Chaos Knowledge

[Malok1013]

So I was reading that, supposedly, the Ordo Malleus kills anyone that works with them who doesn't die in service (aside from astartes) to hide their existence and chaos or something like that? I can understand the people not knowing about the Ordo Malleus (after all, their Chamber Militant is kept very secret) but do people not know about Chaos either? Because it would seem that in a lot of fiction, people have at the very least heard of it.

[Tepogue]

Knowledge of Chaos really just depends on the source material you are reading. Also by what point of view you are reading the material from. If you are reading from a Space Marine point of view, then yes, Chaos is known to them, Any chapter tracing it's roots back to one of the Primarches, pretty much is guranteed to have some grudge against one of the Chaos legions.
From an Imperial guard point of view, Officers have probably some idea, fresh off the farm recruits, who knows,

Does the general public know? Depends, dothey live near the Eye of Terror? If they do, then probably. Are they a factory worker on Armageddon? Well then for them Orks are very real, but the invasion of Angron was covered up to the public, through purges, assigning the involved guard units to suicide missions and debatible mind scrubbing of involved Space marines, BUT I don't see Space marine officers getting mind scrubbed.

[Loshkins]

Basically it matters on who you are and where you live. Bottom of a hive city you probably know of cults and what not calling themselves chaos this and that, but don't actually know the truth of it. A farmer in a on a nice cozy planet would probably know that there is some evil or something (metaphor and legends). It also matters on whether you care to know or not, if you have constant ork or Tyranid incursions chaos is most likely the least of your worries. Take a real world example, if you live in North America or Europe or something you have heard of the triads know that they are a mafia group or some such and not very pleasant, but aren't exactly worried about them either. Same thing in 40k, just on a bigger scale.

But at all times chaos would be played down to be evil, bad, beatable. Same as orks or Tyranids. They would be played down as smaller, not as menacing, propaganda type stuff.

[Malok1013]

Ah okay. So like known of to most, in varying degrees depending on status, but not truly known to almost all. Not known the be the unbeatable force that it would seem to truly be. Allowing the people to maintain hope by covering that up. And only telling people on a need to know basis. Makes lots of sense about the chaos cults for someone of low status in a hive city. would not have thought of that one on my own, thanks for the examples.

[thefremen]

In general, Thinking and Knowing things is seen as bad in the Imperium. Information about many of the various alien races is kept fairly hush-hush. It seems like not many people in the Imperium know about the Tyranids or Nercons either.

[doom-kitten]

The way I see it, if you read Dan Abnett, they often refer to Chaos as the Arch Enemy. To me this seems like away to indentify Chaos to the common man without him knowing to much about it, considering the word chaos is pretty vague and likely used for more than just Chaos. I imagine the guard is aware of it through training but not informed of it's full meaning or potential, no military wants to tell it's soldiers about deamons and thats psyker guy over there is a potential gateway to hell. Space Marines obvisiously know as would any formation thats come into contact with Chaos and as for mind scrubbing I hardly think the Imperium can mind scrub a whole guard regiment, they'd likely find it more convinient to write them off, either by killing them or finding some method for them to kill themselves. But then depending on your source materiel (fluff, novels, that annoying guy who talks alot), the overall knowledge of Chaos within the Imperium varies and often contradicts one medium to the next, one source will claim the GK slaughter any who've contacted it, while others says it's more commonly known amongst the soldiers and less so the civvies. But then the Imperium is pretty convoluted and most stories will contradict one other and fluff is always changing so who knows maybe Chaos is not even aware it's chaos and the Eldar will suddenly sprout wings and fly through space and the Emperor will wake up, drink some milk and have a better dream with rainbows or just a couple Nyan cats.

[albertsevil]

Dan Abnett's short story 'Of their lives and the ruins of their cities' in the Sabatt Worlds anthology, sees Gaunt and his ghosts in just after their first or second action. It appears that Gaunt knows about Chaos but the raw Tanith do not, at least in any great detail, other than that 'Chaos' is the 'Arch Enemy'. In fact Gaunt at one points tells them that the very worst things they can imagine are not the worst, and proceeds to warn them that they know not what they are fighting.

Interestingly enough one Tanith also discusses leaving the guard with Gaunt, who replies that the recruiting officers lied to him and that hardly anyone ever leaves the guard. Perhaps the common Imperial citizen knows little about the constant wars around him and how they are fought and why.

Hope that helps,

Ryan

[mr1029384756]

Knowledge of Chaos really just depends on the source material you are reading. Also by what point of view you are reading the material from. If you are reading from a Space Marine point of view, then yes, Chaos is known to them, Any chapter tracing it's roots back to one of the Primarches, pretty much is guranteed to have some grudge against one of the Chaos legions.
From an Imperial guard point of view, Officers have probably some idea, fresh off the farm recruits, who knows,

Does the general public know? Depends, dothey live near the Eye of Terror? If they do, then probably. Are they a factory worker on Armageddon? Well then for them Orks are very real, but the invasion of Angron was covered up to the public, through purges, assigning the involved guard units to suicide missions and debatible mind scrubbing of involved Space marines, BUT I don't see Space marine officers getting mind scrubbed.

Can't forget the mass sterilization. Lol, Chaos went unnoticed after thousands of brave men and women had their bollocks and tubes tied, respectively. That, or Angron suddenly gain a huge increase in support from an entire system of pissed off eunuchs.

[Gorechilde]

Just to add my two cents to this discussion...In the past background, Any non Marine that came in contact with Chaos was purged. Marines were mind wiped but the Guard and Navy were wiped out. At the end of the First War of Armageddon, The survivors were rounded up and sterilized and they were worked to death rebuilding the world. This was the civilian and the armed forces. Higher ranking officers were spared but the common grunt was not.
The Imperium considers Chaos to be the biggest threat facing Mankind." You thought you saw a deamon? BLAM!" Oh, wait...You told your family and friends about it...BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!" To the average citizen, Chaos doesn't exist. When you have 500 billion citizen to choose from, whats the loss of 50 million?

[mr1029384756]

An Emperor-damned tragedy. On a slight off-topic musing, when is the Big E finally going to ascend into Chaos-godhood? And how, should that actually happen (which would be hilariously ironic), would the Inquisition explain their methods should the truth get leaked to the pan-galactic community?

[theirkin]

The treatment of chaos has also changed over the last 20 years. In the Inquisition trilogy anyone who came into contact with them who wasn't Malleus was mindscrubbed, no exceptions. But more and more (and I bet this is Dan Abnett's doing) this has been going away. Now it's something that no one talks about, and the Imperium tries to hide it from the general populace, but once they are exposed to it they tend to just become a part of the war machine, not really purged unless they were on a demon world or some other extreme circumstance. Although I haven't kept up on my Grey Knights books, so that might be handling it a little differently from the Guard, Space Marine, and Inquisitor books that I'm familiar with.

Joe

[thefremen]

An Emperor-damned tragedy. On a slight off-topic musing, when is the Big E finally going to ascend into Chaos-godhood? And how, should that actually happen (which would be hilariously ironic), would the Inquisition explain their methods should the truth get leaked to the pan-galactic community?

Seems like they'd still worship him all the same. Honestly, one wonders how differently it would be treated if he ascends to chaos god-hood. Already he's out there giving Sisters invul saves and various boons.