2d4chan - User contributions [en]

Tzeentch

2023-05-11T20:16:23Z

2001:67C:6EC:203:192:42:116:219: The curse of tzeentch is a disgusting game rule but i love seeing the dnd forgotten realms wizard lovers losing their shit over their super special characters head exploding. "Just as planned".

[[File:934501-tzeentch mark.png|center]]
[[File:Tzeentch the Architect of Fate.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Tzeentch thinking to himself: [[Troll|"Hmmm... I wonder what plans I would foil again?"]]]]
{{awesome}}
{{sick| The curse of tzeentch might mutate you into a chaospawn or kill you if you use magic. If you bow to the blue birdbrain and sacrifice everything you love he may quit cursing you or fuck your brain into mush just before or after you ask for his boon.}}
{{heresy}}
''JUST AS PLANNED... ALWAYS AS PLANNED... NEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHHE...'' - The Word of Tzeentch on just about any Misfortune you encounter

{{Topquote|O Fortune, like the moon you are changeable, ever waxing and waning. Hateful life, first oppresses, and then soothes as fancy takes it; poverty, and power it melts them like ice. Fate - monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent, well-being is in vain and always fades to nothing, ...|Oh Fortuna, from the Carmina Burana}}

{{Topquote|I'm a scientist; because I invent, transform, create, and destroy for a living, and when I don't like something about the world, I change it.|Rick Sanchez}}

{{Topquote|I'm beginning to think that to hope isn't the same as to expect something. To hope is to believe that life is an acceptable chaos.|Goenawan Mohamad}}

{{Topquote|The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.|Napoleon Bonaparte.}}

==Introduction==
[[Image:Tzeench_political_poster.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Tzeentch has a fetish for birds, as seen by this sorceress getting her bird mutations on in a proper Tzeentchian <s>and weirdly hot</s> fashion. Wait, that's Slaanesh's schtick! JUST. AS. PLANNED. Tzeentch is a Cosmic Harem Nerd Protagonist confirmed.]]
'''Tzeentch''', (may or may not be pronounced Zeench) also known as '''the Great Conspirator, the Changer of the Ways, the Architect of Fate, Tchar, Chen the Deceiver, Chi'an Chi (奸奇), Tsien-Tsin, [[H.P. Lovecraft|Nyarlathotep]], the Troll Master, Cheenzh, the Raven God, the Trickster, the Archmage God, the Lord of Nerds, [[/b/]], Emperor Lollercoaster/Trollercoaster, [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|The Indecisive Mollusk]], Master of Madness, [[Total War: Warhammer|Chi’an Chi]], Space Obama, the Lord of Social Media, The Monarch of Operating Updates, the Terror of Tumblr and Tik Tok, [[Star Trek|Q]], The ''other'' [[/pol/|Q]], The Great Lovecraftian Geek, [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|Joseph Joestar]], Loki, Otto von Bismarck, Bugs Bunny, The Cuttlefish of Keikaku, The Patron God of “Well, actually...”, the King of Kek, 2020's Living Incarnation, Lelouch vi Britannia, the Champion of [[Cheese]], the Patron God of Internet Prank Videos, [[Old Man Henderson|Old Man Henderson's Avatar]], NoobMaster69, TheLegend27, Skankhunt42, the "[[Not as planned|Do I look like the kind of guy with a plan]]?" Planner, the Octopoda Occultist, Mr. "I Have Your IP Address", [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|Father Number Three]], Filthy Frank''' and 9936 other names is or is not the [[Chaos God]] of change, curiosity, hard-to-spell names, lies, cunning, ambition, opportunity, creativity and inventiveness, mutation and evolutionary processes, [[Entropy|'Pure Chaos']], Machiavellian scheming, CEOs, politics, governmental power, manipulation, trolling, the internet, everything ever posted on Twitter by anyone (except the Slaaneshi stuff anyway...), your politically obsessed uncle’s Facebook profile, all recorded information and all forgotten knowledge, leadership, any smartphone platform like Apple or Android, every OS written or yet to be written, the BSOD, supervillain geniuses, progress, knowledge, magic, [[psykers]], [[Chess]], lawyers and other high-functioning psychopaths/sociopaths, hope (despite there being [[God-Emperor of Mankind|a contender for God of Hope]]), constant article editing, poor grammar and grammar Nazis, canon and “head canon”, and massively overlong lists.

In [[Warhammer Fantasy]] he may or may not have already existed before the world like the other Chaos Gods, and the [[Old Ones]] actively tried to prevent [[Daemons]] from ever successfully invading the world by creating the different races of the game in an attempt to find something that could cheese Daemons in every battle until the very Warp Gates that the Old Ones used to come to the planet in the first place collapsed forming miniature [[Eye of Terror|Eyes of Terror]] at the poles of the world (''Just as planned''). He is said to have a fetish for [[Blood Ravens|Ravens]] amongst the [[Warriors of Chaos|Norse]] tribes and Condors amongst [[Warriors of Chaos|Kurgan nomads]]. There's no real picture for Tzeentch since the weird bastard always and never but always changes his appearance every time he sits for his yearbook photo. Some of the more or less memorable appearances have been: an opaline serpent constantly slithering in-place; a no-neck blue greater daemon with a skin pocked with faces that each repeat what the main head just said with different emphasis or tone; a rainbow-hued cloud of mist that speaks by casting echoes off nearby structures without making the original sound; a featureless green-skinned human in an archaic grey suit with the words "NO PICTURE AVAILABLE" suspended in the air where his face would be; and perhaps the most or least prominent, a giant imp with two penises growing out of its head. No, srsly. Unless... he could be Slaane-- {{BLAM|''*URGLBURGL*''}}

Strangely, Tzeentch was often/rarely/usually attributed to hope in the two settings, despite there being Chaos Gods of Order in Fantasy, and in 40k the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]] serving as The God of Hope in his career even if he never wanted to be worshiped as such. To be fair, there is a difference between hope and order (or is there?). The Chaos Gods embody traits that can be directed for good or evil (how can hope be evil? To invoke Godwin's Law, Hitler hoping his genocide plans would succeed was evil, or as in Pandora's Box where hope prolongs suffering). It is entirely possible or not that what Games Workshop incorrectly called Hope is more or less but more accurately called selfish Ambition, the sort that would drive people to commit Machiavellian backstabbing, because in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium [[God-Emperor of Mankind|actual selfless Hope]] is pretty much [[Nurgle|a rotting corpse]].

He is or isn't typically the second strongest of the Chaos Gods, however he has advantage over Khorne when it comes to IQ, manipulation and leadership. In canon Chaos God vs Chaos God stories he has the largest number of victories and [[Just As Planned|fewest number of defeats]]. He rarely does things directly and prefers to trick one of the Chaos Gods or their servants into fighting with one another (to the point that one can assume anytime a Chaos God goes to war with another one, he's probably behind it). He got Skarbrand, the then mightiest Bloodthirster, to attack his master. Skarbrand hit with all his strength but only put a chink in Khorne's armor and Khorne got unbelievably, incomprehensibly, all-consumingly pissed and grabbed Skarbrand and threw him so hard that he went sailing in the sky for days before finally crashing into the ground so hard that his wings broke. and whenever Tzeentch gets caught into these antics (most especially by an enraged Khorne) he could simply recite the rules (Yes, Chaos have strange rules) and testify to the circumstances proving that he wasn't responsible. If everyone including the Emperor and the Chaos Gods want to find him guilty for cheating then he will just twist it back to them because he wasn't violating the rules set by the highest authorities in the tabletop: the [[Mod]]s. in other words, Tzeentch is a Cosmic Attorney.

