One would expect the Horus Heresy series to only expand on background information already available in Warhammer 40,000 rulebooks and codices to create fully-fledged novels. With the first novel ‘Horus Rising’ (written by Dan Abnett and published in 2006), however, the authors began already to add new aspects to the background story. For example, they used the literary freedom to incorporate religious content into their novels. In this context, it is striking that they do not clearly position themselves regarding this religious content. In the description of the epic events, it remains unclear whether the chaos demons are merely aliens from another dimension – the warp – or genuine supernatural beings. The novels are deliberately vague about this. The resulting ambivalence leaves it up to the readers to decide for themselves on this matter.
A recurring theme in the novel series is how the outbreak of the Horus Heresy is accompanied by the rediscovery of faith and religion. During the Great Crusade, the Emperor relentlessly persecutes all religions, which even culminates in the destruction of the last church on Earth – an event to which a separate short story is dedicated in the novel series (written by Graham McNeill and published in 2009: ‘The Last Church’, in: ‘Tales of Heresy’). He refuses to call himself a god, although as a Perpetual he is far above a normal human being. The religious conversion of protagonists – such as Keeler or Sigismund, the first captain of the Imperial Fists – is then described during the novel series. This religious awakening explains why 10,000 years later, in the 40th millennium – the time at which Warhammer 40,000 is set – the Imperium of Man has become a dystopia characterized by an unconditional belief in the God-Emperor, for whose defense a separate Imperial authority, the Inquisition, is responsible. The story is not told without irony: The Emperor, who refused to be worshipped as a god, was so uncompromising in his efforts to destroy all spiritual practices and realize his version of a secular utopia for humanity that he even punished his own son, the Primarch Lorgar, for his belief in his father’s divinity. Disappointed, Lorgar searches for new gods and finds them in the Gods of Chaos. By doing so, he becomes the first heretic. His renunciation of the Emperor ultimately leads to the Horus Heresy, which in turn heralds a time in which humanity once again falls prey to religiosity. This bitter irony is reminiscent of a widespread, negative view of modernity, which is often associated with the two founding figures of the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno.
Faced with the triumph of fascism and monopolistic capitalism as new forms of rule that society was unable to effectively resist, both philosophers subjected the Enlightenment’s concept of reason to radical criticism. They formulated the thesis that an ‘instrumental reason’ had already asserted itself at the beginning of human history with the self-assertion of the subject against a threatening nature, which consolidated itself as domination over external and internal nature and finally in the institutionalized domination of people over people. Based on this ‘character of domination’ of reason, Horkheimer and Adorno observed an upswing in mythology, the ‘return of enlightened civilization to barbarism in reality’, which manifests itself in different ways in their time.
The talk would like to work out these remarkable parallels and attempt an interpretation of the Horus Heresy book series from the perspective of the philosophy of history. It soon becomes clear that the book series can be understood as a certain form of broader criticism of modernity.
Author bio
Christian E. W. Kremser completed a double degree in economics (M. Sc.) and philosophy (M. A.) at the University of Hagen and the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. He is currently a desk officer at a federal authority in Frankfurt am Main and a lecturer at the Department of Economics at Goethe University. He completed his doctorate there in 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Dr Dres. h.c. Bertram Schefold on the conception of economic utopias in the history of economic ideas. His research interests include philosophy of economics, business ethics, philosophy of science in economics and history of economic thought.
Selected publications
- Die Selbsthistorisierung von Zukunftsbildern als Ausdruck eines Geschichtsbewusstseins im Wandel. Zur Rezeption der Fortschrittsidee durch Star Trek, in: Kanzler, Katja; Stoppe, Sebastian (2024): Gestern – Heute – Morgen. (Selbst-)Historisierung und Zukunftsvisionen im Star Trek-Franchise, forthcoming.
- „Wir arbeiten, um uns zu verbessern und den Rest der Menschheit.“ Das Ende der Lohnarbeit in Star Trek, in: Seyferth, Peter; Blumenthal, Falko (2024): Science Fiction & Science Labour, Bielefeld: Transcript, forthcoming.
- Die Wirtschaft in Star Trek. Eine populärkulturelle Verarbeitung von Karl Marx’ Vision eines ‚Reichs der Freiheit‘?, in: Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung, Vol. 11/No. 1 (2023), 14.08.2023. [online]
Was hätte wohl Adam Smith zu Anno 1602 zu sagen gehabt? Die Wirtschaftssimulation als spielerische Vermittlung ökonomischer Theorie, in: Paidia – Zeitschrift für Computerspielforschung (2023), 06.07.2023. [online] - Ein Ende der ökonomischen Geschichte. Utopische Visionen in der Geschichte des ökonomischen Denkens, Marburg (2020): Metropolis.
- Von Fortschritt zu Wachstum und Entwicklung. Über den ideengeschichtlichen Ursprung der ökonomischen Wachstums- und Entwicklungstheorie in der materialen Geschichtsphilosophie der französischen und schottischen Aufklärung, Weimar bei Marburg (2018): Metropolis.
