions always fail.

His famous engineering of the 2nd War for Armageddon was specifically to prevent the destruction of Craftworld Idharae...and then the Craftworld just got destroyed by the Invaders Chapter anyway.

But the crowning glory in his failure as a seer is the entire Ynnari subplot. A subplot he was chief architect and engineer of for over a decade which ended up going so poorly that in the 10th Edition Codex GW just said Eldrad broke all ties with the Ynnari, came back to Ulthwe, and apologized for wasting his time with all of that for the better part of his entire lore.

I actually disagree on two points just because I think the objective reality we see contradicts them:

I understand the reasoning GW uses to have the Imperium, and especially Space Marines, win constantly. But it just doesn't make sense, like if they want a whole "good wins over evil" thing like they constantly frame it as, it doesn't work cause they're just not supposed to be the good guys.

I think people need to accept at this point that Games Workshop does, 100%, see the Imperium as the good guys. I would also go further and say they see them as such because that is what the majority of the fandom see them as and, thus, they are simply responding to what seems to be the prevailing fan preference.

I think the idea that the Imperium is meant to be a 'satire' or an 'indictment' is just old and no longer true or valid. Games Workshop and Black Library 100% just see the Imperium as the good guys of the setting because that's what their fanbase sees them as, I would argue.

And even so, seeing your favourite faction win every time without taking a hit gets boring,

I agree, personally, but the clear fact if we look at the world is most people don't feel that way. For most people a Power Fantasy of just being unstoppable badasses who are always better than everyone and always win everything clearly doesn't get boring.

I don't personally understand it as it would get boring to me, but it just clearly isn't how the vast majority of 40k's fanbase feels. There is clearly not fatigue for the Space Marines, or even more broadly Imperium's, constant victories in virtually all major pieces of lore.

like in my mind GW has already probably printed a book where Armageddon is won by the Imperials and it just doesn't feel earned as an Imperial victory.

Oh 100%. There has never been a major conflict that Orks have won in the entire history of the setting. Ghazghkull is 100% going to lose (again) and probably to some new Loyalist Primarch returning.

But yeah, I too once longed for those books, but I've accepted they are never going to come sadly.

You're welcome! Hope some of the books are fun! Enjoy!

guy who lives with me

yeah

you have a problem with my rabbit's large, veiny, fleshy ear, tumblr??

Those are the worst photos of a rabbit ever taken. I'm in love with your weird dog and his emotional support dust pile

Hi it's me, nightmare player from the above DM's campaign. since the DM has banned classes, just in general, do you have any advice on building a completely overpowered character who breaks the game? My backstory is that I am literally Batman. Not like a guy who's inspired by Batman, but the DC comics character Batman, who's decided to show up in the DM's setting. His fiancée is really into it.

Hi it's me. The fiancée. Since my useless partner still hasn't realized I'm angling for a threesome, I have some questions: There's a weird continuity issue where the lore of the Ancient Orzoks seems to be unclear on whether it happened a hundred years ago, or ten thousand. This makes it really hard to figure out if my character, who's an orc, should have been born yet. Also, any advice on building an orc when the DM has banned orcs?

Hi it's me. Pathfinder 2nd edition Remastered, personified. I'm currently having a severe mental health crisis because some of you keep suggesting that I fix these people and their horrible, horrible problems, in particular that none of them seem to have any interest in reading a single piece of rules text. The DM's lore has a bizarrely thorough and politically concerning exposition dump about the gnomes' secret influence on all major historical events, and I have to ask: Do you know about any good couples' therapists?

Hi it's me, your favorite indie ttrpg. I would be perfectly okay with these people buying a copy because I can't afford to be selective, but they're not going to, so... have you considered that games like me only really get played by people who actually like ttrpgs? That's something to consider if you want to avoid these people.

she got her degree and started removing the parasite 🙏

Tinfoil hat moment but I don't think he was dumb, I think he was strategic. He put her in a situation in which she had to either: sell her car (so the only means of transportation is now in his name), or maybe even to drop out (to have time for the second job) if she wants to feed the kids. He did it right when she was aaaaaalmost done with her degree. Either way, it's sabotage.

Sometimes when an action makes NO sense to us ("he's like a stupid alien"), it's bc we are not understanding its true motivation/purpouse. If his goal was control, financial pressure and limiting her options due to lack of funds, it makes perfect sensie to buy the truck.

Tinfoil hat moment over!

I wanna add that a lot of times people look at abusers like they are Moriarty, and assume that their actions are planned ahead of time. But I think most abusers are actually really impulsive and really bad at planning more than a few moves ahead.

Therefore, here is an alternative explanation based entirely on his impulsive feelings:

She's getting near the end of her degree, she's going to be making a lot more than him when she finishes. This makes him angry and jealous. The closer she gets to finishing, the stronger his anger and jealousy gets.

Well, if she's gonna be making so much more than me, the least she can do is pay for my truck. And maybe if she had to pay for this truck she wouldn't even be able to finish school. Then I'd still be man of the house. That would really show her whose boss. Now I feel more in control and less jealous.

"Honey, I bought a truck."

I think we often talk about abusers like we talk about evolution. We say polar bears evolved to have white coats for camouflage. We talk about evolution like it has a plan and is doing things on purpose. But evolution doesn't care about camouflage. Birth rates are all that matter, but evolution doesn't even "care" about them.

I think the majority of abusers don't actually plan things out. They just act impulsively on malicious feelings. It makes them feel good to have lots of power, so they take whatever power they can find. It makes them feel good to make their victims uncomfortable so they do that.

Most abuse tactics can be explained (and should be defended against) as if they are strategic. Just like evolution, it's just easier to talk about that way. But I think most abuser tactics are really just the consequence of impulsively acting on malicious feelings.

Basically: I don't think you need a tinfoil hat. Abusers like gaining power. And they don't need conspiracy or long term planning to get that power.

I would like to highlight the distinction between Strategy and Tactics.

Strategy is big picture. It’s about asking “what do I even really want here?” You say you want to Win. What does Winning mean? What does Winning look like?

In an argumentative context, Strategy is about the frame around the picture, so to speak. Are you approaching the conversation as a confrontation or a confession or a Conversion?

Tactics are about individual goals. In wargaming, Tactics are things like pincer attacks and flanking maneuvers; things like armor penetrating ammo and anti-cavalry fortifications.

In an argumentative context, Tactics are things like making an attack ad hominem, or shifting the goalposts, or turning the tables.

Abusers tend to be excellent Tacticians but terrible Strategists. They often do not even recognize good/healthy relationships as such. Their Strategy is a mess. They would not recognize victory if they stood in the midst of it.

But. They are very good at not losing. They are very good at making sure that the other person doesn’t win.

A good relationship is win-win; both parties benefit mutualistically from the symbiosis.

Abusers only know how to not lose.