Except that millions of his followers will likely be slaughtered and his faith likely has a new enemy... but Tzeentch, like every Chaos God, is beyond our petty definition of victory and defeat. Which makes the above paragraph idiotically inaccurate, like most of our concepts of reality when the Warp gets involved.
[[File:Tzeentch Old.jpg|thumb|right|400px|The first depiction of Tzeentch in Warhammer art.]]
Once Tzeentch was the strongest of all the Chaos Gods and basically made the Warp his bitch. In 40k this was actually tied to a Materium time period now known as a Dark Age of Technology - the golden age of prosperity, '''hope''', '''ambition''', and '''progress''', when Humanity and Eldar, who dominated the Galaxy defeated the diseases and poverty with their sophisticated science and sorcery and waged their wars through emotionless constructs and robots - no wonder Tzeentch was supercharged by these events and the other two gods were at their lowest of the lows. Unfortunately for him, he uncharacteristically didn't plan (or is it?) on the other two Chaos gods agreeing to team up against him and was shattered into countless fragments (it was his crystal staff in the old lore). [[Khaine|Unlike a certain other god]], he was able to put himself back together again, but he's still missing several pieces of himself. In Fantasy those pieces went on to become the first magic, and in 40k they caused a massive burst of powerful psykers being born, which combined with a robot rebellion humans experienced and pleasure cults Eldar went into brought the downfall of both civilizations, effectively ending their golden ages. Although, given the nature of gods, it's possible that the cause-consequence chain was the other way around with a war in the Warp being the representation of two great prosperous empires falling from their grace. [[The Blue Scribes]] are tasked with recollecting these fragments. Tzeentch also claims the Realm of Chamon in the [[Age of Sigmar]]. The [[Slann]] managed to create the Halosphere as a passageway to Tzeentch's lair.

Basically, if Chaos wins you better hope (pun!) Tzeentch comes out on top. At least he'll just mess with you if you make convoluted plans because he likes out-smarting you but otherwise will leave you alone and pat you on the head for being smart or something. Those pats may or may not include mutations that may or may not be useful (although you can probably use sorcery to correct it anyway). This is absolutely heavenly compared to literally everyone else.

If Tzeentch had a voice actor... Tzeentch would need different ones all the time (or would he?). A good candidate is Aidan “CIA” Gillan, who helpfully can't keep his accent straight for longer than a scene at a time. Q and Garak from Star Trek are also good choices. Especially Q, considering that the character himself is basically just who Tzeentch would be in the Trek universe.

==Elf/Eldar Gods==
In 40k, he was ''seemingly'' the only Chaos God who didn't try to intervene when Slaanesh went on his/her/its "just-born" raping and killing spree as far as we know. But Tzeentch seldom works directly, so there's no way to tell for sure. For all we know he could have been involved in the survival of fellow troll-god [[Cegorach]] or something.

In Warhammer Fantasy, [[Asuryan]] is something of the Road Runner to his Wile E. Coyote. While Tzeentch's flawless and infinitely intricate plans of dickery seem to culminate with the Warp enveloping the world, something always goes wrong at the last minute and usually the High Elves or an ally of the High Elves are at the center of it. That's because Asuryan also has a plan, one he actually shares with mortal [[High Elves]] who take a vow of silence and become his monks. Asuryan's plan is NOT flawless however, and culminates in one giant last battle with a 50% chance of success or fail on his behalf between "good" (Order) and "evil" (Destruction). The outcome of that battle will decide if the Chaos Gods win or lose once and for all. Apparently, dragons will go extinct either way though. It turns out that his plan [[The End Times|didn't work out]].
Tzeentch also has direct relations with [[Morai-Heg]] who is a goddess of prophesy who can actively change fate at her will. Morai-Heg is a True Neutral kind of being who fucks with everyone's plans in ways that end up with them indebted to her one way or another. Usually because she manipulates things in a way to force you to come to her to undo the change she already made (you don't know she did this in the first place) and make a third result, which someone else probably asked for due to a change someone else made and...well, let's just summarize it as "''Everyone's plans are all going according to plan''".

==[[Just as planned]]...==
Tzeentch will always be '''at least''' three steps ahead of you; he out-dicks [[Eldrad]], [[Cegorach|The Laughing God]], both [[Sigmar|God]] [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emprahs]] (though just barely in regard to the second one...a fact he likes), and the [[C'tan|Deceiver]] hands down. Just an example: He tricked [[Slaanesh]] into provoking [[Khorne]], a fight she promptly lost. Why did he do it? He did it for fun...and as a favor for a friend. Though considering what turns Slaanesh on, she might not have been tricked... or perhaps Tzeentch planned around Slaanesh planning to pretend to be tricked.

Just [[The Game (Tzeentch)|don’t mention]] [[Creed]] around him...or Kitten.

In Warhammer Fantasy, he's notable for never really doing much of anything really (except trapping [[Sigmar]] for years in the Wind of Heaven until Vortex on [[Ulthuan]] is destroyed and the Wind, under Sigmar's direction, enters the body of Emperor [[Karl Franz]] after his death.) His champions either have magical powers or limited ability to see and manipulate the future. Some just follow more charismatic champions of other Chaos Gods into battle, although when that champion inevitably falls Tzeentch's almost always survive to mutate another day. The setting's China equivalent, [[Cathay]], has wizards actively stealing Tzeentch's magic and using its effects to affect the world with greater power than normal magic can. They do this entirely without worshiping him or suffering Chaos mutations or taint (according to the fluff, they do worship Tzeentch, they just know him by another name and don't know his true nature... this is most likely a reference to Daoism and ''Yi Jing'', the Book of Change). Clearly Tzeentch mostly just focuses on 40k while the other three Chaos Gods play two tables at once (or maybe Tzeentch is lulling the Cathayans into a false sense of security...).

In AoS he seems a little more involved, but not by much, he manages to corrupt entire civilizations (one who is Greek themed appropiatly for the Lord of "I am very smart") who loved phylosophy just as much as they loved backstabbing each other, creates the infamous "Silver Towers" in witch the first AoS Warhammer Quest game revolved around (and was subsecuently destroyed by Be'lakor and his maquinations), has conquered 90% of the realm of Change and Metal, Chamon, (again until Be'lakor got involved and pretty much fucked the realm with his chaos clouds and now he rules it)and probably has the most competent subject under his rule, Valium Maliti, a changeling who designed an industrial nightmare of a city in the realm of Alarielle and the Sylvaneth just so they can get into more conflict, while his machinations still have not reached his 40K levels, he is at least as engaged as Khorne, though they are both behind Nurgle, and ironically, the three of them are behind the now imprisioned Slaanesh, who is far more involved into AoS, you know with the whole getting imprisioned thing.

The funny thing is, Tzeentch's plots will never come to true fruition. They just go on and on, forever and ever, twisted and tangled for the sheer joy of it with no end goal or even a purpose behind them. Tzeentch is a god of ''chaos'', and a plan satisfied, tied up, finished, is a plan that has left his purview. There is no victory, no defeat, no end. Ends are stagnation, [[Nurgle|the opposite of all he represents]]. [[Games Workshop|There will only be the endless clatter of dice in]] [[Warhammer 40K|the mad, cruel games the gods play with the fates and souls of men]]. Rolled without end, amen. In this sense, Tzeentch truly is the Chaos God of hope because he will never allow Chaos to defeat the mortal plane if he can- at least, not if it doesn't lead to further changes. While most everyone else plays to win, Tzeentch plays for fun, for as long as he can. In older fluff, Tzeentch was also the Chaos God of magic and intellect, so if anyone wanted Tzeentch to win, they just had to make a clever plan that would further Tzeentch's goals and pull it off, increase the amount of magic in the world or become a wizard (so technically everytime a [[Storm of Magic|Storm of Magic]] happens would be a victory for Tzeentch), [[Matt Ward|though GW has downplayed that aspect of him]], or maybe he's just trying to appear more menacing, who knows.

Possibly the god of "I meant to do that", "I was just pretending to be retarded," and "we can still make this work...".

