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Stormtrooper

2022-12-16T23:14:03Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:C570:F909:4D50:3C58: /* Notable Stormtrooper Regiments */

[[File:Stormtrooper1.jpg|right|300px|thumb|"I smoke Cohibas, you smoke cock."]]
{{Topquote|I don't care how many there are, FIGHT!|[[Scott McNeil|Kasrkin Sergeant McNeil, shortly before being overrun.]]}}

{{Topquote|Are we '''blind!?''' '''DEPLOY THE GARRISON!!!'''|Director Orson Krennic, [[Star Wars|''Rogue One'']]}}

'''Stormtroopers''' (''Sturmtruppen'') were specialist close assault raiders in the German army during World War I. It is also the English name of the ''Sturmabteilung'', the notorious paramilitary arm of the [[Nazi]] party, leading to the common misconception that the term "Stormtrooper" originates with Nazis when, as already said, WWI Germans used it first. Their Nazi / Imperial German connotations, plus a cool name that's historical and thus freely usable, means they show up a lot as fictional specialist units. The (somewhat misinformed) association with the Nazis makes fictional units bearing this name more likely to be part of less than benevolent governments with the good guy factions usually calling them Shock Troopers or some variant thereof. A sub-type of Godwin's Law is using the word "Stormtrooper" as an insult to describe someone perceived as an authoritarian doucebag, especially if they're authority figures.

All of this leads us to...

== Warhammer 40,000 ==
In [[Warhammer 40,000]], Stormtroopers (officially called '''Tempestus Scions''' [[ChapterHouse Studios|because trademarks]] and, ironically Guardsmen in German because... [[Nazi|reasons]]) are the elite of the [[Imperial Guard]] and the core of the [[Militarum Tempestus]]; [[Skub|they're the best general-combat infantry that the Imperial Guard can field, and are the toughest, best-equipped, and best-trained soldiers available to an Imperial commander that isn't a]] [[Space Marines|SPESS MEHREEN]]. While most of the Guard is armed with your typical [[Lasgun|angry flashlight]] and [[Flak Armor]] or Flak Vest, Stormtroopers normally pack [[Hotshot Lasgun]]s, which fire much more penetrating shots that are capable of piercing most infantry armor with ease, and they are clad in [[Carapace Armor]], which gives them substantially higher survivability on the battlefield (Cadian Kasrkin wear the more [[Awesome|Chad]] [[Kasrkin Armour|Kasrkin 'Cat' Armour]]).

In earlier editions of the game, they were favored as "Light Marines," since they had fairly similar performance to Space Marines but cost considerably less due to their weaker gear. As of 6th edition, they became a dedicated elite choice, with all the pros and cons that implies. Unless you use their own mini-codex, of course. Then they become troops. In 8th edition, they became Troops even if you didn't.

There is a key difference between true Stormtroopers and many different types of regimental proxies/wannabies, the former originate from [[Schola Progenium]], the latter are simple top-notch regimental soldiers. There is also a line between Stormtroopers analogues and Grenadiers (or Heavy Infantry Regiments): [[Cadia]] for example fields Kasrkin, Armageddon fields Steel Legion Stormtroopers, [[Death Korps of Krieg]] field Grenadiers (all three of those are armed with [[Hellgun|hellguns]] instead of [[Hotshot Lasgun|hotshots]]), but the [[Harakoni Warhawks]] are grenadiers by Guard classification, armed with humble lasguns and not expected to meet Stormtroopers standards despite being clad in [[Carapace Armor]]. The [[Inquisition]] also fields their own branch called the "Inquisitorial Stormtroopers" who form the Inquisition's main offensive force and are basically the 5% of Schola Progenium Stormtroopers deemed pure, faithful and overall good enough to help your average Inquisitor meet the horrors that are part of his job head-on. Regardless of their appearance or gear, they're all incredibly potent if used correctly.

Unfortunately, in terms of actual models, the only stormtroopers you can currently get (besides the Death Korps Grenadiers) are the Tempestus Scions. If you're lucky, GW may have some Kasrkin available for Made-to-Order, but only some of the time, and only in metal. If you want them in plastic, you'll have to resort to kitbashing Scions with conversion bits.

While this sounds all proper and awesome, the average Guardsman in the street can't stand them, referring to them as "glory boys" and resenting the fact that they're a good deal less likely to die, given that they're given better equipment than standard issue cardboard armor with a flashlight. The Kasrkin (and probably Death Korps Grenadiers, since dead men don't care for glory), who are revered and respected amongst Cadia, are a curious exception. This is likely due to the fact that, unlike most stormtroopers, who are raised and trained in the prestigious [[Schola Progenium]], Kasrkin are all trained right on Cadia and experience the same hellish conditions as everyone else, so they also strongly believe that THIS WILL BE DA DAY UF GLOREE. More canonically, it is because Kasrkin have the same equipment as the grunt Guardsmen they serve with except they have a [[Hellgun|hellgun]] - and yet in spite of the shitty everything else, they're WAY more badass than the stormtroopers. ''That'' is why they are inspiring to the average Guardsmen: Kasrkin show them what normal humans can really do, even the Imperial Guard.

===Notable Stormtrooper Regiments===
* '''9th Ioatan Gorgonnes:''' The 9th Ioatan Gorgonnes come from the Schola Progenium facility on Vedill I, the same facility that feeds recruits to the [[Sisters of Battle|Order of the Glowing Chalice]]. Though they part ways upon finishing their training, they are always reunited on the battlefield. As a result, the 9th Ioatan Gorgonnes are often seen doing missions on behalf of the [[Ecclesiarchy]].
* '''22nd Thetoid Gryphonnes:''' The 22nd Thetoid Gryphonnes are all orphans from the world of Tallix, which has higher than normal gravity. This gives them stronger leg muscles than normal and allows them to perform rapid assaults on any terrain, even with heavy gear. They've also modified their Taurox Primes to sacrifice armor for additional speed.
* '''32nd Thetoid Eagles:''' The 32nd Thetoid Eagles were known for their secretive nature and brutality in battle, with concerns growing among Segmentum command over their ability to follow orders. When the regiment was deployed to the Xinon System to put down an [[Alpha Legion]] cultist uprising, the regiment's command structure and Commissar were killed by a war machine hiding in lava. After securing a drop zone for the 32nd [[Elysian Drop Troops]] as originally ordered, the regiment went berserk and put down uprising after uprising. When the Elysians tried to debrief the 32nd Thetoid Eagles, they found that the entire regiment had vanished.
* '''33rd Deltic Phoenixes:''' The 33rd Deltic Phoenixes were formed from children orphaned by [[Dark Eldar]] raids on the planet Kaldamor. Despite having their memories wiped, the regiment displays a greater zeal and kill rate against Dark Eldar. The Kabal of the Emerald Talon has vowed revenge against the regiment after being defeated by them on the world of Erendix.
* '''34th Betic Centaurs:''' The 34th Betic Centaurs are based on the volcanic [[Death World]] of Makron V, which is often raided by [[Chaos]] forces. These raids help produce some of the hardiest and most battle-hardened stormtroopers in the Imperium, as they provide a perfect training opportunity for the Schola Progenium.
* '''34th Psian Vipers:''' The 34th Psian Vipers are known for their tenacity, even by Ordo Tempestus standards. When the regiment was deployed against awakening [[Necrons]] on the [[Imperial Worlds#Agri-Worlds|Agri-World]] of Murunda II, they got trapped underground when the main entrances collapsed. They didn't consider their escape options until they had destroyed every Necron on the world after several weeks of nonstop fighting.
* '''43rd Iotan Dragons:''' The stormtroopers of the 43rd Iotan Dragons train within simulated darkened labyrinths that give them the ability to fight totally blind. This has made them successful against numerous stealthy enemies, especially [[Tyranid]] organisms.
* '''50th Kappic Eagles:''' Despite barely numbering a single company, the 50th Kappic Eagles have become renowned for their bravery and fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds under the command of Tempestor Prime Salem Whitlock. Whitlock always insists on leading from the front, and his bravery inspires his men to victory after victory.
*'''54th Psian Jackals:''' After [[Hive Fleet Leviathan]] ate their original homeworld, the 54th Psian Jackals set up shop on the [[Maiden World]] of Mayloc. The [[Eldar]] didn't take too kindly to this, and have attacked them multiple times to retake their land. These attacks have turned the 54th Psian Jackals into the best of the best within the Ordo Tempestus for tracking and countering Eldar incursions, and they have been deployed to deal with Eldar from various [[Craftworld|Craftworlds]]. They also like to paint skulls on their helmets and other images across their armour to intimidate their enemies.
*'''55th [[Alpha Legion|Alphic Hydras]]:''' Among the most respected of Stormtrooper regiments, and bros with the [[Ultramarines]]. In fact, they're so close with the Ultramarines that they've been given extra training grounds across the [[Ultramar]] sub-sector. It's even been rumored that the regiment sends its best and youngest Stormtroopers to be initiated into the chapter. The 55th Alphic Hydras first gained recognition after being deployed alongside the Ultramarines 2nd Company and single-handily purging the [[Agri-World]] Masali of Orks. The [[Chaplain]] assigned to the 2nd Company quickly realized the regiment's value, and they have been deploying alongside the Ultramarines at their request ever since.
*'''55th Kappic Eagles:''' The posterboy Stormtrooper regiment seen on all the box art. They pretty much have no personality beyond being really good at their jobs.
*'''62nd Rhoin Cobras:''' Have a diehard hatred of all forms of foul sorcery. They once had to protect their former Schola Progenium facility on the Jungle World of Skell II from the [[Thousand Sons]]. Despite losing half the regiment, the Stormtroopers were successful in saving their former home.
*'''68th Deltic Lions:''' The Stormtroopers of this regiment are known for being extremely hardy and resistant to disease, and they're often deployed to [[Zone Mortalis]] battlefields and alongside the [[Ordo Malleus]] to fight the forces of [[Nurgle]]. Nurgle has taken quite the interest in this regiment, and seeks to test and investigate them with all sorts of [[Daemon|Daemons]].
*'''86th Deltic Dragons:''' When the Imperium is forced to cooperate with the [[Tau]] to deal with an even greater xenos threat, it's the 86th Deltic Dragons that are sent in. The 86th Deltic Dragons often deploy alongside the similarly stoic and determined forces of Sept Kel'shan. The two forces have successfully defended two separate worlds from splinter fleets of [[Hive Fleet Gorgon]], with the 86th Deltic Dragons getting in close to deal with the big targets and bolstering the Tau gunlines in close range firefights. The Ordo Tempestus watches the regiment closely, and forbids Tempestor Prime Prellus from communicating with [[Tau Commander]] Shas'O Shi'Y'he.
*'''88th Alphic Lions:''' Bros to the end with the [[Blood Angels]], and specialists in dealing with [[Warp]]-based entities.
*'''101st Betic Dragons:''' The 101st Betic Dragons are renowned for their skill in airborne strike assaults. They used those skills to harry and drive some [[Chaos Dreadnought#Helbrute|Helbrutes]] of the [[Crimson Slaughter]] into lava on a volcanic [[Death World]], and gave the [[Destroyers]] chapter the boost they needed to defeat the [[Chaos Space Marines]].
*'''133rd Lambdan Lions:''' The Schola Progenium and training facilities of the 133rd Lambdan Lions are based on the two moons that orbit the [[Forge World]] of Mezoa. Ancient pacts between Mezoa and the Ordo Temepestus see the 133rd Lambdan Lions deployed on behalf of Mezoa's priesthood to recover lost technologies. In exchange, Mezoa augments the gear and vehicles of the regiment, and even teaches them basic Lingua-technis. Despite this, the regiment has little interaction with the Cult Mechanicus and only gives a shit about what their next orders are. Unlike most Stormtrooper regiments, the 133rd Lambdan Lions will engage in long expeditionary campaigns rather than quick strikes as part of their tech recovery missions. Depending on the situation they will also fight in the shadow of [[Skitarii]] Legions and the [[Adeptus Titanicus]], although they usually just do the bidding of Mezoa with the approval of the Ordo Tempestus. Occasionally, the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] will go behind the back of the Ordo Tempestus and issue orders without waiting for approval if Imperial bureaucracy really kicks in.

===In [[Dawn of War]]===
Kasrkin are available for the Imperial Guard starting in Winter Assault, and they're one of the better choices the Guard has. They suffer the same problem that almost every unit in Winter Assault has, however, in that they're redundant - they utterly replace Guardsmen by Tier 3 in that game, and in every game of WA that makes it that far, your sole mission objective from then on is to spam Kasrkin endlessly.

In the later games - Dark Crusade and Soulstorm - their numbers were hardcapped, ergo ensuring that you can only use one squad at a time. They were also added in as a main unit in the Inquisition Daemonhunt mod/Ultimate Apocalypse, and made hideously OP after Dark Crusade's infamous moving debuff, as their ridiculous rate of fire meant that, even with 15%, hit chance they were still going to get a decent DPS.

===In Dawn of War 2===
Stormtroopers are DoW 2's equivalent of DOW's Kasrkin, they appear in all games but only become widely playable during Retribution, where the Guard becomes a playable faction. You only fight alongside them in the original DoW 2 and you get to control two squads of them on one mission during Chaos Rising. They use [[Hotshot Lasgun|Hot-Shot lasguns]] with armor-piercing effects. Stormtroopers can be upgraded with multiple "kits" that lets them be more effective to different targets and fit certain circumstances.

The kits are:
* Assault kit, which increases their fire rate and range, but now actually costs something <strike>and makes them take more damage as well (Outdated as of version 3.18, more info on the Retribution wiki comments)</strike>. Usually passed up in favour of melta, but still useful for dealing with some elite infantry and commanders.
* Anti-tank kit, which easily makes them the best hunter-killer unit the Imperial Guard have available in the game. Their melta guns and melta bombs allow them to wreck vehicles, fuck up enemy power supplies, and to a lesser extent, tear up enemy commanders and superheavies.

Unlike their original appearance in DoW, stormtroopers this time round actually have a role other than being guardsman squad 2.0. Their weapon options and ability to infiltrate make them ideal for removing high priority targets like enemy vehicles, elite units, or commanders. They can also be used to disrupt power supplies and decap points. Although stormtroopers are a bit tougher and have more [[dakka]] than regular guardsmen, their unit size is much smaller (compare 5 troopers to an infantry squad's maximum of 12) and they fare even worse in melee. With the addition of a sergeant and [[commissar]], guardsman infantry squads can reinforce three troopers at a time for a fraction of the cost of a stormtrooper, which makes them a whole lot more resilient in the field when combined with a reinforcement point such as a [[Chimera Transport|Chimera]].

In [[Last Stand]] the Stormtroopers are an available command accessory for the Lord-General, allowing him to call down a squad of them at any time in order to assist. While this gives a major reduction in energy expenditure via their passive and offer the only mobility boost available, they are pretty much dead last in terms of utility. You get only a small few of them - they aren't tanky like ogryns, they aren't very good in close quarters like the catachans and they can't take any other weapons like the guardsmen.

===On Tabletop===
[[File:Tempestor.jpg|300px|thumb|right|What they look like.]]
Scions/Stormtroopers are difficult to classify in tabletop. Many players eschew them, since the Imperial Guard used to be able to field cheaper <STRIKE>Infiltrators with</STRIKE> carapace armor (and better range as part of the bargain) via Veteran Squads, and Veterans had Objective Secured as part of the bargain (but now so do Scions, who can be taken as Troops). On the other hand, Scions Deep Strike by default and come with AP-2 weapons which can put the hurt on just about anything, including Marines.

As of 8th Scions have effectively replaced Veterans as an up-armored, elite Troops choice. Although Veterans can still take heavy weapon teams and heavy flamers (which makes them a better choice for a static gunline) they have lost infiltrate ''and'' their old doctrines (carapace armor, camo-cloaks, snare mines), making them worth just about fuck-all to anyone who isn't running a Vanguard.

Where Scions come into their own, however, is as surgical strike units. Suffice to say, Scions are amazing units when used for target elimination - nobody likes taking AP-2 fire from anything (except, you know, [[MEQ|TEQ]]) and they provide easy deep-striking plasma and meltas that the [[Imperial Guard]] lacks. Scions are a comparatively mobile and deadly force whose basic guns now have better AP than a goddamn ''bolter''. Access to up to 4x special weapons and BS+3 doesn't hurt either - well, unless you're the enemy. Then it actually does hurt. A lot.

Scions can take a transport such as a [[Chimera Transport|Chimera]] or [[Taurox#Taurox Prime|Taurox Prime]], however, Valkries and Vendettas are much more reliable than simply deep striking. In 8th they can also be taken as their own stand-alone regiment and come with interesting stratagems and special rules. For instance, their Warlords can Deny the Witch as if they were a psyker; with '''Superior Intelligence''' you can shoot at deep strikers within 12" the instant they arrive; combine the '''Tactical Auto-Reliquary of Tiberius''' with Master of Command and your Tempestor Prime becomes a 40 pt Creed; and if your Stormies are in double-tap range then their weapons gets an extra shot whenever you roll 6+ to hit.

A common joke amongst /tg/ is that in order to win, you must spam '''MOAR STORMTROOPERS'''.

9th Edition seems to have taken a surprising turn as they announced the return of the Kasrkin, implying that they'll either be a legitimate unit to include in a Cadian army or as some reskins.

===Tales of Hilarity===
Almost ''every'' 40K oldfag can tell you a tale of their first (and often most memorable) encounter with Stormtroopers; usually it pans out around the same way: the player (often playing something lighter-armored, like [[Tyranids]], [[Orks]], or [[Eldar]]) has fought a lot of Guard units, but hasn't really ''seen'' Stormtroopers in action before, and the Storms are usually camping an objective or getting ready to clear an area. The unwitting player moves in to intercept, expecting just another Guardsman squad, and proceeds to learn that Carapace Armor is a thing and it makes its wearer substantially harder to kill than Guardsmen are. The Stormtroopers then immediately return fire and quickly mulch the squad with their BS4 and AP3 Hellguns (AP5 in the previous editions, but with 24" range) weapons, and the young player quickly learns to never take a unit lightly again.

Another humorous tale that is constantly related regarding Stormtroopers is when Inquisitorial Stormtrooper Sergeants, in 3rd edition, were able to, due to a typo in earlier prints of the codex, take Thunder Hammers. This was expensive, but since a standard power weapon was only 10 less, this quickly became a thing wherein a Stormtrooper squad could be an effective charge deterrent, as enemies would assault the squad, the Stormtroopers would armor save most of the damage, and the hits from the Thunder Hammer would screw the attacker's initiative, resulting in the one thing every close-combat squad fears: Losing an assault to a bunch of Squishy humies. This was errata'd away in later editions, though there ''was'' an article on Games-Workshop's website condoning the practice back in 2006.

{{Militarum-Tempestus}}
{{Imperial-Guard}}
{{Inquisition}}

== Star Wars ==
[[Image:Imperial_Stormtroopers.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Note the substantial height differences in a group that's supposedly a bunch of clones. There's a reason the EU didn't go with the idea that ''all'' Stormtroopers are clones. At least not clones of the same person.]]
In [[Star Wars]] Stormtroopers are the iconic white armored soldiers of the Galactic Empire. They were formed out of the remaining clones of the Grand Army of the Republic when it was dissolved into the Empire. The increase in numbers needed to ''hold'' territory instead of just take it combined with a clone rebellion and exhaustion of the original Jango Fett DNA has seen the Empire transition away from a force exclusively made up of clones. As a result, rather than be children of a single clone daddy, Stormtroopers are made up of recruited humans as well as clones of newer templates created by Spaarti cloning, a process that produced much faster results than the Kaminoan cloning used by the original clones at the cost of lower quality. Their fancy armor isn't very good against blasters, even within the films.

=== Clones? Skill Level? ===
Lucas has waffled on if Stormtroopers are cloned or not. The original films had large groups of uneven height stand next to each other and in his early notes for Expanded Universe material, he stated there were female Stormtroopers at other duty stations. Later on he made edits in the special edition and other rereleases, plus a gag in the prequels that the Stromtrooper hitting his head was inherited from Jango, that implied they were. Stormtroopers are also said to be elite soldiers with peerless marksmanship ("Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."). Despite this, their poor showing during the Death Star escape (people often forget they were ''intentionally'' letting them get away to track them) and the Battle of Endor (for which there is no excuse) and minimal appearance of "normal" Imperial soldiers (The Holiday Special and SOLO: A Star Wars story are the only places in live action where they're anything but background details) have resulted in the expanded universe and most RPGs showing them as disposable mooks. But the fact is, Stormtroopers remain a separate institution within the Imperial military, kind of like the Waffen-SS or Napoleons Imperial Guard, with their own resources and command structures separated from the rest of it. The actual rank-and-file in the Imperial military is the aptly named Imperial Army which sees very little representation in any Star Wars media and many writers completely forget about. The brief occasions where the Army is represented in any capacity are the AT-ST pilots in Episode 6 and the poor schmucks slaughtered by the dozens in the awesome-as-heck Battle of Mimban in ''Solo''. But again, most people, fans and writers alike, forget about this detail, and so Stormtroopers are made the primary infantry force in the franchise. And consequentially, often portrayed as the lowly fodder. This was ''eventually'' rectified by establishing that while Vader's personal 501st Legion, the only ones Kenobi was familiar with (besides his own unit from the Clone Wars, the 212 under Cody, and other GAR units who obviously are better than conscript masses due to combat experience), were indeed cloned elites and the only unit to fully retain the Jango Fett template due to them being fanatically loyal, the majority of Stormtroopers in the galaxy are merely recruited humans with much lower standards or cloned from younger, inferior, clone daddies. The Commando Clones were also brought into the 501 and the rest of the Fett clones either retired early due to accelerated aging, defected to Mandalore through Kal Skirata or gave training to others like Cody and then retired after a few years of that. The 501st had their moment of glory at Hoth as the main infantry force accompanying Vader, but even then between the loss of several AT-ATs to Luke, Wedge and the other Rogue Squadron pilots and to the ice breaking under some of the others and the accelerated aging reducing performance, it was a tactical win but a strategic failure as many rebels managed to escape. The 501st Legion Fett clones were then retired in the next year before Endor due to the aging problems with clones and degradation in the original DNA sample, which helps explain their losses there. Thrawn later rebuilt the 501st with elite recruits and this version of the unit continues for more than a century with the best of the best being placed there, transferring from Thrawn to the Imperial Remnant at Bastion and serving until the end of Legends history.

Another phenomena in the expanded universe is attempts to explain the poor accuracy with gear issues. These range from poor vision in helmets to defective components in blasters. These two could be used together, saying that the armor was designed for a very limited size range (a literal bunch of clones) and fit poorly on recruited soldiers. This is especially so when it's outright canon that early generation clone armor was made by non-humans and did indeed impede movement. However it is also worth pointing out that in the real world 90% of the shots a soldier takes will miss anyway.

Where Stormtroopers do excel consistently is in fights against equally nameless foes. All RPGs stats and asymmetrical video games show Stormtroopers are flat out better than the typical Rebel soldier, B1 droid or Hutt thug. This isn't so curbstompingly better that Stormtroopers would win with 2-1 odds without better tactics (which they'd have in narrative but isn't represented mechanically) but they do have better stats. Officially they're just worse than any hero. If you watch the original Star Wars movie (whether remastered or not), the Stormtroopers whenever fighting non-plot armored people absolutely ''curbstomp''. Like in the first scene of the movie when they go through a single-file door into a heavily defended and narrow corridor and yet slaughter the absolute ''fuck'' out of the Rebels. In fact, the only time we see them faring badly in firefights in the movies is on the Death Star in the first movie (when there was a beacon on the Falcon and so their misses were likely due to orders to let the heroes escape), against Luke on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back (he's a freaking Force-sensitive with some training and combat experience, oh and also the son of the literal Chosen One of the setting, so that isn't a fair measurement), and we don't really see anything in Return of the Jedi due to Ewok shenanigans. When the Millennium Falcon was escaping Tatooine where the troopers were arguably trying to damage the ship's engines and not actively trying to shoot Han Solo. With the Imperial Remnant they show competence fighting at the Yuuzhan Vong War and continue service until the end of the known timeline, even fighting on both sides of the last known war and one company takes part in the last battle known, witnessing the extinction of the Sith.

Within the Disney canon, Rogue One also indicates another factor in which Force Adept Chirrut Imwe walks out of cover (after a Rebel Soldier gets wasted by Stormtroopers for being exposed from cover for a second) and walks through a hail of blaster fire sedately while chanting a matra to the Force. This indicates that the Force is to some degree actively intervening for force sensitive individuals by making shots run astray, though even this is not a 100% fool proof solution as he was eventually gunned down.

=== Variants ===
Since the Empire is large and includes every biome known to man and several fictional ones (and the Star Wars franchise is built on toy sales), the Stormtrooper Corps has specialized units for nearly everything imaginable. On top of this, there have also been many attempts to create [[Primaris Space Marines|even better versions]] of normal Stormtroopers, leading to quite a few different "elite" types that [[Deathwatch|almost all wear]] [[Black Templars|black armor]]. This is a list of all the ones people care about because they are common, cool, or appeared in a movie or a good EU product, plus a few memorable one-offs.

* Coastal Defender Stormtrooper: Also known by the less intimidating name of "Shore Troopers". Made for Rogue One, they basically get stationed on beaches and other tropical places like Scariff, where the movie's big battle takes place. In theory, this ''should'' mean they get the best jobs of any Stormtrooper, but as Rogue One and The Mandalorian both show, this isn't really the case.
* Cold assault stormtrooper: More commonly known as snowtroopers, this is a normal group of Stormtroopers outfited with cold weather gear. Most infamous for their appearance at the Battle of Hoth, but they've seen many other frozen battlefields. One of the few non-standard variants seen on film.
* Dark Trooper: A series of battle droids (and cybernetically augmented soldiers depending on iteration), with the later models also doubling as [[Power Armor]] that can be worn by a regular Stormtrooper. Discontinued after Kyle Katarn blew up their mobile production facility, taking the project notes and designer with it, in ''Dark Forces''. Brought into Disney's canon in season 2 of The Mandalorian to the sound of questionable dubstep, but the Mouse House ''did'' remember to keep them dangerous...until Luke Skywalker shows up that is.
** Purge Trooper: A variant Dark Trooper in Legends designed to hunt down Force-users like surviving Jedi, making them basically the Sentinels to the Jedi's X-Men. Made for The Force Unleashed, where they are easily one of the most annoying enemies in the game. Disney has their own Purge Troopers, but there they're Clone Troopers in black Paratrooper armor with some red instead of OP droids, and can be heard [[Emperor's Children|enjoying combat a little too much]] in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
* Death Trooper: One of two Stormtrooper variants of note introduced in Rogue One, they basically function as Disney's equivalent to Shadow Stormtroopers: black armored elites who are more stealthy than regular...[[Derp|even though Shadow Stormtroopers still exist also]]. For some reason their helmets garble their voices into sinister-sounding but completely incoherent gibberish, ensuring they'd be useless at any drive-thru (as more than one person online has already pointed out).
* Desert Stormtrooper: More commonly known as sandtroopers. Made for hot environments like Tatooine, making them the very first Stormtrooper variant ever shown. They all wear backpacks and an orange or black shoulder pad, the latter also sometimes showing up on regular Stormtroopers who are officers or heavy weapons specialists (it's a bit inconsistent).
* Emperor's Royal Guard: Stormtroopers trained to protect Emperor Palpatine himself. Their members are drawn from the ranks of the best Stormtrooper forces, then put through exceptionally brutal training on a barren desert hellhole which only the best survive, turning them into functional supersoldiers, a premise [[Dune|you definitely haven't seen before]]. They're then put under the direct command of Palpatine, with orders to protect him and undertake any sabotage/assassination/frontline combat missions he commands them to. They mainly use force pikes (shock sticks basically), or double-bladed vibroswords to stab and slash things to death in the Emperor's name, though they can and do use red-tinted versions of Stormtrooper armour and vehicles when in the field. While obviously not able to take down Luke Skywalker-types, they are still among the best non Force Users in the setting. In Legends, Royal Guards also have a secondary function of keeping an eye on Vader, reporting on his every activity so that Vader doesn't have an opportunity to betray Palpatine; they may not be a match for him, but Vader can hardly do anything without the Emperor knowing about it.
** Coruscant Guard: Another red-armored elite branch of the Empire, they're basically Coruscant's [[Adeptus Arbites|brutal, no-nonsense police force]]. Mostly showed up in Shadows of the Empire, where Luke disguising himself as one allowed them to (sort of), get an action figure.
** Riot Trooper: Made exclusively for Force Unleashed II. They are also trained on Yinchorr, but wear white armor and are seemingly more common and less skilled than the red-robed Royal Guards. Use electro-staves like the ones wielded by Grievous' Magnaguards.
** Shadow Guard: Black armored, Force-sensitive versions of the Royal Guard. They use red-bladed lightsaber pikes and Force powers in combat, acting as Palpatine's elite enforcers and assassins. Exactly where they come from is a complete mystery, with even Vader kept in the dark on their origins - in-universe theories range from them being [[grimdark|Jedi Knights captured, tortured, and mind-broken by the Empire until they're little more than speechless living weapons]] to them being Force-sensitives promoted from the rank of the regular Royal Guard. Of course, these explanations are hardly mutually exclusive.
* EVO Trooper: Short for "environmental". Debuting in The Force Unleashed, they're sent to particularly exotic and dangerous locales where its felt a more specialized trooper is needed (because the Empire never has enough of those). Wield a rifle that looks a bit like a miniature chaingun, and are said to be [[Imperium of Man|selected from the ranks of Stormtroopers with particularly pronounced hatred of non-humans]].
** Shadow EVO Trooper: Variant of the variant; Shadow Stormtroopers with experimental version of the EVO armor that can go invisible like Shadow Stormtrooper armor.
* Hazard Troopers: The Empire's Space Marines. Having super-bulky armor and as such ''much'' tankier than other varieties, they are sent on planets with extremely hostile conditions (like acid rain, lava lakes, and so on). Made their first and only appearance in Jedi Academy, where they're more or less the toughest recurring enemy in the game that doesn't have a lightsaber.
* Incinerator Trooper: Another type introduced in The Force Unleashed, identifiable by their red markings and shoulder pauldron. [[Salamanders (Chapter)|Their thing is, naturally, being the flamethrower guys]]. Made it into Disney's canon thanks to showing up in The Mandalorian (does make one wonder why the Empire didn't use them on Endor though, given that's an environment they would have been ideal for).
* Jump Trooper: AKA Rocket Trooper, Sky Trooper and Air Assault Trooper. Stormtroopers with jetpacks. Originally only suitable for short jumps, by the New Republic era the technology has evolved enough for them to get proper jetpacks that let them fly indefinitely.
* Magma Stormtrooper: Also called "Lavatroopers" in the old Legends Canon, which also gives them the more distinct design of red Stormtrooper armor. In Disney (where to date they've only really appeared in DICE's first Battlefront game), they basically just look exactly the same as Sandtroopers.
* Novatrooper: Oh look, '''another''' black-armored variant, though these ones are only a bit better trained than standard Stormtroopers and have similar equipment. Have a bit of gold to balance out all the black, and appear only in the Star Wars: Galaxies MMO. Generally meant to be ceremonial rather than front-line infantry, which may explain why they're not ''that'' much better trained.
* Scout Trooper: Scouts, obviously (also snipers according to a bunch of the video games). Scout troopers have a distinct helmet that allows for greater visibility as well as lighter leg and shoulder armor for greater mobility. They typically use Speederbikes and long ranged rifles. Scout troopers are [[Reasonable Marines|the only type of Stormtrooper besides Mimban Stormtroopers known to even occasionally make use of camouflage]] (though the ones at Endor did not). One of the few variants shown on film.
* Range Trooper: Debuted in Solo (since nary a new OT-Era Star Wars product comes out without introducing at least one new Stormtrooper variant). Have big magnetized boots that let them stick to trains (yes, seriously). Not entirely clear what their specialized role is (beyond selling more toys of course). [[Space Wolves|They also wear fur with their armor and are considered some of the toughest in the Empire]].
* Shadow Stormtrooper: Also known as "Shadowtroopers" and "Blackhole Stormtroopers", they're your standard Stormtroopers, but their armor is black. Depending on the writer, this is either just for show, or means they have stealth capabilities and are a cut above standard Stormtroopers. Exist in Disney as well as Legends, even though the Death Troopers make them somewhat redundant in the former.
** Shadowtrooper: No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. [[Derp|There is another, unrelated type of black-armored elite Imperial called "Shadowtrooper"]]. These ones are only in Legends, and are Stormtroopers forcibly made Force-Sensitive, outfitted with cortosis armor that can take multiple hits from a lightsaber, and used by the Imperial Remnant against the Jedi of Luke's Order. Kyle Katarn fights them in Jedi Outcast.
* Storm Commandos: Looking very similar to Scout Troopers, but in black. So aesthetically to Scout Troopers what Shadow Stormtroopers are to regular Stormtroopers. One of many black-armored elites the Empire use, but they don't get much exposure in either Legends or Disney (despite existing in both). General Crix Madine used to lead them before joining the Rebels.
* Stormtrooper Commander: Exactly what it sounds like. Only really a unique variant in The Force Unleashed, where they're differentiated from standard Stormtroopers with blue markings intended to evoke the ARC Troopers (as they were meant to be a spiritual successor to them), and personal force-fields. Whenever Stormtrooper officers and squad leaders show up anywhere else, they usually just get orange shoulder pads instead of the blue markings.
* Terror Trooper: Introduced in The Force Unleashed II, they're an experimental Stormtrooper type recognizable by their [[Eversor|sharp claws, skull-like masks, and the fact that they're merciless, bloodthirsty killers]]. Their masks are clearly based off of General Grievous' mask.
* Wet Weather Gear stormtrooper: Also called "Mimban Stormtroopers" because their only big appearance so far is on Mimban in the Han Solo movie. Armor has a light gray camo pattern, and they get capes. Presumably meant for rainy and muddy environments (so basically the ones who go to shitty weather planets).
* Wetland assault stormtrooper: More commonly known as swamptroopers, this branch wears green colored gear optimized for swamps. Fairly obscure, mostly making appearances in ''Jedi Outcast'' and ''Galaxies'' and that's it.
* Zero-G assault stormtrooper: More commonly known as spacetroopers, this branch wears [[Power Armor]] designed for boarding and capturing disabled ships. They are first mentioned in [[Star Wars RPG]] materials by [[West End Games]], but are most famous for their appearance in the climax of ''Heir to the Empire'', the first book of the Thrawn trilogy. There is a pair of Stormtroopers with an unusual backpack (possibly a jetpack) that are ''very'' briefly seen in the original movie, but they look nothing like future deceptions of spacetroopers, fanoned as that configuration being more for guys patrolling out of atmosphere but in gravity. They also appear in the computer game X-Wing: Alliance.

*OK, I think we got them all. If not, you can always check the Wookiepedia page, OG is pretty extensive.

40K Rules Blooper Reel

2022-12-16T14:57:51Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:C570:F909:4D50:3C58: /* 9th Edition */

{{Fail}}
[[File:Banna Wava.JPG|500px|Right|thumb|<center>TL;DR: Oops.</center>]]
GW has a history of rules that fail to work, whether intentional or otherwise. This page is meant to compile all the classic examples of...[[derp|unintended]] [[fail|hilarity]] of GW ruleswriting throughout 40k. The worst offenses, of course, became tactics like [[Screamerstar]] or [[Fish of Fury]].
Recommended listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sruEnQ9HkU

==2nd Edition==
*'''Derp From Above:''' Ramming rules for vehicles were the 2nd ed predecessor to Tank Shock. Units in the vehicle's direct path had to take Initiative tests to avoid being damaged, before being displaced the shortest possible distance. When a vehicle Rammed another vehicle, it came to a halt. The real comedy was dealing with the Lifta Droppa or D-Cannons, which could lift or teleport enemy units respectively. [[Derp|2nd ed had no resolution for what happened after one vehicle rammed another vehicle below it]]. [[Skub|While some players would displace the smaller vehicle as though it were a non-vehicle, others might keep the two vehicles joined together like an improvised Voltron]].
*'''Virus Outbreak''': A stratagem card from the Dark Millennium box that was... interesting, to say the least. Basically you threw down a 2" pie anywhere on the table, with anything beneath it not explicitly stated to be immune dying on a 3+. That was already pretty good, but worse when a model was killed, every other model not immune that was within d6 inches would have to test, dying on a 4+ and recursively requiring every other model within d6 inches to test not to die on a 4+. [[Rape|Guess it sucks]] to play [[Imperial Guard]] or [[Ork]]s? (Hint: it sucked so hard the writers went so far as to recommend players tear up their Virus Outbreak cards since they hadn't intended on it being so grossly overpowered. Interestingly, Tyranids were not affected by Virus Outbreak.)

==3rd Edition==

*'''"Can I borrow your car?":''' A pretty simple one. 3rd Edition 40k got rid of the "Support" category, and instead allowed certain units to buy vehicles as Dedicated Transports; said vehicles did not take a separate slot on the Force Organization Chart, but throughout the editions would have deployment restrictions, with the Transport only allowing the unit it was bought for to deploy embarked inside it. [[Fail|There was no general rule that a Dedicated Transport had to actually transport the unit it was bought for, meaning any such restrictions had to be explicitly printed for each unit that had the option for taking a Transport.]] [[derp|This led to interesting situations when GW forgot to place such restrictions]], [[wat|such as taking a Razorback to transport a Bike Command Squad or a Wolf Guard unit of zero models, or taking a tiny Wartrukk for a Mob of 30 Orks]].

*'''Scourges Don't Lift:''' Back then Scourges were Jump Pack Infantry with no ability to move and shoot their Heavy Weapons (unless they took Splinter Cannons, which were decent but not stellar). To add insult to injury GW gave them a warrior statline (they were literally BS3 Imperial Guardsmen stat-wise), and ridiculously expensive weapons that don't come standard. They were also among the more fiddly of the metal models to assemble as well with casts that rarely came out right (Right up there with the metal Wraithlord, metal Daemon Prince, and [[Finecast]] in terms of outright defective models that you had to fix yourself with Green Stuff). Accordingly, they were seen as a joke unit in an already difficult to pilot army.
*'''Sat on da Banna Wava again...:''' In 3rd edition the Orks could, under the Bosspole wargear rules, give a Grot the Bosspole. Unfortunately you could not buy the Grot needed to carry it, [[Makari|presumably because he'd been sat on again]]. Thankfully this was FAQ'd rather quickly.

==4th Edition==
*'''Squad Broken!''': Units stopped scoring if they were below half strength. While this made little difference on 10 or 20-man infantry units, it made quite a bit of difference if you were taking vehicle squads. Players would deliberately take odd-numbered squad sizes to increase the threshold for half.

*'''Chonky Broodlords:''' The ability to Run/Advance did not exist as a default ability in 4th Edition. Rather, a unit composed entirely of models with Fleet could move an extra D6" in the shooting phase, and still charge. This ability was critical for units like Genestealers which did not want to be caught in the open. The problem? [[Fail|A Broodlord was required to stay in a unit of Genestealers, but did not have Fleet]], [[Derp|thus slowing down its unit to die to Bolter fire]].

*'''Snikrot Shuffle:''' Boss Snikrot was made a unit upgrade for Kommandos, giving his unit the ability to appear from any table edge through "Behind Enemy Lines." However, due to the way Behind Enemy Lines was worded, Snikrot was granting the unit the ability, rather than the unit itself being upgraded to have the ability. Thus, although arguably unintentional, it became legal to use Snikrot to [[Creed|"smuggle"]] decidedly unsneaky Ork Characters alongside him; one must imagine they were carrying the Boss's Bike Fred Flintstone-style.

*'''Shokk Attack Slingshot:''' The 4th edition Ork Codex reintroduced the Shokk Attack Gun from 2nd edition. The weapon would fire a Strength 2d6 large blast, with a variety of special effects should a double or 11 be rolled for the Strength. A roll of double fives would accidentally shoot the Big Mek out of his own gun, instantly locking him in close combat with the enemy unit he meant to target. [[awesome|This was not a blooper but a feature]]. The real issue however was that the rules for 40k stated that an Independent Character could only join or leave a unit during the Movement Phase and the Shokk Attack Gun was fired in the Shooting Phase. [[derp|Thus, his unit would technically be locked in close combat with the same unit that the Big Mek teleported into, even if they were on the opposite side of the map]]. [[That Guy|A rulelawyering player]] [[cheese|could theoretically exploit this]], [[rage|locking the Big Mek in combat to both give the Ork unit additional pile-in moves, as well as make it immune to being shot at]].

*'''Tau Piñata:''' The Tau Orca was billed as being a super-heavy transport flyer, one capable of carrying and deploying several squads in one turn thanks to a unique special rule that allowed it to disembark multiple squads at any point during its move (drop some off, move to the next point, repeat). The problem was that it had only one access point (its rear ramp) so if the units it carried were at their maximum size, they were too large to be deployed normally since all the models could not all be placed within 2" of the access point. This in turn meant the only way for the Tau player to get their troops on the board was to [[derp|hope the enemy player blew up the Orca in midair, and hope the troops inside survived the landing and didn't burst on the ground like the blueberries they were.]] Given the armour value of the vehicle (Rhino armour) and how easy it was to destroy, this ended up happening more often than not. This also started the trend of the Orca being a useless piece of shit that was a flying deathtrap to anyone inside of it, and this issue remained unfixed all the way through 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th edition.

==5th Edition==
*'''Musical Wounds:''' 5th edition wound allocation stated that you had to distribute wounds as evenly as possible between all models in a unit before it rolled for saves. In theory this meant that if you did a lot of wounds at once, you could force your opponent to risk losing Sergeants or hidden Special Weapons. In practice, Musical Wounds combined with multi-wound units led to a phenomenon where players would give each model a unique loadout, so that you effectively had to deal the model's unit worth of unsaved wounds before said unit removed any casualties. The two most notable example units that abused this mechanic were Nob Bikers and Grey Knight Paladins, though Thunderwolves and even Dark Eldar Grotesques could join in the fun.

*'''You won't need Eyes When You're Raging:''' 5th Edition introduced True Line of Sight, with the stipulation that infantry models had to measure Line of Sight "from the eyes." Tyrant Guard had a special rule that they would suffer from Rage if the Hive Tyrant they were protecting died. Unfortunately, Rage as written stated you had to move towards the closest "visible" enemy unit, which RAW was impossible for Tyrant Guard since they don't actually have eyes.

*'''Crouching Wraithlord, Leaping Ork Boy''': Since True Line of Sight also did not come with any real restrictions against "modelling for advantage," players initially sought to exploit this by heavily modding or basing figures. Comedically, Canis Wolfborn gained an extra attack for each model in base-to-base with him, and the rules stated "if you're thinking of modelling Canis on a really large base to take advantage of this, don't." This wasn't a formal restriction against basing however. In the meantime, legs were snipped to give upright poses and models raised high overhead to give the best lines of fire. The Eldar Wraithlord became one of the most notable offenders, being popularly modded into a crouching or "prone" position to lower its height and make it easier to acquire 50% cover (It did deliver some pretty boss looking conversions, though, so it wasn't all bad).
**A related point of contention was the fact that when units chose to Go to Ground, the rules stated to turn the models on their sides, [[rage|leading to concerns about paint chipping]], [[skub|whether flipping models was really part of True Line of Sight]], [[derp|and a general tendency to ignore that rule outright]].

*'''Bring (everything else but) It Down:''' The 5th edition Imperial Guard Codex introduced the ability to issue Orders to Guard squads, with Officers and Senior Officers offering abilities such as '''Get Back In The Fight''' or '''Fire On My Target'''. The 5th ed version of '''Bring It Down''' gave an infantry unit's weapons Twin-Linked ability when resolving their attacks against an enemy vehicle or Monstrous Creature, and although this was neat for providing some additional reliability, an unintended side effect was how Twin-Linked worked with blast and template weapons. Since template weapons did not roll to hit or scatter, twin-linking them granted them the ability to reroll wounds and so [[that guy|more enterprising players]] would look for any enemy infantry squad near a Monstrous Creature (such as a Tervigon) or Vehicle (such as any Transport), and [[derp|fire their flamers at the big target to 'clip' the smaller target, thus getting to reroll to wound in the process]]. [[Wat|A similar trick could be done with Frag Missiles or even Demo Charges, to reroll scatters to miss where you wanted them to go]]. 6th ed replaced this Order with granting Tank&Monster Hunters, meaning only attacks that actually hit an enemy Monstrous Creature or Vehicle would benefit from this Order.
*'''Lictor Febreze Trail:''' Lictors in 5th Edition simply did not work as written. They had a special rule called Pheromone Trail, which granted +1 to Reserve Rolls provided they started the turn on the board. [[Derp|Unfortunately, Lictors in 5th edition always had to start the game in Reserves and thus could not benefit themselves or their allies on the turn you started rolling Reserves]]. [[Fail|This was in contrast to the previous edition, where Pheromone Trail worked even if the Lictors were not on the board]].
*'''Bugs Bunny Trygons:''' 5th ed also introduced Trygons to standard 40k games. A Trygon could pop up in the middle of the map, and leave a Marker for Tyranid Infantry to emerge through in subsequent turns. [[Fail|The problem was there was no ability to "hold back" Reserves, so if a Trygon and a unit of Warriors both arrived from Reserves on turn 2, the Warriors had to arrive from the table edge]].
*'''Selective Warp Field:''' This one was a formatting goof, but when Codex Tyranids came out, the rules for Warp Fields stated that "A Zoanthrope with a Warp Field has a 3+ Invulnerable Save." The Doom of Malan'tai had a Warp Field but was not explicitly stated to be a Zoanthrope (this is one area where Keywords would have helped). Thus, until GW actually FAQ'd it, people could argue that the Doom didn't actually get an Invulnerable Save (and INAT ruled as such until the GW FAQ overturned it).

*'''Co-Axial Splinter Pistols:''' The 5th Edition Dark Eldar Codex introduced Splinter Racks as an optional upgrade for Raiders. "Models with splinter rifles or splinter pistols that fire while embarked upon the vehicle may reroll their to-hit rolls...", [[derp|but the rule did not specify that the models had to fire Splinter Weapons]]. [[Wat|Thus, keeping a Splinter Pistol sidearm let an Archon reroll to hit with a Blaster, or a Haemonculus 360° no-scope with a Hexrifle]]. [[Derp]].

==6th Edition==
*'''Bruhtherhood of Psykers:''' Introduced as a then unique rule for Grey Knights in 5th Edition, Brotherhood of Psykers which would go on to became a special rule for 6th and 7th edition. Brotherhood of Psykers stated that a unit with at least one model possessing that rule was considered a Psyker Unit. [[Derp|Naturally, this rule did not account for the possibility that an Independent Character Psyker might actually join that unit]]. Despite numerous FAQs stating that the 'same power could not be cast from the same unit', [[fail|there were no FAQs on how to handle the powers of multiple casters with different mastery levels, or whether Blessings that targeted 'the Psyker' affected an Independent Character alongside the rest of the unit]]. [[Rage|This issue carried over into 7th ed, where became especially egregious with the Psykana Division Formation which let Sanctioned Psykers know the same powers of the Formation's Primaris Psyker]], [[Skub|leading to all sorts of Skub over Biomancy buffs]].

*'''Blinded by the Flashlights:''' 6th edition made Flyers and Flying Monstrous creatures into distinct types. This made units like the Nightscythe and Flyrant considerably more powerful than they were in 5th edition, but the rules were such that when a Flying Monstrous Creature was *hit* by an enemy attack, it had to roll a 3+ on a single d6, or crash to the ground taking a Strength 10 hit ignoring armor save. [[Derp|Thus, it was possible for Flyrants, Daemon Princes, etc, to continually 'splat' to the ground as Conscripts or Orks pelted them with attacks which otherwise would stand little chance of doing damage.]]
**7th ed changed the rule so that Grounding Tests occurred on an unsaved wound, meaning the attack had to actually damage the Flying Monstrous Creature first...

*'''Grumblegrumble Stupid Chariot:''' The 6th edition Burning Chariot of Tzeentch was introduced as a Skimmer Chariot, fast and fragile and meant to act akin to a Daemon Land Speeder of a sort. Unfortunately, the actual ranged weapons were on the Exalted Flamer atop the whole Chariot, which was not Relentless. Thus, the Chariot had to move or shoot, which was a death sentence for such a fragile ride (7th made them Relentless but the daemons still had to put up with entire edition of this bullshit).

* '''Macross Missile Dronestrike:''' The 6th Edition Tau Codex introduced Missile Drones as a new drone that "any" character could take. In contrast to the normal Gun Drone, it had a Missile Pod, [[cheese|leading to frantic scrambles to convert armies of missile drones aplenty]]. Games Workshop released a FAQ less than a week later, stating that only Broadside Shas'vres could take Missile Pods; [[derp|why they were in the "common" Wargear list is anyone's guess, especially since the Shielded Missile Drone was written directly for the Riptide unit entry, while the Grav-Inhibitor, Recon, and Pulse Accelerator Drones were explicitly on the Pathfinder unit entry]]. This was also fixed in 8th, so that Missile Drones were an option in the Broadside unit entry.

*'''Dude, Where's My Bomb?:''' The 6th ed Sunshark Bomber had a Pulse Bomb Generator: Whenever the Sunshark successfully makes a Bombing Run, you could roll a D6, and on a 2+, you got a bomb back. [[Derp|Unfortunately, the Sunshark as written didn't actually start with a Pulse Bomb]].[[Fail|This issue remained unfixed in the 7th edition reprint]] until being FAQed.

*'''Interceptor Drones Don't:''' Adding further insult to injury, the Sunshark Bomber came with two Interceptor Drones, that had Skyfire and the Interceptor rule. However, the way Intercept was worded, [[derp|it only worked if the weapon itself had Intercept; there was no wording for the model itself having Intercept.]] [[wat|The Early Warning Override was specifically worded that "all weapons on a model with an Early Warning Override have the Intercept special rule" to avoid this]], [[fail| so any Crisis Suit could be upgraded to intercept, but an Interceptor Drone RAW could not Intercept.]] [[RAGE|This was un-FAQed throughout both 6th and 7th]].

*'''Shred this Worthless Supplement:''' The Farsight Enclaves Supplement has the Warlord Trait '''Through Surety, Destruction.''' Once per game, the Warlord's unit gains Shred for a single Shooting Phase. Sounds good right? Who doesn't like rerolling to wound? Unfortunately, as worded, [[Fail|Shred only works in close combat unless applied specifically to the weapon, meaning this Warlord Trait as written does nothing whatsoever]]. [[Rage|GW did not patch this rule when they updated the Farsight rules for 7th]].

*'''Thermonuclear Pyrovores:''' The Pyrovore in 5th-7th was memetically known as a super-useless unit, but the 6th edition Tyranid Codex was known for a hilariously misworded Volatile rule: Whenever a Pyrovore died to Instant Death, ''"Every unit suffers a S3 hit for each model (excluding other Pyrovores) within d6 inches of the Pyrovore."'' Read that rule, and comprehend what "every unit" [[exterminatus|means]].

