Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-6078851-20150114163201/@comment-6078851-20150126165832

i'm not saying abaddon isn't a capable warrior, i mean he is clearly a very capable warrior having survived 10,000 years in which he participated in a fight or 2. but he is 10,000 years old and a lot of his astartes-bred abilities will have suffered as a result of his age, his ego, his madness, his fury, and 10,000 years of 'tampering' from the gods. obviously abaddon is the amalgamation of his gear and his favour from the gods, but i really think if he was theoretically 'reduced' to just an astartes then his abiliies would be a shade of what they once were, and the young stripling that is huron is still a fairly fresh astartes who hasn't suffered the same level of tampering, nor suffers from the same level of delusion, as abaddon. abadon would never voluntarily relinquish his gear though, and he'd have to fail pretty catastrophically for the gods to remove their favour, so my idea of a fair fight between them will never be more than a theory :)

i have to disagree that the imperium is above racism though. as institutions go the imperium is one of the worst, if not the actual worst, in terms of xenophobia. but i agree with the lack of forethought: 40k was created predominantly by white folks, and as such most folks in 40k are white. it's most likely laziness and/or a reflection of the culture of the creators - sci-fi stories created by western civilisations tend to reflect western civilisations and ideals, and vice-versa for eastern created stories. i do find it really odd though that most astartes are white since astartes are supposed to be the epitome of genetic engineering, and yet 'white' pigmentation, like blue eyes, are recessive genetic traits. it's probably lack of forethought on the part of the creators, but it could also be a white supremecist emps creating his hitler-esque idea of 'the master race'. or it might have been that emps knew hitler and actually gave hitler the idea of a master race :P