==Followers==
Tzeentch's followers tend to be Librarians/wizards, Sorcerers, nerds, psykers/magical beings, unstable mutants, and red-nosed misfits, but instead of [[Nurgle]]'s "I love you just for who you are," Tzeentch encourages his followers to [[/tg/|revel in what makes them dweeb outcasts]] and go even further, constantly finding new ways to push limits and try things out just because they can. It's not enough that you've made this former Guardsman loyal, harder and better, faster and stronger, you could also fit another three arms on the guy, and if you added a head on his pelvis he would never be surprised, and he can't talk anymore so why not replace his larynx with a flamer sac? [[Chaos Spawn|Whereas other Chaos Gods accidentally pour too much love into their subjects]] (Slaanesh quite literally), Tzeentch does it on purpose because he actually knows what he's doing when he does so.

* Tzeentch Daemons are:
** '''[[Pink Horrors]]''': Ever-shifting gleeful balls of psychic rape. Really powerful ones are Heralds of Tzeentch. Courtesy of sixth edition 40k, these guys are now brotherhood of sorcerers, and a blob of 16 or more horrors can cast 3 spells per turn, and since they're daemons of Tzeentch they test on Ld10. Unfortunately, all the powers they have are '''FUN*'''. 8th edition Fantasy sees them as a blob of level 1 wizards who can't miscast, which are fun due to the randomness of them but aren't really competitive. The best-known of these is a being called the Changeling, who has the ability to transform into any being it wants, usually for the purposes of wreaking havoc behind enemy lines (although it has also been known to do so for pulling pranks as well, like planting Nurglings on the Skull Throne just as Khorne is about to sit down or cutting Slaanesh's hair while he/she/it sleeps). Apparently it's changed its form so many times it doesn't even remember what it originally used to look like.
** '''[[Horror#Blue_Horror|Blue Horrors]]''': When you kill a pink horror, it splits into 2 tiny, manic-depressive blue horrors. In 40k it just means your pink horrors hit back at S2 every time you kill one in close combat, which is kind of useless. Why are your horrors in close combat anyway? The Fantasy version of them are summonables that enter onto the field when the magic lore of Tzeentch sees a spell cast very well (since your Pink Horrors cannot miscast, throwing a fuckload of dice into a spell to produce more Blue Horrors is nifty). They're pretty weak though anyway, which is what keeps full Tzeentch armies from really being viable. A particularly notable pair of Blue Horrors are P'tarix and Xirat'p, also known as [[The_Blue_Scribes | Blue Scribes]]. Tzeentch sent them out to catalog every single magic spell in reality, knowing that they weren't smart enough to know how easily abused the power of said spells might be. Finally fixed in Age of Sigmar as they're now just weaker pink horrors that you place two when a pink horror dies.
*** '''[[Horror#Brimstone_Horrors|Brimstone Horrors]]''': Also known as Yellow Horrors. Recently added in Age of Sigmar and 40k, oddly never mention until now since three is a running theme for Tzeentch. When a Blue Horror dies they turn into a pair of angry little fire daemons.
** '''[[Flamers_of_Tzeentch|Flamers]]''': like Horrors but less limb-y and way more mouths to breathe fire with. Also, this fire is S4 AP4. If you inflict wounds on a unit they have to take a toughness test, and if they fail they suffer D3 wounds with no saves allowed. On the other hand, if they pass the toughness test [[FAIL|they get feel no pain (6+) which can stack if they keep passing.]]. They're the main Daemon ranged option in Warhammer Fantasy, although they're pretty close range. Best used to shotgun an enemy right in the flank while it's engaged with something from one of the other Chaos Gods in melee. ''Just as planned'', right there in the crunch.
** '''[[Screamers of Tzeentch]]''': the Tzeentchian notion of cavalry; levitating manta rays with buzzsaw fins. Also melta-teeth for some reason. In Fantasy they function as chaff by harassing units and weakening them (with great luck killing something important like a mage) or [[DISTRACTION_CARNIFEX |forcing them to devote a turn killing them and thus leaving that unit open to whatever other Daemons you brought]].
***'''Jet Screamers''': screamers that are really fast, Gold colored, and capable of shooting magic missles, and can teleport limited distances...so basically space cliffracers, (though the don't make any annoying sounds, every 5 seconds). very rarely seen, (tzeentch reserves them from combating other chaos gods), and those who see them even more rarely come out intact.
** '''[[Burning Chariots of Tzeentch]]''': One-man vehicles for heralds of Tzeentch or Exalted Flamers, which are like flamers but... exalted. In 40k this is where the AP2 Tzeentch Flame attack went after Flamers got a buff (but it's assault D3, for optimal '''FUN*''', and it also has a S5 AP3 torrent attack. These both follow the same warpflame rules as flamers do, but they also won't be leaving so many survivors so it's not as big a deal. Fantasy sees them as the surprise buttsecks machine, once again tearing through an enemy that's engaged with something else. Like Tzeentch's architectural styles though it's a glass cannon that WILL break if damn near anything short of an anemic [[Bretonnia|Bretonnian]] peasant orphan with a cold attacks it.
** '''[[Lord of Change|Lords of Change]]''': huge birdlike sorcerers that look like a [[Furry|werewolf's in-between state, only it's a werevulture-snake-velociraptor...thing]] (So, a Skeksis from Dark Crystal?). They have the power to predict the future at any given time so they're almost invincible, unless Tzeentch wants them to die, which going by all the times Tzeentchian Chaos Daemon and Thousand Sons armies lose, happens surprisingly often. They're the best non-named spellcaster available to Daemons in Fantasy. Chief among their number is Tzeentch's right-hand daemon [[Kairos Fateweaver]], who was gifted the ability to know everything that will ever happen (along with a second head). It's said that he knows the answers to all questions, but if you ask him, [[Troll|both heads give contradicting answers, with no way of knowing which head is telling the truth]], just [http://www.wobblymodelsyndrome.com/comic-80.html Don't ask him his name]. (Then again, there's nothing saying it's the same one lying every time.) So, ask them what your name is first so you know which one is telling the truth.
* Tzeentch's Chaos Marines come with an [[Thousand Sons|Egyptian motif]], and plenty of psykers and Sorcerers. Aside from that Tzeentchian marines are usually warband leaders, their advisors or prominent ambitious champions wishing to become one. Many of them hold their dedication to the Architect in secret, if only to keep their advantage of god's favor over other marines - ambition after all is the big deal for them. Fully Tzeentchian warbands do exist, but they are usually comprised of either complete madman who hear voices, see futures, hear all the lies in the world (simultaneously), can shape-shift or mutate at will or have some other mind-blowing (sometimes literally) "gifts" from the Architect, or body-less drones commanded by extremely powerfull mages, and a few elite commandos armed with psychicly reloading flame bolters (he values quality over quantity). It helps that Tzeentch is likely based on the Ancient Egyptian god Thoth. (also known as Jehuty who has been called a death god by some...)
** FYI, Tzeentch is always looking for [[Soul Drinkers|ways to convert more marines.]]
* Tzeentch's [[Warriors of Chaos|viking followers]] are usually the outcasts and elders of the tribes of the Norsemen rather than being a united group. They like to rock the "evil wizard" look with hooded cloaks and sacrificial daggers to compliment their tentacles and 3 faces on one head.
* He also has a presence in [[Cathay]], and is the only Chaos god who is interested in this country. Cults of Tzeentch are the royal pain in the collective asses for all members of Dragon family and is their biggest threat.
*In AoS, his mortal worshippers are the [[Tzeentch Arcanite]]s. They hide in the cities of Sigmar and Order, slowly amassing power and influence, before rising up in a spectacular display of both Just as Planned and fiery mutated goodness.

==Total War: Warhammer 3==
In the game you must collect the souls of 4 daemon princes, one from each Chaos god, in order to fight Be'lakor and get to Ursun. If you never were a big fan of Tzeentch before, crack your knuckles and prepare to load, load and load some more as his realm is the epitome of randomness. There are portals everywhere, and each one has a chance of taking you to the island where you fight his daemon prince; prepare for mental exhaustion as you roll the dice time and again praying you get to the right island. However, there is a small trick you can do: take pencil and paper or a notepad app and calculate and document which portals you go through and where they take you. Eventually you'll find the right portal to fight Tzeentch's prince, though it will still come down to a healthy dosage of luck. May the odds be in your favor!