*'''Lookout, Wez Ork Snipers!''': 6th edition introduced "Character" as a subtype for models; Characters could accept and issue Challenges to other Characters, and benefit from "Look Out Sir," which let other models take wounds on their behalf; furthermore, Characters in 6th ed had the Precision Shot rule, meaning that on 6s to hit, the attacker could allocate hits instead of the defender. When the 6th ed FAQs first rolled out, Ork Nobs were indexed to be Characters. However, the index didn't distinguish between Nobs leading Boys or units of Nobs; not only could Nobz play Musical Wound Games where they could pawn off wounds to each other on a 4+, but that a unit of Nob Bikerz (each Biker fires 3 shots, hitting on 5s and rerolling misses, and choosing the model affected on a 6) [[wat|was generally better at sniping out troublesome targets than many dedicated snipers]]. GW did eventually FAQ their FAQ to state that only ''one'' Nob in each unit of Nobz/Meganobz got the Character distinction, while 7th ed made Precision Shot a USR that Characters did not innately receive.

*'''Legion of the Dammit:''' Codex Legion of the Damned was touted as a standalone supplement that was meant to let players field them as a standalone force. The rules required the Legion of the Damned to start with their entire army in Reserves. Unfortunately in 6th, [[derp|you automatically lost if you didn't actually have any units on the table]]. GW would later apologize in an FAQ for the standalone touting and confirmed the rules were intended for Legion of the Damned to support another army rather than act on their own.

*'''Asses of Fire:''' Heldrakes' Baleflamer during its inception counted as being turret-mounted, allowing the Hellturkey to Vector Strike and then hose the same unit with hellfire from its, errm... eye of terror. It was quickly errata'd, but, while not exactly game-breaking, it still lead to horrifying implications, given the damn things were everywhere back then.

*'''Yarrick Senioritis:''' The 6th ed Imperial Guard codex introduced a rule called '''Chain of Command''' which stated that a Commissar could not be Warlord if the army's primary detachment included a model with the '''Senior Officer Rule'''; said rule allowed a model to issue up to two Orders per turn. Commissar Yarrick had Draconian Disciplinarian as his Warlord Trait, [[wat|but since he had both the Senior Officer and Chain of Command rules]], [[derp|he could not actually be your army's Warlord]]. This was FAQ'd in 7th so that Yarrick could be Warlord if he was the only model in the entire army that had Senior Officer.

==7th Edition==
*'''Commissar-Approved Heresy:''' 7th Edition introduced Maelific Daemonology, which allowed all sorts of powers including summoning Daemons, warpfire, or being Possessed by a Greater Daemon. The Imperial Guard Primaris Psyker had a special rule called '''It's For Your Own Good''' which meant that if the Psyker was in the same unit as a Commissar and suffered Perils, said [[blam|Commissar would remove the Psyker as a casualty]]...after the power resolved. The problem? Possession removed the Psyker as a casualty as part of its resolution, and so should the Psyker suffer Perils of the Warp when attempting to be Possessed, [[derp|the Psyker would be replaced with a Daemon first]], [[heresy|and then the Commissar would allow the Greater Daemon to live]], [[wat|since they were no longer in the same unit]].
*'''Profit (not Prophet) of the Waaagh:''' 7th Edition also changed the rules for selecting a Warlord from 6th. Where in 6th, your Warlord had to be the HQ model with the highest Leadership (barring special rules that overrode this), 7th edition changed it so that ANY Character could be your Warlord. Aside from leading to comical situations like [[wat|Nork Deddog gaining Creed's Tactical Genius]], this led to a particularly stupid exploit with Codex: Orks and the Waaagh! Ghazghkull Supplement. See, Ghazghkull 's Council of Waaagh stated that Ghazgkull would gain two rolls the Ghazghkull Warlord table in addition to his standard trait, rerolling duplicates. [[derp|This bonus did not actually require Ghazghkull Thraka to be your Warlord, perhaps assuming that he would be due to having the highest Leadership among Orks]]. [[cheese|Thus, you could actually have ANOTHER Ork (perhaps one from the base codex wearing a Finkin' Cap to get two Strategic Rolls) serve as your Warlord, while still benefitting from a Waaagh and buffed up super-Ghaz]].
*'''Missile Lock:''' Missile Lock was a Universal Special Rule introduced in 6th Edition, which stated that 'blast weapons' with that rule only rolled 1d6 for scatter. [[derp|The only weapon with this rule was the Dark Angel Blacksword Missile, which was not a blast weapon]]. [[Rage|7th amended this rule so that non-blast weapons could reroll to-hit with them, but removed the rule from the Blacksword Missile]], [[wat|leading to Missile Lock being a USR that was not used by anything for half of 7th edition]]. [[herp|The 7th edition version of Dark Angels gave Missile Lock back to the Blacksword Missile, making it a USR that was used by one weapon on one unit on one codex]].

*'''Hard to Hit is not Hard to Hit:''' The rules for Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures were such that both units had a rule called "Hard to Hit." This meant that unless a unit shooting at them possessed Skyfire, then units 'targeting' them could only be resolved as Snap Shots. However, although both types of units possessed a rule called "Hard to Hit", [[fail|the Flyer version of the rule also said they could not be affected by blasts, templates, or attacks which did not roll to hit]]. The Flying Monstrous Creature version did not have this clause, which could lead to [[skub|lively debates]] [[wat|over whether a Vindicator's shots could 'scatter onto' an airborne Hive Tyrant]].

*'''Nobz In A 'Naut:''' This may have arguably just been insidious GW marketing instead of them failing to understand their own game, but Gorkanauts/Morkanauts were touted as "nearly indestructible" and reliably able to transport Nobz or other elite units into the fray, despite the fact that they were not Superheavy Vehicles. While you could one-shot them with a lucky Melta or Lascannon shot, a more common outcome was for one to be Immobilized by a Grav Cannon rolling a 6. As for serving as an assault transport, GW forgot to give the 'Nauts the Assault Ramp rule, and thus [[Fail|you couldn't actually assault from one]]. To add insult to injury, these vehicles cost ''more'' than a Land Raider while moving slower.

*'''Splinter Racks 2.0:''' Someone at GW must have noticed the error with the first iteration of Splinter Racks, so the rule was changed. [[Fail|Unfortunately, the rewrite was an even bigger RAW screwup]]. [[Wat|"Whilst a model is embarked on a vehicle with splinter racks, all splinter weapons have the Twin-linked special rule."]] [[Derp|Though this meant that a model could no longer take a Splinter Pistol to get an extra-accurate Blaster or Haywire Grenades, this rule RAW meant that every Splinter Weapon in the game was twin-linked, so as long as one model was embarked on a vehicle with Splinter Racks]].

*'''Knight Rider Chronus:''' In 7th edition, Ultramarines could purchase Chronus as an upgrade to Tanks. Unlike Longstrike or Pask, Chronus was an Infantry Character, that would turn the tank he was riding into a Character, only to emerge from said Tank like a passenger should it be destroyed. However, RAW, Chronus was a Character and so was the Tank that Chronus was riding in, but neither were the same Character. Thus, you could either make Chronus your Warlord and wait before his tank was destroyed before you could use his Warlord Trait (assuming it required being on-table), or make his Tank your Warlord. Thus, it's more funny to imagine Chronus's tank as KITT from Knight Rider. (As an amusing bonus, he also had a Servo-Arm but not Blessing of the Omnissiah, so he could punch stuff but couldn't fix it).

*'''Khornedogs of Slaanesh:''' Daemons in Khorne Daemonkin had Fearless instead of Daemonic Instability. Thus, Battle Brothers from Chaos Space Marines could join Daemon units from Khorne Daemonkin. Although an Independent Character with a Mark could not join a unit with a different Mark, having the Mark of a Chaos God and being a Daemon of a Chaos God were two different things. Thus, Daemonkin meant you could have a Sorcerer of Slaanesh use Flesh Hounds of Khorne as bodyguards.

*'''Dastardly DJ Roombas:''' The '''Drone-Net VX1-0''' Formation required you to take at least four units of Drones, and granted them several bonuses: First of all, they got '''Collective Targeting Data''' which granted all Drones (including Drones that were not part of the Formation) +1 Ballistic Skill "In the Shooting Phase" as long as at least two Drones "from this Formation" were on the Battlefield. [[skub|It was never FAQed whether "from this Formation" allowed for the bonus to stack if you took multiple copies of the Formation, nor whether you applied it before or after a Drone Controller]]. Additionally, the Formation had the bonus '''Enhanced Tactical Responses:''' All Drones in the Formation had Jink, Split Fire, Precision Shots, and Interceptor. Similar to the Sunshark's Drones, [[fail|Interceptor as worded would be useless for the Gun Drones RAW]], [[derp|while GW had to FAQ that Gun Drones could not both Jink and Go to Ground]] [[wat|like sneaky DJ Roombas]].

*'''Ordo Xenos or Ordo Xerox?:''' Codex Deathwatch had generally sloppy rules, copypaste formations ("Reroll to-wound vs X"), and odd examples of GW being arbitrarily restrictive in unit loadouts (notably, Deathwatch couldn't take Rifleman Dreads or Strontos Razorbacks). However the most amusing example of this was how the Bane Bolts relic had a profile for being used by a Stalker Boltgun, despite Deathwatch HQs not having the option for a Stalker Boltgun.

*'''Siphon Magic, Period:''' Siphon Magic may easily be the worst-written power of 7th edition. ''"Siphon Magic is a'' '''Blessing''' ''that targets the Psyker. For the rest of the phase, each time a friendly model successfully manifests a psychic power within 18" of them, place a dice next to this model. Any dice accrued in this manner can be used by the Psyker as bonus Warp Charge points."'' This power itself was problematic for several reasons: Does "a friendly model" include the Psyker that cast Siphon Magic? Did casting Siphon Magic actually grant the Psyker an immediate bonus die? It was noted that Deny the Witch did not turn a Success into a Failure, but simply cancelled the power's effect, and so Siphon Magic still granted a bonus die. However, the real RAW kerfluffle was the fact that since [[derp|Siphon Magic did not grant bonus Warp Charge, but "dice that could be spent as additional Warp Charge,"]] [[skub|you could argue that it was possible to store dice from Siphon Magic across turns]]. You could even state that this was "intentional," since the Tyranid Neurothrope had a similar ability that let it gain additional Warp Charge that could only be used by its unit. Hilariously though, Siphon Magic was otherwise useless for ML 1 Psykers since if it was the only power that could be cast that turn, then it would mean storing up dice that could not be used. Oops.

*'''Zombie-Free Death Guard:''' Typhus let you nominate any Chaos Cultists as Plague Zombies at army creation, giving them Fearless, Feel No Pain, and Slow and Purposeful. They however could not purchase any other options besides increasing their unit size. When Traitor Legions came out, it added rules for different Legion Tactics; notably, Death Guard detachments required all units with the option to purchase the Mark of Nurgle. Due to ambiguous order of operations, it was entirely possible that the Cultists having to purchase the Mark of Nurgle precluded Typhus being able to nominate said Cultists as Zombies. However, Typhus let you nominate any Cultists in your army, and not necessarily the Detachment he was in, so if you took an allied Alpha Legion detachment, you could have Infiltrating ninja-zombies. Let that image sink in.

*'''Faceless Commanderp:''' The Alpha Legion Warlord Trait '''Faceless Commander''' let the Warlord 'trade positions' with another Character 'of the same type.' This led to [[skub|fun debates over whether Characters and Independent Characters were the same subtype, as well as what happens when one of the characters is engaged in combat or inside a transport]]. More entertaining would be the question about what happens when two Alpha Legion Demon Princes swap, especially if one of them was airborne.

*'''Hydra-faced Cultists:''' Traitor Legions again. The "Lost and Damned" Formation had a special rule that if any unit of Cultists was destroyed, then the Chaos player would get a 'replacement' of that unit which would emerge next turn from Ongoing Reserves. The Alpha Legion's super-detachment had the same rule under a different name. Considering that the Lost and the Damned was the [[fail|only Cultist formation available to Alpha Legion]], this immediately led to [[skub|debates over how the two bonuses interacted with each other]], with some players saying you only got 'one' roll, some players saying you got to reroll, and some players saying you could roll twice and get two units of Cultists. GW eventually FAQ'd this, so Alpha Legion only got 'one' roll, but it was on a 3+.

*'''"''Looks like we missed our flight''":''' Courtesy of Codex: Imperial Agents, an Imperial Navy detachment could grant additional Valkyries and an Officer of the Fleet. The only problem? [[Derp|the Valkyrie had the Imperial Navy Faction and thus could not start the game transporting any unit]]. This required a FAQ to say that "Transports from this Faction can transport Astra Militarum, Militarum Tempestus and Inquisition units as if they were all of the same Faction".

*'''Soul Pain:''' The Ynnari Psychic Power Unbind Souls targeted an enemy unit, and made a number of Strength 4 attacks equal to the number of models in the target unit. It was supposed to be used to cut large hordes down to size. However, the rulewriter forgot that only models in range and line of sight could be removed as casualties, and Unbind Souls only had 12 inches of range. The result would be a few unlucky Orks or Tyranids being struck down with extreme overkill, to the confusion of the rest of the unit.

*'''Revenge is Sweet:''' In what may be the best bit of poetic irony of 7th Edition, the Avatar of Khaine was completely immune to Guilliman, since all of Guilliman's close combat attacks had Soul Blaze. Feels good to be immune after being used as a punching bag in all of Matt Ward's old fluff...

*'''Stormsurge Fell and Can't Get Up!:''' When the Stormsurge battlesuit came out, it had a nice little rule that allowed it to fire twice at the expense of not being able to move. The problem? If it was tank shocked by anything (and this was confirmed in the FAQ) it would instantly die if its anchors were deployed, presumably because it would be tipped over and without arms (and thanks to being a super-heavy) it would be impossible to stand back up again. So, surprisingly enough, this is less a case of shitty rules and more one of the rules implementing the consequences of a shitty design ignored elsewhere.

*'''Da Boss's Tools:''' Da Fixer Upperz is a Gift of Gork and Mork available to Big Meks and supposedly Meks, unfortunately as written Meks can't take Gifts of Gork and Mork.

*'''Silver Tower of REEE:''' When Black Crusade: Traitor's Hate campaign book hit the shelves, it introduced a few toys, that were reskinned from codex supplement Angels of Death. One of them was Geomortis discipline, with a very neat power Worldwrith. What it did is allow you to pick up a piece of terrain and move it around. If units fit on it, they were also moved. But this is only the beginning. As fortifications were also considered a piece of terrain, you could use this discipline on buildings that you deployed yourself, like Imperial Bastion, or Fortress of Redemption. But now we get to the stupid part. All fortifications were allowed to buy upgrades, like guns, barricades or emergency access point. What it did was place a token within 6" of fortification, that allowed you to enter and leave the building no matter if it was surrounded... or half a board away, as no rules stated that it had to remain within 6" to work. This allowed for truly silly tactic of planting one sorcerer on top of the tower to cast Worldwrith and the other sorcerer in your deployment to cast summoning from Malefic Daemonology. Those daemons can then enter the fortification through what I assume was a warp portal access point, and man the guns, or even charge out of it in subsequent turns. The possibilities were endless. BS5 Bloodletters manning the guns? Sure! Squad of Horrors casting even more bullshit from the top? No problem!

==8th Edition==
Strap yourself in, son, this is gonna be a long one. This edition saw a major rules overhaul, stopgap rules brought in before full codices were released, and of course, the most recent fuckups tend to be easier to remember than the ones that happened twenty years ago.
*'''Keyword Issues:''' 8th edition got rid of Universal Special Rules, instead opting for units having their own bespoke special rules and having assorted Keywords associated with them. For example, Rhinos cannot transport models with the Terminator Keyword, while Land Raiders treat models with the Terminator Keyword as taking two transport slots. [[derp|It would not be until a halfway through the edition that GW learned to distinguish keywords for models, versus the entire unit sharing collective keywords]]. This led to several earlygame bloopers.
**'''Terminator Rune of Yoga:''' Space Wolves have a distinct ability to 'mix-and-match' Terminator Wolf Guard into units of Power Armored units. In early 8th edition, [[derp|giving a Wolf Guard model Terminator Armor did not actually grant the Terminator Keyword]], [[wat|letting said Wolf Guard Terminator cram itself into a transport]]. Since this was before Games Workshop decided to do 'model-level' Keywords, they instead had to FAQ this to state that "the Wolf Guard is treated as though it has the Terminator Keyword".
**'''Deathwatch Weightwatchers:''' Deathwatch had the opposite problem; a Kill Team could attach a Vanguard Veteran, Terminator, or Biker to their unit, and collectively gain all the Keywords at the unit-level. The issue with this was [[derp|that adding one Terminator to the unit meant each and every model now took up two spaces inside a Land Raider]]. This also required a similar FAQ, stating that although the entire unit had the Terminator Keyword, only the Terminator counted as having the Terminator Keyword for purposes of transport.
**'''All is Atomized Dust:''' The rules for Psykers in 8th are copied from Age of Sigmar: Roll 2d6 against the Psychic Power's difficulty, suffering Perils if you roll double 1s or double 6s. Perils means you suffer D3 Mortal Wounds, and inflict another D3 Mortal Wounds to all units within 6" should the Psyker be slain as a result. Unfortunately, the Aspiring Sorcerer in a unit of Rubric Marines...has 1 wound, while having a weaker version of Smite. Because Mortal Wounds spillover, this means you lose 2d3 models to Perils, the Sorcerer among them. Don't even think about trying to cast powers against Hive Fleet Kronos, lest your [[fail|expensive Rubric Marines go up in a blaze of Chaos is Fickle!]]. Keep in mind, although the entire unit is a PSYKER, the rules for Perils state that the psyker (not keyworded) suffers the Mortal wounds, and the Rubric Marine datasheet mentions that the Aspiring Sorcerer is the model doing the casting, so he has to be the first one removed from the unit no matter what you roll.
**'''Honorary title:''' When the SM 8.5 codex dropped, chaplains were given the new litanies of battle mechanic which allowed them to give buffs to units by reciting litanies (rolling a 3+). To get litanies a model needed the <Priest> keyword, which all chaplains were given. But only chaplains were given this keyword, and they all already had the <Chaplain> keyword, meaning GW added another keyword to chaplains to give them this rule, when attaching the rule to the <Chaplain> keyword would have had the same result without adding a redundant keyword to chaplains.
*'''And They Shall Know Fear:''' As written, 40k uses a system where you roll dice (d3s, d6s, 2d6s, etc.) and add modifiers to the roll to get the result. If you have any ability to re-roll, those are applied before any modifiers. Space Marines have '''And They Shall Know No Fear''' which lets them re-roll failed Morale Tests. However, a Morale Test is resolved by rolling a D6 and adding the number of casualties the unit has suffered to obtain the result, before comparing against the unit's base leadership. [[Skub|Differring arguments exist as to whether adding a number to get a result is considered a modifier, vs a modifier being for a basic roll otherwise]], but the end result would be that through a literal interpretation, [[Fail|Marines by default could never reroll morale, since they would compare the d6 against their highest Ld (8 for the Sergeant), then modify the roll with the casualties]]. [[Wat|Ironically, this means abilities that lower the Marine unit's Ld would make it more likely for the Marines to actually use ATSKNF]]. [[Skub|You can argue if this is intentional or not too]], [[That Guy|stating "ATSKNF only kicks in when facing true fear."]]
*'''I'm Celestine! No, I'm Celestine!''': When a new edition is released there's bound to be one or two things that GW forgets to mention or include, in this case GW forgot to make Saint Celestine ''unique'' when they released her rules, which opened the way for Imperium players to field 5 (or more) of her. This might not be all that bad on its own, if it wasn't for the fact that each Celestine boosted the '''Shield of Faith''' rule that the Sisters of Battle possessed. Normally it gave them a 6+ invulnerable save and for every Celestine on the tabletop this increased by +1, meaning that it was very easy to give your entire army a 2+ Invulnerable save and steamroll the opposing army, while remaining entirely tournament legal (although don't expect any TO to allow you to use this technically-legal list).
*'''Holy Artillery:''' Compounding the Celestine shenanigans, thanks to how it was written the Sisters of Battle could use Acts of Faith on any unit in their army of the same order, even if they didn't have Acts of Faith. This was done by using an Imagifier or Celestine to grant the act on either a 4+ or automatically, which led to players using them to fire Exorcists twice per turn and just erase most armoured units/vehicles/monsters from the tabletop. This was later errata'd so that you can only use this power on units that can actually use Acts of Faith.
*'''Were we hunting somebody?:''' Another thing GW forgot at the start of 8th was double-checking army restrictions, specifically who could be allowed to fight beside who. This led to shenanigans like Fallen and Dark Angels fighting alongside each other without issue because they both had the Imperium keyword.
*'''Schroëdinger's Airplane''': 8th also re-reverted aircraft rules so that units could not occupy the same space. However, there was no "clause" that airborne models did not block movement. [[Wat|This meant that while you could theoretically kill an aircraft by flooding the board with Conscripts so there was no legal move]], [[derp|this also meant that units could be prevented from legally moving past the aircraft, while not being allowed to Assault them]]. [[That Guy|The 2nd-place winner at LVO 2019 exploited this rule by taking 6 Eldar Flyers and using them to "wall in" the enemy's infantry and Castellan]], leading to GW finally FAQ'ing Airborne to work similar to early 7th.
**However, even the fix had its own problems. The FAQ stated that rather than 'blocking' enemy movement, an airborne flyer would not block movement...provided the enemy unit was fast enough to move 1" past the flyer's base. Unfortunately, a 40k flyer base is a 120mm x 92mm oval, translating to 4.7" in length. Most infantry units can move 6" in their movement phase. [[derp|Assuming the flyer is 1" away from an enemy infantry unit, the enemy unit would need to move at least 6.7" forward in order to clear the distance from the flyer, and thus the FAQ effectively changed nothing for infantry]].
*'''Dakkadakka Wolf Guard''': 8th removed Twin-Linked as a special rule; formerly twin-linked weapons now had twice the attacks instead of rerolling to hit. Storm Bolters were made the equivalent of two Bolters for this same reason. 8th also streamlined shooting by stating that a model could fire all of its non-pistol weapons, or all its pistol weapons. [[Dakka|Wolf Guard in the Index could take two Storm Bolters each, as well as a Bike with twin-linked Bolter]], [[Derp|leading to Space Viking Bikers throwing down 12 shots per model]]. [[Wat|One wonders why the White Scars never tried that]].
*'''Technically Correct: The Best Kind of Correct:''' The big FAQ introduced new suggested rules for Tournament play to prevent spam by introducing a hard limit to the same Datasheet to 3 ''per army'' in a 2k point game. On Paper this means you will see at most 3 Flyrants, 3 Units of Dark Reapers, 3 Fire Raptors etc. Sounds good on paper and limits MSU and Spam, right? Well they forgot about the Daemon Prince and the Leman Russ. [[Derp|First off, the Daemon Prince! You can still bring a Battalion of Chaos Marines, Battalion of Daemons, and then a Supreme Command Detachment of Thousand Sons or Death Guard because it is a separate Datasheet for each army]] (FAQ has since rendered this variant of the cheese irrelevant). [[Derp|Second, the Leman Russ is limited to 3 Squads of Leman Russ tanks, so you can bring 3 Squads of 3 in a Spearhead and 3 Tank Commanders in a Supreme Command if you want, then have the 12 Leman Russ Tanks all break unit during the game, giving you 12. 13 if you also take Pask. And then you could keep going with all the forge world variants...]] This works with anything that can Combat Squad or has similar abilities as well.
**The second variant of this actually became the basis for a tournament build involving 9 Hellhounds and 9 Artemia-Pattern Hellhounds, as a "meta counter" to Custodes Bike-Captains or hitmods.
**Even better with Forge World and the Russes. The Death Korps Mars Alpha Russ is a separate datasheet, as is the Conqueror, Stygies Vanquisher and the Annihilator. So you can have [[Wat|48 units of Russes when there is meant to be a cap of three.]] This would cost far more than 2000 points, though.
**With the new Knights codex, there are new type of mini-knight called Armigers, which are split into 2 datasheets and can be taken in 3 man squads like the Russes. So have fun with 18 Lords of War when the limit should be 3.

*'''What Role Am I Anyway?:''' The rules to the aforementioned hard limit says "this rule does not apply to units with the Troops or Dedicated Transport Battlefield Role." [[Fail|However, this does not account for the fact that the same Datasheet can be taken for multiple Battlefield Roles]]. For example, Khorne Berzerkers are Troops in a World Eaters Detachment and Elites otherwise. [[Skub|Depending on your interpretation, this can either mean "ignore Troops and Dedicated Transports when determining your total," that units cannot be exempt unless they can only ever be taken as Troops or Dedicated Transports, or they can so long as the potential to take them as Troops exists]].
**The reasonable interpretation would be that, using Berzerkers as an example, you can have unlimited Troops Berzerker datasheets and a cap on Elites Berzerker datasheets. Why GW couldn't make this clearer is anyone's guess.

*'''Elysian Demolitions:''' In the Forgeworld Imperial Armour Index, Elysian Drop Troopers had a special Order called '''Fire And Advance''' which let a unit shoot while treating all of its weapons as Assault. [[Fail|By itself, this was underwhelming and even caused Lasguns to shoot less than if they fired without an order]]. However, [[derp|this also gave Elysian frag and krak grenades the Assault profile]], [[cheese|letting a unit of Elysians throw more grenades than even the Grenadier Stratagem]]. Occasionally, [[Skub|lively debates occur over whether or not]] [[wat|chainswords or other melee weapons get the assault rule]].

*'''Does anyone actually playtest this anymore?''' FAQ again! So the character targeting rules changed to prevent cheese. before you could only target a character with less than 10 wounds if they were the closest ''visible'' unit. This leads to [[cheese]] like surrounding squads with their own tanks and transports, leaving a small hole so a unit could only see a character, or attempting to snipe characters with Mortars and Basilisks. Instead of fixing this by saying something like "You can see through friendly units for the purposes of targeting (and only targeting) but cannot shoot through them", GW tried to patch this out. [[What|Now you can't target the character if there is a unit between the shooter and character '''even if that closer unit isn't in LoS'''.]] This has lead to characters like Archons and [[Smashfucker]] becoming the best objective holders and deep strike denial units in the entire game. Now imagine what a Reaper Launcher Autarch with Mark of the Incomparable Hunter can do with this...
::Note that as of the 2nd big FAQ this remains not only unchained, but now made into an official rule. If a character is in clear view and the only enemy units that are closer to your unit than them are completely out of Line of Sight, [[FAIL|then you still cannot shoot that character.]] The FAQ also specified that you ignore other characters for the purposes of 'closest enemy unit', but only if they have less than 10 wounds.
::Prior to being patched, this led to a notable "Superfriends" of assorted Imperial Characters (including Gulliman and Draigo and more), several Eversor Assassins, and at least four Culexus Assassins. The Culexus Assassins could only be hit on 6s, were immune to Smite, and had a 4+ Invulnerable, and were also the only unit the opponent could legally target.

*'''GRAMMAR IS FOR THE WEAK!:''' The Chaos Daemon Codex has the rule '''Daemonic Ritual:''' Instead of moving in their Movement Phase, any CHAOS CHARACTER may, at the end of their Movement Phase, attempt to summon a DAEMON unit ''with this ability'' by performing a Daemonic Ritual. The key is the "with this ability," since this can form an ambiguous lexical construct. "I found you with my flashlight" can either mean subject A found Predicate B in the possession of A's Flashlight, or that A used A's Flashlight to find B. Only by noticing that non-character Daemon Units have Daemonic Ritual will a player infer that [[wat|having Daemonic Ritual does not let you perform a Daemonic Ritual]], [[derp|but lets any Chaos Character that doesn't necessarily have Daemonic Ritual perform a Daemonic Ritual]], [[FAIL| and the clause "By performing a Daemonic Ritual" is just flavor-text with no actual relevance to Daemonic Ritual]]. [[Skub|Feel free to attempt to summon a Heldrake]] [[That_Guy|on account of ambiguous ruling though]].

*'''Lesser Keyword of Solomon:''' The Daemon Codex came with many Stratagems, which people immediately started thinking of ways to apply to [[Cheese|Magnus and Mortarion]]. To curb this, GW released a FAQ stating that Daemon Stratagems and Relics only work on Faction Keyword Daemons. The problem? The Warhammer Designer Commentary FAQ (the same one preventing Sept<Craftworld<Wu'Tang Clan>>) states that [[derp|once the battle is begun, there is no functional difference between a Keyword and a Faction Keyword]], [[Fail|so the errata as written doesn't work]].

*'''Plasma is Hotter At Night:''' When you Overcharge Plasma weaponry, it explodes on a 1. Not a "natural" one but a "modified one." This means any penalties to-hit also increase the odds of Plasma exploding. The Machine Spirits are afraid of the dark. Note that supercharged Plasma Guns "slay the bearer on a hit roll of 1". Everything in the book draws gear from one list. Yes, including vehicles. Yes, that 371pts Land Raider with 16 wounds just spontaneously evaporated itself with its own pintle-mounted combi-plasma. Don't press that, brother!
**To add insult to injury, there is even a situation where you can make an Overcharged Plasma Cannon explode on any result to hit, thanks to GW giving -1 to hit effects to the Craftworld Eldar like it's going out of style. All you need to do is overcharge and shoot a Plasma Cannon at night (-1 to hit) after moving (-1 to hit) at some knife eared assholes painted blue (Alaitoc Attribute, -1 to hit at +12") with fancy armour (Warp Spider's Flickerjump ability, -1 to hit) who are pulling some Matrix shit (Lightning-Fast Reactions Stratagem, -1 to hit). So that's a total of -5 to hit, meaning any result you roll to hit will be modified down to a 1. I guess the Machine Spirits are also scared of Eldar too?
**On a more positive note, you can (almost always) fire the gun on regular mode at no risk. As hilariously bad as this rule is, you at least don't ''need'' to commit suicide or do nothing.
**Some models have special rules on their guns to "fix" this, mostly characters with big expensive minis and guns that only cause a mortal wound on a 1.

*'''Anti-Air Flamethrowers:''' Flamethrowers in 8th edition no longer use an AoE "teardrop" template, but instead inflict a random number of automatic hits on a unit. For example, a Hellhound's Inferno Cannon inflicts D6 automatic hits. Due to these changes, regular flamers are less important as a crowd control weapon, and more as an anti-hitmod (and [[derp|anti-aircraft]]) weapon; this is especially true of weapons that have a multi-damage value like the aforementioned Inferno Cannon. Where it gets silly though is how Flamers interact with "ambush/deepstrike" abilities. See, regular flamers have an effective range of 8 inches, but most "strike from Reserve" powers require you to set up more than 9 inches away. This means that flamers are useless when you appear from Reserves, but it also means they're useless for defending against units Charging from Reserves, since the flamers are [[fail|out of range and thus unable to actually lay down a Wall of Death like in 6th-7th Edition, or interrupt movement like in 2nd Edition]].
**9th 'fixed' this for flamers by upping their range to 12", essentially granting them the ability to hit targets provided they started their charge within range of the flamer model in question. Of course, 9th also made Overwatch a Stratagem to the [[skub|debatable benefit of everyone]].

*'''Just Another Bugged Hunt:''' Genestealer Cults have a special rule called Brood Brothers: For each Genestealer Cult detachment in your army, you may take one Guard detachment, ignoring said Guard Detachment's Faction Keywords when determining if your army is Battle-Forged. The Guard Detachment cannot benefit from any Regiment-specific Stratagems, Doctrines, or Relics. However, a separate Forgeworld FAQ ruling states that Elysian and Krieg bonuses are not considered Regiment bonuses but their own "bespoke" rules. Combine with the fact that Brood Brothers has no restriction on being triggered by an Auxiliary Detachment, and you can have a Battalion of Tyranids fighting alongside a Battalion of Elysians, [[wat|with a single Cult Acolyte in an Auxiliary Detachment making the list Battle-Forged]].

*'''Unfocused Fire:''' Due to wonky RAW, the Tau Stratagem Focused Fire (hopefully to be FAQd) works best by splitting fire across the entire enemy army. Say the opponent has a unit. You shoot that unit, it fails its save, and you then activate Focus Fire. For the rest of that phase, any T'au Sept ''unit'' of yours that ''targets'' that unit gets +1 to wound. However, selecting targets and resolving shooting are separate steps; this means that RAW, a Hammerhead could allocate Smart Missiles against the unit that Focus Fire was activated against, allocate its Railgun against another unit, and get +1 to wound both units.
**The Big FAQ errata'd Focus Fire so that you get +1 to wound with attacks that are made by T'au Sept units from your army that target the enemy unit. [[Skub|Although some will argue that "that target unit" refers to the attacks]], even if that were the case, [[Derp|RAW units Choose Targets, and then after allocating weapons, you Resolve Attacks]], [[Fail|and therefore this errata effectively changes nothing]].
**'''Sidenote:''' 8th renames Tau to T'au, while adding bonuses for Sept T'au. Thus, there was a joke due to the Faction and Sept having the same name. "All T'au are T'au, but some T'au are more T'au than others."

*'''Really Hot-Blooded:''' Normally, the shooting sequence is: Select a unit to shoot, Declare targets, allocate weapons, then resolve attacks. Certain Stratagems or abilities may allow a unit to "fire its weapons twice" or "shoot an additional time at the end of the Shooting Phase." However, the Vior'la Stratagem '''Hot-Blooded''' is worded that at the start of the Shooting Phase, you may pick an INFANTRY unit from your army, and it may be "chosen to shoot twice this phase." The key is that normally, the rules state that you may not select a unit to shoot if it Fell Back, Advanced, or is engaged, [[derp|yet this Stratagem as written overrides those restrictions]]. [[Skub|Unlike other RAW screwups, it is unknown if this was intentional or just GW flubbing standardizing their rules]].

*'''They can have TWO weapons?:''' After waiting months for a FAQ, the tau finally got an answer as to what counts as a "shot" in the cadre fireblade's volley fire ability. GW answered "It means the player can make one more hit roll for each model that is firing at a target within half range", which conflicts with the wording of the ability which says the model gets an extra shot for EACH WEAPON, meaning drones, which carried 2 pulse carbines, would not get an extra shot per pulse carbine. Many months later GW issued a FAQ of the FAQ, saying the model would get one extra shot for each weapon.

*'''Supreme Lack of Fire Discipline:''' The T'au Sept Sa'cea has the Tenet '''Calm Discipline''', which at first looks similar to the Salamander Chapter Tactic '''Master Artisans''', in that it lets each Sa'cea unit reroll a single to-hit roll. However, while the Salamanders Chapter Tactic is worded that you "you can reroll a single failed hit roll and a single failed wound roll made for a SALAMANDERS unit with this Tactic each time it shoots or fights," the Sa'caea Tenet is written that "In the Shooting phase you can re-roll a single failed hit roll when a unit with this tenet shoots." [[Fail|As written, the Tenet gives you one reroll to-hit for the entire shooting phase, and not one per unit.]]

*'''Ork Snipers are totally a thing:''' Again with GW forgetting that -1 to hit is actually powerful and handing it out everywhere, this initially meant that Orks are literally incapable of hitting anything with a -2 to hit, since there is no "6 always hits" rule (until the Orks' codex) the way there is a "1 always fails" rule.
** GW thankfully realized this in time for the Ork Codex, not only giving them a special rule to always hit with shooting on unmodified 6s, but to gain extra attacks through it.
** This can be exploited by a Tyranid list with [[Biovore]]s. The Spore Mine Launcher, on a miss, allows you to put a Spore Mine on the table for free, even in Matched Play. Tired of to-hit penalty cheese making all your guns hit on a 6+ or 7+? Have your Biovores shoot at them and they can literally cover the table in Spore Mines, because they'll always miss.

*'''Thermonuclear Spore Mines:''' The wording of the '''Floating Death''' ability states that a Spore Mine explodes if it is within 3" of any enemy units at the end of any Charge phase; whenever it explodes, it inflicts Mortal Wounds on the "nearest" enemy unit except on a 1. [[wat|The issue is that multiple Spore Mines in range of the same unit explode simultaneously, and thus their wounds must be sequentially resolved]]. Suppose I have three Spore Mines, each in range of a squad of 2 Space Marines. All three explode. The first one wipes out the Space Marine Squad, [[derp|while the second and third one each inflict Mortal Wounds on the "next" nearest unit]], [[Fail|even if on the opposite side of the game board and out of Line of Sight]].

*'''Sonic the Genestealer:''' Tyranids have a Stratagem called '''Metabolic Overdrive''' that lets a unit move a second time in the Movement Phase in exchange for not being able to Charge that turn. Hive Fleet Kraken Tyranids roll 3d6 and pick the highest roll for determining their Advance move, while their '''Opportunistic Advance''' Stratagem lets them double their Advance distance for that movement phase. The initial issue was that RaW, [[derp|Advance added to your Move Characteristic for that phase, instead of increasing your characteristic for that specific move.]] [[wat|Thus, a unit of Kraken Genestealers could move not 8 + 12 + 8 + 12 inches in the Move Phase, but 8 + 12 + 8 + 12 + 12]]. [[derp|Combine with a Swarmlord's Hive Commander ability for an effective top speed of 66", and a unit of Kraken Genestealers could outrun a supersonic aircraft on foot]]. [[Meme|Gotta go fast]]!
** GW FAQed this [[fail|not by stating that Advancing only applies to a specific move, but by stating that you can only advance once in a phase and it applies to all moves made that phase]]. This did make the initial Sonic the Genestealer option slower, with a top speed of [[derp|only]] 54". However, GW also clarified that Opportunistic Advance could be used with Hive Commander, Overrun, Mind Eater, or any other ability that lets a unit "move as though it were the Movement Phase." [[wat|Aside from giving a unit of Kraken Genestealers a theoretical top speed of 101" (8+12 from Move & Opportunistic Advance, 8+12 from Hive Commander and Opportunistic Advance, 12 from Charge, 3 from Piling In, 3 from Consolidate, 3 from Piling in and again with the Adrenaline Surge stratagem, 8 + 12 from Overrun (replacing Consolidate from the Adrenaline Surge) and Opportunistic Advance, and another 8 + 12 from Mind Eater and Advance)]], [[fail|it sets a messy precedent for Dark Eldar due to GW not strictly defining what "as if in another phase" actually means]].

*'''What Phase is It Anyway?:''' The Dark Eldar Wych Cult of Red Grief has the Stratagem '''No Method of Death Beneath our Grasp''' which can be used immediately upon destroying an enemy unit in the Shooting or Fight Phase. If you destroy an enemy unit in the Shooting Phase, you get a second round of shooting. If you destroy an enemy unit in the Fight Phase, you get to (after Consolidation) Fight a second time in the Fight Phase. By itself, this is remarkably innocent. [[Derp|However, GW forgot that Ynnari are capable of "out-of-phase" actions, and confirmed that Dark Eldar Ynnari still have access to Dark Eldar Stratagems]]. [[Skub|You can have a unit of Ynnari Red Grief Reavers destroy an enemy unit in the Fight Phase, use Soulburst to "shoot as if it were the Shooting Phase" to destroy another unit, pop the Stratagem, and then cause the game to break under at least three separate interpretations over what phase you are actually in.]] [[Fail|The fact there is no "Else" clause in the ability means that you can argue that if the Stratagem works as if in both phases, you can Consolidate, shoot and fight with this Stratagem]].
**The Big FAQ clarified that Soulburst takes place after you Consolidate despite triggering immediately, giving potential weight to the theory that you get both effects.

*'''The Howling Banshees got into the cookie-dough again:''' Howling Banshees get +3" to the distance they roll for charges, and are also supposed to be able to charge units 15" away. However due to how the rule is written, all it does is let them charge after advancing if a unit is 15" away, not that they get to ignore the 12" limit from the main Rulebook. I guess Jain Zar has some coupons for Ben and Jerry's or something?

*'''"We forgot the difference between Unit and Model" for 500, Alex:''' The rules for Advancing say that the unit may not be selected to shoot if it does so. The rules for Assault weapons say a model with an Assault weapon may shoot it if it advanced, but at -1 to hit. The problem is that you can never select the unit the model with an Assault weapon is in as a unit you want to shoot with, due to the rules for advancing. The same applies for Pistols with a unit within 1" of an enemy.

*'''Stop Betraying Yourself! Stop Betraying Yourself!''': [[Khârn]] the Betrayer has the rule '''Kill! Maim! Burn!''' which lets him (any friendly World Eaters within 1", so really just himself) reroll all hits in the Fight Subphase, and he hits on a 2+. Sounds good so far, right? However, his rule '''The Betrayer''' means he cannot reroll 1s (so he cannot reroll any hits), each 1 hitting a friendly unit instead. You would think this would mean that you should run him solo, for "If there are no friendly models within 1 inch of Khârn, the hits are discarded." Unfortunately, a model is always treated as being in range of itself for auras or other special rules, meaning [[Fail|a bunch of 1s (or modified rolls) will result in Khârn hitting himself instead of the enemy]].

*'''Dakkaskull of Dakka:''' The Admech Stratagem '''Scryerskull''' can for the measly cost of 1 Command Point be used "at any time" to do one of several things: Reveal D3 Hidden Setup Markers, reveal a Mysterious Objective, or shoot with an ADEPTUS MECHANICUS unit while ignoring penalties from Dawn Raid, Low Visibility or Cover of Darkness. The "At any time", a lack of a requirement that the mission being played is using special rules or a 'shooting phase only' limitation results in game-breaking issues.
**Stratagems used before a battle are exempt from the once per phase rule. So feel free to use Scryerskull "at any time" during your deployment phase until you run out of CP or enemies to shoot. If you don't feel like winning the game during deployment, you can still use Scryerskull once in every phase for both players, means that RAW, [[derp|you can use it once in every Movement, Psychic, Shooting, Charge, Fight and Morale phase, and then again in the next player's turn.]] Combine with Kastellans for almost enough dakka or a neutron laser Dunecrawler to wipe out every vehicle in the opposing army.
**This Blooper has been fixed in the Admech FAQ.

*'''Trash Can Lid of Faith:''' Seraphim have a 6++ save, and a rule forcing them (if it were optional this wouldn't be a problem) to re-roll failed results when using this save. Celestine gives a +1 modifier to those invulnerable saves. However, because of the totally fun and not at all stupid system where re-rolls must happen before modifiers, if a Seraphim rolls a 5 for their save, they are forced to re-roll it even though it would pass after modifiers.

*'''White Autarchs can't Jump:''' While it was fixed in the Codex for Warp Spiders (due to horrible wording in the Index, RAW said that Warp Spiders couldn't teleport out of combat in the Index), an Autarch using a Warp Spider Jump Pack can't use said Jump Pack to teleport out of Combat due to no current rules existing for the Autarch's version of it.

*'''Remote Serjery:''' Because the Painboy's healing ability works on models and not units, it's entirely possible for a Painboy to save an Ork in combat on the other end of the table if you conga-line a maxed out squad of Boys. While less of a blooper and more a silly rules interaction, there is something hilariously Orky about the Painboy being able to save something locked in combat several feet away just because it's in the same mob.

*'''High Speed Dirt:''' Deliberately crashing your own Flyers sounds dumb, right? Well if you read the rules for a lot of Kill Point missions (thankfully GW's No Quarter Given Objective is clear. Objectives written by Third Party groups are sometimes not so clear), or Tactical Objectives for Maelstrom Missions, deliberately crashing your own near-death flyer (by intentionally moving them for less than their minimum movement distance) means that your opponent doesn't get the kill credit as nobody actually destroyed it. This also leads to...
**'''Kamikaze Kauyon:''' The 8th edition Tau Codex allowed a Commander to trigger declare a Mont'ka or Kauyon maneuver once per game at the start of the turn. If the Commander invoked Kauyon, then all friendly Tau units within 6" and of the same Sept could reroll misses but could not move for any reason. [[Derp|Flyers were not exempt from that restriction]], [[wat|leading to the potential for Razorsharks and Sunsharks to kamikaze before they got to benefit from Kauyon]], [[fail|and possibly killing your Commander with Mortal Wounds]]. Clearly the blueberries wanted to be even more weeaboo.
**'''Ynnari did 9/11:''' While there are many strange Soulburst interactions, it's entirely possible to deliberately crash your own Flyers by intentionally not moving them their minimum movement distance, something clearly unintended. This can result in some ridiculous [[Tzeentch |Rube Goldberg-esque chain reactions]] where a Soulbursting Warlock can Quicken a Flyer on 1-2 Wounds left and have them crash within 7" of [[Just As Planned|a bunch of Dark Reapers that nuke something across the map for free, which in turn triggers a bunch of Howling Banshees to slice up a unit, which lets the Shining Spears charge in and murder the unit that caused the Warlock to Soulburst to begin with]].

*'''Yvraine who thirsts:''' Ynnari again, and while this one makes sense RAW it's horribly unfluffy. Yvraine and The Visarch are healed on a 4+ by friendly Eldar exploding near them. Yvraine also benefits if it just happens to be a Psyker exploding, as it gives her more powers. Warlocks are very spammable. Put it together and it's not unheard of for Ynnari players to use a Command Point Re-roll to deliberately Perils of the Warp so that Yvraine gets a benefit from a [[Rape|Warlock being sucked into the Warp, likely taking even more Eldar with them if you get really unlucky]]. Yes, Eldar being introduced to Slaanesh's personal Bad Dragon collection actually heals and benefits the Ynnari, but they still swear it's entirely unrelated. Uh-huh...

*'''"Drive me closer, I wish to hit them with my Agonizer!"''': [[What|Ramming is always better for Dark Eldar Vehicles]]. Because of a hilariously badly worded FAQ: everything has a Close Combat Weapon, even units that can't physically carry one (like Vehicles). [[Fail |Before this Dark Eldar vehicles were forced to Ram their giant pirate ships into people at the same Strength of a Space Marine punching someone, because Bladevanes were the only weapon choice for Vehicles]]. Post FAQ they can declare they are using their Close Combat Weapon and attack at full strength.

*'''"We found a bigger boat, Archon!"''': Dark Eldar and terrible FAQs again! The FAQ for Index: Xenos 1 ruled that Scourges and Hellions can't fit into Raiders or Venoms [[Derp| after an oversight in the Index allowed them to ride them]]. Well they never bothered to apply this FAQ to the Tantalus, [[What| so yes, Scourges and Hellions can still fit in there with their massive wings and giant blades hoverboards]] while still having space for loot, slaves, medical supplies, spare ammo, spare slaves, and someone to fetch the drinks. What else could a self respecting Space Pirate Vampire Elf want? (Hilariously ''still'' not fixed as of the 16/04/2018 Forgeworld FAQ update)

*'''Cruddex in a Box?''': Dark Eldar again, [[Robin_Cruddace|and White Dwarf April 2018 confirmed who is responsible for this shitshow of a decision]]. [[Fail| The Crucible of Malediction is available as both an overcosted stratagem, and Wargear option for the Haemonculus meaning there so no reason to ever use the Stratagem and the Dark Eldar have lost out on another Stratagem because of this...]]
** Ironically enough, GW did FAQ this for the T'au Stimulant Injectors, stating " No. You cannot purchase Stimulant Injectors anymore and the rules for Stimulant Injectors as presented in Codex: T’au Empire (i.e. the Stratagem) take precedence." Sadly due to the bespoke nature of 8th edition, this applies only to Stimulant Injectors and nothing else.

*'''Abaddonify''': More Eldar rules breaking something! Jain Zar can [[Abaddon|disarm]] models she is fighting in close combat, rendering them unable to use one of their weapons. Well things get strange if you disarm something carrying the basic Close Combat Weapon. RAW says that the unit can't use that weapon, but the Rulebook states that you are to always assume that they have that weapon. There hasn't been a clear FAQ on this either which makes things more complicated.
** Even more, how do you disarm a [[Tyranid]]? Even [[Hormagaunt]]s are bigger than a [[ork|puny eldar]], not mentioning the monstrous creatures.

*'''Space Elf Pirate Ninja?:''' Eldar yet again. This time the Corsairs. [[What| Because the Corsair Prince has vanished from the Index]], [[Fail |it's impossible to field a legal army if you go pure Corsairs]]. It's also impossible to bring Corsairs along with you as an Eldar army without taking an Auxiliary Detachment and losing CP, or going Ynnari and having your opponent flip the table.

*'''Plague Zombie Cloning:''' If a Poxwalker kills a Necron and turns it into an additional Poxwalker model, you can still re-animate that Necron. The same goes for any model that can "die" and then return to the table in some fashion. Don't think about that one too hard, [[Matt Ward |I don't think the person who wrote it did either]]. [[Derp|Amusingly, this means that one Pink Horror can turn into seven Poxwalker Zombies]]; a notable LVO list by a tournament-goer named [[Awesome|Joshua Death]] [[Peasant Railgun| ran a bunch of Horrors as a screen to "walk up" a bunch of Poxwalkers up the board like a Zombie Railgun]], through the '''Cloud of Flies''' and '''Poxwalker Hive''' Stratagems.
**Note that the Plague Zombie Cloning was supposedly fixed by the '''Curse of the Walking Pox''' ability being FAQ'd so that you have to pay Reinforcement Points to increase the unit beyond its starting size. However, the '''Poxwolker Hive''' Stratagem technically replaced '''Curse of the Walking Pox''' for the turn, [[Derp|while not being errata'd with the same Reinforcement Point clause.]]

