The Warhammer 40´000 setting is characterised by its proverbial “grim darkness”. Its take on the far future is a highly dystopian one. The most important polity in the setting, the galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man, is described as the worst possible regime. It is a militaristic, xenophobic, highly repressive dictatorship. By contrast, the T’au Empire is depicted as an enlightened, xenophilic regime. The T’au, an alien species, view themselves as highly progressive. The ideological foundation of the T’au Empire is a philosophical concept called the Greater Good.
This presentation aims to examine how two blatantly different regimes are indeed both strongly dystopian, and represent satirical takes on real-world political institutions and intellectual currents. In his book “The Road to Unfreedom” (2018), Timothy Snyder introduces two concepts: the myth of eternity, and the myth of inevitability. Both are used by governments to legitimise themselves and their policies. According to the myth of eternity, a given state is a perpetual victim, bound to defend itself against evil aggressors over and over again. The myth of inevitability postulates that progress is fate-given, that the state of the world will keep improving until utopia is reached.
I will apply Snyder’s terminology to the Imperium of Man and the T’au Empire, with a focus on the latter. I will show that the Imperium embodies the myth of eternity, and that the T’au Empire resembles a state following the myth of inevitability. I will point out that its unrelenting belief in progress and the righteousness of its cause lead it to be an evil regime as well. Finally, I will show that the depiction of the T’au Empire acts as a satire on a form of liberal optimism that prevailed in the late 1990s zeitgeist, when the T’au were first introduced to the setting.
Author bio
Joachim Besson has been a Warhammer enthusiast since childhood. He studied philosophy and political science at the universities of Berne and Lausanne, and has a keen interest in literature and political philosophy. He lives and works in Strasbourg, France.