Unlike the other gods he doesn't appear at random during his survival battles but his (many) eyes constantly watch from above.

Mechanically, Tzeentch's big gimmick is a barrier that all his mortal and daemonic followers get. It regenerates quickly, but only if the unit goes long enough without getting attacked. This encourages Tzeentch armies to be constantly cycling in and out of combat to regenerate the barrier, and his cavalry and anti calvary units are basically invincible, since getting your cav units in a protracted fight is suicide. Tzeentch also has access to a Teleport stance, which allows you to ignore terrain in the campaign map and guarantee a successful ambush if you use it to attack an enemy, which is something even the Skaven can't manage.

==Facts==
*Sly Marbo is the only person that Tzeench cannot control. That and Creed, that sneaky fucker, who is currently holding a gun to my {{BLAM}}.

* The name Tzeentch was originally going to be "Thence" of Change (which is a six letter anagram of Tzeentch) the TZ was latter added and the name reworked at the suggestion of [[John Blanche]] returning from holiday in Tanzania, where he saw a blue feathered bird performing tricks at the request of a tribal priest named Tuz Tuz.

* Tzeentch is likely inspired by the Ancient Egyptian god Thoth. Thoth was the bird-headed god of writing, science and magic; remember what Tzeentch's Greater Daemons look like.

* Tzeentch explained Chaos to a group of mathematicians. The ones who didn't go insane or start worshipping him came up with Chaos Theory.

* Tzeentch's favorite author changes from time to time. Some of his recurring favorites are Niccolo Machiavelli, Charles Darwin and Michael Crichton.

* A little-known fact: Tzeentch is anon.

* Tzeentch was responsible for the Great Depression and the 2008 financial crisis. Also, the First Gulf War? That was him too.

* Tzeentch does it for the lulz.

* Tzeentch is surprizingly good friends with Doomguy, due to the fact that Doomguy thinks most of his plans are hilarious, and he follows him...also for the lulz. (he got bored of "cleaning out" the Citadel of Brass every day and wanted a change).

* You know when your first puppy died? <s>Tzeentch did that too</s> it might have been Slaanesh.

* Tzeentch (much like [[Sly Marbo]]) knows and sees everything; thusly, he sees you masturbate and knows what fantasies you're having. And he laughs at you (again, much like [[Sly Marbo]]).
** Slannesh used to pay him “good money,” to tell you what you masturbate to, but an "agreement" with Khorne made him stop accepting bribes. (he only took it because Doomguy told him it would further their plans).
* Khorne is Tzeentch's favorite victim for hijinks because of an incident involving Doomguy’s friend Valen’s son being turned into a meat puppet for his and the C'tan's [[Doom|Earth invasion plan]]. The fact that Khorne is very easy to string along is a good bonus.

* Slaanesh is Tzeentch's second favorite victim for his hijinks, because Slaanesh's desire for a new high makes him/her/it very easy to string along, and also because it makes khorne laugh.

* Starscream is a servant of Tzeentch; he's got a huge amount of ambition. Too bad that Tzeentch won't let him succeed until he actually forms a plan instead of just saying "I am the new leader!" if Megatron so much as sneezes.

* Tzeentch is the god of hope among other things, yet he's a lot less friendly than the god of despair. Probably because most every being in the universe has had their fair share of despair and has learned to cope with it, while hope tends to show up just before you get ground into the dirt again. When the Despair-god comes knocking, you open a bottle and sigh, when the hope god shows up, you immediately wonder how you're going to get raped this time.

* Tzeentch has only ever truly lost to two beings: Creed and a [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|little kitten wearing a silver banana armour]].

* Tzeentch is a very morky god due to the fact he could set in motion a string of events that could lead to a lasgun in the back of the head when you aren't looking.

* Tzeentch is the <s>only</s> first contestant to ever be banned from entering Deal or No Deal after winning $1,000,000 9 times in a row.

* During their early days, Tzeentch once put on a magic show for the 3 other Chaos Gods. Among the 3, Khorne asked Tzeentch how he made Nurgle's Plaguefather disappear and reappear beside Slaanesh before their very eyes, which Tzeentch refused to tell and responded with "A good magician never reveals his tricks.", which caused Khorne to burn with unfathomable rage. <s>To this day</s> for over 50,000 years, Khorne had extremely low tolerance for magic users and psykers, which became evident when the [[World Eaters]] killed all their Psykers when they defected to Chaos. Like always, Tzeentch just said "Just as planned".
**Khorne has accutally relaxed this tendency after watching one of Tzeentch's chosen warriors [[awesome|light his sword on fire with his psychic powers]]. the fact that said warrior was Doomguy may have helped a bit...he still hates Zaraphiston though.

* Tzeentch is slightly pissed over the fact how his only representation in DoW are the Pink Horror daemons and the Chaos Sorcerer, unlike Khorne who gets Berzerkers, Chaos Marines chant "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" on attack and how he got an epic unit, the "Bloodthirster" and the fact that he has two Chaos Lords dedicated to him and the fact that his legion shows up in Winter Assault as one of the primary opponents, Khorne then goes on to get Bloodletters, Bloodcrushers, The Chaos Lord, who is the best damn commander in the game (though the Warboss has funnier dialogue) in DoW II, while in contrast, he's stuck with the sorcerer and his marines aren't even Rubrics. Still, better than Slaanesh, who only ever got the Emperor's Children default color scheme throughout the entire series. But now Slaanesh is getting Noise Marines in Retribution, which are sorta like SM Plasma Cannon Devastators. All Tzeentch gets are marks for certain units, which turns everyone of them into tank/infantry raping death machines, especially the generic marines.

* However, in DOWII, Tzeentch is still reveling in the fact how he got [[Scott McNeil]] to voice the generic Chaos Sorcerers again. '''HOWEVER!!!''', the Sorcerer's voice then became more soft, monotonous and unenthusiastic, which '''GREATLY''' angered Tzeentch.

* Tzeentch appears to be GW's least favorite of the Chaos Gods, his units tend to be the worst out of the four Chaos Gods, his stuff gets the least amount of attention, and the least amount of fluff written for him. Hell, there's often cases where despite magic/psykic powers being his specialty, Nurgle and/or Slaanesh give a better selection than he does. (Except for Age of Sigmar, where he's really good.) Arguably not true since 8th given how often Arhiman is used in Chaos armies and Magnus being the best of the Primarchs currently out.

* Some people play chess with reality and manipulate events and people like chess pieces, others play pool/billiards with it, moving things along like a cue ball and cue stick, others play poker with the universe, bluffing and cajoling things to receive favorable outcomes, other play roulette with the cosmos, making all the little movements needed for that lucky roll. But Tzeentch, Tzeentch does it all at once in the nightmarish game of [[Paradox poker|Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip Poker]], or PBVRFDHCSP a game that only a true master of dickery and the ability to perceive the past, future, and present can really play without looking like a massive tool.

* Every Saturday night, Tzeentch gets together with the [[C'tan|the Deceiver]], [[Cegorach]], and the [[Emperor]] for a rousing game of [[Paradox poker|Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip Poker]]. The sheer amount of dickery and [[JUST AS PLANNED]] that goes on during these games is so vast that if you were to watch one of these games, your head would 'asplode into a shower of [[Necrons]], [[Daemon|Daemons]], [[Eldar]], and [[Space Marine|SPESS MEHREENS!]]. Even Khorne is afraid to watch one of these games for fear of his head's un...asplodedness... Nobody ever wins though, (mainly because the Emperor take too long on his turns). Creed was banned from these tournaments after infiltrating queens into the games and somehow rigging the roulette tables beforehand one too many times.

* Tzeentch's favorite characters in Mortal Kombat are Quan Chi, Shinnok and Shang Tsung. Though Tzeentch favors Quan Chi more than the other two due to him being (arguably) the most manipulative bastard in all of Mortal Kombat. Hell, he is mostly responsible for almost all the events that happened. In fact, Quan Chi is considered the most untrustworthy character in all of Mortal Kombat considering that he has chronic backstabbing disorder, constantly lies and never fulfills his promises.