*'''Scunthorpe Weapon Profiles:''' The Scunthorpe Problem is a classic problem with word-search algorithms that censored for filtered out "dirty" words. The problem lay in the fact that certain innocent words would yield "false positives"; the problem was named after users from the town of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire were unable to create AOL accounts, [[Not As Planned|since "Scunthorpe" has the word "cunt" in it]]. How does this relate to 8th edition? In order to deal with the prior problem of weapon classification, many abilities and stratagems in 8th edition will state that a "X" weapon is defined as any weapon whose weapon profile has "Y" in its name (ex. blahblahblah). Aside from being a futureproofing timebomb waiting to happen, the rules for 8th edition have a messy definition for what exactly is a weapon profile: Is a weapon with multiple attack modes itself a weapon profile, or are the individual attack modes themselves profiles? [[Rules Lawyer |This may seem like pedantic semantics]], [[Tzeentch|but either interpretation will result in bloopers]].
**'''Prometheium is Heresy:''' Chapter Approved 2017 introduced Cities of Death Stratagems, including Siphon Promethium. Siphon Promethium lets an infantry unit double the range of its flamer weapons, including Skorchas, Burnas, and any weapon profile with 'flame' in its name. This particular wording hurts Orks in particular, [[skub|since depending on the interpretation]], [[fail|this prevents Kombi-Skorchas from benefitting and no Ork Infantry unit has the option to take a regular Skorcha]]. The real comedy however comes from the fact that Horrors of Tzeentch use 'Coruscating Flames', which can now shoot out to 36" on account of a false positive.
**'''Holy Duality?:''' The Sisters of Battle beta codex had a stratagem '''Holy Trinity''', which granted bonuses when a unit used a flamer, bolter, and meltagun on the same target. The definition for each component was for any weapon profile with 'bolt', 'melta', or 'flame' in its name, while explicitly treating Inferno Pistols as Melta weapons. If the interpretation that the weapon profile itself encompasses all the attack modes available, the end result would be Sisters using Combi-Flamers and Combi-Meltas to trigger the Stratagem at a distance, for superior dakka.
**'''Weapons of the Derp Age:''' The '''Weapons of the Dark Age''' stratagem gives Dark Angel plasma weapons +1 damage, defining a plasma weapon as any weapon whose weapon profile includes plasma in its name. This means that it also accidentally applies to other weapons, like the bolter part of a combi-plasma, since it forgets to exclude them the same way the Beta Bolter rules exclude the non-bolter weapon profile of any combi-weapon.
**'''"How do you fix this:''' Although it would take time to implement, the "ideal" fix would add rules for giving keywords to weapon profiles (similar to 7th edition). A weapon profile would inherit the keywords of the model wielding it. So rather than "'''INFANTRY''' firing flamer weapons. A flamer as defined as a ...", you have "firing '''INFANTRY FLAMER''' weapons". This would also allow for handling false positives, including ensuring that a Baleflamer is not a Flamer...ahem.
*'''I Like my Genestealers Scrambled:''' Genestealer Cultists have the Cult Ambush ability, where they set up ambush markers, and reveal themselves on the first turn, appearing within 1" of the marker as if arriving from Reinforcements. Enemy units cannot move within 9" of said markers. The problem is certain units can project a 12" aura preventing enemy units from arriving from Reinforcements. Thus, some Primaris Infiltrators could walk 9.1" away from Ambush Markers, and unless the GSC player used Stratagems to relocate/hide undercover...[[fail|the units tied to those Ambush markers would automatically be destroyed]]. FAQed so GSC units using Cult Ambush Blips don't count as coming in from reserves.
*'''46 shots, 1 kill:''' The current character targeting rules exist to stop people from [[cheese]] such as parking two Rhinos so your Devastator Squad with 4 Lascannons can only draw Line of Sight to your enemy's Warlord. As the Rules are written right now, you can't do this as they need to be both the closest unit, and closest visible unit. This is very important when it comes to "Mortar" and "Sniper" units, as they don't overwrite these requirements: a Mortar can't just declare it's shooting at the character behind a wall because they can't see it, even if it's the closest unit, and they can't shell the Character at the back even if they can somehow draw LoS if there is just one intervening model. Why mention this? [[Fail| The new Space Marine unit: Primaris Eliminators simply don't function if you go by RAW]]. The new weapon profile is functionally a Sniper and Mortar unit combined, but the Rules don't actually allow this: They need both LoS on a Character and the Character to be the closest unit to take the shot. If you fail to meet any of these qualifiers then you can't target the character. They can, however, target regular units as normal but at that point why not just take an allied Heavy Weapons Team?
**This has been clarified in the Shadowspear errata. An eliminator with a bolt sniper rifle that is firing mortis rounds CAN target a Character that is not the closest enemy unit and not visible to the firing model.
*'''Superman Drop:''' Transport rules seem pretty straightforward, right? Except they weren't written with flying transports in mind, so nothing is preventing your marines from just jumping out of a strafing gunship. In fact, they can <i>jump back in</i> if they wanted to. Suck on this, Invasion Beams!
*'''Box-o'-Fuckoff:''' Transport rules again. Those were ''simplified'' like everything else in 8th, meaning each bloody unit now has a unique instance of it. Oh boy, how can THAT backfire on us? Well, remember there were units that took extra transport space like Jump Packers and Ogryns and stuff? ''Now each and every one of them must be written individually into every instance of the Transport rule for it to function.'' The writers thought themselves cheeky and limited the passengers by faction keyword, thus isolating each Codex and limiting the issue. Except there are unaligned Fortifications in the game that (still) have no such limit, so enjoy cramming Heavy Weapons Teams, Termies, Obliterators and all the other fuckhuge dudes into tiny bunkers. From which they can then shoot out. No, tying passenger size to a {{W40Kkeyword|Size: X}} keyword was too clear-cut of a solution, why do you ask?
*'''Too Quick for my Gunz!:''' The flying, Titan-killing wedge of death that is the Tau Tigershark AX-1-0 had a hilariously obvious oversight when the rules were ported to the new edition. The flyers party piece - its two Heavy Railguns - had their stats brought into line with the new edition, including being classed as Macro weapons. At first glance it was appropriate - Macro weapons do additional damage to superheavy targets and structures. However: you must remain stationary to fire them. These were mounted on a Flyer. With a minimum movement and no hover capability... Thankfully the problem was obvious enough to be quickly FAQ'd.
*'''The Best of the Best:''' When Vigilus Defiant was released, it came with the Stratagem "Veteran Intercessors", which increased their attack characteristic by 1. Seems simple, so what went wrong? Well this was one of those Stratagems used before a battle begins, so there was no limit on how many times you could use it... [[Derp|or how many times you could use it on a single unit]]. GW eventually came out with a FAQ stating you could only use it once on each unit, so the days of seeing models go from 3 attacks each to 20+ are over.
*'''Zhufor the Scary:''' Zhufor the Impaler from the Chaos Space Marine range had an odd rule, in that when you took your Morale test near him you added 1 to the roll, making it easier to fail. The problem came about when he fought Daemons who had the Daemonic Icon rule, which caused them to regain models if they rolled a 1 for their Morale test. While they were in range of Zhufor this was impossible, so somehow this dude was so scary, [[wat|literal Daemons would refuse to reinforce their brethren if it meant they had to fight him.]]
*'''Objective Unmanned:''' Buildings (and Fortifications) can control objectives in 8th. No further comment, just let that sink in.
*'''Mechanicus Understudy:''' The Mechanicus have a Stratagem called "Mechanicus Locum" that allows a character other than the Warlord to generate a Warlord trait. The problem is that, according to the FAQ, they're only considered the Warlord so they can use the trait they have, and it does not change which traits they can normally access. Since the traits they can normally access are none unless they're the Warlord, this Stratagem does nothing at all.
*'''Editorial oversight? Sounds like heresy:''' The Sisters of Battle 2019 codex states a Canoness can only take a rod of office if she takes a power sword and standard boltgun. The monopose Canoness miniature released ''the very same day'' in the box set is armed with a rod of office, a power sword... and a plasma pistol. Nobody checked if they were selling players illegal loadouts. This had to be fixed in an FAQ, the plasma pistol loadout is the legal one.

==9th Edition==

*'''"Look out!" "No, you look out!"''' The rules for Look out Sir! Were changed with the advent of 9th edition, here's the important bit: ''Models cannot target a unit that contains any Character models with a Wounds characteristic of 9 or less with a ranged weapon while that unit is within 3" of any other friendly Vehicle or Monster unit.'' you can probably see the issue, if two monster/vehicle characters with 9 wounds or less are near each other and they're not the closest unit, you cannot shoot either of them, regardless of how far the rest of their army is in relation to them. Fortunately this was FAQ'd out.

*'''"My armour is contempt, my shield is cheese."''' Another rule change that had some unintended consequences from the beginning of 9th edition. Stormshields were changed from giving the model a flat 3++ Invuln save to giving them a 4++ Invuln and adding +1 to their armour save value. This was most likely done to make the new Blade Guard unit more appealing compared to Terminators as they only had a 3+ save rather than a 2+ save, but this accidentally meant that models with a natural 2+ save with Storm Shields (Terminators and Custodian Guard) got an un-modifiable 2+ armour save (a 2++ Invuln). This was because how modifiers and armour piercing works in 8th and 9th as an armour piercing weapon would lower the armour save '''ROLL''' by its AP value; the roll, not the armour save itself. Since you can't lower a roll below 1, and the model had a 1+ Armour save, it would always pass its save unless it rolled a natural one 1 since those always fail. This wasn't just pulled out of some WAACfags ass either, Rend in [[Warhammer: Age of Sigmar|AoS]] works the same way as AP in 8th and 9th and it was specified in an FAQ for AoS that if a unit got a 1+ armour save it ignored rend values and only rolls of natural 1 failed. To top it all off it was an armour save, so the tricks used to deal with Invuln saves like Death Hex and Null Zone didn't affect it so there was no way to get through apart from weight of fire and Mortal wounds. GW did pick up on this quite quickly however and FAQ'd Stormshields to add 1 to armour save rolls, not the armour save, ending the run of 2++ Terminators.

*'''"[[Blood Ravens|Oh this? I found it.]]"''': According to his new Legends profile, Malakim Phoros, the [[Lamenters]] Chapter Master, was given [[Lias Issodon]]'s specialised stealth armour for some reason. GW got round to updating his legends profile and it was taken away from him again. One can just imagine a very angry Lias sneaking into Malakim's room and stealing his armour back. Although, considering it's Lamenters we're talking about, it's more likely the suit ended up in Malakim's closet by complete accident, he wasn't aware of it at all, and was still blamed and chastised for the unintended theft.

*'''Minions of spelling errors''': In the Legends pdf, you can find the full rules for the Renegades and Heretics, aka the "human" army of Chaos. Like every army, they were given their own version of Objective Secured, but unfortunately the rule doesn't work because everyone in the army must have the keyword {{w40kKeyword|CHAOS AND RENEGADES}}. Literally nobody in the entire game has that keyword, and this particular army has the {{w40kKeyword|RENEGADES AND HERETICS}} keyword instead.

*'''Master of whatmancy?''': As of the 2020 Dark Angels index, Ezekiel has the Master of Interromancy ability giving +1 to cast Interromancy powers. The problem is that the same index stated that everything in Dark Angels codex was unusable, including the Interromancy discipline.

*'''Demoted back to Reclusiarch''': When Psychic Awakening: Faith and Fury, released during 8th [[Grimaldus]] was upgraded and made the Black Templars Master of Sanctity which gave him the <Master of Sanctity> keyword and access to special stratagems. With the 9th edition Black Templars index GW forgot they had promoted him and didn't give him the <Master of Sanctity> keyword again.

*'''Adeptus Mechanicus Party Pontoons''': As of the release of the 9th Ad Mech Codex, the Skorpius Dunerider's Transport rule reads: "This model has a transport capacity of 12 '''Infantry''' or '''Forge-World Infantry''' models." Due to the presence of the lone "'''Infantry'''" keyword, this means that '''ANY''' unit with said keyword is eligible to ride. On top of this, the Dunerider lacks the usual Terminator/Jump Pack penalty, so it is possible to load the transport with multiple units of Space Marine Centurions, Bullgryn, Kataphrons, etc.

*'''Master of War with Clipped Wings''': With the announcement of the 9E Eldar codex, a lot of people were reasonably excited when they saw that the new Autarch model was going to be far more customizable than the travesty 8E left us with, allowing not only new wargear but also new weapons that were all supposedly compatible with the old winged model. Even the codex cover proudly displayed a winged autarch firing a reaper cannon. Cue the codex dropping and the baffling statement that took away all of those custom options from the autarch if they chose to pick wings - They were stuck with the wings, mandiblasters, banshee blade and fusion pistol all as a package deal. A few weeks later GW themselves would realize how stupid this option was and released a free updated datasheet that included all the options, allowing the winged autarchs to pick whatever they wanted.

*'''Try Again. And Again. And Again. And Again... AKA Thermonuclear Frag Grenades''': Try Again Bragg from Gaunt's squad has a special rule that lets him shoot again if his Autocannon gets no hits. Bragg can throw Frag Grenades in exchange for forfeiting Autocannon fire in that shooting phase. Except, not shooting the autocannon means he gets to throw a grenade as he got no Autocannon hits, and since he threw a grenade he got no autocannon hits and thus he gets to throw a grenade and so and so forth until anything from an entire mob of Ork Boyz up to Warlord Titans and Greater Daemons die to Bragg trying again and again and again and again...
**I decided to do the math on how long this would take, just for shits and gigs. With void shields, we can effectively say that the Warlord has 144 wounds, at T9, with a 2+ save.
***Frag Grenades: Each grenade would hit 1.16 times, wound 0.19 times, and be reduced to 0.032 after saves. That means it would take '''4,500 frag grenades to kill a warlord titan''', with 2 guaranteed dice rolls (amount of shots and hit rolls), as well as 2 rolls that are unlikely. For the sake of brevity, I've done this math with the assumption that each frag grenade would take 3 rolls, meaning there would be 13500 rolls made. If it takes 5 seconds to roll a D6, '''it would take around 18 hours and 45 minutes of rolling dice to blow up a Warlord Titan in this manner.''' This of course assumes your opponent doesn't forfeit given no matter how long you take, you'll eventually manage it and there's [[Troll|nothing he can do about it]].

*'''The Armor of Slight Disapproval''': In the new codex for Chaos Daemons, there is a khornate relic known as the Armor of Scorn which gives the bearer a 4+++ FNP to Mortal Wounds in the Psychic Phase and a +1 Save to any attacks that deal 1 damage. The problem is that daemons have a new form of save [[FAIL|that cannot be modified for better or for worse. In other words: The +1 save you’d get from this relic doesn’t work.]]

==Horus Heresy==
[[Awesome|Models by Forge World]], [[Fail|rules by Forge World.]]

*'''Ceremonial Daggers:''' In Forgeworld's Horus Heresy series, the vast majority of Horus Heresy Custodes came equipped with Misericordias, daggers that had use in the 40k incarnation of the Custodes. It didn't take long for people to notice that they had no rules at all in the Horus Heresy book, and given how different the rules were already for the two incarnations people were iffy on whether or not they should use the daggers as they are in the 40k book, or just as another close combat weapon. An entire year would go by before Forgeworld finally released a FAQ, where it was revealed that this whole time the daggers were just meant to be badges of office, had no effect whatsoever in game and were included in their wargear by mistake.

*[[Administratum|'''You can't have these guns:''']] Like many of the entries for Imperial Militia and Warp Cults, things are rather screwy. Grenadiers, in this case, may replace their lascarbines for a plethora of weaponry. The problem? [[Fail|They don't come with Lascarbines]].

*'''Herald of Schizophrenia:''' The Herald upgrade for the Legion Consul has both '''Rite of Command''' and '''Support Officer'''. Which means that, if you take him, you get to use a Rite of War. Support Officer means that the model in question CANNOT be a compulsory HQ. What's the issue then? A model with Rite of Command HAS to be the army Warlord.

*'''Magnus Did Nothing Wrong:''' Despite the standard for Independent Characters to be divided into Loyalist and Traitor allegiances based on their fluff, Forge World [[Fail|forgot to do this for both Magnus and Leman Russ, allowing the later to display his Khornate tendencies by allying with Horus and the former to truly do nothing wrong.]] ([[Awesome|Tabletop]] [[Dornian Heresy]], [[Awesome|you say?]])

*'''Closet Loyalist Possessed:''' In true Alpha Legion fashion, the XX Legion can choose to take one unique unit from any other Astartes legion. Despite Forge World ensuring you can't do the above by taking Special Characters as opposite faction Alpha Legion, they failed to also limit Gal Vorbak (Word Bearers unique Possessed) to Traitor Alpha Legion only. [[Wat|So yes, your Custodes can fight alongside the Neverborn]].
::This problem got more complicated in book 6. So long as you use the Rite of War: Orphans of Betrayal, your Word Bearers can turn their backs on the traitors and fight as if they were Loyalists (although it doesn't technically change their allegiance, so you're still technically Traitors). The book does try to take care of the obvious problem by saying you cannot take "traitors only" units, [[derp|but none of the Word Bearers (including Erebus) are marked as traitor only units]] since the traitors only part was written to apply to the Legion itself and this RoW specifically bypasses that. As of book 8 this might have been intentional, or at least worked into the regular rules since Forge World have addressed the fact that Daemons can be given the Loyalist allegiance and fight along Custodes, and have allowed it into the game [[Inquisition|(representing radicals who choose to use the essence of the warp against itself).]] So long as you don't use unique characters you could have a case for this being almost lore-friendly, it's not like Loyalists in the Imperium [[Daemonhost|didn't start using their own possessed anyway,]] and you could also use it to represent Chaos infighting.

*'''Not-so-ancient Relic:''' When the rules for an Iron Warriors character named Kyr Vhalen released, they stated he had a relic blade, despite this being the Horus Heresy and these blades wouldn't be considered relics for thousands of years. To make matters worse, [[Fail|30k does not include rules for Relic Blades]], and you cannot assume them to be the same as their 40k variant for the same reason as the Misericordia above. Eventually this turned out to be a misprint and he was given the Paragon Blade he was supposed to have the whole time.

*'''F in Engineering:''' Kyr Vhalen again. He is a Warsmith, and naturally like all Warsmiths he has a servo-arm, so what's the issue? Well when you buy a servo-arm you also get Battlesmith, the rule that allows you to repair shit. Unfortunately Vhalen does not have this rule, despite it being a paired upgrade, and it was never given to him (or even mentioned that he shouldn't have it) in a FAQ. He can still use it to hit people, [[derp|but he can never use it for its designed purpose]]. No wonder Perturabo left him to guard some world nobody ever heard of or cared about.

*'''Unwieldy and Cumbersome Proofreading:''' When Eidolon was first given rules, it was stated that he had the ability to lose the Cumbersome rule from his Thunder Hammer in the turn he charged. The problem? [[derp|Thunder Hammers don't have the Cumbersome rule.]] It took some time but eventually this was fixed to have him lose the Unwieldy rule instead.

*'''In the Company of Monsters:''' Back when the Mechanicum were first given rules, they had characters without the Independent Character rule, and this created an odd interaction with the squads of monstrous creatures the Mechanicum could field. RAW you attached a character to a squad who they would stay with and could never leave unless they had the Independent Character rule, and Independent Characters could never join squads of Monstrous Creatures. However, for those characters without IC, there was technically nothing stopping you from joining them to those squads, even though they clearly weren't supposed to be with them. This was such a confusing issue that when FW was emailed about it the answer was effectively "Fuck if we know, just do what feels right." It wasn't until the Mechanicum were given their own book that this issue was finally cleared up.

*'''Build a Land Raider:''' Again this happened back when the Mechanicum were first given rules. One of their unit choices was a Land Raider with every aspect of it being completely customizable, allowing you to go full heretek and make some variants [[heresy|that did not exist and/or never had STC's for their manufacture.]] Apparently even FW thought this was a little too far and removed them completely from the Mechanicum list later on.

*'''Guidance is for the weak!''' All drop pods in the game have a special rule called 'Inertial Guidance System,' except for the [[Dreadclaw|Dreadclaw]]. Even though the rule is described in the fluff panel regarding the Dreadclaw.

*'''Virtue of Time to Call a Judge-ment:''' The Blood Angels unique Moritat character Aster Crohne is clearly intended to allow Destroyers and Angel's Tears to gain buffs against certain units. However, this is the exact wording of the rule: ''Whenever Crohne or a Destroyers or Angel's Tears unit is used to make a Shooting attack against a unit marked with the Angel's Wrath, '''his''' hand flamer attacks are made with the Shred and Rending special rules.'' See a problem with that? Forge World clearly didn't.

*'''Hive World Biker Gangs:''' One of the Rites of War for the generic Space Marine list is designed for [[Zone Mortalis]] games, with certain benefits but also restrictions such as the inability to have vehicles or large squads. It [[Derp|lacks a restriction on taking bikers, though.]]

*'''Turn up the Heat:''' When the Blood Angels were first given rules, they were allowed to take hand flamers on characters. Seems fair enough, until you realize these could also be given to Moritats, the guys who keep firing until they miss. Since this was before they could only hit up to 12 times this meant that anyone within range of a Moritat with hand flamers would be hit an infinite amount of times. The only way to prevent yourself from dying was either to be a vehicle, or have a Toughness greater than 6, so even the less tough Primarchs would suddenly evaporate before these roaming bubbles of flaming death. Eventually Forge World changed it so that you cannot use the Moritat's Chain Fire rule on Hand Flamers, since auto-hitting a unit 12 times with a template weapon would also have been pretty bullshit.

*'''What You See Is Not What You Get:''' A minor one this time, but Forge World released a model for a Night Lords Praetor in Tartaros Armour. He's described as carrying a Chainglaive and a Volkite Serpenta. There's a slight problem however: models in Terminator Armour don't have access to Volkite Serpentas.

*'''Slow and Not So Purposeful:''' Inner Circle Knights Cenobium have guns that gain a bonus in Overwatch. Yet they wear Cataphractii Terminator Armour, which means they can't actually ever use that bonus. Their datasheet was later updated to state that the Knights Cenobium are skilled enough to make Overwatch attacks despite wearing Cataphractii Terminator Armour.

*'''Nothing new followed with Them:''' The Word Bearer's trademark Rite of War ''"The Dark Brethren"'' allows them to take an allied detachment of Daemons to represent their Chaos speciality. Thing is, after the Release of Demons of the Ruinstorm in Book 8, Daemons are Sworn Brothers with all traitors now that they're ''"Agents of the Warmaster"'', thus making the entire RoW redundant. The only advantage this RoW (meant to be a stopgag measure until Ruinstorm was released) now gives you is [[RAW|exploiting a loophole]] that allows demons to use your transports and reserve roll modifiers, [[RAI|which in turn contradicts the Ruinstorm Demon rules]]. This [[FAIL|redundancy/contradiction]] also plagues all three of their diabolist special characters, who have a rule allowing to ally demons if chosen as the Warlord.

*'''Frag Assault Tank:''' In a grand example of Forge World's dedication to proof reading their books, the Malcador Heavy Tank can take Frag Assault Launchers, which allow units disembarking from the vehicle to gain Assault Grenades when they charge. Can you guess the issue? [[Fail|The Malcador Heavy Tank isn't a transport and never has been.]]

*'''Medusan Impracticals:''' Yet another example of proof reading. Medusan Immortals can take chainswords instead of their bolters, yet these do nothing as they can gain no extra attack benefit from close combat weapons due to being armed with breacher shields as well.

*'''Signs and Proofreading:''' The Horus Heresy is rife with spelling errors and misattributed rules, but no book is as bad as Book 7: Inferno. This was a book so terribly written that to go over all of its various mistakes would double the size of this page, so we'll keep it short. Suffice to say it was so egregious that they needed to release an entirely separate FAQ for the Custodes, renaming their gear and reprinting whole units so that they used weapons that actually existed (instead of gibberish or portmanteaus), before throwing up their hands and redoing them in the next book. This also affected the Thousand Sons in a few ways as well, such as allowing Sekhmet Terminators to swap their Force Weapon for a Power Fist [[wat|with an attached Power Fist.]] Yes, this would've let them get the +1 Attack bonus and they would also retain their combi-weapon. Perhaps this is just a third arm granted through the Flesh Change, but that doesn't explain why they share a rule with the Word Bearers: Signs and Portents. The Word Bearers use it to get Preferred Enemy, either for or against one of their units (it's a coin flip) while for the Thousand Sons it causes everyone in the army to take a Pinning test any time anyone suffers Perils of the Warp. In all honesty it's likely Forge World didn't even bother checking to see if their chosen rule name was already being used by another faction.

*'''Understaffed Tour Bus:''' RAW a Dreadwing Interemptors squad of 10 can have a Land Raider Proteus as a Dedicated Transport, however the squad starts at five, and the DT option lacks the "10 or fewer" clause every other unit in the game has for their DT. This also means that if the squad has one more or one less Marine in it, they cannot take a Dedicated Transport outside of a Rite of War. They can however take the Land Raider if it has an Explorator Augury Web if they number 10 models, [[Wat|even though that lowers it to a Transport Capacity of eight]], they just can't fit in the vehicle meant to transport them.

*'''Who Are We Forgetting?:''' The Dark Angels are unable to plan a holiday without leaving something important at home: Deathwing Terminator Companions can take a Land Raider Proteus so long as they do not number more than five. While this sounds reasonable for Terminator squads, Forgeworld forgot that Deathwing Companions can ONLY be deployed with their attached character who cannot leave them during the game, meaning that those Bulky Terminators don't leave enough room in the bus for the guy they need to protect! This wasn't an oversight either as Terminator Companions got their own Dedicated Transport option separately from the Artificer Companions.

*'''We Forgot Our Shields, Sir:''' In the fluff, the Stormwing is a boarding focused detachment that uses [[Breacher Siege Squad|Breacher]] and [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Tyrant's Legion(7E)|Retaliator Squads]] (Assault Squads with Combat Shields instead of Jump Packs). Take a guess what they lack access to in their Rite of War? To add further salt into the injury, the Stormwing has been [[retcon]]ned into a no-speciality wing that forces you to take '''more''' combined Assault/Tactical than the total of all other units, meaing [[FAIL|you can only choose 5 non-troop units]] (one of which must be the Praetor you took to get the Rite), and that is [[rage|assuming you filled all 6 troop slots in the first place]].

*'''Luther's Master Plan:''' Every unique Dark Angels Rite of War includes a provision that ''"No unit from the Detachment may be joined by Independent Characters not part of the Detachment"'' but ALSO includes the provision of <u>''No allied detachments''</u>, practically rendering itself redundant. Even though you can't take allies, you can still have Agents of the Emperor like Knights-Errant ''inside'' your detachment without restriction, or take a Shattered Legion list and go nuts with non-Dark Angels characters/units joining each other and vice versa. However, RAW, Lords of War are counted as their own detachment separate from the Primary Detachment, so poor old Lion cannot join any unit in his army if they are using a Dark Angels Rite of War.

*'''You must be this Tal to ride:''' Forgeworld did their bit for fans of The First Heretic by releasing a model of everyone's favourite posessed, Argel Tal. Many players' first thought was to include him in a Word Bearers army using the Last of the Serrated Sun Rite of War since he is literally the "Commander of the Serrated Sun". This Rite forces all infantry units to ride in a transport or teleport in, no biggie. Unfortunately Argel Tal was given the type jump infantry on account of his y'know... wings. Since jump infantry can't ride in any transport besides thunderhawks and stormbirds, unless you're fielding a super heavy flyer that 95% of the playerbase don't own, Argel Tal isn't a legal choice for such an army. It seems Forgeworld's rules writers were about as aware of the "no jump infantry in drop pods/storm eagles/land raiders" rules as most Heresy players. This might have something to do with it making no sense.

==Horus Heresy 2.0==
While the rules are officially written by Games Workshop proper now, [[Fail|this doesn't seem to have helped much]].
*'''What's a "Deep Strike"?:''' The Kharybdis Assault claw comes with an Internal Guidance System, which helps during Deep Strike Assaults to stop it from scattering into terrain and keep it on course during the drop. The problem? The Kharybdis doesn't have Deep Strike. The Errata eventually fixed that, but this is an embarrassing rule to omit.

*'''Epic 2.0:''' A casualty of the Legacies PDF hastily (read: god awful) written rules is the Stormsword, which seems to have returned to Epic by mounting a Hellhammer Cannon again. While this ''could'' be explained away by the fact that the Stormsword in the fluff did mount one before being upgraded in later patterns, given the PDF authors seeming to have given absolutely zero shits it's probably too generous to give them a pass here. Regardless, this doesn't explain the fact that the model you're meant to use very obviously has Stormsword Cannon and not a Hellhammer Cannon anyway.

*'''Half power to weapons:''' Yet ''another'' casualty of the Legacies PDF, the Tarantula Sentry battery comes armed with two Heavy Bolters, which can be swapped out for two Lascannons. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact the model is counted as an Infantry unit and lacks the Firing Protocol rule, which means they can only fire one of their heavy bolters or Lascannons in each shooting phase.
**Adding to the hilarity, they did eventually update the Legacies PDF so that the Legion Tarantulas got Firing Protocols (2)...only to forget that same rule for the Legacies PDF for the Mechanicum AND in the Liber Imperium. Some idiots just never learn...

*'''Half power to weapons...again:''' Much as seems to have happened with the Tarantula, the writers of the Legacies PDF forgot they weren't writing 9th Edition rules when giving the Malcador its weapons. While it starts with a Battle Cannon, it can swap it for ''two'' Lascannons instead of the Twin-Linked Lascannon that actually occupies the turret on the model. The fact the Malcador is a vehicle does mean it can fire both of these...except when moving at Cruising Speed because that apparently causes the Machine Spirit of one of the two Lascannons to throw a tantrum and refuse to fire anything other than Snap Shots until the crew slows down again.
**It seems that the Legacies file got updated enough that the two lascannons got replaced with just a Gravis Lascannon. At least this time it actually shoots twice without panicking because of movement speed...

*'''One of these things is not like the others...:''' For some ungodly reason, the fucking [[Hammerfall Bunker]] was given rules in the Legacies PDF. Yes, the Primaris bunker that isn't actually a bunker and is just a shittier Deathstorm Drop Pod was given Horus Heresy rules. That should speak for itself on the supposed quality of the PDF.

*'''Only one hand of iron:''' The Medusan Immortals Squad of the Iron Hands are not a particularly good unit this edition. However, the guy who wrote their melee option should expiate his sins. The squad can swap their Bolters for Chainswords, but since they also have Boarding Shields, they '''cannot''' claim the bonus for two weapons, so merely gain Shred melee attacks. They also have the option for Bayonets, which they are '''not allowed to use''', because models with Boarding Shields [[Fail|cannot make attacks with Two-Handed weapons...]]

*'''Unidentified Flying Marauder:''' in YET ANOTHER cock up in the Legacies pdf, you'd have thought that whoever wrote it would at LEAST have looked at the models they were making up rules for. [[Fail|But no.]] the rules for the Marauder Bomber have it equipped with Twin-Linked Autocannons in the nose. However the model that Forgeworld used to sell only ever had Lascannons in the nose slot. Effectively rendering anyone who ever bought that expensive resin model now has an invalid loadout.

*'''"Flanking"? Never heard of that:''' Thanks to one of his rules, "Lightning from Blue Skies", Jaghatai Khan and the unit he has joined do not need a Reserves roll to be brought into play from Reserves. It is also said that if he is part of a Flanking Assault, then this rule applied to all units that are part of that Assault. The problem? [[Fail|He cannot be part of a Flanking Assault]].

*'''Luther's Back-up Plan:''' While Luther's master plan above was defeated by the 2nd Edition...it was replaced by the fact that Cataphractii and Tartaros Deathwing Companions (which, surprise surprise, were in the Legacies PDF) can only be selected for a Master of the Legion with the same type of armour. As the Lion doesn't wear either type, [[Fail|they can't be chosen for him]], so he has to slog it with the regular Artificer variant.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Gamebreaking]] [[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics]]

Grimdark

2022-12-16T14:35:35Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:C570:F909:4D50:3C58: /* IRL */ Wojtek was from Syria you idiot

{{Grimdark}}
[[File:P23436_p_v10_aa.jpg|300px|right|thumb|If your protagonist or antagonist isn't at least this [[edgy]], then you're probably doing Grimdark wrong.]]
[[Image:Lovepeace.png|thumb|right|It's totally the opposite of this.]][[Image:Inspector Grimgadget.jpg|thumb|right|Inspector Gadget, reimagined with a grimdark feel.]]
[[Image:Grimdark.jpg|thumb|right|Grimdark versions of the TMNT. Their mentor is a Skaven.]]
[[Image:Grimdarkery.jpg|thumb|right|Grimdark means war, and always endless, brutal war.]]
{{topquote|We are not men disguised as mere dogs, we are wolves disguised as men|Captain Muroto, ''Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade''}}
{{topquote|They say, 'Evil prevails when good men fail to act.' What they ought to say is, 'Evil prevails.'|Yuri Orlov, ''Lord of War''}}
{{topquote|Tᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɢʀɪɴᴅ ɪᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪɴᴇsᴛ ᴘᴏᴡᴅᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ sɪᴇᴠᴇ ɪᴛ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪɴᴇsᴛ sɪᴇᴠᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇɴ sʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴇ ᴏɴᴇ ᴀᴛᴏᴍ ᴏғ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴏʟᴇᴄᴜʟᴇ ᴏғ ᴍᴇʀᴄʏ ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴇᴛ... Aɴᴅ ʏᴇᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀᴄᴛ ᴀs ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs sᴏᴍᴇ ɪᴅᴇᴀʟ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ, ᴀs ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs sᴏᴍᴇ... Sᴏᴍᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛɴᴇss ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsᴇ ʙʏ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ɪᴛ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ ʙᴇ ᴊᴜᴅɢᴇᴅ.|DEATH, [[Discworld|Hogfather]] (while explaining that since humans believe that it does, the way we believe Santa or the "Hogfather" does, we make it so it does.)}}

'''Grimdark''' is an adjective derived from the tagline for [[Warhammer 40,000]], which states that "In the '''grim darkness''' of the far future, there is only war," and in some of the novels (at least a few of the [[Ciaphas Cain]] stories, for instance) it states straightforwardly, "in the '''grim dark''' future..." Whether this came after "grimdark" began to be popularly used as an adjective is not wholly clear (probably after). It is generally used to describe a dilapidated, dystopian "crapsack world" setting in which it would really suck to live, and it is the setting of Warhammer 40,000 itself. In fairness to the franchise and its defenders, this is because the published material primarily focuses on war and [[Chaos Gods|cults]] and other [[Daemonculaba|horrible things]]. There are supposed to be many pleasant and peaceful worlds and sectors in the Imperium, but they are mostly ignored as they are boring -- and when they DO appear in lore or fluff, they're usually to go from "0 problems" to "totally fucked", very quickly. It can also be used to describe artwork that has a ''grimdark'' feel, even if the setting itself would not normally be considered grim or dark, or something sinister or uncommonly threatening/intimidating in real-life. This often applies to fan-art and writefaggotry as well.

Depending on your own personal tolerances for grim darkness of course, it can be taken to the extreme, just like with all descriptive traits. There is a point in which it becomes more ridiculous than anything else, because everything is indefeasibly tragic all the time - the term for this being [[Grimdark#Grimderp|grimderp]], which is explained further below.

This is an accusation often leveled at Warhammer itself, and leads some to rail against "Grimdark" as a whole, decrying the concept as ridiculous attempts at [[edgy|edginess]] (typically by teenagers), and using the expression to refer solely to such over-the-top settings in a strictly pejorative manner. Others actually embrace this ridiculousness and run with it (including Warhammer 40K itself, due to being a much more obviously comedic setting [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|in early editions]]), insisting that the detractors or even the creators who take it seriously are making a mistake. Some people embrace the grimdarkness and mix it up with some humor (like painting Necrons with bright colors to make them look like edible candy figurines), especially if they are Ork players. But the schism between taking Warhammer's grimdarkness seriously or not is mostly visible with races such as the Tau, who are noticeably less grimdark ''visually'' than most of the other races and are either loved or absolutely hated for it (when not hated for being overpowered as shit). Meanwhile, another sizable percentage postulate that Grimdarkness lends greater moral and ethical complexity to a setting, based on [[Edgy|the fallacy that darkness always equals depth]]. Such people usually cite the works of Dan Abnett and many other Warhammer 40K writers to lend credence to such suppositions; these people are clearly ignoring that fact that most writers tone the grimdark WAY down. What, you didn't think the fact that the Imperium being an effective government, civilians having normal happy lives on par with the Scandinavians, Commissars who never *BLAM* their troops was odd? Needless to say, grimdark is [[Skub|a rather polarizing subject whose discussion often leaves little room for a middle ground]].

Speaking of, the polar opposite of grimdark is [[Noblebright]], a deliberate inversion of grim and dark nature where honor, chivalry, happiness and high adventure rule the day, as opposed to dying in a ditch from a supernatural plague as you run out of potable water and can no longer wait for the logistics department to process your dead comrades into something slightly more palatable before you start eating them. Oh, and being {{BLAM}}ed by a Commissar for even starting to look a little sad from these thoughts.

Although, it could be argued that 40K proper is actually Nobledark. Although the lore claims one man cannot make a difference and heroes are meaningless (Grim), we see the complete opposite of that actually happening in the lore. 40K fluff (40K, not just 30K) is crammed to bursting with heroes who made major differences. If anything, 40K seems to be about the difference one man ''can'' make rather than showing one man cannot make a difference. Even the events revolve around the Great Man idea of basically superheroes and supervillains moving the galaxy (and it's not just actual superhumans doing this). It is nonetheless a very dark setting, though.

== Common grimdark themes ==
*[[1984|Massive, imperialist, overbearing, bureaucratic, dystopian dictatorships]]; e.g. [[Imperium of Man|Nazi Germany clones]], [[Tau|Soviet Union/China clones]], or straight out examples of [[Paranoia|"Big Brother is watching you"]].
*Constant, never ever-ending warfare, usually as a horrific combination of outdated tactics and technology (And sometimes overly advanced technology). E.g., sending line infantry armed with single-shot [[Lasgun|Lasguns]] against a [[Bolter|Heavy Bolter]] nest.
*Horrifyingly large death tolls are perfectly normal. Genocide is also perfectly normal, and in many cases encouraged and espoused.
*Slavery is also perfectly normal, and sometimes considered a great necessity. Massive constructs are often built via slave labor.
*Everyone is racist towards non-humans/[[Eldar|elves]]/[[Mutant|mutants]]/[[Orks|fungus]]/[[Rak'gol|lizards]]/[[Slaugth|worms]]/[[Necrons|robots]]/[[Tyranids|aliens]]/[[Chaos|each other]]. Vice versa for literally every race.
*Speaking of xenophobia towards every species, those who express sympathy for a hated race and/or intermingle with said race, are usually publicly humiliated, tortured, and usually purged.
*Daily dose of [[HFY]]. [[Astral Knights|And]] [[Awesome]].
*[[Shadowrun|The vast majority are poor people who literally live in shit, pollution, crime]], and a plethora of [[Nurgle|all kinds of filthy diseases]], except for a [[Monopoly|few greedy upper 1% who own 99.9% of everything. This has become increasingly ironic as 0.1% of our real world population began to own 99.999% of everything.]]
*You, a poor bastard, are being farmed for shits and giggles by said few greedy upper 1%.
*Most of the poor bastards are being forced to work 23 hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, in factories and/or forced labour camps, until their bodies give out. Forever.
*They're probably making weapons and equipment for [[Imperial Guard|the military]] (which is where the rest of the poor bastards are).
*[[Age of Strife|Dark, disgraceful and recondite past]] covered with [[Alpha Legion|lies]] [[Imperium|propanganda]], [[Tzeentch|deception]] and [[Eldar|partiality]].
*The Higher Powers do indeed give you consideration, they're just malevolent as all fuck.
*Chronic backstabbing. Just like in real life relationships. (''Who hurt you?'')
*[[Ork Snipers|"Frie]][[Marines Malevolent|ndly]] [[Kharn|fire"]]
*[[Space Marines|Child]] [[Imperial Guard|soldiers]]. Just like in real life.
*Your morning alarm clock is the stray bullets you hope don't hit you, from [[Necromunda|the gangsters doing a drive-by on their enemy who happens to be in the same district]] to whom you don't even belong to or like.
*Status quo is god. [[Nurgle|Literally.]]
*[[Tzeentch|Change is worse]].
*[[Cyberpunk|Cybernetics and cyborgs]]; the less human, the better.
*[[Commissar|Daily forecasts reguarly call for a 80% chance or more of *BLAM*]].
*[[Judge Dredd|Police]] [[Adeptus Arbites|brutality]].
*Even minor crimes can have major punishments.
*[[Inquisition|Being innocent or even a victim of crime can be counted as a crime]]. All participants in a crime, whether perpetrator or victim, are charged.
*[[Inquisition|Government agencies that are always there to fuck you over]] at the slightest hint of [[heresy]].
*Did I mention that the [[Inquisition]] commits planetary genocide 24/7?
*The [[Erebus|cock]][[Dark Eldar|suckers]] responsible for most of the shittiness are not only getting away with it, but are surviving and thriving, without becoming major targets for the [[noblebright]] forces.
*Torture that makes the CIA look like saints.
*[[Call of Cthulhu|Sanity checks]].
*Criminally insane delusional psychotics tortured in filthy mental asylums (in case of no/failed SAN checks).
*[[H.P. Lovecraft|Disgusting, horrifying, tentacled eldritch abominations]] that are often the cause of aforementioned criminal insanity.
*Rape. Just like in real life. ([[/d/|And often by said tentacled Eldritch Abominations]].)
*Surgery without anesthesia.
*[[Cannibalism]], in three forms:
*# For power (embracing the myth of "you are what you eat").
*# For food value; sometimes this is concealed by callous authorities as some other kind of food; sometimes, it's just a biological, cultural or desperation thing.
*# For the sheer fun of it.
*Want chemotherapy or some other expensive treatment? Well, you have to eviscerate that old dropout student of yours in order to pay.
*In fact even surgery without anesthesia is a luxury available only to wealthy or important ones, as are all other forms of medicine. 99% of people are expected to die when they fall sick or get injured. That is when they don't get executed FOR falling sick or getting injured.
*[[Fleshcrafting|Human experiments]]. [[Fabius Bile|Sometimes willingly, but most of the time not]]!
*Zombie plagues.
*Ritual cult sacrifices.
*Massive amounts of blood, gore, guts, pain and hatred.
*No personal opinion or choice. Only the illusion of it, in which you probably end up an [[Magnus|unwil]][[Mortarion|ling]] [[Rubric Marines|sla]][[necron|ve]]. Or...[[Chaos spawn|something worse]].
*Anti-intellectualism.
*...and it's justified because even an instant of unprotected thinking risks mass destruction.
*PTSD.
*Nihilism.
* Racism is actually right.
*Gothic and emo aesthetics (with the help of tons of ''"decorative"'' skulls).
*There are no "good guys". Everyone's a jerk, including yourself. ''Especially yourself.''
* Everyone is evil either because they’re just plain monsters or because they are trying to survive which makes everyone evil to everyone else.
*[[Tau|The guys everyone refer to be "good" or "nice"]] are actually just ''the least'' evil bunch, and would still make your average high fantasy/sci-fi arch-villains look like saints in comparison.
*The REAL good guys are either [[Lamenters|the ones (usually) mostly hated, and are going to get fucked over beyond human recognition usually without any logical reason]] or [[Salamanders|too few to make any difference]].
*Aforementioned "good guys" are only "good" because they do care about their allies and civilians, and generally try to make the place less shitty for those they care for. But they still wouldn't hesitate a second before doing pretty horrible things like [[Shadowrun|terrorist actions against "The Man"]], [[Warhammer 40k|killing a defenseless xeno child]], etc...
* The aforementioned defenseless xeno-child needed to be killed either because it was guaranteed to grow up to be a monster, would grow to compete for resources needed for survival, would be corrupted, was already a monster, or any number of reasonable justifications that would leave a modern man in frustrated tears trying to justify not killing it. Welcome to Warhammer 40,000.
*Magic is [[Warp|inherently malevolent]] and actively seeks to [[Cenobites|corrupt]] and [[Khorne|destroy]] those unfortunates 'gifted' with magical abilities. And everything around them at the time.
*You either die a [[Sanguinius|worthy death]] or you live long enough to see yourself becoming something that [[Mortarion|you've]] [[Perturabo|always]] [[Fulgrim|hated]].
*Everyone will most likely die in the end. Especially the ones important to and including the main character.
*Always polluted, never sunny.
*No ice cream. No lollipops either.
*Death or suicide will only make things much, much worse in [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraftian]] levels, as a hive of disgusting, incomprehensibly evil supernatural daemons are waiting patiently to eternally torment your un-life and roast your soul alive day and night forever and ever, again and again and again and again.
*Tremendous potential for offensive/dark comedy/[[lulz]].
*[[God-Emperor of Mankind|And if you ever, EVER try to change this shitty world or try to help one person just a little, you will probably suffer terrible consequences,]] because altruism is a dying philosophy. (And because your reasoning is flawed.)
*Life sucks.
*There's only war.
*You're probably going to get eaten by Tyranids.
*no gf
*Good luck and [[Dwarf_Fortress|have fun.]]
*Even using the wrong calendar is [[heresy]].

== Stuff considered Grimdark ==

[[File:Tyrus.jpg|400px|thumb|A world where the only way to beat grimdark is by introducing something even grimmer and darker]]
[[File:The_grimdarkian_by_ironshrinemaiden_d1i73bl.jpg|400px|thumb|[https://www.deviantart.com/ironshrinemaiden/art/The-Grimdarkian-91030161| The Grimdarkian, by IronShrineMaiden]]]
===/tg/===
* '''''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''''' (Naturally, coined the term).
* '''''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]''''', <strike>but less than you'd think. It's a lot closer to nobledark</strike> until the world [[Derp|was]] [[Bullshit|actually]] [[End Times|destroyed]]. Now, [[Age of Sigmar]] continues it and is slightly better, in so much that it is unlikely to be destroyed, though [[Warhammer Meta-Setting|that may imply an even worse eternal stalemate]].
* '''[[Grimdark Songwriting]]'''
* '''''[[Dark Sun]]'''''
* '''''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'''''
* '''''[[CthulhuTech]]'''''
* '''''[[Don't Rest Your Head]]'''''
* Playing mortals in '''''[[Exalted]]'''''
* '''''[[FATAL]]'''''
* '''''[[Kingdom Death]]'''''. Makes 40k's setting seem pleasant and cheerful.
* '''''[[Midnight]]''''' setting for D&D.
* '''''[[Paranoia]]''''' (though used for parodying 1984).
* '''''[[Pokemon Tabletop Adventures]]''''' (optionally).
* '''''[[RIFTS]]'''''
* '''''Fragged Cyberpunk''''': A prequel to the more optimistic Fragged Empire. Fragged Cyberpunk focuses on the twilight years of humanity as Habsburgian levels of genetic erosion and degradation leave it only a few centuries of life, while the powers that be, that could cure it do not bother and instead focus their efforts on terraforming hospitable worlds for their new, engineered super species. All the while herding humans into cramped cities on dead planets that are effectively concentration/death camps for what remains of mankind.
* '''''[[Shadowrun]]'''''. While not the worst in the grimdark department, Shadowrun definitely has its moments (the Renraku Archology Shutdown being a prime example); for instance the oppressive megacorporations reducing people to an identification number, with people not having one ([[Derp|for... reasons]]) don't exist legally.
* '''''SLA Industries'''''. Imagine if the Emperor was not only still walking around, but was a callous businessman with a permanent skeleton face and no bling armor. Imagine a civilization that exists almost entirely to strip mine itself in the name of consumerism, with snuff television being the primary source of entertainment and anyone trying to do business not on SLA's pay roll being branded a "Soft Company" to be exterminated. Oh, and truly horrid aliens that were thought extinct centuries ago are now making a comeback AND occult fuckery of varying flavors is manifesting in increasing amounts in Mort City, SLA's capital.
*'''''[http://www.synthiciderpg.com/ Synthicide]'''''. "When robots are gods, killing humans is fair game." In the deep darkness of the far, post-mutagen virus future, Human life is worthless (Murder and theft against them and each other is entirely legal), murder of sentient bots (Who are given free-range to torment humans with impunity after being let go from service to the major faction that makes them), however is one of the greatest offenses, and one the PC's are bound to commit at some point in their careers. Also, everything has a black and white color pallete.
* '''''[[Unhallowed Metropolis]]''''', a game representing probably the outer limits of how Grimdark you can go without sliding into Grimderp.
* '''''[[World of Darkness]]''''', with special mention going to [[Wraith: The Oblivion]], a game so bleak it's rumored to have actually caused fits of chronic depression in players.

