Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-2253300-20130211000751/@comment-6078851-20130409114331

i agree with supah on ignorance of chaos being a defence, of sorts. simply 'knowing' that there are beings who can actually grant wishes, so to speak, is exceptionally dangerous. in an empire where the masses (in general) have no rights to speak of, and their lot in life is to slave and toil for the imperium, of which they probably know very little, then they are going to want something more out of life, which chaos beings can 'promise' them.

"the emperor protects", now this is fact, but he doesn't protect the ignorant masses in a way that they can see. they are told, brainwashed or even tortured into worshipping the emperor and if they don't, or if they don't show the proper obedience to the authorities then they are simply killed as traitors to the imperium. worshipping the emperor doesn't lead the masses to a better life and doesn't protect them from the depredations of hostile aliens or hostile authoritarians. so if they knew of beings who can actually answer their prayers and plea's there would be empire-wide uprisings of formerly oppressed masses imbued with god-given powers.

the old human plea of "why me?" is a potent door opener for the chaos gods.

the imperium had the chance to ally with the eldar and the tau but their xenophobia utterly prohibited such alliances. even if they had allied with only the eldar would have formed an exceptionally powerful force that would have fared so much better than the individual factions have.