* Tzeentch's favorite Black Library novel is "A Thousand Sons". This is mostly because he relishes over the fact that he is such a magnificent bastard for all the things he did in said novel.

* Tzeentch created [[C.S. Goto|C.S. Multilazor]] to specifically troll Khorne's fluff.

* Tzeentch has planned everything you do, even this. Who knows what this article is distracting you from? Tzeentch does because he's why you're here. Woah! Where do you think you're going? You're leaving, eh? 'Just as planned'...

* Tzeentch didn't write this article. But he set in motion [[Just As Planned|every single event]] that contributed to it. Yes. Even this specific author's decision to write this paragraph.

* And this.

* The one place Tzeentch is afraid to go is the Well of Eternity; he believes that it is the beginning and end of the universe. He was wrong, it is where Sly Marbo lives. To find out what was in there, he sent in expeditions of Lords of Change and Horrors but they never came back out. Finally he just grabbed Kairos Fateweaver, his vizier, and threw him in. Due to lots and lots of [[Just as planned]] Fateweaver survived but was horribly disfigured. Marbo slapped himself for letting that one get away and forced himself to keep doing pushups until a planet the size of Jupiter was split in half as self discipline.

* The [[Warcraft]] and Starcraft franchises' existence are both Tzeentch's doing, he is the one that caused GW to turn down Blizzard's initial offer to make an RTS game. When Fateweaver was interrogated about why Tzeentch did that, the lying head dodged the question and the truth telling one said that there was no reason. Or did it.....

* Created Facebook....regretted it instantly but managed to troll the whole planet by making them buy Oculus Rift, no real logic just to fuck up Oculus's release schedule - It worked just as Planned!

* Contrary to what many would assume, Tzeentch is terrible at RTS games because he can never focus on one goal for a long enough period of time to focus on winning, or least that's the reason he claims why he lost at Supreme Commander to an illiterate [[Ork]] that did nothing but hit random keys the entire game.

* Tzeentch claims that [[Snowflame]] was his doing, arguing who else could be insane enough to create such a character. Slaanesh claims that Tzeentch is lying and that Snowflame is his/her/its doing, but Tzeentch points out that Slaanesh is also a liar, meaning that nobody knows who is lying.

* Tzeentch's realm is guarded by a labyrinth that can only be passed by the mad. It was only defeated once, by a little girl with a small black dog, and even Tzeentch doesn't know how because the guardians refuse to discuss it. This is canon.

* Tzeentch invented Scrappy Doo because he was bored.

* Tzeentch was the first being to create the Death Note. Possibly the one who made the idea of it all and gifted this to the Shinigami themselves.

* Since Tzeentch achieves his goals by having his many plans constantly foil each other and benefiting from the fallout of said foiled plans, this makes him one of the few beings who achieves [[Just As Planned]] as a direct consequence of [[Not as Planned]]. Depending on how you think about it, this means Tzeentch could technically be considered a god of both.

* If the Deceiver and Tzeentch battle and the Deceiver wins Tzeentch actually wins in disguise. and vice versa. and this effect is cumulative. therefore an unending cycle of win or don't win is created there are currently over 9000 such cycles in existence

* Tzeentch has a pet cat that is both [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat alive and dead].

* Tzeentch can be or be not defeated with the following train of logic.
:* You: So Tzeentch, you are a god of chaos?
:* Tzeentch: Yes.
:* You: So you would say that you are completely unpredictable?
:* Tzeentch: Yes.
:* You: So that means it is predictable that you will be unpredictable?
:* Tzeentch: ...

* Tzeentch is the reason the internet hyperlinks are blue.

* Tzeentch coined the phrase "You activated my trap card".

* Tzeentch created the bug that causes Gandhi to go nuclear in Civilization.

* Greedo shooting first was Tzeentch's doing.

* Tzeentch's favorite Gundam character is Char Aznable, the sheer amount of JUST AS PLANNED that the Red Comet uses put a grin on his face-for a brief moment.

* Tzeentch is the reason the Isekai harem hero was born. He wanted nerds to show off meta knowledge to numerous harem simulations to rub in slaaneshs face that nerds have to use their smarts and wits to get pussy instead of being a rapist or a loser who Slaanesh posses women to have sex with.

* Influenced ''Event Horizon'' to become a prequel to Warhammer 40,000.

==See Also==
*[[Thousand Sons]]
*[[Ballad of the Thousand Sons]]
*[[Thousand Son and Guardswoman]]
*[[The Game (Tzeentch)]]
*[[Rubric Marines]]

==Gallery==
{{promotions}}
<center>
<gallery>
Klaher-baklaher-tzeench.jpg
Image:Just as planned tzeentch.jpg
Image:Tzeentch_lord_of_change.jpg
Image:Tzeentchies.JPG|Tzeentchs followers
File:A_Typical_Sorceror_of_Tzeentch.jpg|A typical sorcerer of Tzeentch.
File:Tzeentchian Cultists.jpg|Pretty much how his cultists operate.
File:TzeentchianDie.gif|Tzeentch's dice change a lot when rolled.
File:TzeentchPinup.jpg|Even your masturbatory habits are just as planned.
Image:Tzeentch's_True_Form.png|This is speculated to be the true appearance of Tzeentch.
Image:1ksons pokeymans.JPG| "I choose ''YOU;'' teach them all that Power demands Sacrifice!!"
File:Tzeentch servant.jpg|Different demon, same thing, or is it? Just as planned!
Image:Tzeentch_mark.png|His Mark. Side effects may include growing extra eyes and rambling about the plans.
Image:Sexualyeti_tzeentch_daemonette.png|A daemonette of Tzeentch drawn by SexualYeti.
Image:69e497e8f2453c415cfc4a91f9e8e20f5eb69fa9.jpg|Lord Tzeentch makes sure all his servents get laid albeit the trick each other and manipulate each other to sleep with one another.
File:R34 Tzeentch 1.png|Tzeentch using the power of boobs and anime.

</gallery>
</center>

{{ChaosGods}}

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Disciples of Tzeentch]]

Communism

2023-05-11T19:52:07Z

2001:67C:6EC:203:192:42:116:219: This editwar is hilarious.

{{editwar}}
{{flamewar}}
{{Fail}}
{{Heresy}}

[[Image:Communismleaders.jpg|right|thumb|400px|Contrary to western propaganda, this is how communism has always worked]]

{{topquote|Under [[capitalism]], man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.|Anonymous radio host from Soviet Armenia; also attributed to Yakov Smirnov}}
{{Topquote|MASH THE DIRTY RED SCUM! KICK THEM IN THE TEETH WHERE IT HURTS! KILL! KILL, KILL! FILTHY BASTARD COMMIES! I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM! AH! AH!|Ordo Xenos Inquisitor John Cleese, responding to the threat of the Damocles Crusade}}
{{topquote|Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.|Adlai Stevenson I}}

'''Communism''' can refer to two concepts: the society where the economy is collectively managed and organised government is replaced by local communes (hence the name), and the (usually) authoritarian ideology that seeks to instate such a perfect society. Communism in the first sense had been tried in various villages through the early nineteenth century before fizzling out or being suppressed by authorities, but most people are only interested in the second sense, due to its enormous impact on the twentieth century. Communism the ideology is generally associated with oligarchic rule of the "vanguard party" and a degree of central planning; it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, as well as a few minor powers such as Yugoslavia and Vietnam, during the Cold War. It is still, albeit in a very modified form, adhered to in a few countries today, such as the People's Republic of China, North Korea and Cuba.

In many ways, it is the opposite of [[capitalism]], both of them along with [[nazi|nazism]] are considered by some historians as diverging branches from [[humanism]].

==Overview==
[[Image:Boris_Yeltsin_in_Texas.jpg|right|thumb|400px|Boris Yeltsin visits a Randall's in Houston. Two years later the Soviet Union was dead. Communism < Jello Pudding Pops]]
The ideology of communism is highly diverse, as numerous thinkers have proposed different definitions and pathways to a communist society, yet most modern communists, in one way or another, derive their ideas from the writings of Karl Marx: hence, it is Marxist communism that will be discussed here. Even then, a full explanation is far beyond the scope of this wiki, so [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism Wikipedia] might be a better bet if you want to get into the philosophical and economic details.