===Vidya===
* '''''Armored Warfare'''''. Terrorist/ultra-nationalist/anarchists with tanks, corporations that rule and enslave large portions of the world and the rest of the world might as well be a wasteland, as far as we know.
* '''''Barotrauma''''' : Inspired by Space Station 13, centered on a submarine crew in the underground oceans of Europa. Crew members are expendable, you're ''always'' outgunned, the submarine is almost [[Death World|constantly under attack by massive sea creatures]], and most missions are much more likely to end in disaster than success. Also, you explode as soon as you step outside the sub.
* '''''[[Battletech]]''''' about half the time. On a good day, mercenaries fight proxy wars and follow the Geneva convention to keep damage and body counts low, ComStar keeps everyone in line, and "bombed back to the stone age" actually means "your spaceships blew up and you enjoy a comfortable 1990s era lifestyle." On bad days, the Crusader Clans storm in and break everything, the Word of Blake jihad starts nuking everyone they don't like, and all FTL communication breaks plunging the galaxy into a new dark age, erasing centuries of political and technological progress.
* '''''[[Darkest Dungeon]]'''''. Your ancestor awakened some kind of God that is pretty much Cthulhu's brother and sent you a letter before killing himself, asking you to mop up the huge mess he created. Enjoy sending parties of 4 adventurers ranging from badass lepers to sickle-wielding jesters to their deaths in cultist-infested ruins, sewers filled with mutated cannibalistic pigmen, sea caverns serving as anthropomorphic sea creatures and forests corrupted by evil. And I'm not going to talk about the Darkest Dungeon itself. Also, have fun dealing with those bandits that are raiding the Hamlet for which you spent a fuckton of resources in upgrades.
* '''''Bet On Soldier/Iron Storm''''': WW1 got extended by 80 years, leading to a world where war is everything (including a televised past time), peace is considered a horrifically dissident ideal and there is a shadowy cabal behind the scenes plotting to make the war last forever. We're pretty sure the creators are Warhammer fans since one of the DLC bosses is an Inquisijanny stamping out heresies (read: you infected with the vampire curse).
* '''''Bloodborne''''' or the love child of Dark Souls (gameplay) and Lovecraftian mythology (its main inspiration for setting and theme). Another masterpiece from FROM software and Hidetaka Miyazaki. TLDR, the game is a mix of elritch horrors, omnipotent creatures which are fundementally gods and Dark Souls, though this time there is no fire to link, only FEAR.
* '''''[[Cyberpunk 2077]]'''''
* '''''Dark Seed''''', Grimdark to the core! the first game is about the main character being fucked in the head. HR Giger's artwork helps too.
* '''''Dark Souls'''''. The entire ''world'' is ''dying''. Specifically, most of the population is undead, you die constantly, and you have to fight enemies larger and filthier than you are, [[Heresy|including a naked bitch with a spider vagina]]. Also, [[Extra Heresy|FAKE TITS]]. Stuck in an infinite loop where a hero constantly saves the world, and everything goes back to normal before hitting another grimdark cycle every thousand years. Compare with nobledark and check your mileage.
* '''''Dead Space'''''. A group of human discovered a device of unknown origin called a '''Marker''' and it turned them into undead alien monsters. In the sequel, it was revealed Markers were created by a long extinct alien species, and the Markers continue to infect other intelligent species, to the point the corpses of their entire civilizations formed into a [[Atropus|giant undead moon capable of telepathically mind fucking people]].
*'''''Destiny''''': While the game itself is Noble Bright/Neutral, the lore is definitively Grim Dark. Entire civilisations were destroy by the Darkness, Brainiac style. Humanity is reduced to one big city on Earth, literally under a the protection of a paracausal entity, the Traveller, that actively help you AND your enemies. Through experimentation that would make [[Fabius Bile]] proud, millions of humans were transform into robot to fight a secret and seemingly endless war against temporal machines. At one point, you and your kind, the Guardians, were hunted down to serve as battery, and the carcass of your companions, the Ghosts, which give you your "immortality", were used as currency. And I did not talk about the Hive and their Gods.
* '''''Dishonored''''' - Grimdark, and steampunk. Only in the "Kill fucking everyone" ending though.
* '''''[[Doom]]'''''. Demons from Hell have overrun Mars and Earth. You are the lone space marine capable of anything. Somewhat of a subversive case of grimdark: it's not you who is afraid of demons, [[awesome|it's the demons who are afraid of you]]. Commence with the [[Rip and Tear]].
* '''''Drakengard''''' and its related franchise: '''''Nier'''''. Basically, the "god" in this setting is a massive dick so he infects humans with zombie aids out of boredom and watch them kill each other for the [[lulz]]. You play Caim, a mute [[rip and tear|zombie slaughter enthusiast]] who teams up with a blind pedophile priest, a baby eating elf witch, and a ageless shota. The true ending for the game involves Cain and his dragon transporting the queen of the Lovecraftian Watchers to a greyscale version of Tokyo (Yes, the Tokyo of our world) and engages it in a rythm-based battle of song. After defeating it, the queen disintegrates into particles that start turning the entire population into salt statues, while Caim and his dragon [[fail|get shot down by fighter jets.]]
* '''''Elden Ring''''', aka [[meme|Dark Souls 2: Electric Boogalooo]]. The titular metaphysical object responsible for the previous prosperity of the world has been shattered, the demigods are in an eternal stalemate, and you are called upon to decide the fate of the Lands Between. A magnum opus of a collaboration between FROMsoft, Miyazaki, and George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. Like the other Soulsborne (would it be Soulsborne''ring'' now?) games, be prepared to die. A lot.
** '''''Nier''''' takes place 1462 years into the future. After countless grimdark conflicts involving child soldiers, human experiments and more resource shortages, a scientist decided to separate the rest of the survivors' souls (gestalt) from their bodies, hoping they could outlast a mind rape pandemic. But of course all these attempts are futile failures because Nier, our "hero" ended up killing the only thing that could save humankind, dooming them all to extinction.
*** Finally we have '''''Nier: Automata''''', 8480 years later, where androids were created by the last human survivors. But the humans that escaped to the moon turn out to be long dead. When the rest of androids find out, they proceed to kill themselves in a batshit frenzy. To make this even more painful and tragic, the androids have the human concepts of pain and emotions programmed to them, making their death even more painful.
* '''''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'''''
* '''''Factorio'''''. You're a lone human, aliens want to kill you, everything you do makes smog, and your goal is to cover the world in industry, concrete, machines, and gun turrets. The world isn't dead when you arrive, but you're damn well going to kill it yourself or die trying.
* '''''Grim Dawn'''''. A farming game about a never-ending struggle between humans and multiple otherworldly powers.
* '''''Hellgate London'''''
* '''''I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream'''''. Just the title itself should give you a clue on how horrific the game is. (The video game is terrifying, especially with its endings, and the short story it is based on is even more horrifying). Humanity has been wiped out except for five people, who trapped inside a complex controlled by a misanthropic, reality-warping supercomputer keeping them alive to torture them and altered their minds and/or bodies in cruelly ironic ways.
* '''''LISA the RPG.'''''
* '''''Lobotomy Corp/Library of Ruina AKA Project Moon's setting'''''. To summarize its setting, think of it as Shadowrun with less gun, more melee combat, and subtle rants on corporate dystopias. Also has a bit of philosophies and studies on human behavior, personalities and emotions. Read more on their lore wiki.
* '''''Madness Combat'''''. No regret, no remorse, no reason, only [[Khorne|madness]].
* '''''Mass Effect'''''. While its universe is hardly grimdark overall, the Reapers and what happens to "harvested" individuals are some of the sickest forms of grimdark possible. During the Reaper War, trillions of people across the galaxy were vaporized, crushed, dissolved slowly and/or violently converted into cyber zombies or brainwashed slaves. And that's just the latest Reaper War. The Reapers have committed so much galactic genocide beforehand, they turned it into a regularly scheduled event and made the galaxy their farm/laboratory.
** There is also the Genophage, a bioweapon deployed against the Krogan race as to halt the Krogan Rebellions. This bioweapon was basically a massive, permanent genetic Fetus Deletus that dramatically lowered Krogan birthrates and caused a lot of stillbirths (literal "piles of children that never lived" - actual in-game quote). If that wasn't bad enough, they live on a death-world and have a warlike culture, so this puts them at risk of extinction. And if THAT wasn't bad enough, they've been suffering under the Genophage for over a thousand years after the Krogan Rebellions ended, with prior attempts to cure it unsuccessful or sabotaged.
* '''''Path of Exile'''''. The game's setting is basically a documentary on the corruption of [[Roman Empire]].
* '''''Portal''''' once you get past the memes
* '''''Postal'''''. Not the sequels, which play the violence for laughs and topical humor, or the crap Uwe Boll movie, just the first game and it's remake (''Postal Redux''). Once you get past all the shock and outrage of being a forefather of the [[Satanic Panic|"Ban Violent Video Games"]] movement, you'll realize that this game is genuinely fucked up with its imagery and the protagonist is a mentally unwell individual.
* The '''''Prototype''''' games. New York City is infected with a virus created by a generically-unethical corporation called GenTek that mutates people into mutant zombies and/or fucking huge deformed beasts. A secret division called Blackwatch is sent to brutally contain the virus, except it turns out they originally created the virus as a way to purge minorities. This may sound like Resident Evil but the resemblance ends here because you play as Alex Mercer (Prototype 1) and James Heller (Prototype 2), both of them infected by a strain the virus and became superhumans who can shapeshift and gain someone's memories by consuming them (read violently absorbing them into their bodies) and can grow weapons like claws or a blade arm.
* '''''[[Space Station 13]]''''' : Space paranoia simulator set in a dystopian future where capitalism and unforgiving bureaucracy rules the universe, your life is expandable, and the media is controlled; your only choice is working until you die, or getting killed by either rival corporate operatives, space wizards, cultists, deathsquads or spies posing as your co-workers.
* '''''Total War: Attila'''''. Unlike the previous Total War titles, which were about your faction's rise to power from small backwater city/tribe/country into a mighty empire able to boss around its neighbors into doing your bidding, this one is about the decline of your faction as you desperately try to survive the onslaught of the Huns, who's sole purpose in the game is to worship Tengri by burning, pillaging, and raping their way through the known world. Particularly if you are the Romans. Winning is defined by being the last guy standing who gets to clean up the rubble and dead bodies, trying to rebuild their world after Attila destroyed it. Seriously, even the music sounds depressing and foreboding as fuck.
* '''''[[Humanity Fuck Yeah|X-Com]]''''' (The remake and the original, as a parody of the G.I. Joe Badass stereo type, you're struggling with funding and even your gods in human form, some of whom make certain chapters of Astartes weep, can get fucked over by Sectoids!)

===Animation and Comics===
* '''''[[Adventure Time]]''''''s backstory.
* The first two seasons of '''''Animals of Farthing Wood''''', a animated series for kids ''infamous'' for having graphic depictions of violence and a death rate of major characters on par with Game of Thrones. Notable deaths in the series include but are not limited to: the pheasants, a couple who die at a farm in an extremely cruel manner; three baby mice who are all killed onscreen by a shrike, a bird infamous for impaling its prey; and the hedgehogs. While trying to cross a road, have to fight not to curl up into a ball... but eventually, the husband goes crazy, unable to stop himself from curling up, and his wife elects to stay with him, leading to both their deaths when a lorry runs them over.
* '''''Armored Trooper Votoms''''', an old-school mech anime. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Mankind has been at war for so long that even the computers created to direct strategy don't know what the goal is]]. War isn't glorious either, most of the first arc is about a squad that goes rogue and raids their own side's armory to find some loot. While the mech designs aren't pretty or fancy, they are more industrial and utilitarian than many contemporaries, being repurposed exo-suits. The main character is a [[Perpetual]] done right, through a mix of natural regeneration abilities, skills and nigh supernatural luck; unlike, you know, [[Vulkan]], who was just handed something that should have probably belong to all Primarchs just so that he could make [[Horus|some]] [[Sanguinius|people]] [[Ferrus Manus|jealous]].
[[File:Digimon_Tamers_Nope_Nope_Nope!.jpg|300px|right|thumb|[[RIP AND TEAR|It was going to be a kids show they said. It was going to be as whimsical as Pokemon they said...]]]]
* '''''Attack on Titan'''''. You cannot win, ever. And if you do, you've probably lost all your friends, who've been eaten by giant freaky Mutants, who don't even need food. Yeeeah.
* '''''Ava's Demon'''''. A planet is destroyed by Silent Scavengers, which are Tyranids and Necrons mixed together, then the main character ends up impaled when they crash land, her soul going to turn into space dust until she agrees to help the demon who's been possessing her since she was born to get revenge on TITAN, who can at best be described as the God-Emperor if he were every negative stereotype about the Imperium taken to the extreme and then some.
* '''''[[Blame!]]'''''
* '''''[[Berserk]]'''''
* '''''Devilman'''''. Especially CRYBABY
* '''''[[Digimon: Digital Adventures|Digimon Tamers]]'''''. (Digimon as a franchise is noted to be surprisingly dark and adult for a kids anime in the 'Mon' genre, but Digimon Tamers is exceptionally depressing even by the series standard. Children attempting suicide, child abuse, attempted murder on a child, multiple on-screen deaths of major characters, torture, psychological mind rape on a young girl, PTSD on said young girl, eldritch abominations, horror and psychological horror. You think Tamers would have a happy ending? Lolnope, Tamers has a bittersweet ending in which the main kids lose their Digimon partners <u>''for ever''</u>. This is what happens when you allow a guy notorious in psychological horror anime to do a kids show. There is a reason why Tamers is considered the Neon Genesis Evangelion for kids.) Unsurprisingly, the writer has written Cthulhu Mythos short stories.
** '''''Digimon Adventure Tri''''' (aimed towards adult fans of the series) takes Tamers up a notch in just plain creepiness. Deaths, assisted suicide, infanticide of Digimon babies, psychological damage, grief-induced madness, corruption, attempted genocide, racial supremacy, racism, immense property damage with collateral damage and attempted rape from the series' former mentor and teacher becoming a creepy sexual predator molesting one of the main characters and choking another one to near death (Both female by the way). Digimon doesn't fuck around.
* '''''Dorohedoro'''''. The entire setting is a massive slum, with horrible pollution, mass poverty, and human body parts polluting the waterways. Your options for living are being a normal human, living in poverty and treated like toys, lab rats, and livestock by the various magic users. Or being a [[psyker|magic user]], and either be lynched by the terrified normies or captured by other magic users and boiled down to make drugs. And if you're a magic user, regardless of how good you are when you die you're [[Warp|guaranteed to be sent to hell to be tortured by devils for all eternity]] ([[Daemon Prince|unless you become a devil yourself]]). Or being a devil, and worry about being [[Tzeentch|screwed over by your boss for shits and giggles]] or eaten by Store, who is implied to be an angel and treats devils the same way devils treat mortals. Or being said boss, [[Necron|and dick around with people for all eternity because you're absolutely bored with existence]], can't die, and are horribly lonely since you can't form a meaningful bond with anyone else.
* '''''Dragon Ball Z: History of Trunks'''''. Could just be expanded to Trunks' timeline in general. Dragon Ball has always been known as a sort of noble bright anime, but ''this'', damn. Everyone is either dead, dying, or living in fear of two walking machines of pure evil. And then when Trunks does actually take care of his enemies, another more powerful one shows up and just sends everything back to the way it was. Even the parody of this movie is oddly depressing.
* Most good 'Real Robot' anime/video games. Further discussion will result in [[skub]].
* '''''Elfen Lied'''''. Where the next step of the evolution of mankind is a group of schizophrenic homicidal mutant girls with invisible tentacle hands and a hair-trigger temper who will either kill you in the worst way possible or [[Genestealer|infect you with their gene to increase their numbers]].
* '''''[[Emergence aka Metamorphosis]]'''''. 177013.
* '''''Everything is Fine'''''. A horror webtoon about a seemingly perfect society where everyone wears giant cat masks with cutesy expressions, have to pretend that everything is fine at all times and be perfectly moral, upstanding citizens... or watch their kids commit suicide in real-time. In other words, it's a horrific dystopia taking the image of a perfect suburb where you are made to ignore everything that is going wrong, or those you love most kill themselves horribly, then you get kicked to the curb as a broken shell of a human being, forgotten and ignored.
* '''''Full Metal Alchemist''''': The World is coated by a side of Noblebright at the beginning but morphs into 1984 the more you watch/read. The world Amestris starts out as fine and dandy (despite being a fascist military Dictatorship (the head of state is literaly called [[nazi|führer]])), then it morphs into a world where the Main Country (Amestris.) is at constant war with almost all it's neighbors commits Genocides Left and right and Murder's anyone who finds out the dark truth.
* '''''The Goon''''' comic series by Eric Powell (because circus hillbillies, werewolves with midget hand phobias, and the Zombie Priest are the least of it all).
* '''''GANTZ'''''
* '''''[[Goblin Slayer]]'''''. Pretty much [[Berserk]] if it was set in a Dungeons and Dragons world.
* '''''Grave of the Fireflies'''''. The plot of film is "A pair WW2 of orphans from a high ranking officer in the brutal Japanese military freeloads off on his aunt's goodwill then refuses to sell his mother's clothes and piano and sets off on his own without a plan, only for him and his sister to starve to death." The movie is taken by 99% of the viewers overseas as showing how innocent the Japanese were, but the Japanese see it as an allegory about the leaders of Japan (the older brother) disregarding the suffering of their own people (his little sister), telling them childish propaganda that they are doing really well in war, and then obliging the childish tantrums of the populace enabled by such propaganda. '''This is an allegory of Japan,''' when shit hit the fan, told people to press on and declared everyone must sacrifice their life for the one true living god that is Emperor Hirohito.
** Even in this period millions of people did what work they could find to feed themselves despite the war time inflation brought on by the wars they started, yet the protagonist would not "deign" menial labor because he was the son of a rich, high ranking Naval officer. ''Starvation was NOT rampant in Japan, but the protagonist (Japan)'s arrogant laziness and subsequent death was an allegory of making his bed and sleeping in it.'' Note how while it wasn’t easy, they WEREN'T starving when they were under their “evil” aunt's care.
*** For instance, the day the battleship Yamato sank in 1945, it was scheduled to serve the men aboard canned beef, canned red bean rice, and sweet bean porridge for dessert.
** This movie was based on a book by Akiyuki Nosaka who lived through WW2 as a boy. He admittedly regretted killing his toddler of a little sister by hungrily stealing food from her and dashing her head against the ground and giving her concussions when she would cry about it. The novel was to be his penance of sorts.
*** This is still absolutely nothing compared to what the Japanese were doing to other colonies though, '''it was rather 2 million Vietnamese that were butchered to rob and feed Japanese,''' just between October of 1944 to August of 1945 alone. Not counting all the families traumatized or permanently crippled via malnutrition. Thankfully the war ended with an Allied victory that put a quick end to this, Japan surrendered because of USSR's August push through Manchuria and was poised to land on Japan proper (Japan did not surrender because of American nukes which they themselves were busy making unlike the Nazis who didn't bother. Japanese high command got casualty reports like that everyday at the end of the war, they were only afraid of being split in two like Germany did in May. Japan also sent only foreign slaves to clean up the radiation and killed them afterwards to hide their war crimes.) In Korea people were dying from intestinal bleeding from eating boiled tree barks too rough for the human body as a regular prolonged diet because anyone who touched the crops were beaten or executed, because food was robbed and taken to Japan. In Korea particular, due to proximity, the nation’s hills were rendered barren dirt hills for all the trees were cut down to make desperate turpentine oil that was going to be a makeshift fuel source for ships and planes, sent to Japan once the Southeast Asian territories and their oil fields were liberated by Allies. The dead cannot speak and the [[grimdark|living can whine louder about the troubles they faced,]] that's why so many killings happened at the end of the war to hide war crimes.
*** Director Takahata Isao himself said this is '''NOT an anti-war anime,''' but an allegory of idealists bringing people death. Also note he is a rare kind in modern Japan who accuses the Japanese government for all the sins of WW2, and used to fight the riot police who were quelling anti-imperialists like him. Note that Japan is a place where saying Japan was at fault can get one shot dead. Mayor Motoshima of Nagasaki in 1990 got shot in the heart for accusing his government of starting the wars that got his city nuked. Mayor Itoh got shot in the heart for saying the same in 2007. There's just no way ordinary criminals could get their hands on a gun in a country with really tight gun control laws, [[Assassin|unless...]]
* '''''[[Hellsing]]'''''... just all of Hellsing... Though it can easily slide into grimderp. (A little girl seeing her mother killed while hiding in a closet? Yeah that's intense. In a moment of desperation, shove a rod into the guy's eyeball, only for him to not be mortally wounded? That's pretty unfortunate. Said guy deciding to fuck the corpse as his smashed eyeball hangs from the socket? That's just silly.)
**'''''Drifters''''', by the same author. The protagonists are a bunch of [[murderhobo|kill-happy murderhoboes]] drawn from various psychos from all throughout history into [[Isekai|a generic fantasy world]] who have decided to [[Great Crusade|save the world by conquering it, one country at a time]]. One of the major powers of the setting turns out to have been founded by ''Adolph friggin' Hitler''. Even Joan of Arc, who IRL was noted for being a pacifist, is warped into a bloodthirsty psycho. The [[BBEG]], who wants to kill all humans (and is noted to be a step up from his subordinates, who want to kill [[Necron|everything]]) is all but outright stated to be ''Jesus''.
* The '''Kerberos''' trilogy, but special mentions to '''Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade'''. A series of films that basically gave birth to Killzone singlehandedly (Seriously, look at the comparisons between the Helghast and the film's Protect Gear, [[Original character, do not steal|it is ''blatant'']]). Set in an alternate-history where Japan was occupied by Germany rather than America at the end of WW2. In Jin-Roh, the nation is constantly in social turmoil with left-wing communist terrorist guerillas using children as bomb couriers against two police force of Japan: the normal-looking police force (Backed by the Japanese KGB/CIA hybrid) and the <u>'''ORIGINAL'''</u> Helghasts called the Kerberos Panzer Cops. Jin-Roh is a political thriller film that largely talks about the problems of the "Good guy, bad guy" dichotomy and how juvenile it is for stories to portray these things in real life. All of the films have a downer ending, so if you are looking for a happy ending, you're gonna get dissapointed. Despite what [[/pol/|some people]] [[SJW|may argue,]] the Kerberos trilogy is a condemnation of all extremist ideas and actions. Its a Mamoru Oshii film of Ghost in the Shell fame, what do you fucking expect.
* '''''Magical Girl Site'''''. So grimdark it makes Meguca look Noblebright.
* '''''Made in Abyss'''''. A death world disguised as a cute loli adventure featuring on-screen death and mutilation, child labor, and philosophical exploration of just how far humanity can go before completely losing it.
* '''''Muv-Luv''''' Often compared to 40k in how bleak and brutal the series is.
* '''''Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind'''''. A manga/anime film made by Hayao Miyazaki, yes you heard us right. The man who was the main founder of Studio Ghibli and gave us childhood gems such as Totoro, Spirited Away and Ponyo, gave us a Science-Fantasy Epic of the brutality of war. Nausicaa, especially the manga, does not shy away from human slavery, biological WMDS, genocides, nuclear holocaust, a gratuitous amount of inferred and overt infanticides, inquisitorial purging and the likes.
* '''''Neon Genesis Evangelion''''' (Especially End).
* '''''Now and Then, Here and There'''''. The setting takes place in an alternate world, ''10 billion years'' into the future where the [[Xeelee Sequence|sun is about to go into a red giant]] and whatever scraps of humanity are fighting each other for the last remaining sources of water. Expect a lot of child soldiers, child abuse, child torture, child rape and ethnic cleansing to a scarily realistic degree. This is a post-post-apocalyptic world that is designed to break the viewers. It is an anime darker than 40k despite the 'happy' ending due the sheer levels of nihilism and unforgiving horrors of human depravity.
* '''''[[Isekai|Re:Zero]]'''''
* '''''The Promised Neverland'''''. An anime/manga about a bunch of cute children raised in a nice orphanage, that is really a farm set up by demons who raise the children as food. A handful girls get to survive until adulthood by getting selected to act as mothers to children, but they are still prisoners who can't leave the farm. If they are unlucky they will have to watch over their own children until the day they are killed.
** The world outside the farms is even worse. A thousand years ago the world was divided between humans and demons. Demons used to hunt humans until the two sides made a truce where the world was divided in two halves to keep peace and humans were handed over to the demons to farm as food and the wealthy family of humans who made the deal are out to kill the escaped children to uphold it. Demons actually need to eat humans or they degenerate into mindless animals that attack everything in sight, except of the demon nobility thanks to them consuming blood that removed the need. And they still insist on hoarding the best quality human meat for themselves while leaving the commoners to feed on meat from humans raised on factory farms where the humans are force fed until they die.
* '''''Puella Magi Madoka Magica'''''. Being Meguca is suffering.
* '''''Uzumaki'''''. Basically a Lovecraftian horror manga where a seaside town gets [[rape]]d by spirals. Not as weird as it sounds. Or maybe it is as weird as it sounds but not as bad. Also has enough body horror to put most [[Chaos Spawn]] to shame.
** Pretty much anything by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junji_Ito Junji Ito.] Except ''Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu''.
* '''''Wanted'''''. The villains won the war against the heroes and completely erased them from reality. Crime is not only rampant but is actually part of the law, enforced by the Fraternity (Justice League for bad guys), and the only way to even have the closest thing to a 'safe and happy life' is by murdering your next door neighbor out of paranoia. Furthermore, as the world is cut up into sections and ruled by different supervillains, you will most likely be born in a country ruled by either a psychotic bastard who shoots children for shits and giggles, a Lex Luthor archetype who hungers for more unrestrained power, a literal Nazi from the future who wants another Holocaust, or a megalomaniac and sociopathic Chinese emperor who makes Mao Zedong like a chump or a completely immortal 'President-for-Life' Mugabe expy that will probably rule for eternity.

===Literature===
* '''''[[1984]]'''''
* '''''All Quiet on the Western Front''''' Among all the wars World War I was particularly grimdark one and the writer, who himself served in the war, thought that the war destroyed his whole generation whether or not they survived the shells. The book follows a group of Germans barely the age of 18 who join the war with enthusiasm, only to be met with the worst kinds of horrors of war only World War I could bring. Even if they survive the battles, they are broken by the war. By the end of the novel they are all dead and the field report simply states "all quiet on the western front".
* '''''Cormac McCarthy''''' is an American writer whose most famous works are considered some of the darkest novels ever written, due to the near casual way violence is depicted and the rather bleak outlook it takes on humanity's place in the world. Notables include:
** '''''Blood Meridian''''' by Cormac McCarthy, a book following the exploits of the Glanton Gang, a real-life group of scalpers in the 19th Century. Kids die left and right, lawlessness runs rampant, sickfuckery abounds, it's... brutal.
** '''''No Country for Old Men,''''' also adapted as a film, covers the rising violence of the drug war on the US-Mexico border. Or simply suggests things have always been that bad and there's no way for good men to stop it.
** '''''The Road''''', along with the film, can be summarized as follows - the biosphere is dead with no hope of reviving it. A man and his son now traverse the dying, bleak landscape along a road, without any remnant of human civilization left, only able to depend on each other. Seriously, this setting is bleak in ways Warhammer 40k can only have nightmares about.
* '''''Clive Barker''''' in general. His works include Hellraiser, Rawhead Rex where an ancient god of male sex eats kids, the Midnight Meat Train where an ancient cult feeds people to an underground society of monsters so New York isn't destroyed, and... let's just say there's a reason he's basically a BDSM enthusiast given way too much handle.
* Everything from '''''[[H.P. Lovecraft]]''''' and the '''''Cthulhu Mythos''''', though this can vary when you add in other Mythos writers like August Derleth.
*'''Mistborn''', a trilogy of books by Brandon Sanderson (at least the first Era). The stories themselves rarely meet the criteria of Grimdark, but hoooo boy the background setting and villains sure do. About a thousand years ago, a hero rose up to stop a mysterious enemy… and failed. Now, volcanoes spew ash down on the land, choking all but the most hardy plants. The brightest color is yellow, and flowers are an alien idea. Modern fauna include ectoplasmic monsters composed of the skeletons of other creatures and… that’s mostly it. The rest is dead. 95% of the population are slaves, and it’s a revolutionary idea to consider that they may be able to think. The nobility rule mostly because the immortal Lord Ruler gave their ancestors powers, and some of them still have some today (the titular Mistborn). The only way to trigger these powers is through trauma, and so even among the good portion of the population, all children are nearly beaten to death to see if they have these powers. Usually, they don’t. The villains also deserve a dishonorable mention, as the average one is a pedophiliac, slave owning rapist. Even the “good guys,” are only good by comparison. Variously, they are rebels who know full well there is no hope, a thief who could and would kill anything that contradicts him, and an optimistic young man who is eventually forged into a warmongering emperor. Oh, and the only way to “save the day” involves killing a minimum 1/16th of the planetary population.
* '''''Grimm's Fairy Tales''''' ("Hansel and Gretel", for example).
* The first two '''''Hyperion''''' books.
* '''''Metro'''''. Both the books and games, but mostly in the books, where the last known humans are hiding in underground subway tunnels, and when not trying to finish each other off are fighting endless hordes of [[mutant]]s [[/b/|and other, much worse things]]. Also, if you're one of the stalkers, the few brave ones that head to the surface to [[Blood Ravens|loot anything they can find]], you risk [[Tyranid|being eaten by flying daemons]]. Hell, it even has the same "abandon all hope" vibe in the intro, just like 40k. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Note as the books go on the grimdarkness does tone down by showing the areas outside of the city to be in much better living conditions and other metros.(though not all the books are written by the same author).
* Noir in general, from Raymond Chandler's novels to games like This is the Police.
* [[Post Apocalyptic]] stuff tends to default to Grimdark.
* World Devastators in '''''[[Star Wars]]'''''. Seriously, if you read about them without knowing that they are from Star Wars, you could easily mistake them for something from 40k. And we're not talking about Star Wars Legacy and the genocide of the Mon Calamari.
** All of '''Steven Baxter's works''' arguably qualify. '''''Evolution''''' can be summed up as "humanity almost overcame its flaws, fixed the damage it did to Earth, and ushered in a [[noblebright]] future, and it might have worked, but [[Rocks_fall,_everyone_dies|just then a supervolcano erupted, wiped out human civilization, and everyone died]]. The end. There's even a chapter in the middle of the book outright stating it. Also that humans [[Imperium|are nothing but vicious bastards who rape, kill, and destroy everything they touch]] and have been ever since our ancestors were rats under the feet of dinosaurs, but other animals aren't much better.
* '''''[[SCP Foundation]]''''' universe as a whole is borderline grimdark, as many aspects of the Foundation are mixed between absurd comedy, derp, and pure grimdark. At its very worst, the SCP Foundation has things that make the [[Daemonculaba]] look nice by comparison. Above all: [[Inquisition|Secure. Contain. Protect.]]
* '''''Shakespeare's tragedies''''', especially ''Macbeth'' and ''Hamlet''.
* '''''Shin Sekai Yori''''' also known as From the New World is a novel by Yusuke Nishi (also has an anime adaptation). Basically it's a dystopian story with people using magic to run their society instead of machines in a world that has deliberately regressed to the medieval level. Every child who doesn't manifest magical abilities by a certain age is killed, and all existing non-magical humans have been genetically engineered into a slave-race of mole-people so long ago they've forgotten their origins. The magical people are instead engineered to commit unwilling suicide should they use their powers to harm another human (mole people are fair game, though), and those of them who are too strong and can't manage to control themselves become Lovecraftian abominations.
* '''''The Slenderman Mythos''''' (HE ALWAYS WATCHES).
* '''''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''''' AKA Game of Thrones: Good guys screw up monumentally or never win, the only people who get ahead are amorally manipulative assholes and everyone is going to be massacred and enslaved by the evil ice elf necromancers in the end. And if they somehow survive, then another war for the Iron Throne will happen after the winner gets their revenge-boner satisfied and later, their kids would need to clean up the wankstains.
* Most of '''Stephen King's''' works. As the joke goes, some people say that Stephen King's works are so fucked up they should come with a content warning. The reply is that they ''do'' have a content warning, they have the words "written by Stephen King" on the front.
* '''Peter Watts'''. Brutal neuropunk sci-fi horror, as bleak as H. P. Lovecraft but with a list of scientific citations at the end to let you know just how realistic it really is. Hits you with a world-ending catastrophe and then manages to make it a thousand times worse -- an alien invasion DURING a hard-takeoff singularity, for example. Sociopathy and post-human augments abound. [http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm Also, the books are free!]
* The majority of the '''Tragedy''' genre of stories.
* '''''[[The Witcher]]'''''. Racism, genocides, dozens of monsters that want to eat your face whenever you enter a random forest. Or cave. Or ruins. The video game adaptation even features a medieval Hitler running the [[Inquisition|Witch Hunters]], a fanatical order of [[Black Templars|racist scumbags dedicated to wiping out both mages and non-humans]] in the name of the Eternal Fire. Meanwhile, the neighboring empire starts a series of wars against northern kingdoms (where the series takes place), in which both sides descend into scorched earth warfare, all the while backstabbing their allies and generally being a colossal wall of dicks to the point that close to 70% of civilian population in war-zones died from raiding, famine and occasional outbreaks of extradimensional plagues. To add insult to injury, the whole world is doomed due to the (slowly) encroaching Ice Age, and the only person that could save it took two glances at this shitshow and decided to fuck off to a parallel universe and let them all die, ''because it would be a mercy''. (To be fair, though, she comes back, if only to save her adoptive mother and father from said Ice Age, as she still maintains her 'fuck the rest of humanity' attitude.
* '''''World War Z''''' (the book). After zombies overran most of the world, many people had it so bad that they simply lost the will to live. Fighting in the Paris Catacombs with weaker weapons that wouldn't cause a cave-in due to hazardous gasses everywhere. Russian soldiers rioting over unfair treatment and enforced secrecy ordered under pain of death to kill one in ten of their own squadmates - with rocks - to teach them the price of freedom and democracy. Which they then happily traded away. The survival of the human race hinged on governments following a plan including elements of eugenics and leaving settlements of people behind as zombie bait. People resorted to cannibalism to survive in Canada. North Korea entirely vanished without a trace. Pakistan and Iran nuked each other. After the war officially ended, there are still loose zombies wandering around, Russia has started a breeding program to deal with severe underpopulation, several species are extinct, and diseases thought to be wiped out are coming back en masse.
* Anything from the '''''[[Xeelee Sequence]]'''''.

===Films and TV===
* '''''Alien''''' (as in the biomechanical, parasitic, acid-blooded brainchild of Ridley Scott and the late H.R. Giger). Bonus points when you realize it's pretty much an allegory of the human fear of unwanted pregnancy, with sexual role reversal thrown in.
* The aftermath of '''''Avengers: Infinity War'''''. After the [[Rubric Marines|battledust]] settles, no one really wins at the end of the movie. Even the villain, who won, was badly injured and the victory was very costly.
* '''''Children of Men''''': A future where humans are no longer fertile and going extinct, and then someone finds a pregnant woman and nearly everyone in the world fights over her.
* '''''Come and See''''' A World War II movie which instead of focusing on big battles focuses on Nazi death squads in the Byelorussian SSR. Do we even need to say more?
* '''''Eastenders''''', Especially at Christmas.
* '''''End of War'''''
* '''''Event Horizon'''''
* The first two '''''Hellraiser''''' movies
* '''''The Day After''''', and its worse Brit counterpart, '''''Threads'''''.
* '''''Lord Of War'''''. The worst is that it's based on real events.
* '''''The Matrix'''''
* '''''Power Rangers RPM''''' plays with this trope, being what is effectively ''Terminator'' meets ''Mad Max'' "for kids." It is still Power Rangers, and does still have its fair share of comic relief, but this is also the season where a young girl is brainwashed into becoming a child soldier for Skynet and HAL 9000's demented love child, while also having her humanity stripped away and replaced with cold metal. That's not even starting to mention the fact that most of the planet is wiped out, with billions dying over the course of what seems like a few weeks.
* ''''' Requiem for a Dream'''''
* '''''Romero's "Dead" series''''', especially the later entries. ''Night'' is grim for the heroes, even if the overall story ends somewhat happily with the zombies taken care of. On the other hand, ''Dawn'' and ''Day'' are much darker, with zombies overrunning society, and though both end on positive notes, the journey there is a grim fight for survival. Most of the heroes die in ''Dawn'' (all of them if you count the depressing alternate cut), and in ''Day'' most of the characters, even the heroes, are hateful, unhinged, and/or just plain crazy.
* Saw: [[Cegorach|I just wanna play a game.]]
* '''''Shisha no Teikoku''''', the Empire of Corpses. Steampunk, Grimdark, Zombies, Cross-References and Conspiracies everywhere. It has even become possible to resurrect the dead, giving them their soul and intelligence back, but only 2 characters profit from it in the end, while everyone else stays a slave.
* '''''Soylent Green''''' Inspiration for 40k’s Soylens Viridian.
* '''''Tetsuo: The Iron Man''''' A cult Japanese horror film about two men slowly becoming cold heartless machine men settling a score with each other and then deciding to destroy the world.