Most non-Marxist communists are more anti-authoritarian (e.g. Kropotkin, Makhno), so they are sometimes classified as [[Malal|anarchists]] instead. However, even Marxist communism is not homogenous, ranging from the more extremist (Hoxhaism, Stalinism aka Marxism-Leninism) to more moderate (Titoism, Kadarism, classical Marxism), sometimes mixed with nationalism (Juche), liberal capitalism (Dengism) or - ironically given communism's recurring [[Imperial Truth|anti-religion]] tendency - ''Catholicism'' (Liberation theology). Perhaps the reason why there are so many different variations of communism is because Marx and Engels' blueprint is so vague in many places (it didn't help that Marx died before finishing ''Das Kapital'') that it lends itself to a dizzying array of interpretations, for better or worse.

Marxism originates with the work of (newsflash) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Engels was the working son of an industrialist, while Marx got a PhD in law and spent much of his life in academia and radical politics; this arguably makes them the world's first [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee|socialist justice warriors.]] These two developed their economic theories as a response to the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Marx observed that while the mechanization of production was a good thing since it generated a lot of wealth, he believed it was [[Rage|grossly unfair]] since said wealth was accumulating in the pockets of only a few [[Games Workshop|fucking rich pricks]] and most other people lived in Victorian poverty. He further saw this as another step in a long historical trend in which a class that owned the means of production (i.e. factories, land, etc.) exploited and dominated a lower class that had to sell its labor power to survive (by working in said factories, land, etc.) even though they had no say in how the means of production could be used and had a better claim to it on account of being the class that actually used the means of production.

Marx viewed society as being on a very clear cut path of social evolution with clearly defined phases, based on his interpretation of Hegelian philosophy (we suggest you look that up yourself, it's much too complicated to make into a pithy explanation here). Every phase represented a different form of economy and social hierarchy, and, while starting out "progressive", would eventually [[Imperium of Man|fall into degradation]] as it exceeded its limits. At this point, this decayed socio-economic system would have to be overthrown and replaced with a more just and advanced one, starting a new phase: Marx considered the Fall of the Roman Empire (transition from individual slavery to land-based feudalism) and the revolutions of the 19th century (transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism) to be the moments when such a transition occurred. He believed that capitalism was rapidly approaching its own collapse and replacement.

The new social order, Marx believed, would be collectivist, atheist and classless: as industrial production required people to work together on a large scale, so too would the new system of government. The new society would start out more authoritarian (socialism) before its government would eventually dissolve (communism proper). The economy would be controlled by the workers rather than by individual shareholders, competition would be discouraged in favor of a more cooperative and collective-oriented mindset, and religion (which Marx considered an obsolete "opiate of the masses"- although contrary to popular belief he did not actually oppose its existence) would fade away when it was no longer needed to distract people from the poor conditions they lived in. Most importantly, the new order would end the traditional state of affairs in which one class dominated all others through its control of the means of production and allow for true equality and prosperity for everyone. It is for this reason that no Communist party has claimed it has actually ''created'' a communist society, as according to their ideology they are simply guiding society through its socialist phase until true communism can be achieved at an unspecified future time.

However, Marx and Engels never gave a clear outline of how such a society could be created or what it would look like, either because they believed the workers would decide that or [[Profit|they had no idea or plan for how to achieve it]]. The the first one to put it into practice on a national scale (Vladimir Lenin) gave it a distinctly authoritarian spin which only got worse with Stalin. It should not be surprising that even in Marx's own time there were many opposing views of how a communist society would be created and maintained since he failed to give a method to accomplish it.

As a whole, most forms of Marxism are highly skeptical of liberal democracy (albeit supportive of the democratic process itself and direct democracy in particular), as it is considered to be corrupt and easily manipulated by the wealthy (even if you take the role of the media and its ability to influence public opinion into account, the old stereotype of politicians serving their richest donors rather than the people they allegedly represent didn't exactly spring out of a vacuum); similarly, they dismiss the process of slow reform advocated by social democratic ideology as a mass of half-measures intended to preserve a broken system instead of replacing it. In its place, communists propose the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Before you jump to conclusions, Marx considered all forms of government to be a form of dictatorship in that one class held absolute power over all others; in this case, the class in question would be the workers, who would use the innately authoritarian power of the state to ensure that a worker-controlled democratic decision-making process would not be opposed by reactionary elements attempting to re-establish the old order (also, keep in mind that back in Marx's day even the most democratic societies restricted the vote to male property owners). According to Marx, this dictatorship would last only long enough to eliminate the differences between classes- as the state's existence is due to said class differences, this would eventually lead the state to dissolve when it was no longer needed...somehow.

One of Marx's most prominent socialist rivals, Mikhail Bakunin, made the prediction that a dictatorship of the proletariat wouldn't "wither away" as Marx expected, but instead would serve as the foundation of a new ruling class that would dominate and exploit the proletariat just like the capitalists did: rather than class differences leading to the creation of the state, it was the state itself that allowed those class differences to exist in the first place. As a result, using the power of the state to end class differences would only perpetuate them further.

In Leninism, Marxism-Leninism, and their offshoots, the dictatorship of the proletariat takes form of the "vanguard party", consisting of the most "class-conscious" individuals. This party would be given near-absolute power over society and economy, so that transition towards socialism and eventually communism would proceed properly. As such, most communist states using the Marxist-Leninist model and its relatives have been dictatorships, headed either by charismatic despots (Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot), or by the party oligarchy (modern China, late USSR). While other forms of communism exist that do not follow the vanguard party model, they are too lacking in influence to have ever been implemented on a national scale so we can't really say what they'd be like. It should also be noted that Marx and Engels themselves doubted the idea that a small revolutionary party could represent the will of the working class, an idea originally espoused by one of his other contemporaries (Blanqui, if you're curious).

===Issues===
One of the (many) major flaws in communist ideology is that its economic theories simply cannot be translated into the real world. For all the bullshit and genuine problems that happen in the free market (or the corporation-dominated form that exists today, at any rate), it still has the advantage of solving what economists call the ''economic calculation problem''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem .] To make a long story short, free markets work by allocating resources to where they are most needed and will produce the most value for people, and they are able to do this through ''price signals''.

Consider: Games Workshop wants money. You have money. So they make little [[Space Marines|metal figures]] that you want and so you buy them, and [[profit|they make money]]. Then they decide they want to make more money. So they try making a [[Manta|big honking model that costs a lot of money]], but you don't buy it because you're poor. By doing this [[Age of Sigmar|over]] and [[Primaris Marines|over]] again, GW eventually figures out what will and won't sell at what price, and you come to regard them as a money grubbing lawful evil because they're making a thing you want and charging you close to the highest price you're willing to pay to get it.

In a free market, nobody really needs to know what the whole economy looks like or how much steel the country will need in a given year; people only need to know how ''their own'' business works: what their customers want and what they'll pay for it. Under planned economies, by contrast, decisions are made by politicians and bureaucrats who have no understanding of how anything works and who pay no price for being wrong, leading to massive malinvestment and waste. Even nominally Communist governments were forced to implement some capitalist policies after learning this the hard way, though the degree to which they did so varied from country to country, with China being among the most capitalist and North Korea being the least.

Furthermore, Bakunin's predictions about the dictatorship of the proletariat turning into a dictatorship ''over'' the proletariat have proven to be consistently correct, with party bureaucracies quickly assuming the same exploitative practices that their capitalist precursors used and claiming the means of production for themselves rather than passing them onto the workers. Often, they actually made those practices worse and suppressed labor movements more aggressively than the capitalists they had overthrown.