===IRL===
* '''Africa's wars''', including, but not limited to: The French extorting its ex-colonies to still PAY FRANCE for “[[what|letting them become independent]]” (Even Haiti in the Caribbean had to go through this), the French assassinating presidents who wanted to break free from France's tyranny just to get a puppet installed who would gladly sell their national resources for dirt cheap to France, The Rwandan Genocide, Liberian child soldiers, Sierra Leonean amputations of voting populations, slave labor in all but name in the Congo, etc.
** Belgian Congo. Throngs of people put to work to get their masters rubber, and when they spend so much as an hour getting food to prepare for week-long trip to the rubber forests, the masters will chop not their hands, oh no, but their children's hands and feet. Photographs remain of shocked father listlessly staring at such his toddler daughter's feet thrown to the floor.
** Post Colonial Africa in general until the 21st century and even then there are various ''minor'' problems like ISIS and other religious extremists, rebel attacks, constant coups and piracy.
* '''Ancient Sparta:''' A militaristic empire thankfully smaller than it could have been due to its innate oppressive brutality not guaranteeing you can afford to expand far and wide. Eventually the Spartans got too busy quelling slave rebellions to expand far enough, particularly frequent as even the slavers of other cities were appalled at particularly brutal and violent slavery under the Spartans. Some rebellions were deliberately instigated by Spartan spies as an excuse to go in and slaughter 100s of slaves and add another tally to their "honor" and martial glory, rather than actual martial glory fighting tough external threats.
** The Battle of Thermopylae of 300 fame was a hoax: Along with 300 Spartans guarding the retreat of the 5,000 Greek coalition, there were 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, and 900 Messenian Helot slaves under Spartans with the promise to free them if they fought with them. The Spartans spread the propaganda that 300 Spartans did all the fighting because they were the only true warriors there. So essentially, it wasn’t enough for the 900 Helot slaves to have spent their entire lives toiling in the fields to '''feed good food for the Spartan warriors to oppress and kill their Helot children for fun,''' they were baited by Spartans to shell out the last thing they had, their lives, with promise of freedom of their families and kids back home. Turns out that was an empty lie as [[Rage|Spartans still enslaved them most brutally.]] So the Messenian city rebelled more fervently than ever before, until Thebans later forever freed them from Spartan slavery. Still, Spartans used this false propaganda to garner political clout within the Greek world on par with the rich powerful Athenians for some time.
** The myth that ascetically culling men from youth guarantees tough warriors the Spartans tricked themselves into believing was proven false when the 300-man Theban Sacred Band, aka "The REAL 300," crushed them at Battles of Leuctra and Tegyra. The Sacred Band was recruited from 150 pairs of certifiably gay adult couples. So instead of killing like 10 kids to get 1 kid honed in war from youth, these guys made full use of ancient era birth rates and were not psychos devoid of humanity whose individual rite of passage was to [[Edgy|slaughter a slave up close and personal and offer the superiors his corpse as proof.]]
*** The fall of the Spartans in Leuctra also herald the coming of an age where the brainpower to think up new tactics have proven to outperform individual martial prowess of murder machines.
*** Not to mention, the Spartans culling their boys from youth is plain stupid and wasteful. Being a strong boy is no guarantee that he will be the strongest man by adulthood. There are plenty of late bloomers, and boys who were picked on who want to overcome their weakness to become strong when given a chance later in life, like [[Robert E. Howard]] and Fyodor Emilianenko. Aleksandr Karelin couldn't even do a single chin-up when he was a boy! So, countless kids were killed in Sparta for nothing. Not to mention boys who could grow to lead other fields of excellence than fighting died, and for [[Edgy|what.]]
** The Spartans did all that only for their rival, Athens, to achieve a grander victory through cultural legacy. Effects of Athenian version of the Greek culture are felt all over the Western World to this day.
* '''Aztec Empire''' Let's just say there was a good reason 1,000s of natives from different cities subjugated throughout the Aztec Empire happily rushed to join Hernan Cortes and his few hundred Conquistadors in a united front to overthrow the cannibalistic oppressors of Tenochtitlan. What, you thought 400 men could conquer a subcontinent let alone a city?
* '''North Korea''', a regime like all other communist regimes in Asia, was born only because of the hyperinflation and power vacuums left by Japan's destruction of regimes that could have normally stamped out puppet communist cells, much like Germany's destruction left Eastern Europe communized. In fact it should not even exist but was artificially prolonged through aid from the old USSR, and this existential crisis is what drives it to focus its efforts to brutally keeping people in line. It LOOKS like it has a huge military but that's really declaring half your workers as "military" to cook the numbers as a bluff, those soldiers don't even have the fuel to run exercises and spend all day farming instead. Because it is a starving nation where climbing the ration distribution listing is important for most people, but not a problem for the elites so they can afford to ignore military service. Almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, it's own intranet with government controlled websites spouts propaganda, desperately trying to keep its people from rebelling from the famines and poverty. But this is in vain because ironically the stark famines eventually got the police desperate enough to accept bribes and turn a blind out to black markets and through these, the people have imported (largely South Korean products and bootleg media through Chinese bootleggers) learned the truth and nobody over the age of 12 believes in state run propaganda for decades. The elites are genuinely frightened any leniency will get them and their family lynched by the mob as they have seen many other regimes fall in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, so they clutch their power and shrink back into isolation ever harder, and the only way they keep the civilians down is take entire families hostage. So if you get on the government's really bad side, you and 2 other generations of your family get sent to prison camps to be executed or become the playthings of the prison guards until you die. Proving the writing is on the wall, every year, 3,000 people escape and make it to South Korea as refugees.
** For comparison, South Korea has a compulsory military service length is also among the highest in the world due to being beset and outnumbered by enemies on all sides harder than Israel (Israel itself has 32 months of mandatory military service for men, 24 for women as of 2022). Japan still actively attempts to reinvade and take islands to the East, China not making any movements yet but is looming in the West. Both are within the top 5 military powers in the world. Thus Korean miilitary service length is 21 to 24 months depending on the chosen branch, but women are exempt from both service, and neither do they pay a defense tax for not going into service.
* '''Incan Empire:''' '''[[What|Massive, massive child sacrifices by the 100s at a time.]]''' Even when the Empire was waning. ''Especially'' when the Empire was waning, in hopes to garner favor from the gods to save the empire.
* '''World Wars'''
** '''Western Front of WW1:''' the Armenian/Greek/Assyrian genocides, the Eastern Front of WW2. Feel free to fill in.
** '''WW2 and Meiji Japan:''' The perfect real world example of the [[Imperium of Man]]. Due to the Japanese, 30+ million lives were lost due to [[Edgy]] rape and massacres that served no purpose, but also due to indolence, short-sightedness, racism, jingoism, stubbornness, nepotism, arrogance, and all flavors of [[Administratum|bureaucratic fail]]. It may actually justify some of the sillier grimderp listed in Warhammer 40,000 in sections below his page, by virtue of being a real-life example. Aside from the basic massacres of a bloodthirsty empire, includes [[Khorne|'''Cannibalism''']], mass suicide, half a million [[Slaanesh|'''Sex Slavery of underage girls then summarily executed after use''']], [[Tzeentch|'''false apologies''' to lower your would-be opponent's guard,]] [https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1967/december/panay-incident-prelude-pearl-harbor preceding undeclared war], and use of [[Nurgle|'''all 3 kinds of Weapons of Mass Destruction''' (Atomic, Biological, Chemical).]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> Belief in the '''[[Samurai|Yamato Tamashi samurai spirit]]''' that the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|One True God that is Emperor Hirohito]] is proof that the [[RaHoWa|Japanese are the chosen race and will easily subjugate all inferior others]] because if your [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|'''faith in the Yamato Spirit is hard enough, you can even weather through bullets.''']] Death is just proof you didn’t believe it hard enough and are unworthy, traitor. The Americans, not having the holy '''Yamato Tamashi''' (Note that Yamato is the ancient name of Japan, like Albion is for England.), are but indolent undisciplined capitalist swine, and will fall to the might of the holy samurai, making them cowering sheep just like the billion enslaved in Asia. If Japan immediately follows Pearl Harbor with an offering of peace so magnanimously, Americans will gratefully worship the Japanese for their infinite mercy and gladly give Japan the American Oil they sorely need to continue invading dozens of nations (invading Southeast Asia for its strategic resources like rubber and oil). [[Not as planned|Oh, how wrong, ''literally'' dead wrong they were.]] <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** [[Xenos|The extent of their xenophobia was so vast,]] they chose to erase Western culture since it was deemed indolent and not blessed with samurai spirit. From tiny things like the musical scale was renamed from Do Re Mi etc. into Japanese syllables, [https://www.pacificatrocities.org/blog/torture-execution-and-cannibalism-on-chichi-jima-and-george-hw-bushs-narrow-escape to eating them because they were subhuman livestock]. Colonials must speak Japanese or be punished, even clothing was sometimes enforced, and only the approved Japanese hairstyle was allowed.
***** Karate, from Okinawa (think of England ruling over its Irish colony), was originally named 唐手 (Karate, "Chinese-hand"), owing to originating from what was taught by a passing Chinese voyager. It was taken and sold as Japanese while being respelled to 空手 (Karate, "Empty hand") when it wasn't even meant to be done unarmed, as much of its "unarmed" movements don't make sense unless paired with weapons, because most of these movements were preliminary exercises to wield as weapons, everyday agricultural tools like grindstone handles (Tonfa), threshing flails (Nunchaku), chained sickles (Kusarigama), because the oppressive samurai have been taxing the Okinawans with a 90% tax rate and to deter rebellion, confiscated all weapons.
**** [[WAAAGH|The weathering through bullets by belief part]] was actually applied from analyzing the WW1 French military doctrine of “Attaque à Outrance,” which focused on fearless charges to keep the pace of the offensive going. <s>Heresy grows from</s> Idleness, and caution will get soldiers’ mind to wander and morale to waver. Sounds good when you want to [[Imperial Guard|affix bayonets]] and the only thing that can break a charge is terror among the soldiers when they get shot at with a volley of semi-accurate musket balls. [[Krieg|Battle of Verdun begs to differ.]] 20th century weapons were too [[Dakka|deadly]] to breakthrough with fearless charges without massive casualties. Problem is, this was already the case in 1914. [[Rape|Imagine trying this shit in 1944.]] [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|Bonus points for yelling TENNOU HEIKA BANZAIIIII ('''”For the Emperor!”''') as loud as one can for buffs from the <s>Holy Spirit</s> Yamato Tamashi.]] There’s a reason everyone ditched this doctrine and was criticized both inside and outside France. But the Toyama institute salvaged it, devised tactics and training regimen and requested every soldier to be [[Meme|equipped with a useless katana so he can hit the enemy with his sword]] for a trench warfare that never came in the very mobile WW2 warfare. They were also advising officers to march/charge headfirst through enemy territory because romanticism with samurai and whatnot. Whereupon he will be the first to fall and the squad will soon be running around like a headless chicken, [[Rip and Tear|ripe for the butchering.]] Which was a problem especially for the Japanese Army, because they were notoriously rigid and did not trust soldiers to understand objectives but merely as [[Imperial Guard|expendable automatons to be commanded around, even through heavy gunfire.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''The [[Imperial Cult]]:''' In the civilian sector, all religions were one by one, abolished. Even the Shintoists were kicked out of their temples and the local shamanistic deities they worshiped were replaced by the mandatory cult that worshiped the Emperor Hirohito as the [[God-Emperor|'''One True Living God-Emperor''']]. The rhetoric was, Emperor-worship is not even "religion" like Christianity or Islam, those delusions of inferior races. National Shintoism was BEYOND such a childish concept. Every man, woman, and child must therefore bow towards Tokyo every day, the holy city where their emperor resided in his palace. A portrait of the Emperor was to be put up in every public space, office, and school classrooms. Indoctrinated kids were praised and went on newspaper as heroes for jumping into burning buildings to (die trying to) rescue the Emperor's portrait. It was taught, sacrificing your life for Him will get you to become a minor god enshrined in a Shinto shrine. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** Zen Buddhists also proclaimed that blowing yourself up in kamikazes will get you to Zen Buddhist Pure Land Paradise and ultimate bliss in Nirvana, and to kill a slave or an American is to do the ultimate good by giving them an early access to the Pure Land. Pretty <s>ironic</s> sinister the Zen Buddhists have never repented for their part in their war machine, and have marketed their religion to the Western World as "esoteric '''religion of peace''' so much better than the barbaric Christianity with their Crusades" for decades, and gullible people gobbled it up.
**** Centuries-old Shinto temples have been accused of being [[Heresy|HERETICAL]] by that uppity new government-backed cult of personality, and had gone into hiding in rural mountains for a time. After the war, understandably the real Shinto priests were angry to return to see their deities' statues defaced, and that the offending cult still persists, is still funded by the government ran much by the same fascist families who successfully scapegoated a few of their own to escape responsibility. The cult still pretends to serve as a national cemetery that enshrines literally convicted war criminals so bad the emperors themselves, whom the cultists purportedly support, all stopped going there after the enshrinement.
**** Emperor Hirohito himself scapegoated his war crimes onto generals. He merely doesn't want to "honor" the generals who gifted him a humiliating defeat and an embarrassing photo time trying to look tall next to the 6' of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaetano_Faillace#/media/File:Macarthur_hirohito.jpg Douglas Motherfucking MacArthur], which did demoralize the Japanese.
***** Along with having had to go on radio to declare surrender and embarrassingly admit [[Goge Vandire|'''he lied when he said he was God Himself.''']]
***** Son of Emperor Hirohito, Akihito, who was a grade schooler during WW2, was always against the war, and as a gesture of repentence, has said in 2001 he is not alien to the pains of his closest neighbors as he himself owes his ancestry to Korean kings according to the Shoku Nihongi. He is powerlessly called by Prime Ministers to ultranationalist gatherings where [[Imperial Cult|against his approval,]] is given the Imperial Japanese hail to the emperor and worshiped. His grandson takes after him, having said he wants to go formally apologize for his nation's and grandfather's crimes, but having been stripped of powers since WW2, the government did not allow that.)
***** Anyone who was deemed weaseling out of service or coming back as a survivor of a bloody battle, had their families lynched by local mobs for being a coward and branded "[[Gue'vesa|not a citizen [of the Japanese Empire] (Hikokumin)]]." This was one of the reasons why hardly anyone surrendered even in impossible odds. The other major reason being, they were scared all the war crimes they already gladly did, as "right of conquerors," will be done back to them. [[weeaboo|No, it is not some superficial cultural difference like bushido or shame in surrender, and even if it was, this was the underlying core reason behind that.]] [[Weeaboo Fightan Magic|You thought it was some fictitious bushido, something the government went at great lengths to propagandize and glorify but deep down not even the Japanese believed it? That's both a faux pas by orientalism and also an over-focus on the wrong cultural differences.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''[[Rogue Trader| Civilian imperialism]]:''' You thought military=bad, therefore you can clearly separate the civilians from military and peg all the bad stuff on the military, didn't you? Oh you naive thing, that's not how grimdark works: if you read any bit about Clausewitz's ''On War'', on how civilian sentiment drives war, you will know that already. [[what|Because Japan banned eating legged animals for 1200 years from 675 to 1872,]] its livestock was of rather poor stock and not very palatable. Hence millions of cattle were robbed from other Asian nations and rebranded as Japanese for consumption and sale overseas, while crop fields in colonies were [[Agri-World|commandeered and reformatted to be forcibly standardized to an unhealthy monoculture, to maximize their robbing away to Japan for Japanese civilians and soldiers to eat for cheap while creating a shortage in the colonies that caused hyperinflation. This also had the side effect of uniform agriculture that became susceptible to diseases and thus famine.]] Japanese civilians by the millions gladly taking land stolen from people of other nations and forcing them into slavery on ancestral farmlands because the Japanese government cooked the books and put them under the settlers' names. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The ruined colonials were deliberately kept more illiterate than their fathers (reading Chinese, Korean, Ryukyuan is forbidden) so as to not know how to better their station but be gaslighted to believe the [[Dark Eldar|robbers and slavers sprinkling mere crumbs towards them were the only source of food and should be worshiped.]] Illiteracy was so deliberate in the colonies (and indigenous languages forbidden), that it just took 5 years to fix it after American nukes liberated 1 billion Asians from the looming Japanese threat and years if not decades of oppression. Malnutrition widespread because of the crops robbed away for the hungry Japanese military to eat (this is how 2 million Vietnamese died so quickly). Civilian companies were gladly using slave labor to keep their munitions and weapons factories running, like Toyota and Mitsubishi who, unlike Porsche and Krupp, still in their grimdark, deny their war crimes.
**** Colonial kids were put into tiny coal mine shafts and forced to work 16 hour days and their exhausted dying bodies burnt like in concentration camps.
**** When slave factory complex that is Nagasaki was nuked, and the war was over, Japan sent slaves forced to work in dark mines of nearby Hashima Island, to clean up the radiation with no radiation protection. They died most painfully as their flesh slowly sloughed off with no idea how and why, as Japan dumped them into the sea. The few survivors still say '''"despite that, I am grateful for the American nukes, because otherwise we would have all died on that Japanese slave camp island."''' On this island, slaves were dying so often, that by 1944 the bodies being burned created a constant black streak of smoke. Slaves were put in basements without sunlight, injuries were deliberately not treated with anesthetic (those were reserved for the Japanese laborers who commanded them around), and even rats would only pick out a few grains of rice in the black sludge they were given to eat (made from beans pressed clean of oil to use as crude bio-fuel when Japan lost its Indonesian oil fields). This was actually one of the "nicer" slave camps, in some of the other mines [https://apjjf.org/2022/5/Johnsen.html sent foreign slaves down and when it got flooded or gas was flowing in, the Japanese civilians deliberately locked the gates and tried to kill the workers desperate to escape.]
**** In many places, for several months AFTER the surrender, Japanese civilians tried to hide the truth that the war was over and kept slaves in the dark and tried to [[RAGE|work them to death to avoid paying reparations and simultaneously ask Americans for alms for the evil destruction they caused.]]
**** [https://apjjf.org/2021/19/Bull-Ivings.html 1,000s who did survive the brutal slavery, were made sure to be killed by the Japanese spiteful to their victims]. Like on the Ukishima-maru, deliberately advertising a Japanese transport ship as the final one of its kind to go back to ex-colonial homelands, packing it to 7,000 passengers when the maximum space was for 1,000, then the Japanese crew telling all the slaves to go underdeck, then blowing the engine room up internally in a series of 3 or 4 small blasts while secretly leaving the ship on a lifeboat in the dead of night before it happened. Japanese again, blamed it on American depth charges but wreckage showed all the steel warping ''outwards''.
**** The militaristic machine that had Japan a field a whopping 3-million-man military force from just barely over 70-million population. This should normally be impossible, but only enabled by having the economic footprint of a nation many times its size. This means the oversized military force was powered by slave labor and robbed crop requisitions across its numerous colonies, and the military was backing all this. Also note that there are millions more veterans which meant everyone knew a family member who served. This also meant since Japan had decades of conquest after all, there were generation upon generation of millions of people who raped and massacred and gassed civilians for fun. Across generations, this skewed and redefined what meant to be “the norm.”Consider how Nazi Germany only lasted 12 years. The Japanese Empire lasted 77. Already in 1870 recommencing of the butchering the last native tribe of Japan to escape total eradication, the Ainu, whom they chased away to Hokkaido in feudal times, officially calling it their "colony."
***** These men would be emboldened to commit heinous crimes back at home when they ran out of foreign slaves to butcher, and had their crimes be waived off to a degree due to entire generations of men were collectively introduced to the experience of rape and cannibalism. (Example: Kodaira Yoshio who was a veteran coming back to supervise munitions factories, but having his way with the female students requisitioned for the war effort there, because "I can't forget the taste of young girls savored back in the conquered Chinese territories." because such things were deemed normal in wartime by Japan. Only after the war he was caught and only because he started murdering the women too.) Unlike Germany, millions of Japanese soldiers were allowed to return to Japan safe and sound, with no accounting for their crimes, and even given several months to finish pillaging and butchering millions of victims to cut down on reparations and hide war crimes or sometimes blame it American troops instead (like the Chichijima Incident.) Unlike Germany, Japan's soldiery was allowed to peacefully go back home, and were expressly protected by Allied forces as they robbed the last things they could to take back to Japan to use it for its post-war economy, primarily because everyone was focused on making Germany pay, they totally did not care about Asia.
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">'''Infighting at the expense of soldiers and nations:''' The Navy and Army had such bad blood since they were centered on rival feudal fiefdoms of the Meiji Restoration period, that they refused to share information with each other that could prevent them from saving soldiers' lives. So the emperor had to act as go between at times. Instead of a normal country whose government singly collects resources and distributes them as needed, the Army and Navy had their own separate oil fields conquered from places like Indonesia. Thus the Army couldn't even reliably count on the logistics of the Navy, and vice-versa, [[DERP|so the Army started making little supply submarines out of train engines and the Navy tried to make tanks]]. They wouldn't even agree on a unified maintenance system so some machines had pentagonal instead of hexagonal nut, just to screw with each other + discourage the other side requisitioning their stuff on the "pretense" of an emergency. This meant that in real emergencies, they can't limp to a closer base for repairs if they weren't correctly affiliated. They were already spread thin with dozens of invasions (all undeclared, as per Japanese tradition), yet the Navy was uncooperative while the Army had to rely on them for logistics and transporting soldiers overseas. But to win the emperor's favor, instead of cooperating they went back to the time-old Meiji Restoration (the civil war that was the 1868 Boshin War) tradition of "Peace comes from unification through killing all opposition." They each saw the other as another enemy to conquer, instead of partners. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** This is why they were constantly trying to convince the emperor that they should be given more clout and order the other side to become auxiliaries for their campaign... by going off and starting their own invasions without a plan. ('''[[Indrick Boreale|Sometimes, when that didn't work, they surrounded and besieged the other's HQ.]]''') The Army decided that killing and pillaging and raping would be a good substitute for proper logistical support from the Navy. The Navy in turn decided that they can't let the Army shine so they needed a separate simultaneous war of their own (a war on two fronts, which only America was ever to pull off through sheer production scale and population. Except, for Japan it was more like 3+ fronts since the invasion of China in 1937 that saved the Chinese Communist Party was still going), so they decided to '''attack America for Oil,''' because America forbade exports of steel and oil when it was clear that these were enabling Japan to invade the Republic of China.
**** America already had reasons to be unhappy with Japan, from being backstabbed over Japan breaking the 2nd London Naval Treaty Japan got America to sign that restricted each nations' total naval tonnage, so relations were already sour + [https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1967/december/panay-incident-prelude-pearl-harbor preceding undeclared war, the killing the men on the USS Panay escorting oil tankers, a prelude to Pearl Harbor.] America on the other hand, by upholding the Naval Treaty, was tied down by the Japanese to a disadvantage, and did not have the ships that could have defended Southeast Asia by the time Pearl Harbor was attacked).
***** The aforementioned USS Panay incident was when Japanese were bombing cities through China. In 1937, the US Embassy officially warned Japan in advance of US ships and oil tankers planning to pass through the warzone in Nanking (right before the Rape of Nanking) on a specific day when the skies were clear and American colors were flying on those ships. The Japanese sank US ships and killing of Americans by Japanese bombers. Japan's insidious response was '''1)''' make a show about firing the commander of that bombing (then promote him secretly for "showing the white devils the samurai spirit and teaching them fear") '''2)''' give a dumb excuse saying "we were sure Chinese soldiers were retreating away from the Japanese army via that ship" which makes no sense cuz the US Ship was sailing TOWARDS Japanese positions, why would anyone retreat towards the enemy they are running from. Still no excuse for bombing a 3rd nation's ship no matter who is aboard it, it's not their jurisdiction. '''3)''' And send 1,000s of handwritten apologist letters by Japanese schoolgirls to the US Embassy saying how sorry they are.
****** They just thought it was not the time to attack America yet, but plans were already underway at that point, with making casual and not serious proposals with the 2nd London Naval Treaty to tie Allied navies down with full intent to back out of the Treaty shortly after. Anyway, 4 years later, Pearl Harbor.
****** They did the same thing in the failed assassination of Czarist Russia's Crown Prince Nicholas during his tour in Japan in 1897. Shit fails, send apology letters, bide time, then launch an undeclared war on Russia.
**** Sometimes even within the branch, generals would do stupid things to get in each others' way: the infantry generals did not want to be outshone by the cavalry so they would rather put 10s of 1,000s of their soldiers into the grinder instead of using tanks, with the excuse of "we cannot sacrifice armored vehicles as they are sacred gifts from the God-Emperor."
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''Stubborn Pride, glorifying death, military first:''' Instead of receiving feedback from the field and spending money to develop better planes throughout the course of the war like a sane military, the Imperial Navy had only 1 type of ''shipborne'' plane actually fielded throughout the entire war (Mitsubishi A6M "Zero"). No, the Empire thought it was more cost-effective to sacrifice 1,000s of men on [[Grot_Bomm_Launcha|human-guided '''suicide bombing tactics''' known as Kamikazes]], going to Paradise in the afterlife for blowing themselves up for their one true god whom they prey towards everyday. Nowhere else will you find mass-produced, standardized models (of a regular military no less) that have no weapons but are solely designed for the purpose of blowing up, with designs that are absolutely made to prevent (with gas tanks too small for return flights and cockpits with holes for screwing shut) the pilot from every surviving lest he "be a coward" and try to veer off course and NOT sacrifice himself for the Emperor to go to Zen Buddhist Paradise. Even that wasn't enough so the pilots were given their final drink, [[drug|a cup of sake laced with '''meth''']] and squadrons were accompanied by a veteran plane that acted like an [[Commissar|'''AIRPLANE COMMISSAR''' that BLAM'd anybody daring to veer off course.]] By the time they got to the battle, the veteran would leave to round up more kamikaze planes. There are actually more designs fielded as human-guided bombs than there were fighter planes (The Yokosuka MXY-7 "Ohka (cherry blossom)" and Nakajima Ki-115 "Tsurugi (sword)" ). <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The kicker was they thought this was an effective tactic because the Japanese command looked at the statistics and decided that massed suicide planes actually had BETTER kill to death ratio than conventional warplanes as the war progressed. But this is a fallacy: it meant the original designs need to be updated and newer, more advanced models should be fielded, [[Tech Priest|not to stubbornly keep the old designs that the enemy is developing specialized counters for,]] and certainly not to keep [[Chenkov|SENDING IN THE NEXT WAVE.]] In which even the better-educated college students and factory technicians were conscripted to blow themselves up while unskilled schoolgirls took up producing the goods at shoddier quality which made weapon quality and operational failures more rampant than the already shoddy Japanese weapons because they didn’t realize that all these years, they were heavily dependent on importing superior American machinery for their industries (Which resulted in things like grenades that went off prematurely way too often, and the Nambu Pistol: a gun that BLAM'd the shooter).
***** Contrary to popular belief, suicide planes weren't even the only weapon mass-produced for kamikaze tactics. Boats, manned-torpedoes, submarines, diving suits, trucks, manned anti-tank mines, <s>[[Miscellaneous_Weapons#Tankhammer|'''TANKHAMMER''']]</s> lunge mines (I don't care how any Battlefield games depict this, you're not surviving a shaped charge explosion designed to blow a tank up at point-blank, let alone be able to run fast with a heavy charge while dodging M4 Sherman's [[Dakka|hull + coaxial + cupola machine guns]] to get that close in the first place, and even if you found someone who can, congratulations, you wasted an Olympics-level, 1-in-a-million athlete on a suicide mission to take out a medium tank. [[Armageddon Steel Legion|Now do that '''50,000''' times. (not counting the other tanks in the Allied arsenal)]].)... the list is too long to cover. Coupled with the 4,000 men on suicide planes, these rocketed the number of suicide bombings to 5-digits. Imagine how many regiments you can fill out with this headcount in a military with any sense of sanity.
**** Naval captains were encouraged to be like the fictional notion that samurai died in battle so if their ship sank they were to die with it. This led to a lot of blunders [[DERP|because nobody came back alive to report how the US Navy was exploiting Japanese weaknesses.]] Captains who dared come back from defeat were disgraced and sent on a '''penal crusade''' of sorts, like being sent back to the frontlines in a more minor position, their original position filled by a rookie commander who would [[Tactica Imperialis|play by the strategies laid out by the high command]] which were based on wrong assumptions and thus would also lose, and the with each repeat of this vicious cycle, 1,000s of men died pointlessly. All because the strategists who were appointed due to nepotism were insecure with their lack of skill and took an affront to any implication that they made errors in their strategies, and so blamed every failure on the field commander.
***** Ironic when you know the Sengoku period history, the heyday of the [[samurai]]. This is when opportunistic brutal samurai saw "backstabbing" as "pragmatic" for survival amidst 200 years of civil war and if brutal and ungrateful, '''had no hollow delusions about honor in death.''' The false notion of a samurai who is "unquestioningly loyal" was made in the 18th century romanticists, namely Tsunetomo Yamamoto, a chickenhawk who never saw a single battle yet lamented how samurai like him are not respected like in the "good ol' days." [[Lorgar|His greatly influential and hilariously wrong book on what samurai is supposed to be, '''Hagakure, ''']] literally began with [[Chenkov|''"To die is to be samurai."'']] and his book was primary reading material for the militarists, [[Grimdark|which is why Japan was very liberal with spending human lives.]] 18th century was actually when samurai started reading Confucianist books and was fantasizing about "(unquestioning) loyalty" no matter the evil of the regime. Note that samurai have been upholding the oppressive regime by taxing 3 times more than both the European and Asian feudal averages (25%). According to 19th century scholar Nobuhiro Sato, 1 in 3 peasant households commited Mabiki infanticide every year (remember contraceptives didn't exist then), due to lack of food. The resulting desperate disgruntlement was quelled with terror of the "kirisute gomen," a license to [[CHOP|BLAM]] any peasant on the spot without any trial or reason given.
****** This is rather grimdark considering [[Ferrus_Manus#The_flesh_is..._strong.3F|Confucius ''taught the '''exactly opposite''' lesson'']], since he himself said something along the lines of [[Awesome|"an evil subject lies and praises his lord's tyranny as benevolent leadership, but the truly loyal subject tells tyrants 'fuck you']] to amend their evil ways. [[Ollanius Pius|Even in the face of likely death,]] and those who were executed for speaking the truth were oft hailed as martyrs posthumously. This is the very essence of [[Awesome|'''true loyalty.''']] And the ideal lord listens to such subjects." A sort of social contract. And he did exactly that himself, publicly opposing tyrants. Blind obedience praised by 18th century samurai from a proper Confucianist light, was seen as being a cowardly or scheming yes man.
***** The propaganda machine did not help, either. The Battle of Midway, turning point of the Pacific Theater, was a devastating defeat for the Japanese Navy, but the Daihon'ei (Imperial General HQ) reported to all the media that it was a heroic victory. Officers who made it back though, were all locked up to prevent them from speaking the truth, because the Navy did not want to be upstaged by the Army's own bluffs and tried to hide their failures, and over-reported the enemy's losses. The term "Daihon'ei report" since has become a tongue-in-cheek phrase of government/corporate claims pretending everything is fine and no mistakes were made when the situation is actually [[Fail|FUBAR]].
****** This battle was ultimately lost by the Japanese due to arrogance, underestimating the enemy, being ill-prepared, and overturning every bad result in simulations as "There's no way the Imperial Majesty's Navy would be hit by that many torpedos from those inept Americans!" (Admiral Ugaki did this A LOT), and complete lack of radar. [[RaHoWa|Again, racist doctrine]] posited that, the US Navy uses radar but have no fear, [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|that's actually because the American eyesight is racially inferior to the unerring eyes of the seamen of the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy, who do not need them!]] This is hilarious when you realize the radar that was used then were the old "TV-antenna" that is the Yagi-Uda Radar made by a Japanese lab assistant Uda (who for decades was sidelined as his professor, Yagi, unjustly took all the credit, typical), patented in England, thus legally used by the Allies, but shunned by the Japanese because [https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/pearl-harbor-december-7-1941 "'''His Imperial Majesty's Military lives by ambush'''"] and to use a radar that emits radio waves just means exposing your ambuscade to the enemy.
***** The Japanese Navy stupidly was obsessed building the largest ship on the planet at the time, the Yamato-class battleships, but the irony is that because they were afraid of losing face in a possible battle, they actively avoided these truly expensive ships from engaging in combat and had the lesser ships do all the fighting throughout the war. This was so stupid because unlike the new main naval weapon that was the aircraft carrier, this ship was built using the old naval doctrines of uselessly big [[Dreadnought]] [[Nazi_Equipment#Wunderwaffen|battleships slugging it out with enemy battleships, where bigger guns with longer ranges prevailed, hopefully in a ''single decisive victory'' that would turn the tide of war (Wunderwaffen)]]. So the Navy was both being a bit behind the times AND not using the Yamato-class for what it was built for. Despite being able to, America did not see a need to nor delighted in building a battleship that huge, but instead focused more on the new technology of "Aircraft Carriers," [[Forge World|made 98 carriers throughout the war]] [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs|starting out from just 7 surviving after Pearl Harbor]], against Japan's 14 carriers.
****** A whopping full 1% of Japan’s GDP was spent on maintaining this pampered monstrosity of a superweapon that did jack all. Contrast this to how modern European nations in 2022 except Poland are struggling to raise its military spending to 2% of its GDP.
****** The Yamato was also furbished full of luxuries and served lavish food while the other parts of the military were starving, they were actually nicknamed [[Noble|"The Yamato Hotel,"]] for so pampered were the men aboard, just to bestow prestige to service aboard the flagship. By 1945, when people were malnourished and cannibalizing their slaves and robbing locals at gunpoint was rampant in the Pacific island holdouts (some soldiers would do this into the 1970s), and even government MINISTERS could barely afford to get "a sweet potato dipped in butter" (according to Nobusuke Kishi, grandpa and nepotic sponsor of the Prime Minister that got shot), the folks at the Yamato Hotel were living it up -- journals of the sailors at the time of its sinking in 1945 showed, [[RAGE|they had meaty curry over rice with ice cream for dessert and were sleeping in beds.]] Oh and they even had a full complement of musicians aboard to play music for the feasts. And feasts it often had whenever an important figure was visiting (and that was frequent both because it was the flagship, and also because it was always available for feasts due to being too busy [[RAGE|AVOIDING THE DECISIVE BATTLES IT WAS SUPPOSED TO FIGHT.]]) Chefs conscripted aboard were required to hone their skills to chefs of 5 star hotels. Apologists argue the luxuries were all for morale that can win the war, but even those sailors with journals even admitted feeling guilt whether they should even be savoring these luxuries in a time like this, and the sailors of other ships in the Japanese Navy were suffering from putting too many guns on deck to sidestep the restrictions on naval power by making each tonnage account for more firepower, at the expense of crew spaces and shared magazines (a huge fire risk). In contrast, the US Navy just used hammocks for most sailors, and you know, actually won the war.
****** The end of the Yamato was a hilarious mess of saving face and idiocy. Because the flagship kept dodging engagement for the [[Macha|excuse that it’s saving itself]] for a hypothetical "final decisive battle" between battleships, the Japanese Navy wasted its advantage from ambusing Pearl Harbor without declaration of war, and wrote its battleplan entirely on the monolithic idea that the US Navy will desperately go through all the fortified islands in the Pacific, whereupon the Japanese Navy will hound the US fleet and whittle them down to a ripe size for the “final decisive battle." And so because not declaring war and hitting Pearl Harbor was so successful, they will recreate a microcosm with “a top secret superweapon saved for the final strike.” This didn't work because there's [[DERP|no guarantee the enemy will move into your traps like some tower defense game, much less in the very maneuverable open ocean.]] The Yamato could have finally gotten its big battle in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, but had no fuel to fuel the Yamato... [[FAIL|because they decided to give its fuel to the lesser ships]] to go fight in Guadalcanal in its stead. On top of that, to save face, they couldn’t ask the Army for spare fuel, so it sat that one out. In the end, the writing was on the wall when it found that it no longer had a sizable fleet to accompany the Yamato. So against every general's wishes, high command took it out to battle with the argument, "if the Yamato doesn't fight at least once before the war ends it will look like they cost Japan the war by being cowards." So just to save the Daihon'ei high command's face, 4242 Japanese sailors were sacrificed... while taking out 12 Americans in Operation Ten-Go. The biggest ship on the planet that was top secret by an evil naval-based empire, went down hordes of torpedo bombers which swirved the behemoth just enough to make the [[Macrocannon|colossal 18.1” gun]], slide off internally and spill its load of massive ammo in a deadly cascade, setting them off and with it, all the shells stored deep down in the magazine. [[Star Wars|Picture the Rebel Alliance sending fighter planes dropping torpedos to set off a chain reaction that destroyed the never-before revealed imperial superweapon called the Death Star, the largest ship in the galaxy... built by the leader of an empire who was actually called “The Emperor” who purportedly has supernatural powers... hmmmmm]]
******* [[Aristocrat|The scheduled dinner on the day it sank was to be canned beef, canned red bean rice, and sweet bean porridge for dessert.]] It was lavish for war time, to the point even the crewmen worried whether it was even right for them to be eating like this, putting the military before the civilians even for a militaristic empire hellbent on conquest.
**** As mentioned above, waging war for glory of conquest without a proper plan for logistics nor cooperation between the Army and Navy led to the outcome of [[World Eaters|2 million of 3 million soldiers committing '''cannibalism at least once, usually eating the slaves.]] In fear of the looming threat of American forces, [[The Black Feast|ate American POWs to dehumanize them]] and raise their failing morale. One famous example is on Chichijima, [[RAGE|which the Japanese on trial for war crimes actually dare claim they died from American bombs, because American bombers loved bombing too much they didn't even care about blowing up their own boys.]] The truth is "'they were eaten as sushi."' George H.W. Bush was the sole survivor because he was the only man who was rescued by the US Navy when they crashed from enemy fire.
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''Sexual violence on a scale unprecedented in history:''' Someone in high command somehow got it in their head the idea that somehow, raping underage girls is a crucial component of what makes a mighty samurai warrior. (Historically speaking, they are not far off if that is whom they wanted to model their soldiers after, and by all the propaganda they spew out, they were). In the indoctrination written in soldiers' field manuals, it was even written raping any underage girl they could see was actually ENCOURAGED as an exercise of the "righteous conqueror." When raping and killing girls in lands they conquered wasn't enough, they would "'''[[what|maximize rape efficiency]]'''" by having [https://www.ftm.eu/articles/dutch-state-and-royal-family-profited-from-money-comfort-women 500,000 girls of 35 nations] were permanently kidnapped/captured/coerced/lied in military brothels to be '''[[RAGE|raped with 80-men quotas per day.]]''' 100 when the men are flocking right before a major offensive. The girls are raped till they die, get too sick, or get pregnant by which they will get executed with their unwanted baby. If they are in the chemical/germ bomb human experimentation center, Unit 731, under the direct command of the emperor and nobody else (unlike the Army/Navy), girls were impregnated by the scientists [[daemonculaba|precisely for the purpose of making '''pregnant specimen''' for various vivisections of either the baby, the mother with the fetus,]] or the mother and the newborn together in pointless experiments like "How long does it take until the mother in a hot furnace goes from trying to save her baby in her stead to sacrificing her baby to save her own life, on average?" And countless other evil shit that would make slightly more sense but was done just to get slightly more accurate medical data than experiments about poisoning/vivisecting animals already done in Europe 20+ years ago. Scientists claimed after they got used to the lab environment, [[Haemonculus|they soon had developed daily cravings for vivisections saying, the day did not feel over until they cut up at least 2 people.]] <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The Japanese to this day tote documents on how girls as young as 10 years old somehow "signed" papers that they agree to go to the frontlines to "comfort" the soldiers, claiming that Japanese soldiers were not rapists and the girls were just very willing prostitutes. But if you have an actual brain, it shouldn't take much to realize 10 year girls will have no idea what that “job” even entails, let alone 10 year-olds should not be given any agency to make such decisions. It's the typical tactic of putting someone's name on paper at gunpoint, exploiting the fact that it is easier to prove there was something signed rather than trying to prove there were guns pointed to someone's head at the time, because that leaves no traces. It's even less legal than the contracts illiterate men had to "sign" for [[Imperial Navy|press-ganging AFTER they were kidnapped and out at sea.]] Minus actually being paid: the best "payment" was in Japanese military ration tickets which were deliberately designed by the Japanese to be worthless after the war and prevent a way to run off and live in a town elsewhere with money that could be used in the civilian sector. Disencourage them from running away to ease butchering them '''after [[Daemonculaba|giving them unwanted pregnancies]]''', both as a way to get rid of mouths to feed during the war, and after the war, kill as many survivors possible to hide their war crimes to ease in playing victim later. Aside from the rampant rape-and-kill in the midst of tearing through towns, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Dutch, Australian girls were raped repeatedly and then executed in ditches or random locations in jungles.
**** The origins of trafficking sex slaves goes back to 1500 when samurai, like numerous African warlords, used to sell girls to buy muskets from Portuguese slavers to better kill each other. When the exorbitant 60-90% tax rates wasn't enough to fund their wars, (Hideyoshi also abruptly banned the sale of Japanese girls but started to kidnap Chinese and Korean instead to sell to the slavers... at one point trying to make up for the losses incurred in the failed invasion of Korea in the 1590s, started capturing so many slaves to sell to the Portuguese that this temporarily crashed the European slave market prices by 1/6th going rate), the samurai looked to earn income by establishing overseas brothels. The thing is, this never stopped until the early 20th century. In the short Meiji period alone, '''the Japanese sold 300,000 Japanese girls overseas''' to earn expensive American dollars and British pounds which were vastly stronger than the Japanese yen, to make easy money to fund the over-glorified Meiji Restoration. The leaders of Japan weren't even ashamed, either. The girls, who earned the nickname "Karayuki-san" ("Miss-gone-to-China" where "China" in this sense can mean anything overseas) by the 19th century, were praised by Japan's leaders and foremost thinkers as "Joshigun," meaning "Army of Girls," in the sense they are (forced to) fighting and sacrificing themselves for Japan's progress. These Japanese brothels reached far and wide, up to America, Australia, and even India. Using girls as military sex slaves from 1930s till the end of WW2 was a natural conclusion to this barbaric practice. In rare occasions a few made it long enough to amass enough money to buy themselves a small, easily forgotten tombstone for their own death, and these are scattered around Southeast Asia but mostly neglected and forgotten and/or the jungles swallowed them.
**** The Rape of Nanking was where the killing and raping was so horrendous and massive, '''''[[What|a full-on Nazi Party member, John Rabe, had to do the Schindler's List]] thing''''' to save the Chinese citizens around Nanking, who were Allied and therefore should've been his enemies, against the Japanese, who were Axis and should've been his allies. One of the many beheading contests of civilians was gleefully reported back home as heroics between two rivals with historic [[katana]]s they brought from home, [https://i.imgur.com/r7G4ejB.jpg babies were thrown into the air and caught with bayonets], people were tied to posts and used as live bayonet practice up close and personal, soldiers stuffed glass bottles in girls' vaginas and shattered them for fun, samurai katanas were proudly brandished to threaten civilians to put on shows for the Japanese troops such as [[What|fathers forced to rape their daughters and mother forced to rape their sons.]]
***** The woman whose book exposed this in the West, Iris Chang, was hounded by Japanese for so long, slandered and sent death threats for years, that she ended her own life. Daring to be a champion of light gets one attacked and slandered, unto death. Truly Grimdark.
**** Girls like Jan Ruff O'Herne and women like Vivian Bullwinkel were raped, and many were executed. A rare few barely managed to survive, but were shamed by the Australian and actually [https://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-nurse-was-ordered-to-keep-war-crimes-secret-20190322-p516jg.html commanded such girls/women to shut the fuck up so they can appease the sensitive Japanese overlords and recommence trade with them.] The Dutch government even brokered [https://www.ftm.eu/articles/dutch-state-and-royal-family-profited-from-money-comfort-women a deal with Japan and took bribes to keep this war crime quiet in spite of the protests of the girls who were raped periodically as permanent sex slaves.] When O'Herne before she died, did finally brave through her PTSD and started to speak about her experiences in the 90s, [[Angron|she was actually counter-accused by Japanese and Japanese-Australians, of being a racist and bigoted liar.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">Aftermath over Okinawa was especially grimdark. The Japanese occupiers already experienced Pacific Islands' natives eagerly cooperating with the American liberators and telling them weaknesses in Japanese positions, so by the time US forces arrived around Okinawa they [[Tzeentch|made sure to strengthen propaganda]] [[Eldar|and corral the colonials to fight as pawns.]] The Japanese gaslighted the Okinawan natives to die as cannon fodder under the rhetoric, that if they did not blow themselves up for Empire and the holy God-Emperor, Americans will land, and will proceed to eat their babies and violate them. Basically gaslighting that the enemies are worse than all the Japanese brutality the people have suffered thus far (for 400 years), kind of like some reverse-[[Commissar]]. In just WW2 alone Okinawans were forced to fight and when wounded were executed (given milk secretly spiked with cyanide, etc.), butchered for slightest offences like speaking native Ryukyuan instead of Japanese, executed for picking up airdropped American pamphlets written in Japanese offering them a chance to surrender while warning them the destruction the US forces are capable (you dare come in contact with the bluff of filthy American pigs!?), or gaslighted in fear to flee to uninhabited islands where many died from hunger and malaria. On top of all that, when Okinawa was finally about to be taken, the Japanese were not ready go peacefully, and forced everyone to commit suicide to "show them the iron will of the superior Japanese race and refusal to be slaves." The real reason though, is sinister and fucked up: <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** What really happened was the Japanese overlords wanted to fool and discourage Americans from landing in Japan proper, so they banked on the expectation that Americans won't know the difference from the enslaved Okinawans and Japanese, and so if the people on this small island "appear" that all civilians are willing to fight and die to the last man, the Americans will hopefully be afraid to land on the Japanese mainland lest they face even fiercer resistance. The Japanese were also, as seen post war, very keen on killing all victims/witnesses to their war crimes, so they thought, "might as well use them up now." [[RAGE|Mass seppukus were forced upon them to make it look "voluntary" just to save Japanese face of being "fearless samurai" at the expense of not-Japanese.]] Okinawans were surprised to find US forces did not come to rape their children but give out much needed medical care and food.
***** This mentally devastated the Okinawans who were prepared to go down fighting (some were even told to make makeshift bamboo spears and use kitchen knives and attack from ambushes), because the Japanese already told many Okinawans to kill their own children to spare them the fate of being gang raped by American devils, and follow suit with their own seppukus. Accounts say the horrified parents took the food and medical aid they received as offerings to the graves of their own children they buried, and wailed cursing Japan, crying tears of blood. This is the aftermath of being enslaved for 400 years and suddenly offloaded the duties of a full citizen to die for the God-Emperor so that mainlanders don't have to.
***** In some cases it was the opposite, like a conscripted teenage boy commanded to murder his sister and mother before battle so he would have nowhere to return to and fight harder, uner the excuse that he is saving them from rape and sending them to Zen Buddhist Pure Land paradise early.
***** This is why when prince Akihito came ashore Okinawa in the 1970s when Okinawa was "returned" to Japan, the enraged natives sent numerous death threats. Originally, his father emperor Hirohito was going to come, but this was deemed too dangerous.
***** You will not believe the uproar when the Okinawan survivors found out that, without their knowledge, the names of Okinawan men forced to die for Japan have been for years enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine, the de facto national shrine headed by remnants of [[Imperial Cult|National Shintoist organization]] and still used in nationalist rhetoric to glorify the Empire of Japan. The shrine refused to have those names erased. This is also the case for other colonials conscripted as cannon fodder. Okinawans erected memorials for both Okinawans and Koreans who were sent there as slaves and cannon fodder and accuses the Japanese government for lies and denial of their atrocities.
**** That's not all, the survivors soon found that it was the Japanese who have been raping their children anyway. One such infamous example was the Himeyuri Schoolgirls, who were lied to by the Japanese army they will just be taken to make knickknacks and provide basic medical care for soldiers, but really conscripted for far more than that (sex slavery) and once the Japanese had their fun, tried to get rid of proof of their war crimes by sending the victims to attack US lines where they were shot as they were not proper combatants in uniforms, because the Geneva Convention only protects regular uniformed troops and not insurgents and fighters hidden among the population. The Japanese exploit the worldwide publics' lack of knowledge of how the Geneva Convention works, and actually makes it sound like an American war crime to shoot attackers not wearing uniforms. And on top of that, used these Okinawan girls they forced to die, as propaganda to drive the rhetoric that [[Tzeentch|"so righteous was the Japanese Empire, even underage girls by the droves willingly laid their life down for God-Emperor Hirohito, and it is a tragedy the American invaders were so brutal and ruthless monsters to cut them down. This underlines why America should not have attacked Japan."]] Textbooks were found saying this as recent as 2011 and unedited since. Basically, innocent girls' deaths are used as political fodder by an unrepentant regime to fuel more jingoism and fool people to come feed the meat grinder.
***** Just like the glorified Kamikaze pilots screwed shut into cockpits. Non-kamikaze pilots in the Navy testified they have never seen anyone eager to blow themselves up like wartime propaganda said. The closest would be people gaslighted to believe if they did not blow themselves up for Japan, Americans will eat and rape their family... This notion ordinarily would be too far-fetched, passed over for propaganda in any normal nation, but it WORKED in Japan because that's what the Japanese soldiers themselves were doing for GENERATIONS, it felt all too real a prospect when those things were taught and done as the "natural right of victors in war."
****** What makes this even grimmer is that all those people that even died for this lie died in vain because, their own Japanese government themselves, NOT 10 DAYS AFTER SURRENDER, founds an organization called the [https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Recreation_and_Amusement_Association Recreation and Amusement Association], specifically made to pimp out girls to those Americans who not 10 days prior, were propagandized as subhuman rapist demons that must be put down. And unlike the wartime sex slaves, the women were voluntarily coming for work and the promised pay was not robbed away, not entirely, once the program was shut down by Eleanor Roosevelt's pleas in 1946, and allowed to start a burgeoning prostitution industry as "pan-pan girls" instead of being taken out back and knifed in the belly with the unwanted fetus and thrown in a ditch or the jungle for animals to tear apart. [[Tzeentch|The Japanese government lulling the Allied troops into prostitution is used to poison the well on the issue of wartime sex slavery, to exaggerate and incriminate any incidents among prostitution caused by Allied troops as "being no different from Japanese troops after all" and simultaneously play down their own wartime sex slavery as being well-natured,]] and also drive the rhetoric that [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18355292 the onus of this is all on Allied invaders, that Japan was forced against its will to make their own girls prostitutes in a systematic "wall of flesh" to calm the torrent of violent sexual energy the Allied troops exuded who will "undoubtedly" rape everyone if their sex drive is not appeased.] (Who do they think the GIs are, Japanese?)
***** Battle of Saipan was the first time the Japanese government told civilians to commit mass suicide, a direct order from God-Emperor Hirohito no less, on the 30th of June, 1944. This was in fear that Japan will lose face if the Japanese settlers (who lynched and killed the natives to take their land and belongings) ever became displayed on US media. Like [[samurai]] seppuku of the past, the God-emperor promised glory after "brave" suicide. [[What|A whopping civilians 20,200 complied]], lots of them pushing their families off cliffs and being pushed by others in a stampede, so effective was the Japanese propaganda about subhuman American devils they chose death. One such cliff is now called the [https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/banzai-cliff-site-hundreds-suicides-end-battle-saipan.html?chrome=1 Banzai Cliff] because 5,000-8,000 people in one sitting were marching off cliffs "supposedly" voluntarily, shouting TENNOU HEIKA BANZAI ('''"For the Emperor!"'''). The place now features memorials including those for the Korean and Okinawan plantation workers sacrificed in this way.
****** One time some scared civilians hesitated before jumping off some cliffs, and were found at a distance by US troops who coaxed them to turn away from a cliff. Civilians were still scared of US troops, and did not dare come closer but hesitated. But soon this hesitation was rectified by a Japanese soldier who shot them dead to [[Commissar|"inspire" the remaining survivors to suicide.]] They were mere moments away having the war end for them, but Japan was determined to '''not lose face, nor allow peace before death.''' Worried about mere national image before lives. '''GRIM DARK.''' The Japanese soldier was later caught and killed by angry US troops.
****** Like in other islands, Japanese troops hid out in mountains and caves and soon started killing each other for limited resources and butchered natives, slaves, and eventually each other as food. Grim dark. The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On is a documentary following a Japanese veteran who accuses the government of war crimes and hunts down his former officers.
****** Some islands like in the Philippines, had Japanese officers using their own rifles to terrorize and kill the locals and steal their livestock and supplies and refused to surrender until the 1970s. Some of them did so because they wanted to avoid being told to answer for their war crimes, like Hiroo Onoda, [https://globalnation.inquirer.net/101899/hiroo-onoda-hero-or-villain#:~:text=Reports%20say%20that%20Onoda%20and,was%20hailed%20as%20a%20hero. and even when finally surrendering, was proud to be a bandit and murderer and was totally unapologetic to the locals, posing like some samurai hero, and even wrote books glorifying his "heroic" acts] and was received by the Japanese as an exemplary man of justice who did not bow down to the evil Americans.
*** [[Nurgle|'''All out ABC warfare:''']] Atomic, Biological, Chemical, the 3 main pillars of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Unlike Germany, Japan was very into using chemical and germ weapons on the battlefield. Anthrax, bubonic plague, dysentery, typhoid fever, diseased fleas, etc. all flavors of germs were used. Cyanide grenades, mustard gas bombs, CS gas bombs, etc. were used on both civilian and military targets, much of these WMDs were produced in factories of Hiroshima. The bulk of these were used in the vast, continent-wide theater of the invasion into China (1937-1945) up to 2,000 odd usage cases. Biowarfare was scheduled to extend to America in the September of 1945, in [https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-057/h-057-2.html Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night]. Japanese nuclear weapons development was going on right up to the end of the war as well, hellbent on trying to finish the nuke without knowing anybody else was trying to make them as well (the Manhattan Project was Top Secret). Two nukes were in development, the Ni-Go and F-Go, unlike Nazis who hardly decided to pursue this when Nobel Prize winner Werner Heisenberg deliberately canceled the German nuclear weapons project (1992 declassified 6-month recordings listening in on him and his fellow scientists prove this was intentional).
**** On the other side, Japan actually '''did not give a damn about nuclear casualties,''' (you thought a government that gaslighted 10s of 1,000s of civilians to die, just to save face, cared about that?), records and witness accounts actually cite that when the nukes hit, it was considered nothing special because Daihon'ei high command has been receiving casualty reports on that scale for months by then, and high command proceeded to argue about how to fool the Americans to accept letting them keep all their remaining unliberated colonies under Japanese enslavement, and sign a peace treaty favorable to Japan. The firebombing of Tokyo had greater casualties (150k) and you hardly see it toted as a political talking point. Nor the according to General Curtis Le May, he bombed 20% (4 million) of the population to death in the Korean War that happened 5 years later, and you hardly hear any Korean complain about that. Oh, and just like with the Okinawan schoolgirls sent to die and tallied along with "loyal citizens of the empire willingly sacrificing their lives for the God-Emperor Hirohito," about 1/3 of the nuclear casualty numbers include these foreign slaves, both those who got bombed, and both those forbidden from returning home after WW2 but instead commanded to clean up irradiated cities, all of them who wouldn't even have been there were it not for Japan forcibly putting them there. Only foreign slaves were sent to clean up the irradiated rubble, and Japan dumped their moaning dying bodies were into the sea, [https://youtu.be/IOwwi97XTYA?t=690 then proceeded to start propaganda that goes on to this day, on why Americans must bow in apology to innocent victimhood of Japanese while denying any wrongdoing or demanding everyone forget their war crimes.] Nagasaki was a civilian hub for driving slaves in Mitsubishi's war factories. Hiroshima was the poison gas WMD production hub. 1 billion Asians cheered for their liberation (even if nukes weren't the cause, and the Japanese were actually too stubborn to fear the nukes they themselves were making).
* <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">'''The Cold War:''' You know what is the most grimdark about the Cold War? The nations devastated the most from the [[Axis]] Powers Germany and Japan, one would think their happy liberation would last thereafter and great evils of history rectified, right? But on the contrary: for the crime of not destroying other countries and colonizing them for their greedy personal benefit, they were not able to become as powerful as those who happily bloodied their hands with the blood of others, and thus became subjugated. And even after they were liberated, by Allies, they were left so weak, their people butchered, their governments destroyed, their economies left with hyperinflation... that they were not able to stamp out communist cells like they normally would have, had their capitalist regimes not been attacked by the Axis. (Eastern Europe may have been directly conquered by Soviet forces, but in Asia, the communization started with the largest nation: China, from where communization of other nations were enabled). In fear of the Domino Theory, Germany and Japan were soon rewarded with trillions of dollars for butchering millions, to build up their economies and given loads of American tech. Despite several backstabbings like [https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/russia/toshiba.htm Japan selling US tech to the USSR,] (even after America totally excused from any war reparations, too), the nations did not actually do anything for checking the Soviets, and the role soon fell to China itself in the 70s, it too getting a late cash boost and tech transfer just like Japan, which was responsible for sparking the post-war Chinese economy as much as it did Japan's. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
** TL;DR The perpetrators of WW2 caused a bigger problem for their old victims and the victims are left having to waste a huge portion of their economies to maintain militaries and establish highly dangerous frontlines against whatever their old oppressors left behind, while the people who caused this were given vast sums of money instead, because it was thought that frontlines were too risky to invest in. Also victims of war crimes were told to keep quiet because those Axis Powers are being hailed as (hopefully) bulwarks against the communist tide when they didn't actually do anything.
** If China was not communist, the Laotian, Cambodian, North Vietnamese, and North Korean communist regimes would either not even have happened or been mere footnotes in history, as they would not have received backing from Communist China, or capitalist forces would not have to worry about escalating into World War 3 if they helped these weak nations on the brink of communization. In fact a capitalist China would have actively sought to end communist regimes on its borders, so great were the Nationalists' hatred of communists represented by Mao.
*** [https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3085206/mao-zedong-thought-japan-did-communist-party-great-favour-invading Mao Zedong and his communists were mere weeks away from finally being arrested and executed, when the Japanese invaded in 1937, starting World War 2.] The Chinese Nationalist army had to put out this bigger fire, and reluctantly signed a peace treaty with the Chinese Communist Party. Throughout the war, the Nationalists suffered many gas and germ attacks from the Japanese, 200 Chinese generals died, 25 million people died, and most of the elite soldiery were killed in action. Meanwhile, even the Soviet military advisors for the CCP reported to Moscow that the CCP avoided all conflict, and focused on amassing resources and spreading influence by lying that it was THEY who were bleeding in the frontlines for China, while Nationalists sat back and hoarded all the supplies. When the Japanese were finally being beaten back in 1945, the communists backstabbed the Nationalists by starting a new front all of a sudden, and in 3 years drove them to the small island of Taiwan. In 40k terms this would be if an Imperial world was finally beating back some massive [[Xenos]] occupation, only to find their homeworld overtaken by Chaos cultists, then finding refuge on fringe world they liberated, but much to their dismay discovered this last refuge too was contaminated, through decades of foul indoctrination, the [[Avatar|worshiping of Xenos as gods and hating their own humanity.]] [[What|This is why Mao Zedong later thanked the Japanese for invading China and saving him, and without their help, he would have been dead.]]
** After killing 2 million people in Vietnam in WW2, Japan during the Vietnam War got trillions MORE US dollars while not shedding a single blood to help fix the problems they created. By the time Vietnam was hung out to dry and became overrun by communists, Japan was glad it did not have to pay a single yen as reparations to Vietnam because the Cold War atmosphere provided easy excuse for not paying communists anything. In 40k terms this is deliberately throwing the surviving families of your victims to chaos cults just to get them hunted down by the [[Inquisition]]/[[Exterminatus]]ed.
** Once the Cold War was over, Japan's backstabbings (because unlike Germany, Japan's same WW2 fascist political families who feign alliance with America but have always spoken of conquering America with their own dollars, still ruled Japan to this day, 50% of their positions hereditary and one-party rule has been in effect since 1955, [https://www.ndl.go.jp/modern/e/cha6/index.html called the 1955 system]) and outright tech thefts were seen to with lawsuits from various tech firms [https://prabook.com/web/andreas.pavel/2578953 (side note: The SONY Walkman wasn't invented by SONY at all, but stolen, then with ill-gotten profits sued the inventor to bankruptcy, and finally when everyone was done with it decades later, settled for a measly sum. There are tons of false propaganda like this)]. They still managed to lobby Senators to get them out of paying for their treachery, but even so, future American aid was cut short. Without trillions foreign aid, without colonies to exploit, they have finally had to rely on their own selves: and are now wallowing in the world's greatest debt-to-GDP ratio (only recently surpassed by Venezuela) and a 30-year recession unprecedented in the history of any human civilization on the planet, starting right from the end of the Cold War in 1992. [[Weeaboo]]s pretty much have been worshiping what was essentially their grandparents' tax dollars. And you thought 2.3 trillion spent in Afghanistan was costly.
** Polish soldiers and government-in-exile in of Free Poland fought for against the Germans in WW2 on the Allied side, but around 1944, the Allies decided to fuck them over, and was happy to let them not take back their country but instead merely change hands and become taken over by pro-Soviet communist puppets. This decision among the Allies was even deliberately kept hidden until the end of the war so the Polish would keep on laying their lives down for them and fight until Germany surrendered. The veterans had no choice but to live in allied nations, mostly England. These veterans were not allowed to rear their heads in the Allied nations they were taking refuge in, and were ostracized, spat on, or even depicted as squatters who were taking jobs from the English. Those few who did go back to their now communist homeland were living lives worse than before, or outright arrested and executed for political reasons, as the communist puppets were worried their true heroic deeds would drive an insurrection to retake Poland from foreign powers once more. Most never lived to see their country finally regain its sovereignty when the USSR dissolved in 1991.
** The South Vietnamese government in exile suffers the same, as having to weather through the colonization of the French, then the abject butchering rape and destruction caused by the Japanese in WW2, then the destruction causing a power vacuum and a fight that went on for decades, only for the communist North to takeover in full, and the South Vietnamese refugees had to discard all their livelihoods or be raped or butchered by the communists. The communists' Hue Massacre during the Vietnam War was nothing compared to what was in store for people who were not able to escape South Vietnam in 1975... Only for Cambodia to start a war with Vietnam. And while Vietnamese army was putting that fire out, the Chinese suddenly invaded from a 2nd front (which quickly ended when the Soviets, having skirmishes and even threatened a very one-sided nuclear war with China, threatened the Chinese to pull out of Vietnam). For the Vietnamese for quite some decades, it was quite grim dark and there was only war.
* Most of '''David Bowie''''s songs about 1990s.

== Grimderp ==
{{topquote| Why don't people band together to fix things? Because GRIMDARK. Why hasn't an external system supplanted the current, barely functioning one? Because GRIMDARK. How does such a woefully inefficient system manage the logistical nightmare of endless total war? Because I murdered a baby seal, that's why! You should feel bad.|Terrible Writing Advice (The GRIMDARK Episode)}}

Grimderp is what happens when a writer takes grimdark so far that it goes [[derp]]. The writer puts something in that makes the setting more grimdark, but it's generally reliant on at least one party involved [[Fail|suddenly abandoning all sense of reason and logic]], or else caused by a lack of forethought on the implications of how the element interacts with the world. Many long-runner grimdark works will become this sooner or later, as either the setting or the cast's morality (rather a usually extreme lack thereof) will induce complete and utter apathy in the audience and cause them to give up out of sheer pointlessness. Most "dark" anime/manga tend to be more or less grimderp, as attempts to attract mature audiences ends in violence, blood, and sex without consequence (at BEST, mind you. [[Rape|At worst...]]), all in gratuitous quantities.

To be clear, grimderp is not just that something is "dark" or that a character behaves stupidly. Human beings make dumb, short-sighted, irrational, and morally objectionable decisions all the time, just crack open about any book on human history. Grimderp is when a character breaks character to do something they would normally never do or engage in behavior that is logistically impossible [[Gav Thorpe|("there are as many elves as the plot demands")]], simply "because it's dark". To put it in another way, it is basically the author(s) writing dark things for the sake of [[Edgy|edginess]]. The end product often comes out as painfully juvenile and sounding like something out of a 13-year-old fanfic that thinks adding barbwire coated in feces to everything makes something 'deep'.

That is not to say it is impossible to make an absurdly dark fiction without straying off course into grimderp territory. The post-apocalyptic short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison avoids the grimderp label due to the historical context the story was written in as well as the philosophical debate on the idea of cruelty as presented through AM. Is AM a spiteful, cruel monster or a product of man's penchant for violence and warfare trapped in its own database prison? Another example that avoids this title would be Stephen Baxter's [[Xeelee Sequence]], whose entire ethos is a critique and ruthless deconstruction on the entire [[Humanity Fuck Yeah]] and [[Cthulhu|Cosmic Horror]] tropes whilst still crafting an unbelievably depressing multiverse. So yes, it is possible to write pure concentrated grimdark, but it should be done with a level of delicacy and self-awareness for it to be seen as legible.