Liberal philosophers like Karl Popper on the other hand took a more fundamental approach to their critique; Popper in particular had the major criticism that history doesn't run on predetermined rulesets and laws, like Marx thought, and that such a line of thinking, especially when paired with the promise of a socialist utopia, would ultimately just serve people like Lenin and Mao Zedong, who would abuse this ideology to create authoritarian nightmares that only serve themselves. Seeing how the Socialist dream always ended in stagnation, dictatorship and misery, he was ultimately proven to be right about a lot of things. Sociologists like Didier Eribon formulated another criticism on how Marxism views society; mainly that the working class, especially in our day and age, is not a uniform monolithic bloc that can be rallied to join a revolution or even a cause. While sharing common interests, how these interests manifest themselves in any individual can range wildly and also how the influence of social background often unconsciously makes people act against their own interests.

Even in an ideal universe where the bureaucracy running a centrally planned economy wasn't corrupt or inept, the technology to monitor and plan any sort of national economy has yet to be invented and what we have now can't keep track of everything well enough to make it work; the average economy is incredibly complex and not even the most advanced computers that currently exist can predict every possible variable that might affect how the economy functions (let alone predict the long term effects of a plan), so mistakes will inevitably occur and snowball with dangerous consequences. As a result, a centrally planned economy invariably destroys the countries in which it is attempted due to drop of quality in consumer products, and eventually, food sources. Countries like China use the international market to get around this, but this is only delaying the inevitable. It gets even worse when you factor in the further increased complexity demanded by globalization. Technological advancements in the future might be able to mitigate this issue or even solve it outright, but they may not happen for a very long time.

Other types of planned economies exist too, but they are much less common and tend to exist on smaller scales so we can't really tell how well they'd work on a national level, let alone an international one. They do seem to function surprisingly well on a regional/municipal scale though, especially those which are decentralized and use little to no top-down authority when making decisions. Only time will tell if they work on larger scales too, assuming that they are not forcibly ended by their rivals first.

The economic failures of Socialist countries can also be found in Communist ideology itself; if your state says that it's heaven on earth, then said state won't do a whole lot to potentially improve things it has apart from occasional repairs or inventing new things that aren't necessary for its own survival. The downfall of the USSR and its aftermath is a good example of this; WWII destroyed a lot of stuff in Russia, so the government increased funding for sectors essential to rebuilding the nation. Productivity remained high until the late 70s, when, paired with party cronyism, the job of rebuilding Russia was finished and productivity started to stagnate on a high level. The only sectors that saw regular innovation and new invention were the arms and nuclear weapons industry. So it came to be that the West ultimately shot waaaay past the USSR in terms of productivity and wealth and ultimately defeated it.

That being said, mixed economies combining elements of communism and capitalism (e.g. Keynesianism and the "Nordic Model") have consistently proven to be functional enough to not destroy countries, albeit these successes have much more to do with cultural factors than with any success of communist ideology, the latter of which has steadily been abandoned over the last few decades. As mentioned above, these mixed economies are typically viewed by socialists to be more closely related to capitalism than communism, and most of them believe that the welfare systems they depend on are likely to be privatized in the absence of a stronger shift away from a capitalist economy. Several of these economies have indeed been abandoning their socialist elements over time in favor of a more capitalistic system, due in no small part to economic stagnation and near-collapse due to socialist economic policies, although one could also point to major corporate and capitalist interests undermining said socialist policies as a cause of both of those. We're not in a position to say which of those explanations is more likely to be true, so we'll leave it at that.

Furthermore, Communist governments tend to move away from the tenets of Marx and Engels in an attempt to force their ideas to work in situations they were never intended to function in. Marx believed that the shift to socialism and then communism could '''only''' work in an advanced industrial capitalist society with an established working class and that any attempt to make it happen before that point was doomed to backfire (and as Venezuela has since shown us, even THAT prediction was clearly wrong), and one must also remember that while much of what he said was prescient, he had no idea how capitalism would develop past his own era.

Lenin got around this by claiming that he could "telescope" the capitalist and socialist revolutions into a single event with the aid of the aforementioned vanguard party and proposing an alliance with the Russian peasantry to compensate for the undeveloped presence of the working class. Even then, Lenin tentatively allowed a shift back to private ownership for the Kulaks just so the Soviet economy could get back on its feet, before Stalin purged them all as class enemies and triggered a widespread famine known as the Holodomor (which the vast majority of historians suspect was intentional on Stalin's part).

Mao Zedong took this to an even further extreme by forcing the revolution in the primarily agrarian China and then trying to kick-start industrialization with the "Great Leap Forward". It was a total failure for several different reasons, and Mao's hamfisted attempt to retain control of the Communist Party afterwards gave rise to the Cultural Revolution and all the bloodshed that came with it. Somewhat like Lenin, Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping ended up implementing capitalist policies (while leaving all the other oppressive elements intact) in response to the earlier economic crises. While it did salvage the economy, it also ended up producing a system that arguably combines the worst qualities of both capitalism and communism that survives only by constant pandering to nationalist sentiments.

Because of the legacy of the Cold War and everything mentioned above, mass famines among numerous communist countries, and widespread human rights abuses from the regimes of communist leaders, communism is about as "loved" as fascism; there's good reason why people occasionally put Stalin and Mao, and communism/socialism, on equal footing with [[Nazis|Hitler]] and Imperial Japan in terms of evilness. Even the forms of communism that originated independently of the Leninist traditions are generally poorly regarded at best due to guilt by association. This is ironic, given that Lenin (and later Stalin) spent a considerable period of time trying to wipe out the forms of communism that diverged from Leninism.

As an interesting closing note, some people claim that the rise of automation (robotic and algorithmic) has the potential to bring about a society that resembles what communism tried to achieve. Today, most farming is done either automatically, or by a single dude riding a combine and doing the job of hundreds of farmers in a single day, manufacturing has also similarly gone through a wave of automation which has seen many factories reduce the number of their workers from hundreds to mere dozens, and the recent bastion of human labor - the service sector - is slowly seeing the penetration of algorithms and in rare cases robots into the fold. What all this means is that humanity needs to do less and less work while the automated systems do it just as well if not better, these 'means of production' can be (in theory) easily nationalized and the usual problems of people slacking off due to everyone being paid equally is eliminated since both the neurosurgeon and waiter who are 'paid the same for their effort' are robots. Add to that the rise of 3D printing which may act as poor man's Star Trek replicators (eliminating the need to buy a smörgåsbord of stuff) and theoretically we could be on track towards "fully automated luxury gay space communism". However, none of these advances do anything about the economic calculation problem. They do not tell us how many robots to build or whether those robots should farm corn or assemble 3D-printed guns. More relevant from a communist perspective is the fact that these robots are still ''privately owned'' and so fail to address the core issue with capitalism in that the workers do not control the means of production and still have to sell their labor to live. All of this automation merely reduces the demand for human labor in some parts of the economy, pushing workers into whatever sectors of the economy are still hiring humans and leaving them destitute if they can't find anyone to sell their labor to. In fact, the original Luddite movement was a reaction to this very issue: it was composed of textile workers who had lost their jobs as a result of machinery eliminating the need for their skilled labor. (Contrary to popular belief, they didn't oppose technology itself so much as the fact that said technology was being used by employers to put weavers out of work and offered the ones that remained employed nothing in return but lower wages.) As always, only time will tell if automation can live up to its hype but historical precedent thus far is not promising.

=== Note ===
It also is notable that Communist is often used as a dismissive snarl in modern first world politics against the left wing, even when actual Stalinist-style communists (or "tankies" as other communists and socialists call them, a reference to the Soviets' sending in tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956) are a small minority on the fringes. There is also a distinction between Revolutionary Communists like the Bolsheviks and the Democratic Socialists such as the German SPD, which believe that the transition to socialism and then communism does not necessarily require an outright revolution and can be implemented through peaceful means. Ironically, it is the latter that more closely resembles classical Marxism. Democratic socialism in turn is not to be confused with social democracy, which is a form of liberal democracy whose capitalist economic system is paired with regulation and social welfare programs to mitigate the excesses of capitalism (with varying degrees of success as described above).

==Communism in Traditional Games==
In general there are three ways communism is used in fiction and board games:

1: '''Filthy Godless Red BASTARDS!''': Dangerous, faceless enemies, ripped straight from the wettest dreams of the Cold War-era American John Birch society. These communists are the enemy; a vast, brutal, godless horde determined to take over the world that our heroes must resist. Nowadays, this attitude is usually played for comedy, as in ''[[Paranoia]]'' where Friend Computer's glitched-out personality has made it a paranoid wreck obsessed with a largely-imaginary adversary (while creating some actual communists in the process). Others have played it seriously, especially in works produced during the Cold War (such as the 1984 film ''Red Dawn''). By the way, if you want an example of literal CommuNazis, the East German Stasi are a good place to start, although the Nazi part is mostly aesthetic and the Communist ideology is what was dominant (for CommuNazis as an ideology, Nazbols are basically that, combining far left economic policy and far right cultural party). Red Alert 1 is a /v/idya example, totally starting with a massive Tabun gas attack on the Polish city of Torun with ''children'' being discussed as dying the easiest.

2: '''Champions of the Proletariat''': The other side of the coin to what is listed above. These are either rebels against corrupt corporate overlords (frequently cyberpunk heroes) or a body of workers and soldiers fighting against fascist invaders (any game from the Russian perspective in WWII will count). Occasionally this show up in Medieval settings as anachronistic peasant revolts or other politically-radical types out to pull down the social parts of [[Medieval Stasis]]. Red Alert 3 has this a smidge between the lines, moreso in Uprising where they avenge innocent Russian citizens being frozen and crushed alive for fun by bloodthirsty Allied mercenaries.

3: '''GLORIOUS COMMUNISTS''': Somewhere between the other two and generally played for laughs. Communist regimes are oppressive and ponderous, but also able to do great things through sheer force of Industrial Might, Soviet Super Science, Stalinist Architecture and Will-Of-The-People and can be heroic just as easily as villainous. See Red Alert-II(more of it) and III(less of it), and to a lesser extent a few parts of the [[Imperium of Man]]. As close to real communism as you can get, comrade.

Communism has also provided us with the Russian army, which is an awesome gaming resource and reference, either in a drunken, drown-your-enemies-with-bodies-and-artillery sort of way (World War II), or a send-in-the-hardened-and-manly-Spetsnaz-and-tanks way (Cold War). It is a sacred law of [[/tg/]] alternate history [[/tg/'s homebrews|homebrew]] settings that there must be at least one communist faction and it must control at least 50% of the world's total landmass. Even [[Warmachine| Khador]] draws on the imagery of the Soviet armed forces, despite being more analogous to Tsarist/Imperialist Russia politically, aside from their Manifest Destiny "Why can't everyone else just roll over and let us conquer them?!" ideology that has... [[Nazi| other roots]].

Like all radical ideologies, communists are all over [[Shadowrun|the Sixth World]], mostly among the poor and disenfranchised who can't help looking up at the big fancy megacorp enclaves and wondering how ''that'' makes any kind of just sense. The Berlin Flux State was probably the biggest and most successful anarcho-communist enclave in-setting for a while, before it became such an embarrassment to the megacorps insisting they should be the only game in town that many of them (including the one run by the great dragon Lofwyr) had it dismantled somewhere around second or third edition.

People like to call the [[Tau]] communist. There's ''some'' truth to that, given they're a highly-collective society that generally values group achievement over personal accomplishment, but they're also a largely class-stratified society, with only the assurance that their leaders are theoretically cooperating for the [[Greater Good]] to keep them from being out-and-out feudalists with castes. This system is actually very similar to Italian and Spanish ''[[Nazi|fascism]]'', where the economy was split between several large trade-based corporations, where the workers and the bourgeoisie were supposed to talk out their issues together (under the benevolent guidance of the party elites of course) but this is not a perfect fit either.

There was also the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]], a parody of the kinds of communist guerrillas of previous decades, who are armed grots out to demand equal treatment from their Ork masters with comical results. The Imperium, being a decentralized feudalistic empire, undoubtedly has many worlds that have communist governing bodies and economies, and maybe even a few where things worked out okay.

The [[Genestealer_Cult|genestealers]] of the rusted claw have a communistic vibe as they utterly reject wealth in all its forms to the point that they dont bathe or maintain their weaponry allowing it to rust. They willingly joined the [[Tyranid|tyranids]] in order to escape the dismal working conditions of the [[Adeptus_Mechanicus|mechanicus]] and are one of the few truly nihilistic cults as some of them know that their masters will kill them in the end.

In '''Pariah: Ravenor vs. Eisenhorn''', Alizebeth Bequin (The clone) was seen hunting for relics from a collector. There, she came across [[wat|an ancient children's toy in the shape of a rocket with the marking of C.C.C.P (aka '''оюз Советских Социалистических Республик''' (Soviet Union))]]. Although it was obvious that 40k sets in the far future of our real world, it none the less confirmed the existences of Soviet Russia and communism in the setting. Btw, neither Bequin nor the collector knew what CCCP meant, considered much of the ancient Terra history were lost in the far future, but at least they remembered ancient humans on Terra made their ''first step'' to space using chemical rockets.

[[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|Golarion]] has got a semi-hemi-demi communist nation in-setting: Galt, land of insane, constant revolution where the only winners are the ''final blades''. It represents the "messy revolutionary" kind of communism rather than any of the three flavors above, though there's some obvious mixing with the principals of the French Revolution that was its more-direct inspiration.

The [[Harpers]] of Faerun are, among other things, semi-communists in outlook. They strongly favor removing power from single governments and shifting leadership to individual communities. This can make them heroic when unseating despots but significantly less so when assassinating anyone who tries to unite the city-states.

[[Khador]] in Warmachine takes the Glorious Soviet Russia identity and wears it like a badge, even though its actual government resembles Tzarist Russia.

''[[Star Trek]]'' is complicated. On the one hand, the Federation has essentially a communist economy and they have the humanist element down, but their advanced technology has created a post-scarcity economy, so it can be interpreted that the producers thought this would be a natural product of a society where everybody was self-sufficient. Conversely, their chief rivals, the Klingons and the Romulans, are transparent analogues of the USSR and Maoist China seen through the pre-détente eyes of an American lounge lizard. Similar post-scarcity communists are common in ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'', though with a much stronger anarchist bent. They are largely and uncomplicatedly perfect due to the game designers' raging stiffy for that kind of thing.

Any WWII or quasi-WWII game worth its salt will have a communist faction, including the classic ''[[Axis & Allies]]'' and the modern wargame ''[[Flames of War]]''. Additionally, many classic board games have attempted to tap into the forty-five year struggle for dominance between America and the communists. The most famous and best is probably ''[[Twilight Struggle]]''. [[TSR]] also released an RPG set during the Cold War called ''[[Top Secret]]'', though, like most non-''D&D'' TSR products, no one under thirty-five has ever heard of it.

{{BLAM|This article has been marked as containing treasonous capitalist road sentiments. Please report to your local commissariat for re-education through labor.}}

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
File:AK-47.jpg|Glorious Soviet Industries could be used to produce huge numbers of reliable and effective things which are still in high demand after a half a century...
File:Lada 1200.jpg||...Their cars are not on that list.
File:Communism and the NTS Fallacy.png|[[skub| Which form of socialism killed more people?]], Nazism or Marxism?, [[Tzeentch|nobody knows since both will usually deny the killings]]. (Not pictured: Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and more)
File:Space marine commie.jpg| Do your duty comrade
File: Stalin space marine.jpg| This is how some people think World War II actually went
File: Space marine revolution.jpg| The cure for [[Chick Tracts]] ("something something worse than the disease")
</gallery></center>

==See Also==
* [[Imperium of Man]] as it too was based on a revolutionary progressive ideal that gave way to despotism, with the big question being if this was a natural consequence of the ideal or a complete perversion.
* Come to think of it, most failed utopian societies that /tg/ loves probably borrowed from the history of Soviet Russia in some way, especially from the revolutionary to Stalinist era.

[[category:Not related]]
[[Category:history]]