* The Last of Us: Part 2, the sequel to the critically acclaimed The Last of Us, is Grimderp in its purest form: Characters prolong suffering simply out of the blue. Basic logic is thrown out as countless characters dive headfirst into a rabbit hole of violence, suffering, and depression, often to the point of [[Edgy|literal edginess]].
* The Dothraki of "[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]". We are asked to believe that an entire culture can sustain itself by raiding settled people (when the Mongols and Plains Indians they're based on hunted and herded large animals) while ''not selling or eating the livestock they plunder'', eating horses whenever possible despite borderline worshipping them and relying on them as beasts of burden or war steeds, solve literally all their disputes with murder and defeat their enemies with mass charges (despite real nomads having small populations, and winning battles with cavalry skill and/or surprise). At the point where the story says that "a wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull occasion" and mentions warriors casually raping dancers (the first fight to the death started over two warriors wanting the same dancer), the whole thing just looks like an [[edgy]] [[Magical Realm]] based on "hordes of eastern savages" clichés.
* [[My Little Pony|Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons]] is a fanfiction about magical ponies so grim, dark, and derp that it would almost be comical if it wasn't so fucking horrifying. With characters that get shit on (both figuratively and literally) more than the [[Lamenters]], and with a world so bleak (missing the point of Fallout, FiM, ''and'' the original Fallout: Equestria) that becoming an hero WOULD ACTUALLY BE the happiest ending, it's the prime example of how to make readers stop giving a fuck about the story at all.
* On that note, 90% of all grimdark fics are grimderp since writers are under the impression that [[Edgy|just making things dark makes it good writing]]. There are exceptions, but they are rare, because Sturgeon's Law is a thing. On the flip side, however, [[DOOM: Repercussions of Evil|certain examples]] have reached the apotheosis of Grimderp and become gut-bustingly hilarious.
* Warhammer 40,000 gets called out as this by some. Certainly it's a valid criticism of certain parts, but as we said earlier, [[Skub|you could argue about what is and is not grimderp in 40k for weeks without conclusion.]] For example, the Imperium is excessively self-destructive and tyrannical to its own people, but in the hands of a good writer, it's meant to underline how corrupt and desperate the Imperium has become without the Emperor's guidance, and how even those who are neither incompetent nor malicious still have to make brutally difficult choices. In the hands of a lesser writer, it's unnecessary evil purely for the sake of evil. We should call our next book "[[C.S. Goto|Darkness of Darkest Dark!]]"
** Historically, the Grail myths drift, not from [[Ecclesiarchy|Christian sources]], but Celtic ones (and beyond the Celts, older civilizations), and a typical feature of these myths happens to be the healing of a King through forces of restauration and regeneration (i.e. to put one in touch with his sources, with his roots), and the King was typically seen in agrarian societies as the King of a land, avatara of a Sky-Father, and [[Alarielle|the Queen as the Earth Goddess]]. The [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Psychic 101|Geokinesis psychic discipline]] has a power called '''Earth Blood''' who would do just that; if only [[Adeptus Custodes|someone]] let Librarians enter the Imperial Palace to do some Perceval style healing.
**[[Khornate Knights]].
**The [[Grey Knights]]' (who seem to get this a lot, really) equipment and how it is made. Specifically, every bolt shell that the Grey Knights use is consecrated by the blood sacrifice of a righteous man or woman in a borderline Khornate ritual (and it has to be a ''good'' person, not just anyone. How the Imperium determines if someone is sufficiently "good" or not remains an open question). Those Aegis armors? Made from thousands of psykers (including ''children'') burned alive in a furnace to channel their power to the armor. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people have to die to make ''one'' Grey Knight combat-effective. This has caused a lot of [[skub]] as to whether it is grimderp or not, as it raises the question of where the Grey Knights find enough good people to consecrate all of the bolter rounds they go through every battle (especially in the 42nd millennium, considering the monstrous spike in Chaos activity post-Rift).
**[[Gellar Field]]s being powered by the dreams of a comatose psyker being used as a battery (which also burns out and has to be replaced regularly). While very dark, it crosses the line into grimderp when one realizes 1) that Gellar Fields were said to be invented long before psykers began appearing among humanity, and 2) psykers are apparently rare enough in the Imperium that the Imperium has [[Black_Ships|an entire institution]] dedicated to rounding up psykers and bringing them back to Terra to make use of them, like making [[Astropath]]s or feeding the [[Astronomican]] and the [[Golden Throne]]. And according to recent editions the Black Ships are just barely meeting the quota to keep the [[Golden Throne]] going, so it's not like there are a lot of spare psykers around to be made into Gellar Field batteries.
**Originally, the [[Black Templars]] were treated as refusing to suffer the witch no matter who they were, to the point of refusing to ally with any Imperial institution that made use of them. This got retconned to only hate ''enemy'' psykers in 6th edition after it was pointed out it would be really hard for the Black Templars to do anything if they refused to tolerate Astropaths or Navigators, and thus have no Warp travel or faster-than-light communication.
**[[Imperial_Worlds#Agri-World|Agri-Worlds]]. Seemingly in response to the common fandom sentiment that [[The_Imperium_of_Man#However.2C_is_the_Imperium_really_that_bad.3F|most worlds in the Imperium are actually quite decent places to live]], just so long as you don't get invaded by [[Orks]], [[Chris Wraight]] in ''Lords of Silence'' outlines a typical Agri-World, describing a horrific hellscape wracked by permanent Dust Bowl conditions and so much pesticides that the sky turns orange and it is not safe to walk around outside without a biohazard suit, and goes on to say that all Agri-Worlds are like this. This has caused a lot of [[skub]] within the community. Some say that this practice is perfectly acceptable grimdark, and that unsustainable farming practices aren't exactly unusual in human history (look at slash-and-burn farming practices in Brazil, or aquifer use in the United States). However, what people find issue with is the claim that ''all'' agri-worlds are invariably like this, when [[Your Dudes|the fact that conditions on various planets in the Imperium vary massively from world to world as needed for the plot and there is almost no standardization]] has always been considered one of the big selling points of the setting (not to mention contradicting descriptions of Agri-Worlds in [[Ciaphas Cain]] and the [[Last Chancers]]). The other aspect that people tend to find unbelievable is that the Imperium is claimed to not even use crop rotation in their Agri-Worlds, simply farming the same crop over and over again until the soil gives out and the planet becomes a [[Death World]]. The Imperium may have lost a lot of its ancient knowledge, but crop rotation as a practice goes back to the freaking ''Stone Age''. [[Derp|Its absurd to see knowledge that basic being lost in the horrors of Old Night]], or not been rediscovered in the time after. This also means the Imperium would literally have run out of planets thousands of years ago if this was true.
** The nature of how Imperial ships work has caused a great deal of [[skub]]. Namely the fact that the weapons of Imperial ships are loaded by hundreds of chem-bulked, rabid slaves dragging them into place while being whipped, the exertion being so great that many die frothing at the mouth by the effort or have their hands crushed by chains. They do this completely by hand, hauling the munitions across the ship with chains. This despite the fact that hydraulic power systems have existed since the 18th century. They don't even use inclined planes or levers, something which humanity has been using to haul large objects where they want them to go since the days of Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and Easter Island. Or they could literally just use a [[Chimera Transport|Chimera]] or a team of grox to do the job, you know, the reason why humanity built large vehicles and domesticated large animals? Meanwhile the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] is using autoloaders, and is deliberately go keeping the technology from the rest of the Imperium so they will have an advantage in case another civil war ever breaks out. Some say this is perfectly acceptable grimdark, others say that this is just too ridiculously inefficient to take seriously, even for the Imperium.
**The Marneus Calgar comic has caused a shitstorm with the recent revelations that the average life expectancy of the BEST place in the Imperium is in the mid-thirties, which is fucking <u>[[FAIL|'''STUPID''']]</U>. Because that means that the life expectancy of other non-Ultramar worlds are drastically shorter, which makes the machinations on how the Imperium is run, fucking unsustainable. If child mortality rates are ''that high'', then entire worlds would have quite literally run out of humans especially in warzones, while entire sectors' worth of economies would collapse or stagnate as more kids die before they grow up and be a productive member of society. This creates a drain in resources and long-term stability; it was already considered unsustainable during MEDIEVAL times, so you could just extrapolate this to a million worlds and the Imperium should collapse under its own inertia and weight by this point. I don't care how 'disposable' human life is, it is still a resource and the [[Emprah]] fucking hates wasting resources. We get that the comic writer is trying to shoehorn even more feudalist themes in the comics, but the problem is, this is not Krieg we're talking about, but fucking ''Ultramar''. So either the author does not know what sense of scale is, or that he does not understand the works of [[Roboute Guilliman|Guilliman]] because Grandpa Smurf [[Rage|'''WOULD. NOT.''' let this shit fly under the radar.]] The author has confirmed, however, that it was added to make Ultramar feel more grimdark. To give you some context, Somalia in the mid 1960s has a higher life expectancy than this. This is not grimdark, this is just fucking stupid that breaks the suspension of disbelief. It is one of the few things that both 4Chan and Reddit concurrently agree upon as fluff breaking.
**To be honest, the whole idea of humans being the "teeming multitudes" faction [[Imperial Guard|winning battles by sheer weight of numbers]] and which [[Skaven|breed quickly and are easily replaced]] is kind of silly if you know anything about human reproduction. Among species on Earth, humans are notable for being one of the ''slowest'' reproducing species out there. It takes nine months for a human to gestate to maturity in the womb, more than any other animal aside from elephants and whales, and even after birth humans take longer to reach maturity even compared to our close relatives the Neanderthals and ''Homo erectus''. Additionally, it takes a huge amount of parental care to care for a child and raise them to functional adulthood, more than any other animal. On top of this, pregnancy is incredibly crippling for human females, and women have a one in three chance of dying in childbirth if giving birth without any external aid or midwives (as would be the case for a citizen of the underhives), something almost no other species has to deal with. The way our species generally works is we breed incredibly slowly but live an incredibly long time and invest a lot of resources to make sure those few that are born survive to adulthood, which basically makes us the [[elves]] of the animal kingdom. Barring some major technological breakthrough like artificial wombs or genetic engineering to reduce the crippling side effects of human pregnancy or long adolescence, humans are unlikely to be able to outbreed anything. And while some factions in the Imperium do have access to artificial wombs (like the [[Mechanicus]], most of humanity in 40k are shown to still reproducing the old fashioned way. Even if humanity starts out with a huge population it can throw at any problem, that population is going to be depleted pretty fast because humanity [[Eldar|can't replace their losses]]. Even if they are the greatest resource the Imperium has, they're still trying to fight a war of attrition against foes including [[Daemons|ones who can't even be properly killed]] and two races who can easily outbreed humanity; [[Orks|one reproduces by fighting]] and [[Tyranids|the other are a rapidly reproducing horde of space locusts who go from conception to combat-ready within a Terran week]]. However, fans tend to ignore this because of the whole “to be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions” thing that is part of the general lack of regard for human life that makes 40k 40k, so people give it a pass.
** Some 40k sources claim that millions if not billions of guardsmen are killed EVERY SECOND. Even with the scale of the imperium taken into the account, having many times the current population of the Earth die every minute would be ridiculous for the whole of Imperium, let alone just the Imperial Guard.
**[[Deathwatch|Watch Captain Artemis]] saying [[Heresy|better to let the galaxy burn and allow the Imperium to fall to Chaos than allow the xenos to live]], right before [[Battle_of_Coheria|fucking up an eldar ritual that would have awakened Ynnead early and fucked over Slaanesh]], indirectly [[Gathering Storm|causing all of the ruckus of 8th Edition]]. Granted, while this does come from the [[Deathwatch]], who tend to be rabidly anti-xenos even by the Imperium's standards, this is for ''Chaos'', the Archenemy, the [[Big Bad Evil Guy]] of the Warhammer 40k setting, the one faction that even the notoriously xenophobic Imperium will begrudgingly admit is a bigger threat than the xenos and will team up with them to fight against it. A loyalist saying they ''prefer Chaos'' over anything, even as the lesser of two evils, should be grounds for an insta-[[BLAM]]ing and a red flag for Chaos corruption. And no, Watch Captain Artemis was not [[BLAM]]-ed for this, nor is this treated as the beginnings of his corruption and a slow fall to [[Chaos]]. And so a loyalist Space Marine managed to [[Fail|single-handedly save Slaanesh]]. Seriously, Chaos champions have been elevated to [[Daemon Prince|Daemon Princehood]] for less.
** The whole thing reached the lowest point by 3rd edition, considered the Darker and Edgier version of 40k, this is when some of the silliest things mentioned in this wiki were added or accentuated, after that 40k required more than 5 EDITIONS of fluff update, novels, characters and additional background to finally come back from "we no longer care" to an actual war with stakes and actual chances for all sides involved.
** On [[Catachan]], half the population doesnt survive infancy. Of the ones that do, half don't survive past 10 years. Its not even a guarantee that people past ten years of age survive into adulthood. Between the amount of kids EACH WOMAN would be required to have just to SUSTAIN the population, the amount of care that would be required for the pregnant women and her kids, along with (at absolute best) a precarious battle against nature itself, the Catachan population would be completely unsustainable. It's an honest to God-Emperor miracle that the planet even managed to accumulate a population of 12 million people, and even more miraculous that the Space Rambos were the byproduct.
** The Emperor forcibly teleports Angron away from his final stand with his gladiator comrades, leaving them to die and telling Angron to get over himself. He also does absolutely nothing to ease Angron's suffering or convince him of the necessity of the Great Crusade. When asked by Angron why He would do something like this in spite of the wealth of other options, the only excuse Big E gives is that He's the Emperor and has more important shit to do on a much wider scale. Between there being no narrative or in-character precedent for Big E doing this and a laundry list of explanations as to what He could've done differently, this part of Angron's backstory and The Emperor's role in it can only be summed up as ADB yet again being guilty of shit writing and overly relying on daddy issues as a plot device.

* [[Star Wars]]: Although Star Wars is 40k's high fantasy twin, there have been a few grimderp things that came out recently in Canon that has given 40k a run for its money. According to Canon, specifically the novel ''Ashoka,'' the Galactic Empire forces farming worlds by gunpoint to harvest a particular breed of crop to be used as rations for their troops. The problem? These crops were specifically designed to [[Wat|soak up every bit of nutrients on the planet until it becomes sterile.]] Meaning that the particular farming world is only capable of harvesting the crops a few times [[FAIL|<u>''AT BEST''</u>]] before it becomes a sterile death world. Let's put this in context here, the Galactic Empire is currently fighting a galaxy-wide insurgency and being a galaxy-wide government, the GE NEEDS a sustainable way to produce food in order to keep its giant military well-fed for long-term campaigns. So forcing farming worlds to produce crops that intentionally leave their worlds sterile after a few farming cycles is just fucking [[EPIC FAIL|<u>'''STUPID'''</u>.]] Because realistically, the GE would have quite literally, ran out of food in a decade, collapsing due to galaxy-wide famine. [[FAIL|This shit is so fucking stupid and retarded that it makes the abovementioned IoM agri-world farming practises look eco-friendly in comparison.]] Even if they did something somewhat reasonable like restricting this practice to worlds that sided with the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars as a punishment, it's just spiteful beyond all reason.
** Seriously, this is a level of grimderp surpassing the [[Skub|Yuuzhan Vong]]; sure, they were be a race of machine-hating, masochistic religious zealots, but even they had organic technology to compensate, some were capable of pragmatism and they didn't make unsustainable food sources... and this is before they overhauled their society.
* [[Drowtales]]: The whole series is Grimderp on steroids, but there are a few particularly nauseating examples: nothing like the protagonist [[Mary Sue]] of innocence and purity blowing up the light elf MILF slave called Maya in an argument with a rival, an argument in which she feels morally justified right after buying a fighting slave which was doomed to die in underground Arenas even most Drow find disgusting, ran by a complete monster of a drow, regularly visited to watch slaves die, that's right, by the protagonist Ariel. Maya dies crying in her native tongue about "what she did to deserve this", crying she'll never see sunlight again. Protagonist feels a bit bad about a few days, and only that when she sees a few naked light elf slaves for sale, reminiscing Maya's face. Years pass and she thinks all the slavery and needless murder isn't so cool... just before visiting a surface colony who was taken from humans. She and her lesbian lover have an orgy on the settlement they just conquered by massacre. After a blissful after-sex sleep, the settlement is counterattacked by desperate humans coming to save their kin... which are promptly murdered by the half-light half-dark elf paladin of Sharess (Yes, a [[Mary Sue]] worshipping a total [[Baldur's Gate]] rip-off) who is all high and righteous when she is burning innocent humans who wanted to save their kin from slave traders about to buy the survivors. The protagonist's lesbian empath Drow (yes, with a length of purple hair paint, straight out of Deviantart) friend berates the cornered humans with a lame excuse line of "I feel your pain, why don't you take your survivors and run?!" when the said humans scream in desperation to save their families from the town's locked buildings, die horribly and our "I'm glad my clan Sarghress prevents slavery, let's shake hands and feast on the food we just plundered!" protagonist shakes hands on it. It's not even depressing, it's plain fucking logic diarrhea with enough depressive themes to OD an edgy 13 year old. (considering the authors were that old when they started...)
* Jeph Loeb's run on [[/co/|Ultimate Marvel]]: people dying brutally (most well known being Wasp getting eaten by the Blob) and completely gratuitously (Dr. Strange is killed the one page he shows up on and is completely forgotten afterwards), lore rape worst than anything Ward ever did (the heroic Pyro is now a rapist version of the mainline Marvel Pyro with no explanation; Thor going from new age hippie to mainline-style viking with no explanation... at least that last one is kinda cool). Overall it was so bad it effectively made the Ultimate Marvel universe (with the exception of Spider-Man and his cast) completely unusable. Small wonder that years later, Marvel thought smashing it and the main Marvel universe together would be a good idea.
** Jeph had lost his 17-year-old son to cancer not long before and apparently was taking his sorrow and anger out on the Ultiverse. It's no excuse, I suppose, but it ''is'' actually kind of sad.
* Koutetsujou no Kabaneri, an anime with a similar premise to the already-grimdark ''Attack on Titan'': It's set in (presumably feudal) Japan, where people are hiding behind walls and communicate with each others using trains to travel from town to town, and trades the giants and horses for guns and [[zombie]]s. Several of the characters have moments of team-killing ineptitude that end up prolonging the conflict far longer than it should:
**The [[samurai]] don't bother with armor and generally aren't very combat-savvy when it comes to zombies, and their [[Lawful Stupid]] tendencies turn any defense against a wall breach into an utter clusterfuck. The antagonist is [[Abaddon|an absolute failure AND wanted for crimes against humanity]], being a [[Edgy|pretentious Che Guevara wannabe]] [[Chaos Pretty Marines|with pink hair]] and wielder of an ugly-yet-somewhat effective [[Sword|sabre]]. He also has a devoted following despite being thoroughly unable to grasp the basics of warfare and its ethics (he thinks children are cowards for not being able to fight monsters that ambush and run through trained adult fighters with ease, and [[What|considers destroying one's own resources and castles to be a viable strategy]]). Meanwhile, the main protagonist has found not one, but TWO miracle solutions that would allow mankind to fight back against the zombie plague, but no one will listen to him, especially not the main antagonist, both because of the above and because ''of course they wouldn't'', it's <s>grimderp</s> GRIMDARK.
**Ironically, Ancient Shintoism (a main religion of that period) has the only known anti-[[Nurgle|zombie]] deities: ''Kukuri hime no kami'', a goddess of purification ([[Reasonable Daemonette|''despite'' being rather sado-masochist]]) whose followers would bind a corpse with ropes, place a big stone on the chest and bury it (coffins are optional). [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Insane as it was]], it was the most common form of burial in the Jomon period, and never went completely out of date through all the medieval period. Despite the rites being a perfect defense against [[Dark Souls|an undead invasion]], apparently they didn't take in this setting. Three guesses why.
*Most dark fantasy/"Ryona" hentai like Redo of a Healer (see [[Edgy]] for details), Kuroinu, Maggot Baits and whatever bargain basement hentai game developer puts the heroines through horrifying rapes, tortures and debauchery with no way to escape, all for little more purposes than to degrade, humiliate and mind-break them.
* [[FATAL]].
* [[Black Tokyo]]
* About half of Garth Ennis's work goes so far around the bend that, if you don't stop caring about anyone in the story and put it down first, it becomes compelling or hilarious. Practically all of his original stories are drowning in grimderp (and author ax grinding). Prime examples include:
** The Boys: Almost every superhero is an irredeemable sexual deviant and loose cannon whose only crime fighting accomplishments come from corporate PR lies, and the story's protagonists are little better.
*** Surprisingly averted for the most part with its Amazon Prime adaptation. By actually making most of the heroes less unambiguously rotten, cutting down the childish silliness, making the violence less gratuitous and more justified, and making the Boys themselves more human, the series actually manages to be WAY darker than the comics. Hell, Billy Butcher actually contemplates MURDERING A CHILD in the series, which is something the way more psychotic Butcher of the comics would not. On the other hand, Homelander was made worse: Homelander's worst atrocities from the comics were actually done by Black Noir who was gaslighting him, while Homelander in the series really did those things and Black Noir has another story.
** Preacher: One of his most infamous works. An edgelord power fantasy against all Christianity, including/especially God, it revolves around a former priest with a mysterious power, his criminal ex and a heroin addicted vampire.
*** Even worse in the Amazon Prime adaptation. The salvageable parts of the plot were swapped out for even more edgelordery, a prime example is dinosaurs being extinct because God killed them all when one did something gross.
** Crossed: Another of his most infamous creations. Most of the world is dead or turned into [[Slaanesh|murder-raping sadists]] á la the Reavers from Firefly due to a virus with a visible symptom being boils forming a cross pattern on the infectee's face. Showing any courage will get you killed or turned into one of the aforementioned murder-rapists, and there are survivors that are just as fucked up as the infectees. Supposedly a dig at arm chair survivalists, it's now mostly remembered for being edgy for the sake of edginess and being overall boring as hell.
* Hatred: Remember how your family told you that GTA was breeding criminals and that games created "monsters"? Well, Hatred tries to cash in on that by making a game dedicated to killing innocent people and making a "parody" out of those reactions, but [[FAIL|fails miserably]] to do that. This is because not only is our main "hero" a complete asshole with literally nothing redeeming about him, but most of the gameplay consists on you shooting unnarmed civilians and members of the policy/military that are easy to beat, and coupled with the monochrome colors the game becomes ''very'' boring in a ''very'' quick pace. And unlike these old games that caused oh so much controversy, Hatred doesn't even have that good old orkish humor (unlike the video game "Postal 2") and tries to [[Serious Business|take everything inside it seriously]], which makes the "Grimdark" aspect come off as ''very'' dumb.
* [[Carl Sargent]]'s total rape of the [[Greyhawk]] setting in ''[[From The Ashes]]''. This is a unique case in that the grimdark was actually fairly well-done; it's that he had to fuck over the game's oldest and most-beloved setting by retconning out (ex.: The Horned Society) or altering to the point of demonization (ex.: Celene, the southern duchies) anything that disagreed with the new über-grimdark direction he wanted it to take that made it grimderp.
* Most of the anti-[[HFY]] content in the [[World of Darkness]], especially the unmitigated misanthropy in parts of [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]. Humans vary from 'Apathetic fools responsible for most of the world's ills' to 'Cackling, moustache-twirling villains', civilization and all its fruits are EVIL!, and [[Red Talons (Werewolf)|the tribe of bestiality-born werewolves that want to exterminate the human race down to pre-Stone Age levels]] are presented as heroes that're unequivocally morally justified in their actions both in and out of setting. [[FAIL|Yeah.]]
* Anything made by biggest hack in Hollywood, <s>Zack</s> Hack Snyder.
* LifeWeb: A complex SS13 spinoff taking place in a cave fortress of a neo-medieval world in the far future, combat is more lethal, and it claims to explore subjects like murder, corruption, rape(with no regard for age), torture, cultism and general human suffering. In reality, the themes it "explores" just means "it's in the game and you can do it" and it's a farce on every level possible.
* The ''Hearts of Iron IV'' mod ''The New Order: Last Days of Europe'' has numerous dystopian "failstates", but there are a few standouts.
** The first is the SS Ordenstaat Burgund, also known as Burgundy. Covering northeastern France and Belgium, Burgundy is ruled by [[Nazi|Heinrich Himmler and the SS]] as a giant concentration camp. Its sole purpose is genocide, first on the local and ultimately on the [[Exterminatus|global]] scale. When it isn't killing its own inhabitants, it's backing SS agents throughout the Third Reich's sphere of influence to further its cause of EEEVIL. Economic minister Oswald Pohl even points out that killing massive swathes of the nation's population just for not being Aryan isn't sustainable, but Himmler regards such criticism as treason. Realistically, Burgundy should have collapsed on itself before the game started, but it can stick around regardless. Playing as it is as difficult and miserable as you'd expect from a Holocaust management sim.
*** Recent updates have focused more on the "derp" than the "grim", apparently as a reaction to Burgundy's pre-rework supervillainy. Unlike before, where it could last into the '80s [[Plot Armor|because the plot would break otherwise]], nü-Burgundy experiences [[Not As Planned]] moments on a near-[[Abbadon|FAILbaddon]] scale. Himmler [[BLAM|shooting Oswald Pohl]] for his "treason" not only tanks the economy but also makes economic management ''impossible''. Over time, the slaves, French and Belgian collaborator legions, and even Burgundy's own ministers will eventually get fed up and rebel. If Himmler purges them, ''literally everyone else'' will rise up in an event called the "Burgundian Spring". Even in the rare event that Himmler actually gets his nuclear Holocaust, it ultimately fails; the "pure" Aryans he chose to preserve emerge from their bunkers...and peacefully join post-apocalyptic society without issue. Why? Himmler told them that only true Aryans would survive the nuclear holocaust, so they assume that [[Derp|all the survivors are Aryan ''by Himmler's definition'']], [[Wat|even if said survivors are Jewish or black]].
** The next is the entirety of Russia. What-was-once Soviet Russia has collapsed into several warlord states, and many of these are grimdark as fuck. Standouts include All-Russian Black League of Omsk, a hyper-nationalist warlord state led by revenge-mad ex-Soviet generals determined to launch a no-holds-barred genocidal war against Germany called the "Great Trial" (imagine if the [[Death Korps of Krieg]] ended up in charge of Russia and you have a pretty good idea); Hyperborea, which is Russia run by [[Chaos Space Marines|batshit-insane neo-pagan Slav supremacists who practice human sacrifice]]; and the Holy Russian Empire, which... honestly deserves its own section, it's so utterly glorious in its grimdark:
*** Russia is unified by a ultra-right wing Komi government headed by a deranged, self-loathing Jewish antisemite named Sergey Taboritsky who believes that [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Tsarevich Alexei miraculously survived the massacre of the Romanovs in 1918 and, like a proverbial king under the mountain, will come back to rule once Russia is sufficiently "purified"]]. To this end, Taboritsky implements "Esoteric National Socialism" i.e the "Burgundian System" (an even more extreme ideological offshoot of Nazism emphasizing inflicting horrible state-mandated cruelty on everyone living under it to strengthen the Aryan race) in Russia, creating a [[The Imperium of Man|theocratic totalitarian dictatorship]] that purges anyone deemed sufficiently "un-Russian", with an emphasis on the Jews. To this end Taboritsky deploys [[The Purge|copious amounts of chemical weapons against dissidents, including one named "Taborite" that melts people's flesh into slurry on contact]], to the extent that vast tracts of Russia are ecologically devastated for thousands of years. Murdering the mentally-ill and disabled children, burning priests at the stake, declaring that [[Inquisition|the idea of innocence ''doesn't exist'']] and changing laws so that even dropping your tools at work can get you tried and summarily executed; that kind of shit. In a world where Adolf Hitler not only exists but achieved even more of his evil plans to reshape the world than in real life, he is considered a ''secondary evil'' to Taboritsky. But eventually Taboritsky has a beautiful vision of Alexei coming back that turns into a vision of a little pile of bones with a bullet hole through the skull, and the old man realizes that Alexei is dead and not coming back and literally ''dies of despair''. This is only the ''very beginning'' of Taboritsky's wild ride and subsequent events show the nation's descent into complete insanity that has been affectionately named "Post-Taboritsky Meta-Horror Neo-Warlordism". Because nobody in their right mind would dare confront or question a man who might strangle you thinking you are Cain, everyone settles into default orders through sheer fear. Purification squads just... keep killing, until they lose their minds ''a la'' ''Heart of Darkness''; one soldier is so far-gone that he doesn't even recognize his own parents shortly after executing them. Factory workers are made to work themselves to death because the order to let them go home never comes through. Whole towns and swathes of Russia are completely destroyed by the army bombarding them with chemical weapons or abandoned as people begin ''fleeing west into Nazi Germany'' just to escape the horror. Eventually the armies, the ministers and even the ''flag'' of the Holy Russian Empire disappear, Russia turns into a black borderless DMZ, and the portrait changes to an unlit abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere and the nation gains the "Radio Silence" trait, with only one broadcast leaving the nation's borders, presumably forevermore: ''"REMAIN CALM. THE REGENT ENDURES. ALEXEI LIVES. THE HOLY RUSSIAN EMPIRE SHALL ENDURE. THERE IS MUCH WORK TO BE DONE"''. Apparently according to the developers, what Taboritsky does to Russia is ''so thorough that it's like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust'' and the trauma is so great that Russia will ''never'' reunify ''ever again''. The sheer number of references to the Imperium of Man in Taboritsky's path is sometimes seen as a message: in literally any setting except [[Warhammer 40,000]]'s unique circumstances, a theo-fascist state comparable to the Imperium is [[FAIL|doomed to auto-genocide]]. And it only gets worse from there...
*** The ''After Midnight'' update adds a post-Taboritsky epilogue and paints a nightmarish picture of what "Post-Taboritsky Meta-Horror Neo-Warlordism" fully entails. After a period of total anarchy where mechanized warbands of radicalized ultranationalist soldiers roam the country killing everyone they encounter, successor states eventually emerge headed by some of the most deranged and unstable people you can imagine. The Black League of Omsk becomes even more insane, expanding the Great Trial, a project of genocidal war against the Germans, to also include any "corrupted" Russians not outside their borders. The once-persecuted Kazakhs are launching genocidal crusades into Russia to wipe the Russian people from the earth as revenge. A band of Shturmoviki stranded in Omsk and driven mad by the revelation that the head of the Holy Russian Empire was a Jew have [[Chaos Space Marines|pledged their allegiance to Satan out of despair and madness, engaging in human sacrifice and inviting nihilistic thugs and serial killers into their ranks]]. Magadan is a wretched hive of smugglers and ex-fascist thugs. The Eurasian Republic is a megacorp warlord state convinced that explicitly rejects all dreams and ideals beyond sustaining the state, and that Russian national identity is so tainted irrevocably by the HRE that it seeks to create a new "Eurasian" identity in its place. I could go on.
* Kane & Lynch: Dog Days. The First game already bordered on Grimderp thanks to having two completely villanious outlaws going against others villanious outlaws, but avoided it by having an engaging if [[edgy]] plot, but the second game? Oh boy, it jumps the shark from grimvile to shitvile. Our "heroes" return, just as horrible as ever, except with the addendum that the game tries to create the [[Daemonculaba|most disgusting, creepy atmosphere]] possible - shaky camera in order to portray the protagonists diminishing mental health, flares that block your victims blown up parts and others thing done to really showcase violence as "disturbing". It "succeeds" while making the game completely unplayable as the shaky camera ends up being vomit-inducing, the screen being blocked by blood and trash coming off as more obnoxious than anything else and the lack of heroic, or even simpathetic motivation from the main characters making it impossible for a player to empathize with the [[edgy|omnicidal maniacs who by the end of the campaign have ruined the lives of hundreds of innocent people just save their own face]]. Your "reward" for going through this shit treck? A [[troll|clifhanger ending that doesn't promise a single good thing out of it]]. Imagine all the problems mentioned above regarding The Last Of Us 2, swap the zombie apocalypse scenario for a criminal story and slap outdated gameplay and an atmosphere done on purpose to be off-putting in it, and you have a game a player will barely endure a single playthrough - while at the same time not caring for any of the two assholes you are controlling. Or to quote our hate/fuck buddy from [[Zero Punctuation]]:
{{topquote|Much as the visuals succeed too well at being deliberately hideous, the characters succeed too well at being deliberately wankers. There's nothing fun about the game. No light relief, just one nauseating heap on unpleasantness after another, like a roadside café breakfast special by Jeffrey Dahmer.|Yahtzee}}

== Grim Tragedy ==
Naturally in a universe such as 40k, the grimdarkness of the setting would mean nothing if not tied into the ironic tragedy of the lore. This includes:

*[[Imperium|A species]] with so much potential, but so afraid of the dauntless perils of Chaos that they will brutally harass and execute entire populations out of mere suspicion, all to stop the spread of ruin while indirectly strengthening those who seek to destroy them (''particularly'' Chaos). They, as a people, have progressed massively in population, technology and power since their species conception, yet they, more than anyone else, have lost one vital element: their humanity.

*[[Eldar|A race who]] was once at a zenith of civilization and prosperity, capable of bending the very Gods to their will. But by their own hand reduced themselves to scattered isolated fleets and colonies always on the run; their pompous and arrogant leaders hide behind a dwindling sense of security based in superiority over other races who are far more successful and perhaps destined to be greater than they ever were. [[Dark Eldar|A number among them]], after their unholy and insidious near-demise, continue (with oblivious glee) to empower [[Slaanesh|the very being that brought them to ruin]] in order to save themselves.

*[[Orks|A race of creatures]] who possess the brightest "potential"; with near mastery over the psychic, near-natural physical perfection and almost limitless numbers from their highly successful methods of reproduction... And yet they are genetically restricted by an unquenchable thirst for conflict which drives each to idiocy, leaving them hopeless of advancing beyond simple barbarians.

*[[Necron|An ancient people]] who were so envious of their neighbors' lifespans that they were ready to cripple the entire galaxy just for the sake of petty superiority - a superiority neutered by their unwitting transformation into metaphorical and literal automatons. They are now mindless machines who, bar few, care nothing of their past and seek only one thing: Conquest. And those who still have their personalities are either insane, demented, depressed, brooding, psychotic, or any combination of these in various proportions.

*[[Tau|A newborn race]] who innocently believes that there can be peace and acknowledgement among each other. Unfortunately the sinister methods they employ hoping that it is for [[Greater Good|something better]] is slowly, but steadily driving them into the decadence that plagues the other species. In doing so they become proof, both of the fact that [[Horus|anyone]], [[Emperor|no matter their intentions]], can be corrupted, and also of the kindness that the rest have forsaken for damnation and despair...

*The fact that, despite tens of thousands of years of knowing nothing but war, these peoples are woefully unprepared for what is to come. No matter how many regiments can be raised or Craftworlds restored, what is out there is [[Tyranids|all consuming, diabolical and numberless...]] Unless, they are themselves on the verge of extinction, and as such, desperately trying to cross over the great void between galaxies, which implies fighting against [[Ork|invincibles foes]] and [[Ultramarines|fate dodging cheaters]] unnaturaly empowered by the grief of an [[Games Workshop|unspeakable Eldritch Abomination beyond the cosmos]]. The good option is that there are a thousand galaxies worth of the fucking bugs; the bad option is that there are billions upon billions of galaxies worth of the fucking bugs. The worse option is that billions upon billions galaxies worth of what is essentially the perfect organism is running away from something worse.

== See also ==
*[[Noblebright]]
*[[Edgy]]
*[[Eversor]]
*[[Lamenters]]

== External Links ==
* [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/grimdark KnowYourMeme has examples from outside of /tg/]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQAWBeFnkg8 Trope Talk: Grimdark], a analysis of the "Grimdark" style of storytelling and why it works (and why sometimes it doesn't)
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Grimdark

2022-12-16T14:31:38Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:C570:F909:4D50:3C58: /* IRL */ Also bullshit

{{Grimdark}}
[[File:P23436_p_v10_aa.jpg|300px|right|thumb|If your protagonist or antagonist isn't at least this [[edgy]], then you're probably doing Grimdark wrong.]]
[[Image:Lovepeace.png|thumb|right|It's totally the opposite of this.]][[Image:Inspector Grimgadget.jpg|thumb|right|Inspector Gadget, reimagined with a grimdark feel.]]
[[Image:Grimdark.jpg|thumb|right|Grimdark versions of the TMNT. Their mentor is a Skaven.]]
[[Image:Grimdarkery.jpg|thumb|right|Grimdark means war, and always endless, brutal war.]]
{{topquote|We are not men disguised as mere dogs, we are wolves disguised as men|Captain Muroto, ''Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade''}}
{{topquote|They say, 'Evil prevails when good men fail to act.' What they ought to say is, 'Evil prevails.'|Yuri Orlov, ''Lord of War''}}
{{topquote|Tᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɢʀɪɴᴅ ɪᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪɴᴇsᴛ ᴘᴏᴡᴅᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ sɪᴇᴠᴇ ɪᴛ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪɴᴇsᴛ sɪᴇᴠᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇɴ sʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴇ ᴏɴᴇ ᴀᴛᴏᴍ ᴏғ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴏʟᴇᴄᴜʟᴇ ᴏғ ᴍᴇʀᴄʏ ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴇᴛ... Aɴᴅ ʏᴇᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀᴄᴛ ᴀs ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs sᴏᴍᴇ ɪᴅᴇᴀʟ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ, ᴀs ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs sᴏᴍᴇ... Sᴏᴍᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛɴᴇss ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsᴇ ʙʏ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ɪᴛ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ ʙᴇ ᴊᴜᴅɢᴇᴅ.|DEATH, [[Discworld|Hogfather]] (while explaining that since humans believe that it does, the way we believe Santa or the "Hogfather" does, we make it so it does.)}}

'''Grimdark''' is an adjective derived from the tagline for [[Warhammer 40,000]], which states that "In the '''grim darkness''' of the far future, there is only war," and in some of the novels (at least a few of the [[Ciaphas Cain]] stories, for instance) it states straightforwardly, "in the '''grim dark''' future..." Whether this came after "grimdark" began to be popularly used as an adjective is not wholly clear (probably after). It is generally used to describe a dilapidated, dystopian "crapsack world" setting in which it would really suck to live, and it is the setting of Warhammer 40,000 itself. In fairness to the franchise and its defenders, this is because the published material primarily focuses on war and [[Chaos Gods|cults]] and other [[Daemonculaba|horrible things]]. There are supposed to be many pleasant and peaceful worlds and sectors in the Imperium, but they are mostly ignored as they are boring -- and when they DO appear in lore or fluff, they're usually to go from "0 problems" to "totally fucked", very quickly. It can also be used to describe artwork that has a ''grimdark'' feel, even if the setting itself would not normally be considered grim or dark, or something sinister or uncommonly threatening/intimidating in real-life. This often applies to fan-art and writefaggotry as well.

Depending on your own personal tolerances for grim darkness of course, it can be taken to the extreme, just like with all descriptive traits. There is a point in which it becomes more ridiculous than anything else, because everything is indefeasibly tragic all the time - the term for this being [[Grimdark#Grimderp|grimderp]], which is explained further below.

This is an accusation often leveled at Warhammer itself, and leads some to rail against "Grimdark" as a whole, decrying the concept as ridiculous attempts at [[edgy|edginess]] (typically by teenagers), and using the expression to refer solely to such over-the-top settings in a strictly pejorative manner. Others actually embrace this ridiculousness and run with it (including Warhammer 40K itself, due to being a much more obviously comedic setting [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|in early editions]]), insisting that the detractors or even the creators who take it seriously are making a mistake. Some people embrace the grimdarkness and mix it up with some humor (like painting Necrons with bright colors to make them look like edible candy figurines), especially if they are Ork players. But the schism between taking Warhammer's grimdarkness seriously or not is mostly visible with races such as the Tau, who are noticeably less grimdark ''visually'' than most of the other races and are either loved or absolutely hated for it (when not hated for being overpowered as shit). Meanwhile, another sizable percentage postulate that Grimdarkness lends greater moral and ethical complexity to a setting, based on [[Edgy|the fallacy that darkness always equals depth]]. Such people usually cite the works of Dan Abnett and many other Warhammer 40K writers to lend credence to such suppositions; these people are clearly ignoring that fact that most writers tone the grimdark WAY down. What, you didn't think the fact that the Imperium being an effective government, civilians having normal happy lives on par with the Scandinavians, Commissars who never *BLAM* their troops was odd? Needless to say, grimdark is [[Skub|a rather polarizing subject whose discussion often leaves little room for a middle ground]].

Speaking of, the polar opposite of grimdark is [[Noblebright]], a deliberate inversion of grim and dark nature where honor, chivalry, happiness and high adventure rule the day, as opposed to dying in a ditch from a supernatural plague as you run out of potable water and can no longer wait for the logistics department to process your dead comrades into something slightly more palatable before you start eating them. Oh, and being {{BLAM}}ed by a Commissar for even starting to look a little sad from these thoughts.

Although, it could be argued that 40K proper is actually Nobledark. Although the lore claims one man cannot make a difference and heroes are meaningless (Grim), we see the complete opposite of that actually happening in the lore. 40K fluff (40K, not just 30K) is crammed to bursting with heroes who made major differences. If anything, 40K seems to be about the difference one man ''can'' make rather than showing one man cannot make a difference. Even the events revolve around the Great Man idea of basically superheroes and supervillains moving the galaxy (and it's not just actual superhumans doing this). It is nonetheless a very dark setting, though.

== Common grimdark themes ==
*[[1984|Massive, imperialist, overbearing, bureaucratic, dystopian dictatorships]]; e.g. [[Imperium of Man|Nazi Germany clones]], [[Tau|Soviet Union/China clones]], or straight out examples of [[Paranoia|"Big Brother is watching you"]].
*Constant, never ever-ending warfare, usually as a horrific combination of outdated tactics and technology (And sometimes overly advanced technology). E.g., sending line infantry armed with single-shot [[Lasgun|Lasguns]] against a [[Bolter|Heavy Bolter]] nest.
*Horrifyingly large death tolls are perfectly normal. Genocide is also perfectly normal, and in many cases encouraged and espoused.
*Slavery is also perfectly normal, and sometimes considered a great necessity. Massive constructs are often built via slave labor.
*Everyone is racist towards non-humans/[[Eldar|elves]]/[[Mutant|mutants]]/[[Orks|fungus]]/[[Rak'gol|lizards]]/[[Slaugth|worms]]/[[Necrons|robots]]/[[Tyranids|aliens]]/[[Chaos|each other]]. Vice versa for literally every race.
*Speaking of xenophobia towards every species, those who express sympathy for a hated race and/or intermingle with said race, are usually publicly humiliated, tortured, and usually purged.
*Daily dose of [[HFY]]. [[Astral Knights|And]] [[Awesome]].
*[[Shadowrun|The vast majority are poor people who literally live in shit, pollution, crime]], and a plethora of [[Nurgle|all kinds of filthy diseases]], except for a [[Monopoly|few greedy upper 1% who own 99.9% of everything. This has become increasingly ironic as 0.1% of our real world population began to own 99.999% of everything.]]
*You, a poor bastard, are being farmed for shits and giggles by said few greedy upper 1%.
*Most of the poor bastards are being forced to work 23 hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, in factories and/or forced labour camps, until their bodies give out. Forever.
*They're probably making weapons and equipment for [[Imperial Guard|the military]] (which is where the rest of the poor bastards are).
*[[Age of Strife|Dark, disgraceful and recondite past]] covered with [[Alpha Legion|lies]] [[Imperium|propanganda]], [[Tzeentch|deception]] and [[Eldar|partiality]].
*The Higher Powers do indeed give you consideration, they're just malevolent as all fuck.
*Chronic backstabbing. Just like in real life relationships. (''Who hurt you?'')
*[[Ork Snipers|"Frie]][[Marines Malevolent|ndly]] [[Kharn|fire"]]
*[[Space Marines|Child]] [[Imperial Guard|soldiers]]. Just like in real life.
*Your morning alarm clock is the stray bullets you hope don't hit you, from [[Necromunda|the gangsters doing a drive-by on their enemy who happens to be in the same district]] to whom you don't even belong to or like.
*Status quo is god. [[Nurgle|Literally.]]
*[[Tzeentch|Change is worse]].
*[[Cyberpunk|Cybernetics and cyborgs]]; the less human, the better.
*[[Commissar|Daily forecasts reguarly call for a 80% chance or more of *BLAM*]].
*[[Judge Dredd|Police]] [[Adeptus Arbites|brutality]].
*Even minor crimes can have major punishments.
*[[Inquisition|Being innocent or even a victim of crime can be counted as a crime]]. All participants in a crime, whether perpetrator or victim, are charged.
*[[Inquisition|Government agencies that are always there to fuck you over]] at the slightest hint of [[heresy]].
*Did I mention that the [[Inquisition]] commits planetary genocide 24/7?
*The [[Erebus|cock]][[Dark Eldar|suckers]] responsible for most of the shittiness are not only getting away with it, but are surviving and thriving, without becoming major targets for the [[noblebright]] forces.
*Torture that makes the CIA look like saints.
*[[Call of Cthulhu|Sanity checks]].
*Criminally insane delusional psychotics tortured in filthy mental asylums (in case of no/failed SAN checks).
*[[H.P. Lovecraft|Disgusting, horrifying, tentacled eldritch abominations]] that are often the cause of aforementioned criminal insanity.
*Rape. Just like in real life. ([[/d/|And often by said tentacled Eldritch Abominations]].)
*Surgery without anesthesia.
*[[Cannibalism]], in three forms:
*# For power (embracing the myth of "you are what you eat").
*# For food value; sometimes this is concealed by callous authorities as some other kind of food; sometimes, it's just a biological, cultural or desperation thing.
*# For the sheer fun of it.
*Want chemotherapy or some other expensive treatment? Well, you have to eviscerate that old dropout student of yours in order to pay.
*In fact even surgery without anesthesia is a luxury available only to wealthy or important ones, as are all other forms of medicine. 99% of people are expected to die when they fall sick or get injured. That is when they don't get executed FOR falling sick or getting injured.
*[[Fleshcrafting|Human experiments]]. [[Fabius Bile|Sometimes willingly, but most of the time not]]!
*Zombie plagues.
*Ritual cult sacrifices.
*Massive amounts of blood, gore, guts, pain and hatred.
*No personal opinion or choice. Only the illusion of it, in which you probably end up an [[Magnus|unwil]][[Mortarion|ling]] [[Rubric Marines|sla]][[necron|ve]]. Or...[[Chaos spawn|something worse]].
*Anti-intellectualism.
*...and it's justified because even an instant of unprotected thinking risks mass destruction.
*PTSD.
*Nihilism.
* Racism is actually right.
*Gothic and emo aesthetics (with the help of tons of ''"decorative"'' skulls).
*There are no "good guys". Everyone's a jerk, including yourself. ''Especially yourself.''
* Everyone is evil either because they’re just plain monsters or because they are trying to survive which makes everyone evil to everyone else.
*[[Tau|The guys everyone refer to be "good" or "nice"]] are actually just ''the least'' evil bunch, and would still make your average high fantasy/sci-fi arch-villains look like saints in comparison.
*The REAL good guys are either [[Lamenters|the ones (usually) mostly hated, and are going to get fucked over beyond human recognition usually without any logical reason]] or [[Salamanders|too few to make any difference]].
*Aforementioned "good guys" are only "good" because they do care about their allies and civilians, and generally try to make the place less shitty for those they care for. But they still wouldn't hesitate a second before doing pretty horrible things like [[Shadowrun|terrorist actions against "The Man"]], [[Warhammer 40k|killing a defenseless xeno child]], etc...
* The aforementioned defenseless xeno-child needed to be killed either because it was guaranteed to grow up to be a monster, would grow to compete for resources needed for survival, would be corrupted, was already a monster, or any number of reasonable justifications that would leave a modern man in frustrated tears trying to justify not killing it. Welcome to Warhammer 40,000.
*Magic is [[Warp|inherently malevolent]] and actively seeks to [[Cenobites|corrupt]] and [[Khorne|destroy]] those unfortunates 'gifted' with magical abilities. And everything around them at the time.
*You either die a [[Sanguinius|worthy death]] or you live long enough to see yourself becoming something that [[Mortarion|you've]] [[Perturabo|always]] [[Fulgrim|hated]].
*Everyone will most likely die in the end. Especially the ones important to and including the main character.
*Always polluted, never sunny.
*No ice cream. No lollipops either.
*Death or suicide will only make things much, much worse in [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraftian]] levels, as a hive of disgusting, incomprehensibly evil supernatural daemons are waiting patiently to eternally torment your un-life and roast your soul alive day and night forever and ever, again and again and again and again.
*Tremendous potential for offensive/dark comedy/[[lulz]].
*[[God-Emperor of Mankind|And if you ever, EVER try to change this shitty world or try to help one person just a little, you will probably suffer terrible consequences,]] because altruism is a dying philosophy. (And because your reasoning is flawed.)
*Life sucks.
*There's only war.
*You're probably going to get eaten by Tyranids.
*no gf
*Good luck and [[Dwarf_Fortress|have fun.]]
*Even using the wrong calendar is [[heresy]].

== Stuff considered Grimdark ==

[[File:Tyrus.jpg|400px|thumb|A world where the only way to beat grimdark is by introducing something even grimmer and darker]]
[[File:The_grimdarkian_by_ironshrinemaiden_d1i73bl.jpg|400px|thumb|[https://www.deviantart.com/ironshrinemaiden/art/The-Grimdarkian-91030161| The Grimdarkian, by IronShrineMaiden]]]
===/tg/===
* '''''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''''' (Naturally, coined the term).
* '''''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]''''', <strike>but less than you'd think. It's a lot closer to nobledark</strike> until the world [[Derp|was]] [[Bullshit|actually]] [[End Times|destroyed]]. Now, [[Age of Sigmar]] continues it and is slightly better, in so much that it is unlikely to be destroyed, though [[Warhammer Meta-Setting|that may imply an even worse eternal stalemate]].
* '''[[Grimdark Songwriting]]'''
* '''''[[Dark Sun]]'''''
* '''''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'''''
* '''''[[CthulhuTech]]'''''
* '''''[[Don't Rest Your Head]]'''''
* Playing mortals in '''''[[Exalted]]'''''
* '''''[[FATAL]]'''''
* '''''[[Kingdom Death]]'''''. Makes 40k's setting seem pleasant and cheerful.
* '''''[[Midnight]]''''' setting for D&D.
* '''''[[Paranoia]]''''' (though used for parodying 1984).
* '''''[[Pokemon Tabletop Adventures]]''''' (optionally).
* '''''[[RIFTS]]'''''
* '''''Fragged Cyberpunk''''': A prequel to the more optimistic Fragged Empire. Fragged Cyberpunk focuses on the twilight years of humanity as Habsburgian levels of genetic erosion and degradation leave it only a few centuries of life, while the powers that be, that could cure it do not bother and instead focus their efforts on terraforming hospitable worlds for their new, engineered super species. All the while herding humans into cramped cities on dead planets that are effectively concentration/death camps for what remains of mankind.
* '''''[[Shadowrun]]'''''. While not the worst in the grimdark department, Shadowrun definitely has its moments (the Renraku Archology Shutdown being a prime example); for instance the oppressive megacorporations reducing people to an identification number, with people not having one ([[Derp|for... reasons]]) don't exist legally.
* '''''SLA Industries'''''. Imagine if the Emperor was not only still walking around, but was a callous businessman with a permanent skeleton face and no bling armor. Imagine a civilization that exists almost entirely to strip mine itself in the name of consumerism, with snuff television being the primary source of entertainment and anyone trying to do business not on SLA's pay roll being branded a "Soft Company" to be exterminated. Oh, and truly horrid aliens that were thought extinct centuries ago are now making a comeback AND occult fuckery of varying flavors is manifesting in increasing amounts in Mort City, SLA's capital.
*'''''[http://www.synthiciderpg.com/ Synthicide]'''''. "When robots are gods, killing humans is fair game." In the deep darkness of the far, post-mutagen virus future, Human life is worthless (Murder and theft against them and each other is entirely legal), murder of sentient bots (Who are given free-range to torment humans with impunity after being let go from service to the major faction that makes them), however is one of the greatest offenses, and one the PC's are bound to commit at some point in their careers. Also, everything has a black and white color pallete.
* '''''[[Unhallowed Metropolis]]''''', a game representing probably the outer limits of how Grimdark you can go without sliding into Grimderp.
* '''''[[World of Darkness]]''''', with special mention going to [[Wraith: The Oblivion]], a game so bleak it's rumored to have actually caused fits of chronic depression in players.

===Vidya===
* '''''Armored Warfare'''''. Terrorist/ultra-nationalist/anarchists with tanks, corporations that rule and enslave large portions of the world and the rest of the world might as well be a wasteland, as far as we know.
* '''''Barotrauma''''' : Inspired by Space Station 13, centered on a submarine crew in the underground oceans of Europa. Crew members are expendable, you're ''always'' outgunned, the submarine is almost [[Death World|constantly under attack by massive sea creatures]], and most missions are much more likely to end in disaster than success. Also, you explode as soon as you step outside the sub.
* '''''[[Battletech]]''''' about half the time. On a good day, mercenaries fight proxy wars and follow the Geneva convention to keep damage and body counts low, ComStar keeps everyone in line, and "bombed back to the stone age" actually means "your spaceships blew up and you enjoy a comfortable 1990s era lifestyle." On bad days, the Crusader Clans storm in and break everything, the Word of Blake jihad starts nuking everyone they don't like, and all FTL communication breaks plunging the galaxy into a new dark age, erasing centuries of political and technological progress.
* '''''[[Darkest Dungeon]]'''''. Your ancestor awakened some kind of God that is pretty much Cthulhu's brother and sent you a letter before killing himself, asking you to mop up the huge mess he created. Enjoy sending parties of 4 adventurers ranging from badass lepers to sickle-wielding jesters to their deaths in cultist-infested ruins, sewers filled with mutated cannibalistic pigmen, sea caverns serving as anthropomorphic sea creatures and forests corrupted by evil. And I'm not going to talk about the Darkest Dungeon itself. Also, have fun dealing with those bandits that are raiding the Hamlet for which you spent a fuckton of resources in upgrades.
* '''''Bet On Soldier/Iron Storm''''': WW1 got extended by 80 years, leading to a world where war is everything (including a televised past time), peace is considered a horrifically dissident ideal and there is a shadowy cabal behind the scenes plotting to make the war last forever. We're pretty sure the creators are Warhammer fans since one of the DLC bosses is an Inquisijanny stamping out heresies (read: you infected with the vampire curse).
* '''''Bloodborne''''' or the love child of Dark Souls (gameplay) and Lovecraftian mythology (its main inspiration for setting and theme). Another masterpiece from FROM software and Hidetaka Miyazaki. TLDR, the game is a mix of elritch horrors, omnipotent creatures which are fundementally gods and Dark Souls, though this time there is no fire to link, only FEAR.
* '''''[[Cyberpunk 2077]]'''''
* '''''Dark Seed''''', Grimdark to the core! the first game is about the main character being fucked in the head. HR Giger's artwork helps too.
* '''''Dark Souls'''''. The entire ''world'' is ''dying''. Specifically, most of the population is undead, you die constantly, and you have to fight enemies larger and filthier than you are, [[Heresy|including a naked bitch with a spider vagina]]. Also, [[Extra Heresy|FAKE TITS]]. Stuck in an infinite loop where a hero constantly saves the world, and everything goes back to normal before hitting another grimdark cycle every thousand years. Compare with nobledark and check your mileage.
* '''''Dead Space'''''. A group of human discovered a device of unknown origin called a '''Marker''' and it turned them into undead alien monsters. In the sequel, it was revealed Markers were created by a long extinct alien species, and the Markers continue to infect other intelligent species, to the point the corpses of their entire civilizations formed into a [[Atropus|giant undead moon capable of telepathically mind fucking people]].
*'''''Destiny''''': While the game itself is Noble Bright/Neutral, the lore is definitively Grim Dark. Entire civilisations were destroy by the Darkness, Brainiac style. Humanity is reduced to one big city on Earth, literally under a the protection of a paracausal entity, the Traveller, that actively help you AND your enemies. Through experimentation that would make [[Fabius Bile]] proud, millions of humans were transform into robot to fight a secret and seemingly endless war against temporal machines. At one point, you and your kind, the Guardians, were hunted down to serve as battery, and the carcass of your companions, the Ghosts, which give you your "immortality", were used as currency. And I did not talk about the Hive and their Gods.
* '''''Dishonored''''' - Grimdark, and steampunk. Only in the "Kill fucking everyone" ending though.
* '''''[[Doom]]'''''. Demons from Hell have overrun Mars and Earth. You are the lone space marine capable of anything. Somewhat of a subversive case of grimdark: it's not you who is afraid of demons, [[awesome|it's the demons who are afraid of you]]. Commence with the [[Rip and Tear]].
* '''''Drakengard''''' and its related franchise: '''''Nier'''''. Basically, the "god" in this setting is a massive dick so he infects humans with zombie aids out of boredom and watch them kill each other for the [[lulz]]. You play Caim, a mute [[rip and tear|zombie slaughter enthusiast]] who teams up with a blind pedophile priest, a baby eating elf witch, and a ageless shota. The true ending for the game involves Cain and his dragon transporting the queen of the Lovecraftian Watchers to a greyscale version of Tokyo (Yes, the Tokyo of our world) and engages it in a rythm-based battle of song. After defeating it, the queen disintegrates into particles that start turning the entire population into salt statues, while Caim and his dragon [[fail|get shot down by fighter jets.]]
* '''''Elden Ring''''', aka [[meme|Dark Souls 2: Electric Boogalooo]]. The titular metaphysical object responsible for the previous prosperity of the world has been shattered, the demigods are in an eternal stalemate, and you are called upon to decide the fate of the Lands Between. A magnum opus of a collaboration between FROMsoft, Miyazaki, and George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. Like the other Soulsborne (would it be Soulsborne''ring'' now?) games, be prepared to die. A lot.
** '''''Nier''''' takes place 1462 years into the future. After countless grimdark conflicts involving child soldiers, human experiments and more resource shortages, a scientist decided to separate the rest of the survivors' souls (gestalt) from their bodies, hoping they could outlast a mind rape pandemic. But of course all these attempts are futile failures because Nier, our "hero" ended up killing the only thing that could save humankind, dooming them all to extinction.
*** Finally we have '''''Nier: Automata''''', 8480 years later, where androids were created by the last human survivors. But the humans that escaped to the moon turn out to be long dead. When the rest of androids find out, they proceed to kill themselves in a batshit frenzy. To make this even more painful and tragic, the androids have the human concepts of pain and emotions programmed to them, making their death even more painful.
* '''''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'''''
* '''''Factorio'''''. You're a lone human, aliens want to kill you, everything you do makes smog, and your goal is to cover the world in industry, concrete, machines, and gun turrets. The world isn't dead when you arrive, but you're damn well going to kill it yourself or die trying.
* '''''Grim Dawn'''''. A farming game about a never-ending struggle between humans and multiple otherworldly powers.
* '''''Hellgate London'''''
* '''''I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream'''''. Just the title itself should give you a clue on how horrific the game is. (The video game is terrifying, especially with its endings, and the short story it is based on is even more horrifying). Humanity has been wiped out except for five people, who trapped inside a complex controlled by a misanthropic, reality-warping supercomputer keeping them alive to torture them and altered their minds and/or bodies in cruelly ironic ways.
* '''''LISA the RPG.'''''
* '''''Lobotomy Corp/Library of Ruina AKA Project Moon's setting'''''. To summarize its setting, think of it as Shadowrun with less gun, more melee combat, and subtle rants on corporate dystopias. Also has a bit of philosophies and studies on human behavior, personalities and emotions. Read more on their lore wiki.
* '''''Madness Combat'''''. No regret, no remorse, no reason, only [[Khorne|madness]].
* '''''Mass Effect'''''. While its universe is hardly grimdark overall, the Reapers and what happens to "harvested" individuals are some of the sickest forms of grimdark possible. During the Reaper War, trillions of people across the galaxy were vaporized, crushed, dissolved slowly and/or violently converted into cyber zombies or brainwashed slaves. And that's just the latest Reaper War. The Reapers have committed so much galactic genocide beforehand, they turned it into a regularly scheduled event and made the galaxy their farm/laboratory.
** There is also the Genophage, a bioweapon deployed against the Krogan race as to halt the Krogan Rebellions. This bioweapon was basically a massive, permanent genetic Fetus Deletus that dramatically lowered Krogan birthrates and caused a lot of stillbirths (literal "piles of children that never lived" - actual in-game quote). If that wasn't bad enough, they live on a death-world and have a warlike culture, so this puts them at risk of extinction. And if THAT wasn't bad enough, they've been suffering under the Genophage for over a thousand years after the Krogan Rebellions ended, with prior attempts to cure it unsuccessful or sabotaged.
* '''''Path of Exile'''''. The game's setting is basically a documentary on the corruption of [[Roman Empire]].
* '''''Portal''''' once you get past the memes
* '''''Postal'''''. Not the sequels, which play the violence for laughs and topical humor, or the crap Uwe Boll movie, just the first game and it's remake (''Postal Redux''). Once you get past all the shock and outrage of being a forefather of the [[Satanic Panic|"Ban Violent Video Games"]] movement, you'll realize that this game is genuinely fucked up with its imagery and the protagonist is a mentally unwell individual.
* The '''''Prototype''''' games. New York City is infected with a virus created by a generically-unethical corporation called GenTek that mutates people into mutant zombies and/or fucking huge deformed beasts. A secret division called Blackwatch is sent to brutally contain the virus, except it turns out they originally created the virus as a way to purge minorities. This may sound like Resident Evil but the resemblance ends here because you play as Alex Mercer (Prototype 1) and James Heller (Prototype 2), both of them infected by a strain the virus and became superhumans who can shapeshift and gain someone's memories by consuming them (read violently absorbing them into their bodies) and can grow weapons like claws or a blade arm.
* '''''[[Space Station 13]]''''' : Space paranoia simulator set in a dystopian future where capitalism and unforgiving bureaucracy rules the universe, your life is expandable, and the media is controlled; your only choice is working until you die, or getting killed by either rival corporate operatives, space wizards, cultists, deathsquads or spies posing as your co-workers.
* '''''Total War: Attila'''''. Unlike the previous Total War titles, which were about your faction's rise to power from small backwater city/tribe/country into a mighty empire able to boss around its neighbors into doing your bidding, this one is about the decline of your faction as you desperately try to survive the onslaught of the Huns, who's sole purpose in the game is to worship Tengri by burning, pillaging, and raping their way through the known world. Particularly if you are the Romans. Winning is defined by being the last guy standing who gets to clean up the rubble and dead bodies, trying to rebuild their world after Attila destroyed it. Seriously, even the music sounds depressing and foreboding as fuck.
* '''''[[Humanity Fuck Yeah|X-Com]]''''' (The remake and the original, as a parody of the G.I. Joe Badass stereo type, you're struggling with funding and even your gods in human form, some of whom make certain chapters of Astartes weep, can get fucked over by Sectoids!)

===Animation and Comics===
* '''''[[Adventure Time]]''''''s backstory.
* The first two seasons of '''''Animals of Farthing Wood''''', a animated series for kids ''infamous'' for having graphic depictions of violence and a death rate of major characters on par with Game of Thrones. Notable deaths in the series include but are not limited to: the pheasants, a couple who die at a farm in an extremely cruel manner; three baby mice who are all killed onscreen by a shrike, a bird infamous for impaling its prey; and the hedgehogs. While trying to cross a road, have to fight not to curl up into a ball... but eventually, the husband goes crazy, unable to stop himself from curling up, and his wife elects to stay with him, leading to both their deaths when a lorry runs them over.
* '''''Armored Trooper Votoms''''', an old-school mech anime. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Mankind has been at war for so long that even the computers created to direct strategy don't know what the goal is]]. War isn't glorious either, most of the first arc is about a squad that goes rogue and raids their own side's armory to find some loot. While the mech designs aren't pretty or fancy, they are more industrial and utilitarian than many contemporaries, being repurposed exo-suits. The main character is a [[Perpetual]] done right, through a mix of natural regeneration abilities, skills and nigh supernatural luck; unlike, you know, [[Vulkan]], who was just handed something that should have probably belong to all Primarchs just so that he could make [[Horus|some]] [[Sanguinius|people]] [[Ferrus Manus|jealous]].
[[File:Digimon_Tamers_Nope_Nope_Nope!.jpg|300px|right|thumb|[[RIP AND TEAR|It was going to be a kids show they said. It was going to be as whimsical as Pokemon they said...]]]]
* '''''Attack on Titan'''''. You cannot win, ever. And if you do, you've probably lost all your friends, who've been eaten by giant freaky Mutants, who don't even need food. Yeeeah.
* '''''Ava's Demon'''''. A planet is destroyed by Silent Scavengers, which are Tyranids and Necrons mixed together, then the main character ends up impaled when they crash land, her soul going to turn into space dust until she agrees to help the demon who's been possessing her since she was born to get revenge on TITAN, who can at best be described as the God-Emperor if he were every negative stereotype about the Imperium taken to the extreme and then some.
* '''''[[Blame!]]'''''
* '''''[[Berserk]]'''''
* '''''Devilman'''''. Especially CRYBABY
* '''''[[Digimon: Digital Adventures|Digimon Tamers]]'''''. (Digimon as a franchise is noted to be surprisingly dark and adult for a kids anime in the 'Mon' genre, but Digimon Tamers is exceptionally depressing even by the series standard. Children attempting suicide, child abuse, attempted murder on a child, multiple on-screen deaths of major characters, torture, psychological mind rape on a young girl, PTSD on said young girl, eldritch abominations, horror and psychological horror. You think Tamers would have a happy ending? Lolnope, Tamers has a bittersweet ending in which the main kids lose their Digimon partners <u>''for ever''</u>. This is what happens when you allow a guy notorious in psychological horror anime to do a kids show. There is a reason why Tamers is considered the Neon Genesis Evangelion for kids.) Unsurprisingly, the writer has written Cthulhu Mythos short stories.
** '''''Digimon Adventure Tri''''' (aimed towards adult fans of the series) takes Tamers up a notch in just plain creepiness. Deaths, assisted suicide, infanticide of Digimon babies, psychological damage, grief-induced madness, corruption, attempted genocide, racial supremacy, racism, immense property damage with collateral damage and attempted rape from the series' former mentor and teacher becoming a creepy sexual predator molesting one of the main characters and choking another one to near death (Both female by the way). Digimon doesn't fuck around.
* '''''Dorohedoro'''''. The entire setting is a massive slum, with horrible pollution, mass poverty, and human body parts polluting the waterways. Your options for living are being a normal human, living in poverty and treated like toys, lab rats, and livestock by the various magic users. Or being a [[psyker|magic user]], and either be lynched by the terrified normies or captured by other magic users and boiled down to make drugs. And if you're a magic user, regardless of how good you are when you die you're [[Warp|guaranteed to be sent to hell to be tortured by devils for all eternity]] ([[Daemon Prince|unless you become a devil yourself]]). Or being a devil, and worry about being [[Tzeentch|screwed over by your boss for shits and giggles]] or eaten by Store, who is implied to be an angel and treats devils the same way devils treat mortals. Or being said boss, [[Necron|and dick around with people for all eternity because you're absolutely bored with existence]], can't die, and are horribly lonely since you can't form a meaningful bond with anyone else.
* '''''Dragon Ball Z: History of Trunks'''''. Could just be expanded to Trunks' timeline in general. Dragon Ball has always been known as a sort of noble bright anime, but ''this'', damn. Everyone is either dead, dying, or living in fear of two walking machines of pure evil. And then when Trunks does actually take care of his enemies, another more powerful one shows up and just sends everything back to the way it was. Even the parody of this movie is oddly depressing.
* Most good 'Real Robot' anime/video games. Further discussion will result in [[skub]].
* '''''Elfen Lied'''''. Where the next step of the evolution of mankind is a group of schizophrenic homicidal mutant girls with invisible tentacle hands and a hair-trigger temper who will either kill you in the worst way possible or [[Genestealer|infect you with their gene to increase their numbers]].
* '''''[[Emergence aka Metamorphosis]]'''''. 177013.
* '''''Everything is Fine'''''. A horror webtoon about a seemingly perfect society where everyone wears giant cat masks with cutesy expressions, have to pretend that everything is fine at all times and be perfectly moral, upstanding citizens... or watch their kids commit suicide in real-time. In other words, it's a horrific dystopia taking the image of a perfect suburb where you are made to ignore everything that is going wrong, or those you love most kill themselves horribly, then you get kicked to the curb as a broken shell of a human being, forgotten and ignored.
* '''''Full Metal Alchemist''''': The World is coated by a side of Noblebright at the beginning but morphs into 1984 the more you watch/read. The world Amestris starts out as fine and dandy (despite being a fascist military Dictatorship (the head of state is literaly called [[nazi|führer]])), then it morphs into a world where the Main Country (Amestris.) is at constant war with almost all it's neighbors commits Genocides Left and right and Murder's anyone who finds out the dark truth.
* '''''The Goon''''' comic series by Eric Powell (because circus hillbillies, werewolves with midget hand phobias, and the Zombie Priest are the least of it all).
* '''''GANTZ'''''
* '''''[[Goblin Slayer]]'''''. Pretty much [[Berserk]] if it was set in a Dungeons and Dragons world.
* '''''Grave of the Fireflies'''''. The plot of film is "A pair WW2 of orphans from a high ranking officer in the brutal Japanese military freeloads off on his aunt's goodwill then refuses to sell his mother's clothes and piano and sets off on his own without a plan, only for him and his sister to starve to death." The movie is taken by 99% of the viewers overseas as showing how innocent the Japanese were, but the Japanese see it as an allegory about the leaders of Japan (the older brother) disregarding the suffering of their own people (his little sister), telling them childish propaganda that they are doing really well in war, and then obliging the childish tantrums of the populace enabled by such propaganda. '''This is an allegory of Japan,''' when shit hit the fan, told people to press on and declared everyone must sacrifice their life for the one true living god that is Emperor Hirohito.
** Even in this period millions of people did what work they could find to feed themselves despite the war time inflation brought on by the wars they started, yet the protagonist would not "deign" menial labor because he was the son of a rich, high ranking Naval officer. ''Starvation was NOT rampant in Japan, but the protagonist (Japan)'s arrogant laziness and subsequent death was an allegory of making his bed and sleeping in it.'' Note how while it wasn’t easy, they WEREN'T starving when they were under their “evil” aunt's care.
*** For instance, the day the battleship Yamato sank in 1945, it was scheduled to serve the men aboard canned beef, canned red bean rice, and sweet bean porridge for dessert.
** This movie was based on a book by Akiyuki Nosaka who lived through WW2 as a boy. He admittedly regretted killing his toddler of a little sister by hungrily stealing food from her and dashing her head against the ground and giving her concussions when she would cry about it. The novel was to be his penance of sorts.
*** This is still absolutely nothing compared to what the Japanese were doing to other colonies though, '''it was rather 2 million Vietnamese that were butchered to rob and feed Japanese,''' just between October of 1944 to August of 1945 alone. Not counting all the families traumatized or permanently crippled via malnutrition. Thankfully the war ended with an Allied victory that put a quick end to this, Japan surrendered because of USSR's August push through Manchuria and was poised to land on Japan proper (Japan did not surrender because of American nukes which they themselves were busy making unlike the Nazis who didn't bother. Japanese high command got casualty reports like that everyday at the end of the war, they were only afraid of being split in two like Germany did in May. Japan also sent only foreign slaves to clean up the radiation and killed them afterwards to hide their war crimes.) In Korea people were dying from intestinal bleeding from eating boiled tree barks too rough for the human body as a regular prolonged diet because anyone who touched the crops were beaten or executed, because food was robbed and taken to Japan. In Korea particular, due to proximity, the nation’s hills were rendered barren dirt hills for all the trees were cut down to make desperate turpentine oil that was going to be a makeshift fuel source for ships and planes, sent to Japan once the Southeast Asian territories and their oil fields were liberated by Allies. The dead cannot speak and the [[grimdark|living can whine louder about the troubles they faced,]] that's why so many killings happened at the end of the war to hide war crimes.
*** Director Takahata Isao himself said this is '''NOT an anti-war anime,''' but an allegory of idealists bringing people death. Also note he is a rare kind in modern Japan who accuses the Japanese government for all the sins of WW2, and used to fight the riot police who were quelling anti-imperialists like him. Note that Japan is a place where saying Japan was at fault can get one shot dead. Mayor Motoshima of Nagasaki in 1990 got shot in the heart for accusing his government of starting the wars that got his city nuked. Mayor Itoh got shot in the heart for saying the same in 2007. There's just no way ordinary criminals could get their hands on a gun in a country with really tight gun control laws, [[Assassin|unless...]]
* '''''[[Hellsing]]'''''... just all of Hellsing... Though it can easily slide into grimderp. (A little girl seeing her mother killed while hiding in a closet? Yeah that's intense. In a moment of desperation, shove a rod into the guy's eyeball, only for him to not be mortally wounded? That's pretty unfortunate. Said guy deciding to fuck the corpse as his smashed eyeball hangs from the socket? That's just silly.)
**'''''Drifters''''', by the same author. The protagonists are a bunch of [[murderhobo|kill-happy murderhoboes]] drawn from various psychos from all throughout history into [[Isekai|a generic fantasy world]] who have decided to [[Great Crusade|save the world by conquering it, one country at a time]]. One of the major powers of the setting turns out to have been founded by ''Adolph friggin' Hitler''. Even Joan of Arc, who IRL was noted for being a pacifist, is warped into a bloodthirsty psycho. The [[BBEG]], who wants to kill all humans (and is noted to be a step up from his subordinates, who want to kill [[Necron|everything]]) is all but outright stated to be ''Jesus''.
* The '''Kerberos''' trilogy, but special mentions to '''Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade'''. A series of films that basically gave birth to Killzone singlehandedly (Seriously, look at the comparisons between the Helghast and the film's Protect Gear, [[Original character, do not steal|it is ''blatant'']]). Set in an alternate-history where Japan was occupied by Germany rather than America at the end of WW2. In Jin-Roh, the nation is constantly in social turmoil with left-wing communist terrorist guerillas using children as bomb couriers against two police force of Japan: the normal-looking police force (Backed by the Japanese KGB/CIA hybrid) and the <u>'''ORIGINAL'''</u> Helghasts called the Kerberos Panzer Cops. Jin-Roh is a political thriller film that largely talks about the problems of the "Good guy, bad guy" dichotomy and how juvenile it is for stories to portray these things in real life. All of the films have a downer ending, so if you are looking for a happy ending, you're gonna get dissapointed. Despite what [[/pol/|some people]] [[SJW|may argue,]] the Kerberos trilogy is a condemnation of all extremist ideas and actions. Its a Mamoru Oshii film of Ghost in the Shell fame, what do you fucking expect.
* '''''Magical Girl Site'''''. So grimdark it makes Meguca look Noblebright.
* '''''Made in Abyss'''''. A death world disguised as a cute loli adventure featuring on-screen death and mutilation, child labor, and philosophical exploration of just how far humanity can go before completely losing it.
* '''''Muv-Luv''''' Often compared to 40k in how bleak and brutal the series is.
* '''''Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind'''''. A manga/anime film made by Hayao Miyazaki, yes you heard us right. The man who was the main founder of Studio Ghibli and gave us childhood gems such as Totoro, Spirited Away and Ponyo, gave us a Science-Fantasy Epic of the brutality of war. Nausicaa, especially the manga, does not shy away from human slavery, biological WMDS, genocides, nuclear holocaust, a gratuitous amount of inferred and overt infanticides, inquisitorial purging and the likes.
* '''''Neon Genesis Evangelion''''' (Especially End).
* '''''Now and Then, Here and There'''''. The setting takes place in an alternate world, ''10 billion years'' into the future where the [[Xeelee Sequence|sun is about to go into a red giant]] and whatever scraps of humanity are fighting each other for the last remaining sources of water. Expect a lot of child soldiers, child abuse, child torture, child rape and ethnic cleansing to a scarily realistic degree. This is a post-post-apocalyptic world that is designed to break the viewers. It is an anime darker than 40k despite the 'happy' ending due the sheer levels of nihilism and unforgiving horrors of human depravity.
* '''''[[Isekai|Re:Zero]]'''''
* '''''The Promised Neverland'''''. An anime/manga about a bunch of cute children raised in a nice orphanage, that is really a farm set up by demons who raise the children as food. A handful girls get to survive until adulthood by getting selected to act as mothers to children, but they are still prisoners who can't leave the farm. If they are unlucky they will have to watch over their own children until the day they are killed.
** The world outside the farms is even worse. A thousand years ago the world was divided between humans and demons. Demons used to hunt humans until the two sides made a truce where the world was divided in two halves to keep peace and humans were handed over to the demons to farm as food and the wealthy family of humans who made the deal are out to kill the escaped children to uphold it. Demons actually need to eat humans or they degenerate into mindless animals that attack everything in sight, except of the demon nobility thanks to them consuming blood that removed the need. And they still insist on hoarding the best quality human meat for themselves while leaving the commoners to feed on meat from humans raised on factory farms where the humans are force fed until they die.
* '''''Puella Magi Madoka Magica'''''. Being Meguca is suffering.
* '''''Uzumaki'''''. Basically a Lovecraftian horror manga where a seaside town gets [[rape]]d by spirals. Not as weird as it sounds. Or maybe it is as weird as it sounds but not as bad. Also has enough body horror to put most [[Chaos Spawn]] to shame.
** Pretty much anything by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junji_Ito Junji Ito.] Except ''Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu''.
* '''''Wanted'''''. The villains won the war against the heroes and completely erased them from reality. Crime is not only rampant but is actually part of the law, enforced by the Fraternity (Justice League for bad guys), and the only way to even have the closest thing to a 'safe and happy life' is by murdering your next door neighbor out of paranoia. Furthermore, as the world is cut up into sections and ruled by different supervillains, you will most likely be born in a country ruled by either a psychotic bastard who shoots children for shits and giggles, a Lex Luthor archetype who hungers for more unrestrained power, a literal Nazi from the future who wants another Holocaust, or a megalomaniac and sociopathic Chinese emperor who makes Mao Zedong like a chump or a completely immortal 'President-for-Life' Mugabe expy that will probably rule for eternity.

===Literature===
* '''''[[1984]]'''''
* '''''All Quiet on the Western Front''''' Among all the wars World War I was particularly grimdark one and the writer, who himself served in the war, thought that the war destroyed his whole generation whether or not they survived the shells. The book follows a group of Germans barely the age of 18 who join the war with enthusiasm, only to be met with the worst kinds of horrors of war only World War I could bring. Even if they survive the battles, they are broken by the war. By the end of the novel they are all dead and the field report simply states "all quiet on the western front".
* '''''Cormac McCarthy''''' is an American writer whose most famous works are considered some of the darkest novels ever written, due to the near casual way violence is depicted and the rather bleak outlook it takes on humanity's place in the world. Notables include:
** '''''Blood Meridian''''' by Cormac McCarthy, a book following the exploits of the Glanton Gang, a real-life group of scalpers in the 19th Century. Kids die left and right, lawlessness runs rampant, sickfuckery abounds, it's... brutal.
** '''''No Country for Old Men,''''' also adapted as a film, covers the rising violence of the drug war on the US-Mexico border. Or simply suggests things have always been that bad and there's no way for good men to stop it.
** '''''The Road''''', along with the film, can be summarized as follows - the biosphere is dead with no hope of reviving it. A man and his son now traverse the dying, bleak landscape along a road, without any remnant of human civilization left, only able to depend on each other. Seriously, this setting is bleak in ways Warhammer 40k can only have nightmares about.
* '''''Clive Barker''''' in general. His works include Hellraiser, Rawhead Rex where an ancient god of male sex eats kids, the Midnight Meat Train where an ancient cult feeds people to an underground society of monsters so New York isn't destroyed, and... let's just say there's a reason he's basically a BDSM enthusiast given way too much handle.
* Everything from '''''[[H.P. Lovecraft]]''''' and the '''''Cthulhu Mythos''''', though this can vary when you add in other Mythos writers like August Derleth.
*'''Mistborn''', a trilogy of books by Brandon Sanderson (at least the first Era). The stories themselves rarely meet the criteria of Grimdark, but hoooo boy the background setting and villains sure do. About a thousand years ago, a hero rose up to stop a mysterious enemy… and failed. Now, volcanoes spew ash down on the land, choking all but the most hardy plants. The brightest color is yellow, and flowers are an alien idea. Modern fauna include ectoplasmic monsters composed of the skeletons of other creatures and… that’s mostly it. The rest is dead. 95% of the population are slaves, and it’s a revolutionary idea to consider that they may be able to think. The nobility rule mostly because the immortal Lord Ruler gave their ancestors powers, and some of them still have some today (the titular Mistborn). The only way to trigger these powers is through trauma, and so even among the good portion of the population, all children are nearly beaten to death to see if they have these powers. Usually, they don’t. The villains also deserve a dishonorable mention, as the average one is a pedophiliac, slave owning rapist. Even the “good guys,” are only good by comparison. Variously, they are rebels who know full well there is no hope, a thief who could and would kill anything that contradicts him, and an optimistic young man who is eventually forged into a warmongering emperor. Oh, and the only way to “save the day” involves killing a minimum 1/16th of the planetary population.
* '''''Grimm's Fairy Tales''''' ("Hansel and Gretel", for example).
* The first two '''''Hyperion''''' books.
* '''''Metro'''''. Both the books and games, but mostly in the books, where the last known humans are hiding in underground subway tunnels, and when not trying to finish each other off are fighting endless hordes of [[mutant]]s [[/b/|and other, much worse things]]. Also, if you're one of the stalkers, the few brave ones that head to the surface to [[Blood Ravens|loot anything they can find]], you risk [[Tyranid|being eaten by flying daemons]]. Hell, it even has the same "abandon all hope" vibe in the intro, just like 40k. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Note as the books go on the grimdarkness does tone down by showing the areas outside of the city to be in much better living conditions and other metros.(though not all the books are written by the same author).
* Noir in general, from Raymond Chandler's novels to games like This is the Police.
* [[Post Apocalyptic]] stuff tends to default to Grimdark.
* World Devastators in '''''[[Star Wars]]'''''. Seriously, if you read about them without knowing that they are from Star Wars, you could easily mistake them for something from 40k. And we're not talking about Star Wars Legacy and the genocide of the Mon Calamari.
** All of '''Steven Baxter's works''' arguably qualify. '''''Evolution''''' can be summed up as "humanity almost overcame its flaws, fixed the damage it did to Earth, and ushered in a [[noblebright]] future, and it might have worked, but [[Rocks_fall,_everyone_dies|just then a supervolcano erupted, wiped out human civilization, and everyone died]]. The end. There's even a chapter in the middle of the book outright stating it. Also that humans [[Imperium|are nothing but vicious bastards who rape, kill, and destroy everything they touch]] and have been ever since our ancestors were rats under the feet of dinosaurs, but other animals aren't much better.
* '''''[[SCP Foundation]]''''' universe as a whole is borderline grimdark, as many aspects of the Foundation are mixed between absurd comedy, derp, and pure grimdark. At its very worst, the SCP Foundation has things that make the [[Daemonculaba]] look nice by comparison. Above all: [[Inquisition|Secure. Contain. Protect.]]
* '''''Shakespeare's tragedies''''', especially ''Macbeth'' and ''Hamlet''.
* '''''Shin Sekai Yori''''' also known as From the New World is a novel by Yusuke Nishi (also has an anime adaptation). Basically it's a dystopian story with people using magic to run their society instead of machines in a world that has deliberately regressed to the medieval level. Every child who doesn't manifest magical abilities by a certain age is killed, and all existing non-magical humans have been genetically engineered into a slave-race of mole-people so long ago they've forgotten their origins. The magical people are instead engineered to commit unwilling suicide should they use their powers to harm another human (mole people are fair game, though), and those of them who are too strong and can't manage to control themselves become Lovecraftian abominations.
* '''''The Slenderman Mythos''''' (HE ALWAYS WATCHES).
* '''''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''''' AKA Game of Thrones: Good guys screw up monumentally or never win, the only people who get ahead are amorally manipulative assholes and everyone is going to be massacred and enslaved by the evil ice elf necromancers in the end. And if they somehow survive, then another war for the Iron Throne will happen after the winner gets their revenge-boner satisfied and later, their kids would need to clean up the wankstains.
* Most of '''Stephen King's''' works. As the joke goes, some people say that Stephen King's works are so fucked up they should come with a content warning. The reply is that they ''do'' have a content warning, they have the words "written by Stephen King" on the front.
* '''Peter Watts'''. Brutal neuropunk sci-fi horror, as bleak as H. P. Lovecraft but with a list of scientific citations at the end to let you know just how realistic it really is. Hits you with a world-ending catastrophe and then manages to make it a thousand times worse -- an alien invasion DURING a hard-takeoff singularity, for example. Sociopathy and post-human augments abound. [http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm Also, the books are free!]
* The majority of the '''Tragedy''' genre of stories.
* '''''[[The Witcher]]'''''. Racism, genocides, dozens of monsters that want to eat your face whenever you enter a random forest. Or cave. Or ruins. The video game adaptation even features a medieval Hitler running the [[Inquisition|Witch Hunters]], a fanatical order of [[Black Templars|racist scumbags dedicated to wiping out both mages and non-humans]] in the name of the Eternal Fire. Meanwhile, the neighboring empire starts a series of wars against northern kingdoms (where the series takes place), in which both sides descend into scorched earth warfare, all the while backstabbing their allies and generally being a colossal wall of dicks to the point that close to 70% of civilian population in war-zones died from raiding, famine and occasional outbreaks of extradimensional plagues. To add insult to injury, the whole world is doomed due to the (slowly) encroaching Ice Age, and the only person that could save it took two glances at this shitshow and decided to fuck off to a parallel universe and let them all die, ''because it would be a mercy''. (To be fair, though, she comes back, if only to save her adoptive mother and father from said Ice Age, as she still maintains her 'fuck the rest of humanity' attitude.
* '''''World War Z''''' (the book). After zombies overran most of the world, many people had it so bad that they simply lost the will to live. Fighting in the Paris Catacombs with weaker weapons that wouldn't cause a cave-in due to hazardous gasses everywhere. Russian soldiers rioting over unfair treatment and enforced secrecy ordered under pain of death to kill one in ten of their own squadmates - with rocks - to teach them the price of freedom and democracy. Which they then happily traded away. The survival of the human race hinged on governments following a plan including elements of eugenics and leaving settlements of people behind as zombie bait. People resorted to cannibalism to survive in Canada. North Korea entirely vanished without a trace. Pakistan and Iran nuked each other. After the war officially ended, there are still loose zombies wandering around, Russia has started a breeding program to deal with severe underpopulation, several species are extinct, and diseases thought to be wiped out are coming back en masse.
* Anything from the '''''[[Xeelee Sequence]]'''''.

===Films and TV===
* '''''Alien''''' (as in the biomechanical, parasitic, acid-blooded brainchild of Ridley Scott and the late H.R. Giger). Bonus points when you realize it's pretty much an allegory of the human fear of unwanted pregnancy, with sexual role reversal thrown in.
* The aftermath of '''''Avengers: Infinity War'''''. After the [[Rubric Marines|battledust]] settles, no one really wins at the end of the movie. Even the villain, who won, was badly injured and the victory was very costly.
* '''''Children of Men''''': A future where humans are no longer fertile and going extinct, and then someone finds a pregnant woman and nearly everyone in the world fights over her.
* '''''Come and See''''' A World War II movie which instead of focusing on big battles focuses on Nazi death squads in the Byelorussian SSR. Do we even need to say more?
* '''''Eastenders''''', Especially at Christmas.
* '''''End of War'''''
* '''''Event Horizon'''''
* The first two '''''Hellraiser''''' movies
* '''''The Day After''''', and its worse Brit counterpart, '''''Threads'''''.
* '''''Lord Of War'''''. The worst is that it's based on real events.
* '''''The Matrix'''''
* '''''Power Rangers RPM''''' plays with this trope, being what is effectively ''Terminator'' meets ''Mad Max'' "for kids." It is still Power Rangers, and does still have its fair share of comic relief, but this is also the season where a young girl is brainwashed into becoming a child soldier for Skynet and HAL 9000's demented love child, while also having her humanity stripped away and replaced with cold metal. That's not even starting to mention the fact that most of the planet is wiped out, with billions dying over the course of what seems like a few weeks.
* ''''' Requiem for a Dream'''''
* '''''Romero's "Dead" series''''', especially the later entries. ''Night'' is grim for the heroes, even if the overall story ends somewhat happily with the zombies taken care of. On the other hand, ''Dawn'' and ''Day'' are much darker, with zombies overrunning society, and though both end on positive notes, the journey there is a grim fight for survival. Most of the heroes die in ''Dawn'' (all of them if you count the depressing alternate cut), and in ''Day'' most of the characters, even the heroes, are hateful, unhinged, and/or just plain crazy.
* Saw: [[Cegorach|I just wanna play a game.]]
* '''''Shisha no Teikoku''''', the Empire of Corpses. Steampunk, Grimdark, Zombies, Cross-References and Conspiracies everywhere. It has even become possible to resurrect the dead, giving them their soul and intelligence back, but only 2 characters profit from it in the end, while everyone else stays a slave.
* '''''Soylent Green''''' Inspiration for 40k’s Soylens Viridian.
* '''''Tetsuo: The Iron Man''''' A cult Japanese horror film about two men slowly becoming cold heartless machine men settling a score with each other and then deciding to destroy the world.

===IRL===
* '''Africa's wars''', including, but not limited to: The French extorting its ex-colonies to still PAY FRANCE for “[[what|letting them become independent]]” (Even Haiti in the Caribbean had to go through this), the French assassinating presidents who wanted to break free from France's tyranny just to get a puppet installed who would gladly sell their national resources for dirt cheap to France, The Rwandan Genocide, Liberian child soldiers, Sierra Leonean amputations of voting populations, slave labor in all but name in the Congo, etc.
** Belgian Congo. Throngs of people put to work to get their masters rubber, and when they spend so much as an hour getting food to prepare for week-long trip to the rubber forests, the masters will chop not their hands, oh no, but their children's hands and feet. Photographs remain of shocked father listlessly staring at such his toddler daughter's feet thrown to the floor.
** Post Colonial Africa in general until the 21st century and even then there are various ''minor'' problems like ISIS and other religious extremists, rebel attacks, constant coups and piracy.
* '''Ancient Sparta:''' A militaristic empire thankfully smaller than it could have been due to its innate oppressive brutality not guaranteeing you can afford to expand far and wide. Eventually the Spartans got too busy quelling slave rebellions to expand far enough, particularly frequent as even the slavers of other cities were appalled at particularly brutal and violent slavery under the Spartans. Some rebellions were deliberately instigated by Spartan spies as an excuse to go in and slaughter 100s of slaves and add another tally to their "honor" and martial glory, rather than actual martial glory fighting tough external threats.
** The Battle of Thermopylae of 300 fame was a hoax: Along with 300 Spartans guarding the retreat of the 5,000 Greek coalition, there were 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, and 900 Messenian Helot slaves under Spartans with the promise to free them if they fought with them. The Spartans spread the propaganda that 300 Spartans did all the fighting because they were the only true warriors there. So essentially, it wasn’t enough for the 900 Helot slaves to have spent their entire lives toiling in the fields to '''feed good food for the Spartan warriors to oppress and kill their Helot children for fun,''' they were baited by Spartans to shell out the last thing they had, their lives, with promise of freedom of their families and kids back home. Turns out that was an empty lie as [[Rage|Spartans still enslaved them most brutally.]] So the Messenian city rebelled more fervently than ever before, until Thebans later forever freed them from Spartan slavery. Still, Spartans used this false propaganda to garner political clout within the Greek world on par with the rich powerful Athenians for some time.
** The myth that ascetically culling men from youth guarantees tough warriors the Spartans tricked themselves into believing was proven false when the 300-man Theban Sacred Band, aka "The REAL 300," crushed them at Battles of Leuctra and Tegyra. The Sacred Band was recruited from 150 pairs of certifiably gay adult couples. So instead of killing like 10 kids to get 1 kid honed in war from youth, these guys made full use of ancient era birth rates and were not psychos devoid of humanity whose individual rite of passage was to [[Edgy|slaughter a slave up close and personal and offer the superiors his corpse as proof.]]
*** The fall of the Spartans in Leuctra also herald the coming of an age where the brainpower to think up new tactics have proven to outperform individual martial prowess of murder machines.
*** Not to mention, the Spartans culling their boys from youth is plain stupid and wasteful. Being a strong boy is no guarantee that he will be the strongest man by adulthood. There are plenty of late bloomers, and boys who were picked on who want to overcome their weakness to become strong when given a chance later in life, like [[Robert E. Howard]] and Fyodor Emilianenko. Aleksandr Karelin couldn't even do a single chin-up when he was a boy! So, countless kids were killed in Sparta for nothing. Not to mention boys who could grow to lead other fields of excellence than fighting died, and for [[Edgy|what.]]
** The Spartans did all that only for their rival, Athens, to achieve a grander victory through cultural legacy. Effects of Athenian version of the Greek culture are felt all over the Western World to this day.
* '''Aztec Empire''' Let's just say there was a good reason 1,000s of natives from different cities subjugated throughout the Aztec Empire happily rushed to join Hernan Cortes and his few hundred Conquistadors in a united front to overthrow the cannibalistic oppressors of Tenochtitlan. What, you thought 400 men could conquer a subcontinent let alone a city?
* '''North Korea''', a regime like all other communist regimes in Asia, was born only because of the hyperinflation and power vacuums left by Japan's destruction of regimes that could have normally stamped out puppet communist cells, much like Germany's destruction left Eastern Europe communized. In fact it should not even exist but was artificially prolonged through aid from the old USSR, and this existential crisis is what drives it to focus its efforts to brutally keeping people in line. It LOOKS like it has a huge military but that's really declaring half your workers as "military" to cook the numbers as a bluff, those soldiers don't even have the fuel to run exercises and spend all day farming instead. Because it is a starving nation where climbing the ration distribution listing is important for most people, but not a problem for the elites so they can afford to ignore military service. Almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, it's own intranet with government controlled websites spouts propaganda, desperately trying to keep its people from rebelling from the famines and poverty. But this is in vain because ironically the stark famines eventually got the police desperate enough to accept bribes and turn a blind out to black markets and through these, the people have imported (largely South Korean products and bootleg media through Chinese bootleggers) learned the truth and nobody over the age of 12 believes in state run propaganda for decades. The elites are genuinely frightened any leniency will get them and their family lynched by the mob as they have seen many other regimes fall in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, so they clutch their power and shrink back into isolation ever harder, and the only way they keep the civilians down is take entire families hostage. So if you get on the government's really bad side, you and 2 other generations of your family get sent to prison camps to be executed or become the playthings of the prison guards until you die. Proving the writing is on the wall, every year, 3,000 people escape and make it to South Korea as refugees.
** For comparison, South Korea has a compulsory military service length is also among the highest in the world due to being beset and outnumbered by enemies on all sides harder than Israel (Israel itself has 32 months of mandatory military service for men, 24 for women as of 2022). Japan still actively attempts to reinvade and take islands to the East, China not making any movements yet but is looming in the West. Both are within the top 5 military powers in the world. Thus Korean miilitary service length is 21 to 24 months depending on the chosen branch, but women are exempt from both service, and neither do they pay a defense tax for not going into service.
* '''Incan Empire:''' '''[[What|Massive, massive child sacrifices by the 100s at a time.]]''' Even when the Empire was waning. ''Especially'' when the Empire was waning, in hopes to garner favor from the gods to save the empire.
* '''World Wars'''
** '''Western Front of WW1:''' the Armenian/Greek/Assyrian genocides, the Eastern Front of WW2. Feel free to fill in.
** '''WW2 and Meiji Japan:''' The perfect real world example of the [[Imperium of Man]]. Due to the Japanese, 30+ million lives were lost due to [[Edgy]] rape and massacres that served no purpose, but also due to indolence, short-sightedness, racism, jingoism, stubbornness, nepotism, arrogance, and all flavors of [[Administratum|bureaucratic fail]]. It may actually justify some of the sillier grimderp listed in Warhammer 40,000 in sections below his page, by virtue of being a real-life example. Aside from the basic massacres of a bloodthirsty empire, includes [[Khorne|'''Cannibalism''']], mass suicide, half a million [[Slaanesh|'''Sex Slavery of underage girls then summarily executed after use''']], [[Tzeentch|'''false apologies''' to lower your would-be opponent's guard,]] [https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1967/december/panay-incident-prelude-pearl-harbor preceding undeclared war], and use of [[Nurgle|'''all 3 kinds of Weapons of Mass Destruction''' (Atomic, Biological, Chemical).]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> Belief in the '''[[Samurai|Yamato Tamashi samurai spirit]]''' that the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|One True God that is Emperor Hirohito]] is proof that the [[RaHoWa|Japanese are the chosen race and will easily subjugate all inferior others]] because if your [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|'''faith in the Yamato Spirit is hard enough, you can even weather through bullets.''']] Death is just proof you didn’t believe it hard enough and are unworthy, traitor. The Americans, not having the holy '''Yamato Tamashi''' (Note that Yamato is the ancient name of Japan, like Albion is for England.), are but indolent undisciplined capitalist swine, and will fall to the might of the holy samurai, making them cowering sheep just like the billion enslaved in Asia. If Japan immediately follows Pearl Harbor with an offering of peace so magnanimously, Americans will gratefully worship the Japanese for their infinite mercy and gladly give Japan the American Oil they sorely need to continue invading dozens of nations (invading Southeast Asia for its strategic resources like rubber and oil). [[Not as planned|Oh, how wrong, ''literally'' dead wrong they were.]] <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** [[Xenos|The extent of their xenophobia was so vast,]] they chose to erase Western culture since it was deemed indolent and not blessed with samurai spirit. From tiny things like the musical scale was renamed from Do Re Mi etc. into Japanese syllables, [https://www.pacificatrocities.org/blog/torture-execution-and-cannibalism-on-chichi-jima-and-george-hw-bushs-narrow-escape to eating them because they were subhuman livestock]. Colonials must speak Japanese or be punished, even clothing was sometimes enforced, and only the approved Japanese hairstyle was allowed.
***** Karate, from Okinawa (think of England ruling over its Irish colony), was originally named 唐手 (Karate, "Chinese-hand"), owing to originating from what was taught by a passing Chinese voyager. It was taken and sold as Japanese while being respelled to 空手 (Karate, "Empty hand") when it wasn't even meant to be done unarmed, as much of its "unarmed" movements don't make sense unless paired with weapons, because most of these movements were preliminary exercises to wield as weapons, everyday agricultural tools like grindstone handles (Tonfa), threshing flails (Nunchaku), chained sickles (Kusarigama), because the oppressive samurai have been taxing the Okinawans with a 90% tax rate and to deter rebellion, confiscated all weapons.
**** [[WAAAGH|The weathering through bullets by belief part]] was actually applied from analyzing the WW1 French military doctrine of “Attaque à Outrance,” which focused on fearless charges to keep the pace of the offensive going. <s>Heresy grows from</s> Idleness, and caution will get soldiers’ mind to wander and morale to waver. Sounds good when you want to [[Imperial Guard|affix bayonets]] and the only thing that can break a charge is terror among the soldiers when they get shot at with a volley of semi-accurate musket balls. [[Krieg|Battle of Verdun begs to differ.]] 20th century weapons were too [[Dakka|deadly]] to breakthrough with fearless charges without massive casualties. Problem is, this was already the case in 1914. [[Rape|Imagine trying this shit in 1944.]] [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|Bonus points for yelling TENNOU HEIKA BANZAIIIII ('''”For the Emperor!”''') as loud as one can for buffs from the <s>Holy Spirit</s> Yamato Tamashi.]] There’s a reason everyone ditched this doctrine and was criticized both inside and outside France. But the Toyama institute salvaged it, devised tactics and training regimen and requested every soldier to be [[Meme|equipped with a useless katana so he can hit the enemy with his sword]] for a trench warfare that never came in the very mobile WW2 warfare. They were also advising officers to march/charge headfirst through enemy territory because romanticism with samurai and whatnot. Whereupon he will be the first to fall and the squad will soon be running around like a headless chicken, [[Rip and Tear|ripe for the butchering.]] Which was a problem especially for the Japanese Army, because they were notoriously rigid and did not trust soldiers to understand objectives but merely as [[Imperial Guard|expendable automatons to be commanded around, even through heavy gunfire.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''The [[Imperial Cult]]:''' In the civilian sector, all religions were one by one, abolished. Even the Shintoists were kicked out of their temples and the local shamanistic deities they worshiped were replaced by the mandatory cult that worshiped the Emperor Hirohito as the [[God-Emperor|'''One True Living God-Emperor''']]. The rhetoric was, Emperor-worship is not even "religion" like Christianity or Islam, those delusions of inferior races. National Shintoism was BEYOND such a childish concept. Every man, woman, and child must therefore bow towards Tokyo every day, the holy city where their emperor resided in his palace. A portrait of the Emperor was to be put up in every public space, office, and school classrooms. Indoctrinated kids were praised and went on newspaper as heroes for jumping into burning buildings to (die trying to) rescue the Emperor's portrait. It was taught, sacrificing your life for Him will get you to become a minor god enshrined in a Shinto shrine. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** Zen Buddhists also proclaimed that blowing yourself up in kamikazes will get you to Zen Buddhist Pure Land Paradise and ultimate bliss in Nirvana, and to kill a slave or an American is to do the ultimate good by giving them an early access to the Pure Land. Pretty <s>ironic</s> sinister the Zen Buddhists have never repented for their part in their war machine, and have marketed their religion to the Western World as "esoteric '''religion of peace''' so much better than the barbaric Christianity with their Crusades" for decades, and gullible people gobbled it up.
**** Centuries-old Shinto temples have been accused of being [[Heresy|HERETICAL]] by that uppity new government-backed cult of personality, and had gone into hiding in rural mountains for a time. After the war, understandably the real Shinto priests were angry to return to see their deities' statues defaced, and that the offending cult still persists, is still funded by the government ran much by the same fascist families who successfully scapegoated a few of their own to escape responsibility. The cult still pretends to serve as a national cemetery that enshrines literally convicted war criminals so bad the emperors themselves, whom the cultists purportedly support, all stopped going there after the enshrinement.
**** Emperor Hirohito himself scapegoated his war crimes onto generals. He merely doesn't want to "honor" the generals who gifted him a humiliating defeat and an embarrassing photo time trying to look tall next to the 6' of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaetano_Faillace#/media/File:Macarthur_hirohito.jpg Douglas Motherfucking MacArthur], which did demoralize the Japanese.
***** Along with having had to go on radio to declare surrender and embarrassingly admit [[Goge Vandire|'''he lied when he said he was God Himself.''']]
***** Son of Emperor Hirohito, Akihito, who was a grade schooler during WW2, was always against the war, and as a gesture of repentence, has said in 2001 he is not alien to the pains of his closest neighbors as he himself owes his ancestry to Korean kings according to the Shoku Nihongi. He is powerlessly called by Prime Ministers to ultranationalist gatherings where [[Imperial Cult|against his approval,]] is given the Imperial Japanese hail to the emperor and worshiped. His grandson takes after him, having said he wants to go formally apologize for his nation's and grandfather's crimes, but having been stripped of powers since WW2, the government did not allow that.)
***** Anyone who was deemed weaseling out of service or coming back as a survivor of a bloody battle, had their families lynched by local mobs for being a coward and branded "[[Gue'vesa|not a citizen [of the Japanese Empire] (Hikokumin)]]." This was one of the reasons why hardly anyone surrendered even in impossible odds. The other major reason being, they were scared all the war crimes they already gladly did, as "right of conquerors," will be done back to them. [[weeaboo|No, it is not some superficial cultural difference like bushido or shame in surrender, and even if it was, this was the underlying core reason behind that.]] [[Weeaboo Fightan Magic|You thought it was some fictitious bushido, something the government went at great lengths to propagandize and glorify but deep down not even the Japanese believed it? That's both a faux pas by orientalism and also an over-focus on the wrong cultural differences.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''[[Rogue Trader| Civilian imperialism]]:''' You thought military=bad, therefore you can clearly separate the civilians from military and peg all the bad stuff on the military, didn't you? Oh you naive thing, that's not how grimdark works: if you read any bit about Clausewitz's ''On War'', on how civilian sentiment drives war, you will know that already. [[what|Because Japan banned eating legged animals for 1200 years from 675 to 1872,]] its livestock was of rather poor stock and not very palatable. Hence millions of cattle were robbed from other Asian nations and rebranded as Japanese for consumption and sale overseas, while crop fields in colonies were [[Agri-World|commandeered and reformatted to be forcibly standardized to an unhealthy monoculture, to maximize their robbing away to Japan for Japanese civilians and soldiers to eat for cheap while creating a shortage in the colonies that caused hyperinflation. This also had the side effect of uniform agriculture that became susceptible to diseases and thus famine.]] Japanese civilians by the millions gladly taking land stolen from people of other nations and forcing them into slavery on ancestral farmlands because the Japanese government cooked the books and put them under the settlers' names. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The ruined colonials were deliberately kept more illiterate than their fathers (reading Chinese, Korean, Ryukyuan is forbidden) so as to not know how to better their station but be gaslighted to believe the [[Dark Eldar|robbers and slavers sprinkling mere crumbs towards them were the only source of food and should be worshiped.]] Illiteracy was so deliberate in the colonies (and indigenous languages forbidden), that it just took 5 years to fix it after American nukes liberated 1 billion Asians from the looming Japanese threat and years if not decades of oppression. Malnutrition widespread because of the crops robbed away for the hungry Japanese military to eat (this is how 2 million Vietnamese died so quickly). Civilian companies were gladly using slave labor to keep their munitions and weapons factories running, like Toyota and Mitsubishi who, unlike Porsche and Krupp, still in their grimdark, deny their war crimes.
**** Colonial kids were put into tiny coal mine shafts and forced to work 16 hour days and their exhausted dying bodies burnt like in concentration camps.
**** When slave factory complex that is Nagasaki was nuked, and the war was over, Japan sent slaves forced to work in dark mines of nearby Hashima Island, to clean up the radiation with no radiation protection. They died most painfully as their flesh slowly sloughed off with no idea how and why, as Japan dumped them into the sea. The few survivors still say '''"despite that, I am grateful for the American nukes, because otherwise we would have all died on that Japanese slave camp island."''' On this island, slaves were dying so often, that by 1944 the bodies being burned created a constant black streak of smoke. Slaves were put in basements without sunlight, injuries were deliberately not treated with anesthetic (those were reserved for the Japanese laborers who commanded them around), and even rats would only pick out a few grains of rice in the black sludge they were given to eat (made from beans pressed clean of oil to use as crude bio-fuel when Japan lost its Indonesian oil fields). This was actually one of the "nicer" slave camps, in some of the other mines [https://apjjf.org/2022/5/Johnsen.html sent foreign slaves down and when it got flooded or gas was flowing in, the Japanese civilians deliberately locked the gates and tried to kill the workers desperate to escape.]
**** In many places, for several months AFTER the surrender, Japanese civilians tried to hide the truth that the war was over and kept slaves in the dark and tried to [[RAGE|work them to death to avoid paying reparations and simultaneously ask Americans for alms for the evil destruction they caused.]]
**** [https://apjjf.org/2021/19/Bull-Ivings.html 1,000s who did survive the brutal slavery, were made sure to be killed by the Japanese spiteful to their victims]. Like on the Ukishima-maru, deliberately advertising a Japanese transport ship as the final one of its kind to go back to ex-colonial homelands, packing it to 7,000 passengers when the maximum space was for 1,000, then the Japanese crew telling all the slaves to go underdeck, then blowing the engine room up internally in a series of 3 or 4 small blasts while secretly leaving the ship on a lifeboat in the dead of night before it happened. Japanese again, blamed it on American depth charges but wreckage showed all the steel warping ''outwards''.
**** The militaristic machine that had Japan a field a whopping 3-million-man military force from just barely over 70-million population. This should normally be impossible, but only enabled by having the economic footprint of a nation many times its size. This means the oversized military force was powered by slave labor and robbed crop requisitions across its numerous colonies, and the military was backing all this. Also note that there are millions more veterans which meant everyone knew a family member who served. This also meant since Japan had decades of conquest after all, there were generation upon generation of millions of people who raped and massacred and gassed civilians for fun. Across generations, this skewed and redefined what meant to be “the norm.”Consider how Nazi Germany only lasted 12 years. The Japanese Empire lasted 77. Already in 1870 recommencing of the butchering the last native tribe of Japan to escape total eradication, the Ainu, whom they chased away to Hokkaido in feudal times, officially calling it their "colony."
***** These men would be emboldened to commit heinous crimes back at home when they ran out of foreign slaves to butcher, and had their crimes be waived off to a degree due to entire generations of men were collectively introduced to the experience of rape and cannibalism. (Example: Kodaira Yoshio who was a veteran coming back to supervise munitions factories, but having his way with the female students requisitioned for the war effort there, because "I can't forget the taste of young girls savored back in the conquered Chinese territories." because such things were deemed normal in wartime by Japan. Only after the war he was caught and only because he started murdering the women too.) Unlike Germany, millions of Japanese soldiers were allowed to return to Japan safe and sound, with no accounting for their crimes, and even given several months to finish pillaging and butchering millions of victims to cut down on reparations and hide war crimes or sometimes blame it American troops instead (like the Chichijima Incident.) Unlike Germany, Japan's soldiery was allowed to peacefully go back home, and were expressly protected by Allied forces as they robbed the last things they could to take back to Japan to use it for its post-war economy, primarily because everyone was focused on making Germany pay, they totally did not care about Asia.
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">'''Infighting at the expense of soldiers and nations:''' The Navy and Army had such bad blood since they were centered on rival feudal fiefdoms of the Meiji Restoration period, that they refused to share information with each other that could prevent them from saving soldiers' lives. So the emperor had to act as go between at times. Instead of a normal country whose government singly collects resources and distributes them as needed, the Army and Navy had their own separate oil fields conquered from places like Indonesia. Thus the Army couldn't even reliably count on the logistics of the Navy, and vice-versa, [[DERP|so the Army started making little supply submarines out of train engines and the Navy tried to make tanks]]. They wouldn't even agree on a unified maintenance system so some machines had pentagonal instead of hexagonal nut, just to screw with each other + discourage the other side requisitioning their stuff on the "pretense" of an emergency. This meant that in real emergencies, they can't limp to a closer base for repairs if they weren't correctly affiliated. They were already spread thin with dozens of invasions (all undeclared, as per Japanese tradition), yet the Navy was uncooperative while the Army had to rely on them for logistics and transporting soldiers overseas. But to win the emperor's favor, instead of cooperating they went back to the time-old Meiji Restoration (the civil war that was the 1868 Boshin War) tradition of "Peace comes from unification through killing all opposition." They each saw the other as another enemy to conquer, instead of partners. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** This is why they were constantly trying to convince the emperor that they should be given more clout and order the other side to become auxiliaries for their campaign... by going off and starting their own invasions without a plan. ('''[[Indrick Boreale|Sometimes, when that didn't work, they surrounded and besieged the other's HQ.]]''') The Army decided that killing and pillaging and raping would be a good substitute for proper logistical support from the Navy. The Navy in turn decided that they can't let the Army shine so they needed a separate simultaneous war of their own (a war on two fronts, which only America was ever to pull off through sheer production scale and population. Except, for Japan it was more like 3+ fronts since the invasion of China in 1937 that saved the Chinese Communist Party was still going), so they decided to '''attack America for Oil,''' because America forbade exports of steel and oil when it was clear that these were enabling Japan to invade the Republic of China.
**** America already had reasons to be unhappy with Japan, from being backstabbed over Japan breaking the 2nd London Naval Treaty Japan got America to sign that restricted each nations' total naval tonnage, so relations were already sour + [https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1967/december/panay-incident-prelude-pearl-harbor preceding undeclared war, the killing the men on the USS Panay escorting oil tankers, a prelude to Pearl Harbor.] America on the other hand, by upholding the Naval Treaty, was tied down by the Japanese to a disadvantage, and did not have the ships that could have defended Southeast Asia by the time Pearl Harbor was attacked).
***** The aforementioned USS Panay incident was when Japanese were bombing cities through China. In 1937, the US Embassy officially warned Japan in advance of US ships and oil tankers planning to pass through the warzone in Nanking (right before the Rape of Nanking) on a specific day when the skies were clear and American colors were flying on those ships. The Japanese sank US ships and killing of Americans by Japanese bombers. Japan's insidious response was '''1)''' make a show about firing the commander of that bombing (then promote him secretly for "showing the white devils the samurai spirit and teaching them fear") '''2)''' give a dumb excuse saying "we were sure Chinese soldiers were retreating away from the Japanese army via that ship" which makes no sense cuz the US Ship was sailing TOWARDS Japanese positions, why would anyone retreat towards the enemy they are running from. Still no excuse for bombing a 3rd nation's ship no matter who is aboard it, it's not their jurisdiction. '''3)''' And send 1,000s of handwritten apologist letters by Japanese schoolgirls to the US Embassy saying how sorry they are.
****** They just thought it was not the time to attack America yet, but plans were already underway at that point, with making casual and not serious proposals with the 2nd London Naval Treaty to tie Allied navies down with full intent to back out of the Treaty shortly after. Anyway, 4 years later, Pearl Harbor.
****** They did the same thing in the failed assassination of Czarist Russia's Crown Prince Nicholas during his tour in Japan in 1897. Shit fails, send apology letters, bide time, then launch an undeclared war on Russia.
**** Sometimes even within the branch, generals would do stupid things to get in each others' way: the infantry generals did not want to be outshone by the cavalry so they would rather put 10s of 1,000s of their soldiers into the grinder instead of using tanks, with the excuse of "we cannot sacrifice armored vehicles as they are sacred gifts from the God-Emperor."
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''Stubborn Pride, glorifying death, military first:''' Instead of receiving feedback from the field and spending money to develop better planes throughout the course of the war like a sane military, the Imperial Navy had only 1 type of ''shipborne'' plane actually fielded throughout the entire war (Mitsubishi A6M "Zero"). No, the Empire thought it was more cost-effective to sacrifice 1,000s of men on [[Grot_Bomm_Launcha|human-guided '''suicide bombing tactics''' known as Kamikazes]], going to Paradise in the afterlife for blowing themselves up for their one true god whom they prey towards everyday. Nowhere else will you find mass-produced, standardized models (of a regular military no less) that have no weapons but are solely designed for the purpose of blowing up, with designs that are absolutely made to prevent (with gas tanks too small for return flights and cockpits with holes for screwing shut) the pilot from every surviving lest he "be a coward" and try to veer off course and NOT sacrifice himself for the Emperor to go to Zen Buddhist Paradise. Even that wasn't enough so the pilots were given their final drink, [[drug|a cup of sake laced with '''meth''']] and squadrons were accompanied by a veteran plane that acted like an [[Commissar|'''AIRPLANE COMMISSAR''' that BLAM'd anybody daring to veer off course.]] By the time they got to the battle, the veteran would leave to round up more kamikaze planes. There are actually more designs fielded as human-guided bombs than there were fighter planes (The Yokosuka MXY-7 "Ohka (cherry blossom)" and Nakajima Ki-115 "Tsurugi (sword)" ). <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The kicker was they thought this was an effective tactic because the Japanese command looked at the statistics and decided that massed suicide planes actually had BETTER kill to death ratio than conventional warplanes as the war progressed. But this is a fallacy: it meant the original designs need to be updated and newer, more advanced models should be fielded, [[Tech Priest|not to stubbornly keep the old designs that the enemy is developing specialized counters for,]] and certainly not to keep [[Chenkov|SENDING IN THE NEXT WAVE.]] In which even the better-educated college students and factory technicians were conscripted to blow themselves up while unskilled schoolgirls took up producing the goods at shoddier quality which made weapon quality and operational failures more rampant than the already shoddy Japanese weapons because they didn’t realize that all these years, they were heavily dependent on importing superior American machinery for their industries (Which resulted in things like grenades that went off prematurely way too often, and the Nambu Pistol: a gun that BLAM'd the shooter).
***** Contrary to popular belief, suicide planes weren't even the only weapon mass-produced for kamikaze tactics. Boats, manned-torpedoes, submarines, diving suits, trucks, manned anti-tank mines, <s>[[Miscellaneous_Weapons#Tankhammer|'''TANKHAMMER''']]</s> lunge mines (I don't care how any Battlefield games depict this, you're not surviving a shaped charge explosion designed to blow a tank up at point-blank, let alone be able to run fast with a heavy charge while dodging M4 Sherman's [[Dakka|hull + coaxial + cupola machine guns]] to get that close in the first place, and even if you found someone who can, congratulations, you wasted an Olympics-level, 1-in-a-million athlete on a suicide mission to take out a medium tank. [[Armageddon Steel Legion|Now do that '''50,000''' times. (not counting the other tanks in the Allied arsenal)]].)... the list is too long to cover. Coupled with the 4,000 men on suicide planes, these rocketed the number of suicide bombings to 5-digits. Imagine how many regiments you can fill out with this headcount in a military with any sense of sanity.
**** Naval captains were encouraged to be like the fictional notion that samurai died in battle so if their ship sank they were to die with it. This led to a lot of blunders [[DERP|because nobody came back alive to report how the US Navy was exploiting Japanese weaknesses.]] Captains who dared come back from defeat were disgraced and sent on a '''penal crusade''' of sorts, like being sent back to the frontlines in a more minor position, their original position filled by a rookie commander who would [[Tactica Imperialis|play by the strategies laid out by the high command]] which were based on wrong assumptions and thus would also lose, and the with each repeat of this vicious cycle, 1,000s of men died pointlessly. All because the strategists who were appointed due to nepotism were insecure with their lack of skill and took an affront to any implication that they made errors in their strategies, and so blamed every failure on the field commander.
***** Ironic when you know the Sengoku period history, the heyday of the [[samurai]]. This is when opportunistic brutal samurai saw "backstabbing" as "pragmatic" for survival amidst 200 years of civil war and if brutal and ungrateful, '''had no hollow delusions about honor in death.''' The false notion of a samurai who is "unquestioningly loyal" was made in the 18th century romanticists, namely Tsunetomo Yamamoto, a chickenhawk who never saw a single battle yet lamented how samurai like him are not respected like in the "good ol' days." [[Lorgar|His greatly influential and hilariously wrong book on what samurai is supposed to be, '''Hagakure, ''']] literally began with [[Chenkov|''"To die is to be samurai."'']] and his book was primary reading material for the militarists, [[Grimdark|which is why Japan was very liberal with spending human lives.]] 18th century was actually when samurai started reading Confucianist books and was fantasizing about "(unquestioning) loyalty" no matter the evil of the regime. Note that samurai have been upholding the oppressive regime by taxing 3 times more than both the European and Asian feudal averages (25%). According to 19th century scholar Nobuhiro Sato, 1 in 3 peasant households commited Mabiki infanticide every year (remember contraceptives didn't exist then), due to lack of food. The resulting desperate disgruntlement was quelled with terror of the "kirisute gomen," a license to [[CHOP|BLAM]] any peasant on the spot without any trial or reason given.
****** This is rather grimdark considering [[Ferrus_Manus#The_flesh_is..._strong.3F|Confucius ''taught the '''exactly opposite''' lesson'']], since he himself said something along the lines of [[Awesome|"an evil subject lies and praises his lord's tyranny as benevolent leadership, but the truly loyal subject tells tyrants 'fuck you']] to amend their evil ways. [[Ollanius Pius|Even in the face of likely death,]] and those who were executed for speaking the truth were oft hailed as martyrs posthumously. This is the very essence of [[Awesome|'''true loyalty.''']] And the ideal lord listens to such subjects." A sort of social contract. And he did exactly that himself, publicly opposing tyrants. Blind obedience praised by 18th century samurai from a proper Confucianist light, was seen as being a cowardly or scheming yes man.
***** The propaganda machine did not help, either. The Battle of Midway, turning point of the Pacific Theater, was a devastating defeat for the Japanese Navy, but the Daihon'ei (Imperial General HQ) reported to all the media that it was a heroic victory. Officers who made it back though, were all locked up to prevent them from speaking the truth, because the Navy did not want to be upstaged by the Army's own bluffs and tried to hide their failures, and over-reported the enemy's losses. The term "Daihon'ei report" since has become a tongue-in-cheek phrase of government/corporate claims pretending everything is fine and no mistakes were made when the situation is actually [[Fail|FUBAR]].
****** This battle was ultimately lost by the Japanese due to arrogance, underestimating the enemy, being ill-prepared, and overturning every bad result in simulations as "There's no way the Imperial Majesty's Navy would be hit by that many torpedos from those inept Americans!" (Admiral Ugaki did this A LOT), and complete lack of radar. [[RaHoWa|Again, racist doctrine]] posited that, the US Navy uses radar but have no fear, [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|that's actually because the American eyesight is racially inferior to the unerring eyes of the seamen of the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy, who do not need them!]] This is hilarious when you realize the radar that was used then were the old "TV-antenna" that is the Yagi-Uda Radar made by a Japanese lab assistant Uda (who for decades was sidelined as his professor, Yagi, unjustly took all the credit, typical), patented in England, thus legally used by the Allies, but shunned by the Japanese because [https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/pearl-harbor-december-7-1941 "'''His Imperial Majesty's Military lives by ambush'''"] and to use a radar that emits radio waves just means exposing your ambuscade to the enemy.
***** The Japanese Navy stupidly was obsessed building the largest ship on the planet at the time, the Yamato-class battleships, but the irony is that because they were afraid of losing face in a possible battle, they actively avoided these truly expensive ships from engaging in combat and had the lesser ships do all the fighting throughout the war. This was so stupid because unlike the new main naval weapon that was the aircraft carrier, this ship was built using the old naval doctrines of uselessly big [[Dreadnought]] [[Nazi_Equipment#Wunderwaffen|battleships slugging it out with enemy battleships, where bigger guns with longer ranges prevailed, hopefully in a ''single decisive victory'' that would turn the tide of war (Wunderwaffen)]]. So the Navy was both being a bit behind the times AND not using the Yamato-class for what it was built for. Despite being able to, America did not see a need to nor delighted in building a battleship that huge, but instead focused more on the new technology of "Aircraft Carriers," [[Forge World|made 98 carriers throughout the war]] [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs|starting out from just 7 surviving after Pearl Harbor]], against Japan's 14 carriers.
****** A whopping full 1% of Japan’s GDP was spent on maintaining this pampered monstrosity of a superweapon that did jack all. Contrast this to how modern European nations in 2022 except Poland are struggling to raise its military spending to 2% of its GDP.
****** The Yamato was also furbished full of luxuries and served lavish food while the other parts of the military were starving, they were actually nicknamed [[Noble|"The Yamato Hotel,"]] for so pampered were the men aboard, just to bestow prestige to service aboard the flagship. By 1945, when people were malnourished and cannibalizing their slaves and robbing locals at gunpoint was rampant in the Pacific island holdouts (some soldiers would do this into the 1970s), and even government MINISTERS could barely afford to get "a sweet potato dipped in butter" (according to Nobusuke Kishi, grandpa and nepotic sponsor of the Prime Minister that got shot), the folks at the Yamato Hotel were living it up -- journals of the sailors at the time of its sinking in 1945 showed, [[RAGE|they had meaty curry over rice with ice cream for dessert and were sleeping in beds.]] Oh and they even had a full complement of musicians aboard to play music for the feasts. And feasts it often had whenever an important figure was visiting (and that was frequent both because it was the flagship, and also because it was always available for feasts due to being too busy [[RAGE|AVOIDING THE DECISIVE BATTLES IT WAS SUPPOSED TO FIGHT.]]) Chefs conscripted aboard were required to hone their skills to chefs of 5 star hotels. Apologists argue the luxuries were all for morale that can win the war, but even those sailors with journals even admitted feeling guilt whether they should even be savoring these luxuries in a time like this, and the sailors of other ships in the Japanese Navy were suffering from putting too many guns on deck to sidestep the restrictions on naval power by making each tonnage account for more firepower, at the expense of crew spaces and shared magazines (a huge fire risk). In contrast, the US Navy just used hammocks for most sailors, and you know, actually won the war.
****** The end of the Yamato was a hilarious mess of saving face and idiocy. Because the flagship kept dodging engagement for the [[Macha|excuse that it’s saving itself]] for a hypothetical "final decisive battle" between battleships, the Japanese Navy wasted its advantage from ambusing Pearl Harbor without declaration of war, and wrote its battleplan entirely on the monolithic idea that the US Navy will desperately go through all the fortified islands in the Pacific, whereupon the Japanese Navy will hound the US fleet and whittle them down to a ripe size for the “final decisive battle." And so because not declaring war and hitting Pearl Harbor was so successful, they will recreate a microcosm with “a top secret superweapon saved for the final strike.” This didn't work because there's [[DERP|no guarantee the enemy will move into your traps like some tower defense game, much less in the very maneuverable open ocean.]] The Yamato could have finally gotten its big battle in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, but had no fuel to fuel the Yamato... [[FAIL|because they decided to give its fuel to the lesser ships]] to go fight in Guadalcanal in its stead. On top of that, to save face, they couldn’t ask the Army for spare fuel, so it sat that one out. In the end, the writing was on the wall when it found that it no longer had a sizable fleet to accompany the Yamato. So against every general's wishes, high command took it out to battle with the argument, "if the Yamato doesn't fight at least once before the war ends it will look like they cost Japan the war by being cowards." So just to save the Daihon'ei high command's face, 4242 Japanese sailors were sacrificed... while taking out 12 Americans in Operation Ten-Go. The biggest ship on the planet that was top secret by an evil naval-based empire, went down hordes of torpedo bombers which swirved the behemoth just enough to make the [[Macrocannon|colossal 18.1” gun]], slide off internally and spill its load of massive ammo in a deadly cascade, setting them off and with it, all the shells stored deep down in the magazine. [[Star Wars|Picture the Rebel Alliance sending fighter planes dropping torpedos to set off a chain reaction that destroyed the never-before revealed imperial superweapon called the Death Star, the largest ship in the galaxy... built by the leader of an empire who was actually called “The Emperor” who purportedly has supernatural powers... hmmmmm]]
******* [[Aristocrat|The scheduled dinner on the day it sank was to be canned beef, canned red bean rice, and sweet bean porridge for dessert.]] It was lavish for war time, to the point even the crewmen worried whether it was even right for them to be eating like this, putting the military before the civilians even for a militaristic empire hellbent on conquest.
**** As mentioned above, waging war for glory of conquest without a proper plan for logistics nor cooperation between the Army and Navy led to the outcome of [[World Eaters|2 million of 3 million soldiers committing '''cannibalism at least once, usually eating the slaves.]] In fear of the looming threat of American forces, [[The Black Feast|ate American POWs to dehumanize them]] and raise their failing morale. One famous example is on Chichijima, [[RAGE|which the Japanese on trial for war crimes actually dare claim they died from American bombs, because American bombers loved bombing too much they didn't even care about blowing up their own boys.]] The truth is "'they were eaten as sushi."' George H.W. Bush was the sole survivor because he was the only man who was rescued by the US Navy when they crashed from enemy fire.
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''Sexual violence on a scale unprecedented in history:''' Someone in high command somehow got it in their head the idea that somehow, raping underage girls is a crucial component of what makes a mighty samurai warrior. (Historically speaking, they are not far off if that is whom they wanted to model their soldiers after, and by all the propaganda they spew out, they were). In the indoctrination written in soldiers' field manuals, it was even written raping any underage girl they could see was actually ENCOURAGED as an exercise of the "righteous conqueror." When raping and killing girls in lands they conquered wasn't enough, they would "'''[[what|maximize rape efficiency]]'''" by having [https://www.ftm.eu/articles/dutch-state-and-royal-family-profited-from-money-comfort-women 500,000 girls of 35 nations] were permanently kidnapped/captured/coerced/lied in military brothels to be '''[[RAGE|raped with 80-men quotas per day.]]''' 100 when the men are flocking right before a major offensive. The girls are raped till they die, get too sick, or get pregnant by which they will get executed with their unwanted baby. If they are in the chemical/germ bomb human experimentation center, Unit 731, under the direct command of the emperor and nobody else (unlike the Army/Navy), girls were impregnated by the scientists [[daemonculaba|precisely for the purpose of making '''pregnant specimen''' for various vivisections of either the baby, the mother with the fetus,]] or the mother and the newborn together in pointless experiments like "How long does it take until the mother in a hot furnace goes from trying to save her baby in her stead to sacrificing her baby to save her own life, on average?" And countless other evil shit that would make slightly more sense but was done just to get slightly more accurate medical data than experiments about poisoning/vivisecting animals already done in Europe 20+ years ago. Scientists claimed after they got used to the lab environment, [[Haemonculus|they soon had developed daily cravings for vivisections saying, the day did not feel over until they cut up at least 2 people.]] <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The Japanese to this day tote documents on how girls as young as 10 years old somehow "signed" papers that they agree to go to the frontlines to "comfort" the soldiers, claiming that Japanese soldiers were not rapists and the girls were just very willing prostitutes. But if you have an actual brain, it shouldn't take much to realize 10 year girls will have no idea what that “job” even entails, let alone 10 year-olds should not be given any agency to make such decisions. It's the typical tactic of putting someone's name on paper at gunpoint, exploiting the fact that it is easier to prove there was something signed rather than trying to prove there were guns pointed to someone's head at the time, because that leaves no traces. It's even less legal than the contracts illiterate men had to "sign" for [[Imperial Navy|press-ganging AFTER they were kidnapped and out at sea.]] Minus actually being paid: the best "payment" was in Japanese military ration tickets which were deliberately designed by the Japanese to be worthless after the war and prevent a way to run off and live in a town elsewhere with money that could be used in the civilian sector. Disencourage them from running away to ease butchering them '''after [[Daemonculaba|giving them unwanted pregnancies]]''', both as a way to get rid of mouths to feed during the war, and after the war, kill as many survivors possible to hide their war crimes to ease in playing victim later. Aside from the rampant rape-and-kill in the midst of tearing through towns, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Dutch, Australian girls were raped repeatedly and then executed in ditches or random locations in jungles.
**** The origins of trafficking sex slaves goes back to 1500 when samurai, like numerous African warlords, used to sell girls to buy muskets from Portuguese slavers to better kill each other. When the exorbitant 60-90% tax rates wasn't enough to fund their wars, (Hideyoshi also abruptly banned the sale of Japanese girls but started to kidnap Chinese and Korean instead to sell to the slavers... at one point trying to make up for the losses incurred in the failed invasion of Korea in the 1590s, started capturing so many slaves to sell to the Portuguese that this temporarily crashed the European slave market prices by 1/6th going rate), the samurai looked to earn income by establishing overseas brothels. The thing is, this never stopped until the early 20th century. In the short Meiji period alone, '''the Japanese sold 300,000 Japanese girls overseas''' to earn expensive American dollars and British pounds which were vastly stronger than the Japanese yen, to make easy money to fund the over-glorified Meiji Restoration. The leaders of Japan weren't even ashamed, either. The girls, who earned the nickname "Karayuki-san" ("Miss-gone-to-China" where "China" in this sense can mean anything overseas) by the 19th century, were praised by Japan's leaders and foremost thinkers as "Joshigun," meaning "Army of Girls," in the sense they are (forced to) fighting and sacrificing themselves for Japan's progress. These Japanese brothels reached far and wide, up to America, Australia, and even India. Using girls as military sex slaves from 1930s till the end of WW2 was a natural conclusion to this barbaric practice. In rare occasions a few made it long enough to amass enough money to buy themselves a small, easily forgotten tombstone for their own death, and these are scattered around Southeast Asia but mostly neglected and forgotten and/or the jungles swallowed them.
**** The Rape of Nanking was where the killing and raping was so horrendous and massive, '''''[[What|a full-on Nazi Party member, John Rabe, had to do the Schindler's List]] thing''''' to save the Chinese citizens around Nanking, who were Allied and therefore should've been his enemies, against the Japanese, who were Axis and should've been his allies. One of the many beheading contests of civilians was gleefully reported back home as heroics between two rivals with historic [[katana]]s they brought from home, [https://i.imgur.com/r7G4ejB.jpg babies were thrown into the air and caught with bayonets], people were tied to posts and used as live bayonet practice up close and personal, soldiers stuffed glass bottles in girls' vaginas and shattered them for fun, samurai katanas were proudly brandished to threaten civilians to put on shows for the Japanese troops such as [[What|fathers forced to rape their daughters and mother forced to rape their sons.]]
***** The woman whose book exposed this in the West, Iris Chang, was hounded by Japanese for so long, slandered and sent death threats for years, that she ended her own life. Daring to be a champion of light gets one attacked and slandered, unto death. Truly Grimdark.
**** Girls like Jan Ruff O'Herne and women like Vivian Bullwinkel were raped, and many were executed. A rare few barely managed to survive, but were shamed by the Australian and actually [https://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-nurse-was-ordered-to-keep-war-crimes-secret-20190322-p516jg.html commanded such girls/women to shut the fuck up so they can appease the sensitive Japanese overlords and recommence trade with them.] The Dutch government even brokered [https://www.ftm.eu/articles/dutch-state-and-royal-family-profited-from-money-comfort-women a deal with Japan and took bribes to keep this war crime quiet in spite of the protests of the girls who were raped periodically as permanent sex slaves.] When O'Herne before she died, did finally brave through her PTSD and started to speak about her experiences in the 90s, [[Angron|she was actually counter-accused by Japanese and Japanese-Australians, of being a racist and bigoted liar.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">Aftermath over Okinawa was especially grimdark. The Japanese occupiers already experienced Pacific Islands' natives eagerly cooperating with the American liberators and telling them weaknesses in Japanese positions, so by the time US forces arrived around Okinawa they [[Tzeentch|made sure to strengthen propaganda]] [[Eldar|and corral the colonials to fight as pawns.]] The Japanese gaslighted the Okinawan natives to die as cannon fodder under the rhetoric, that if they did not blow themselves up for Empire and the holy God-Emperor, Americans will land, and will proceed to eat their babies and violate them. Basically gaslighting that the enemies are worse than all the Japanese brutality the people have suffered thus far (for 400 years), kind of like some reverse-[[Commissar]]. In just WW2 alone Okinawans were forced to fight and when wounded were executed (given milk secretly spiked with cyanide, etc.), butchered for slightest offences like speaking native Ryukyuan instead of Japanese, executed for picking up airdropped American pamphlets written in Japanese offering them a chance to surrender while warning them the destruction the US forces are capable (you dare come in contact with the bluff of filthy American pigs!?), or gaslighted in fear to flee to uninhabited islands where many died from hunger and malaria. On top of all that, when Okinawa was finally about to be taken, the Japanese were not ready go peacefully, and forced everyone to commit suicide to "show them the iron will of the superior Japanese race and refusal to be slaves." The real reason though, is sinister and fucked up: <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** What really happened was the Japanese overlords wanted to fool and discourage Americans from landing in Japan proper, so they banked on the expectation that Americans won't know the difference from the enslaved Okinawans and Japanese, and so if the people on this small island "appear" that all civilians are willing to fight and die to the last man, the Americans will hopefully be afraid to land on the Japanese mainland lest they face even fiercer resistance. The Japanese were also, as seen post war, very keen on killing all victims/witnesses to their war crimes, so they thought, "might as well use them up now." [[RAGE|Mass seppukus were forced upon them to make it look "voluntary" just to save Japanese face of being "fearless samurai" at the expense of not-Japanese.]] Okinawans were surprised to find US forces did not come to rape their children but give out much needed medical care and food.
***** This mentally devastated the Okinawans who were prepared to go down fighting (some were even told to make makeshift bamboo spears and use kitchen knives and attack from ambushes), because the Japanese already told many Okinawans to kill their own children to spare them the fate of being gang raped by American devils, and follow suit with their own seppukus. Accounts say the horrified parents took the food and medical aid they received as offerings to the graves of their own children they buried, and wailed cursing Japan, crying tears of blood. This is the aftermath of being enslaved for 400 years and suddenly offloaded the duties of a full citizen to die for the God-Emperor so that mainlanders don't have to.
***** In some cases it was the opposite, like a conscripted teenage boy commanded to murder his sister and mother before battle so he would have nowhere to return to and fight harder, uner the excuse that he is saving them from rape and sending them to Zen Buddhist Pure Land paradise early.
***** This is why when prince Akihito came ashore Okinawa in the 1970s when Okinawa was "returned" to Japan, the enraged natives sent numerous death threats. Originally, his father emperor Hirohito was going to come, but this was deemed too dangerous.
***** You will not believe the uproar when the Okinawan survivors found out that, without their knowledge, the names of Okinawan men forced to die for Japan have been for years enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine, the de facto national shrine headed by remnants of [[Imperial Cult|National Shintoist organization]] and still used in nationalist rhetoric to glorify the Empire of Japan. The shrine refused to have those names erased. This is also the case for other colonials conscripted as cannon fodder. Okinawans erected memorials for both Okinawans and Koreans who were sent there as slaves and cannon fodder and accuses the Japanese government for lies and denial of their atrocities.
**** That's not all, the survivors soon found that it was the Japanese who have been raping their children anyway. One such infamous example was the Himeyuri Schoolgirls, who were lied to by the Japanese army they will just be taken to make knickknacks and provide basic medical care for soldiers, but really conscripted for far more than that (sex slavery) and once the Japanese had their fun, tried to get rid of proof of their war crimes by sending the victims to attack US lines where they were shot as they were not proper combatants in uniforms, because the Geneva Convention only protects regular uniformed troops and not insurgents and fighters hidden among the population. The Japanese exploit the worldwide publics' lack of knowledge of how the Geneva Convention works, and actually makes it sound like an American war crime to shoot attackers not wearing uniforms. And on top of that, used these Okinawan girls they forced to die, as propaganda to drive the rhetoric that [[Tzeentch|"so righteous was the Japanese Empire, even underage girls by the droves willingly laid their life down for God-Emperor Hirohito, and it is a tragedy the American invaders were so brutal and ruthless monsters to cut them down. This underlines why America should not have attacked Japan."]] Textbooks were found saying this as recent as 2011 and unedited since. Basically, innocent girls' deaths are used as political fodder by an unrepentant regime to fuel more jingoism and fool people to come feed the meat grinder.
***** Just like the glorified Kamikaze pilots screwed shut into cockpits. Non-kamikaze pilots in the Navy testified they have never seen anyone eager to blow themselves up like wartime propaganda said. The closest would be people gaslighted to believe if they did not blow themselves up for Japan, Americans will eat and rape their family... This notion ordinarily would be too far-fetched, passed over for propaganda in any normal nation, but it WORKED in Japan because that's what the Japanese soldiers themselves were doing for GENERATIONS, it felt all too real a prospect when those things were taught and done as the "natural right of victors in war."
****** What makes this even grimmer is that all those people that even died for this lie died in vain because, their own Japanese government themselves, NOT 10 DAYS AFTER SURRENDER, founds an organization called the [https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Recreation_and_Amusement_Association Recreation and Amusement Association], specifically made to pimp out girls to those Americans who not 10 days prior, were propagandized as subhuman rapist demons that must be put down. And unlike the wartime sex slaves, the women were voluntarily coming for work and the promised pay was not robbed away, not entirely, once the program was shut down by Eleanor Roosevelt's pleas in 1946, and allowed to start a burgeoning prostitution industry as "pan-pan girls" instead of being taken out back and knifed in the belly with the unwanted fetus and thrown in a ditch or the jungle for animals to tear apart. [[Tzeentch|The Japanese government lulling the Allied troops into prostitution is used to poison the well on the issue of wartime sex slavery, to exaggerate and incriminate any incidents among prostitution caused by Allied troops as "being no different from Japanese troops after all" and simultaneously play down their own wartime sex slavery as being well-natured,]] and also drive the rhetoric that [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18355292 the onus of this is all on Allied invaders, that Japan was forced against its will to make their own girls prostitutes in a systematic "wall of flesh" to calm the torrent of violent sexual energy the Allied troops exuded who will "undoubtedly" rape everyone if their sex drive is not appeased.] (Who do they think the GIs are, Japanese?)
***** Battle of Saipan was the first time the Japanese government told civilians to commit mass suicide, a direct order from God-Emperor Hirohito no less, on the 30th of June, 1944. This was in fear that Japan will lose face if the Japanese settlers (who lynched and killed the natives to take their land and belongings) ever became displayed on US media. Like [[samurai]] seppuku of the past, the God-emperor promised glory after "brave" suicide. [[What|A whopping civilians 20,200 complied]], lots of them pushing their families off cliffs and being pushed by others in a stampede, so effective was the Japanese propaganda about subhuman American devils they chose death. One such cliff is now called the [https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/banzai-cliff-site-hundreds-suicides-end-battle-saipan.html?chrome=1 Banzai Cliff] because 5,000-8,000 people in one sitting were marching off cliffs "supposedly" voluntarily, shouting TENNOU HEIKA BANZAI ('''"For the Emperor!"'''). The place now features memorials including those for the Korean and Okinawan plantation workers sacrificed in this way.
****** One time some scared civilians hesitated before jumping off some cliffs, and were found at a distance by US troops who coaxed them to turn away from a cliff. Civilians were still scared of US troops, and did not dare come closer but hesitated. But soon this hesitation was rectified by a Japanese soldier who shot them dead to [[Commissar|"inspire" the remaining survivors to suicide.]] They were mere moments away having the war end for them, but Japan was determined to '''not lose face, nor allow peace before death.''' Worried about mere national image before lives. '''GRIM DARK.''' The Japanese soldier was later caught and killed by angry US troops.
****** Like in other islands, Japanese troops hid out in mountains and caves and soon started killing each other for limited resources and butchered natives, slaves, and eventually each other as food. Grim dark. The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On is a documentary following a Japanese veteran who accuses the government of war crimes and hunts down his former officers.
****** Some islands like in the Philippines, had Japanese officers using their own rifles to terrorize and kill the locals and steal their livestock and supplies and refused to surrender until the 1970s. Some of them did so because they wanted to avoid being told to answer for their war crimes, like Hiroo Onoda, [https://globalnation.inquirer.net/101899/hiroo-onoda-hero-or-villain#:~:text=Reports%20say%20that%20Onoda%20and,was%20hailed%20as%20a%20hero. and even when finally surrendering, was proud to be a bandit and murderer and was totally unapologetic to the locals, posing like some samurai hero, and even wrote books glorifying his "heroic" acts] and was received by the Japanese as an exemplary man of justice who did not bow down to the evil Americans.
*** [[Nurgle|'''All out ABC warfare:''']] Atomic, Biological, Chemical, the 3 main pillars of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Unlike Germany, Japan was very into using chemical and germ weapons on the battlefield. Anthrax, bubonic plague, dysentery, typhoid fever, diseased fleas, etc. all flavors of germs were used. Cyanide grenades, mustard gas bombs, CS gas bombs, etc. were used on both civilian and military targets, much of these WMDs were produced in factories of Hiroshima. The bulk of these were used in the vast, continent-wide theater of the invasion into China (1937-1945) up to 2,000 odd usage cases. Biowarfare was scheduled to extend to America in the September of 1945, in [https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-057/h-057-2.html Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night]. Japanese nuclear weapons development was going on right up to the end of the war as well, hellbent on trying to finish the nuke without knowing anybody else was trying to make them as well (the Manhattan Project was Top Secret). Two nukes were in development, the Ni-Go and F-Go, unlike Nazis who hardly decided to pursue this when Nobel Prize winner Werner Heisenberg deliberately canceled the German nuclear weapons project (1992 declassified 6-month recordings listening in on him and his fellow scientists prove this was intentional).
**** On the other side, Japan actually '''did not give a damn about nuclear casualties,''' (you thought a government that gaslighted 10s of 1,000s of civilians to die, just to save face, cared about that?), records and witness accounts actually cite that when the nukes hit, it was considered nothing special because Daihon'ei high command has been receiving casualty reports on that scale for months by then, and high command proceeded to argue about how to fool the Americans to accept letting them keep all their remaining unliberated colonies under Japanese enslavement, and sign a peace treaty favorable to Japan. The firebombing of Tokyo had greater casualties (150k) and you hardly see it toted as a political talking point. Nor the according to General Curtis Le May, he bombed 20% (4 million) of the population to death in the Korean War that happened 5 years later, and you hardly hear any Korean complain about that. Oh, and just like with the Okinawan schoolgirls sent to die and tallied along with "loyal citizens of the empire willingly sacrificing their lives for the God-Emperor Hirohito," about 1/3 of the nuclear casualty numbers include these foreign slaves, both those who got bombed, and both those forbidden from returning home after WW2 but instead commanded to clean up irradiated cities, all of them who wouldn't even have been there were it not for Japan forcibly putting them there. Only foreign slaves were sent to clean up the irradiated rubble, and Japan dumped their moaning dying bodies were into the sea, [https://youtu.be/IOwwi97XTYA?t=690 then proceeded to start propaganda that goes on to this day, on why Americans must bow in apology to innocent victimhood of Japanese while denying any wrongdoing or demanding everyone forget their war crimes.] Nagasaki was a civilian hub for driving slaves in Mitsubishi's war factories. Hiroshima was the poison gas WMD production hub. 1 billion Asians cheered for their liberation (even if nukes weren't the cause, and the Japanese were actually too stubborn to fear the nukes they themselves were making).
* <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">'''The Cold War:''' You know what is the most grimdark about the Cold War? The nations devastated the most from the [[Axis]] Powers Germany and Japan, one would think their happy liberation would last thereafter and great evils of history rectified, right? But on the contrary: for the crime of not destroying other countries and colonizing them for their greedy personal benefit, they were not able to become as powerful as those who happily bloodied their hands with the blood of others, and thus became subjugated. And even after they were liberated, by Allies, they were left so weak, their people butchered, their governments destroyed, their economies left with hyperinflation... that they were not able to stamp out communist cells like they normally would have, had their capitalist regimes not been attacked by the Axis. (Eastern Europe may have been directly conquered by Soviet forces, but in Asia, the communization started with the largest nation: China, from where communization of other nations were enabled). In fear of the Domino Theory, Germany and Japan were soon rewarded with trillions of dollars for butchering millions, to build up their economies and given loads of American tech. Despite several backstabbings like [https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/russia/toshiba.htm Japan selling US tech to the USSR,] (even after America totally excused from any war reparations, too), the nations did not actually do anything for checking the Soviets, and the role soon fell to China itself in the 70s, it too getting a late cash boost and tech transfer just like Japan, which was responsible for sparking the post-war Chinese economy as much as it did Japan's. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
** TL;DR The perpetrators of WW2 caused a bigger problem for their old victims and the victims are left having to waste a huge portion of their economies to maintain militaries and establish highly dangerous frontlines against whatever their old oppressors left behind, while the people who caused this were given vast sums of money instead, because it was thought that frontlines were too risky to invest in. Also victims of war crimes were told to keep quiet because those Axis Powers are being hailed as (hopefully) bulwarks against the communist tide when they didn't actually do anything.
** If China was not communist, the Laotian, Cambodian, North Vietnamese, and North Korean communist regimes would either not even have happened or been mere footnotes in history, as they would not have received backing from Communist China, or capitalist forces would not have to worry about escalating into World War 3 if they helped these weak nations on the brink of communization. In fact a capitalist China would have actively sought to end communist regimes on its borders, so great were the Nationalists' hatred of communists represented by Mao.
*** [https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3085206/mao-zedong-thought-japan-did-communist-party-great-favour-invading Mao Zedong and his communists were mere weeks away from finally being arrested and executed, when the Japanese invaded in 1937, starting World War 2.] The Chinese Nationalist army had to put out this bigger fire, and reluctantly signed a peace treaty with the Chinese Communist Party. Throughout the war, the Nationalists suffered many gas and germ attacks from the Japanese, 200 Chinese generals died, 25 million people died, and most of the elite soldiery were killed in action. Meanwhile, even the Soviet military advisors for the CCP reported to Moscow that the CCP avoided all conflict, and focused on amassing resources and spreading influence by lying that it was THEY who were bleeding in the frontlines for China, while Nationalists sat back and hoarded all the supplies. When the Japanese were finally being beaten back in 1945, the communists backstabbed the Nationalists by starting a new front all of a sudden, and in 3 years drove them to the small island of Taiwan. In 40k terms this would be if an Imperial world was finally beating back some massive [[Xenos]] occupation, only to find their homeworld overtaken by Chaos cultists, then finding refuge on fringe world they liberated, but much to their dismay discovered this last refuge too was contaminated, through decades of foul indoctrination, the [[Avatar|worshiping of Xenos as gods and hating their own humanity.]] [[What|This is why Mao Zedong later thanked the Japanese for invading China and saving him, and without their help, he would have been dead.]]
** After killing 2 million people in Vietnam in WW2, Japan during the Vietnam War got trillions MORE US dollars while not shedding a single blood to help fix the problems they created. By the time Vietnam was hung out to dry and became overrun by communists, Japan was glad it did not have to pay a single yen as reparations to Vietnam because the Cold War atmosphere provided easy excuse for not paying communists anything. In 40k terms this is deliberately throwing the surviving families of your victims to chaos cults just to get them hunted down by the [[Inquisition]]/[[Exterminatus]]ed.
** Once the Cold War was over, Japan's backstabbings (because unlike Germany, Japan's same WW2 fascist political families who feign alliance with America but have always spoken of conquering America with their own dollars, still ruled Japan to this day, 50% of their positions hereditary and one-party rule has been in effect since 1955, [https://www.ndl.go.jp/modern/e/cha6/index.html called the 1955 system]) and outright tech thefts were seen to with lawsuits from various tech firms [https://prabook.com/web/andreas.pavel/2578953 (side note: The SONY Walkman wasn't invented by SONY at all, but stolen, then with ill-gotten profits sued the inventor to bankruptcy, and finally when everyone was done with it decades later, settled for a measly sum. There are tons of false propaganda like this)]. They still managed to lobby Senators to get them out of paying for their treachery, but even so, future American aid was cut short. Without trillions foreign aid, without colonies to exploit, they have finally had to rely on their own selves: and are now wallowing in the world's greatest debt-to-GDP ratio (only recently surpassed by Venezuela) and a 30-year recession unprecedented in the history of any human civilization on the planet, starting right from the end of the Cold War in 1992. [[Weeaboo]]s pretty much have been worshiping what was essentially their grandparents' tax dollars. And you thought 2.3 trillion spent in Afghanistan was costly.
** Polish soldiers and government-in-exile in of Free Poland fought for against the Germans in WW2 on the Allied side, but around 1944, the Allies decided to fuck them over, and was happy to let them not take back their country but instead merely change hands and become taken over by pro-Soviet communist puppets. This decision among the Allies was even deliberately kept hidden until the end of the war so the Polish would keep on laying their lives down for them and fight until Germany surrendered. The veterans had no choice but to live in allied nations, mostly England. These veterans were not allowed to rear their heads in the Allied nations they were taking refuge in, and were ostracized, spat on, or even depicted as squatters who were taking jobs from the English. Those few who did go back to their now communist homeland were living lives worse than before, or outright arrested and executed for political reasons, as the communist puppets were worried their true heroic deeds would drive an insurrection to retake Poland from foreign powers once more. Most never lived to see their country finally regain its sovereignty when the USSR dissolved in 1991.
*** Wojtek the bear, a hero of WW2 who caught Nazi spies and carried heavy artillery shells for his platoon of the Polish Armed Forces in the West, was also not able to go back to his homeland in Poland, but had to live out his days in a pen with other bears in a Edinburgh Zoo. He was ostracized among the other bears and lived a lonely existence. His rare moments of joy were when his old comrades from the platoon visited and gave him the cigarettes they used to give him back in the army. They commiserated both being backstabbed and unwanted persons by the society they live in despite fighting for its freedom.
** The South Vietnamese government in exile suffers the same, as having to weather through the colonization of the French, then the abject butchering rape and destruction caused by the Japanese in WW2, then the destruction causing a power vacuum and a fight that went on for decades, only for the communist North to takeover in full, and the South Vietnamese refugees had to discard all their livelihoods or be raped or butchered by the communists. The communists' Hue Massacre during the Vietnam War was nothing compared to what was in store for people who were not able to escape South Vietnam in 1975... Only for Cambodia to start a war with Vietnam. And while Vietnamese army was putting that fire out, the Chinese suddenly invaded from a 2nd front (which quickly ended when the Soviets, having skirmishes and even threatened a very one-sided nuclear war with China, threatened the Chinese to pull out of Vietnam). For the Vietnamese for quite some decades, it was quite grim dark and there was only war.
* Most of '''David Bowie''''s songs about 1990s.

== Grimderp ==
{{topquote| Why don't people band together to fix things? Because GRIMDARK. Why hasn't an external system supplanted the current, barely functioning one? Because GRIMDARK. How does such a woefully inefficient system manage the logistical nightmare of endless total war? Because I murdered a baby seal, that's why! You should feel bad.|Terrible Writing Advice (The GRIMDARK Episode)}}

Grimderp is what happens when a writer takes grimdark so far that it goes [[derp]]. The writer puts something in that makes the setting more grimdark, but it's generally reliant on at least one party involved [[Fail|suddenly abandoning all sense of reason and logic]], or else caused by a lack of forethought on the implications of how the element interacts with the world. Many long-runner grimdark works will become this sooner or later, as either the setting or the cast's morality (rather a usually extreme lack thereof) will induce complete and utter apathy in the audience and cause them to give up out of sheer pointlessness. Most "dark" anime/manga tend to be more or less grimderp, as attempts to attract mature audiences ends in violence, blood, and sex without consequence (at BEST, mind you. [[Rape|At worst...]]), all in gratuitous quantities.

To be clear, grimderp is not just that something is "dark" or that a character behaves stupidly. Human beings make dumb, short-sighted, irrational, and morally objectionable decisions all the time, just crack open about any book on human history. Grimderp is when a character breaks character to do something they would normally never do or engage in behavior that is logistically impossible [[Gav Thorpe|("there are as many elves as the plot demands")]], simply "because it's dark". To put it in another way, it is basically the author(s) writing dark things for the sake of [[Edgy|edginess]]. The end product often comes out as painfully juvenile and sounding like something out of a 13-year-old fanfic that thinks adding barbwire coated in feces to everything makes something 'deep'.

That is not to say it is impossible to make an absurdly dark fiction without straying off course into grimderp territory. The post-apocalyptic short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison avoids the grimderp label due to the historical context the story was written in as well as the philosophical debate on the idea of cruelty as presented through AM. Is AM a spiteful, cruel monster or a product of man's penchant for violence and warfare trapped in its own database prison? Another example that avoids this title would be Stephen Baxter's [[Xeelee Sequence]], whose entire ethos is a critique and ruthless deconstruction on the entire [[Humanity Fuck Yeah]] and [[Cthulhu|Cosmic Horror]] tropes whilst still crafting an unbelievably depressing multiverse. So yes, it is possible to write pure concentrated grimdark, but it should be done with a level of delicacy and self-awareness for it to be seen as legible.

* The Last of Us: Part 2, the sequel to the critically acclaimed The Last of Us, is Grimderp in its purest form: Characters prolong suffering simply out of the blue. Basic logic is thrown out as countless characters dive headfirst into a rabbit hole of violence, suffering, and depression, often to the point of [[Edgy|literal edginess]].
* The Dothraki of "[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]". We are asked to believe that an entire culture can sustain itself by raiding settled people (when the Mongols and Plains Indians they're based on hunted and herded large animals) while ''not selling or eating the livestock they plunder'', eating horses whenever possible despite borderline worshipping them and relying on them as beasts of burden or war steeds, solve literally all their disputes with murder and defeat their enemies with mass charges (despite real nomads having small populations, and winning battles with cavalry skill and/or surprise). At the point where the story says that "a wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull occasion" and mentions warriors casually raping dancers (the first fight to the death started over two warriors wanting the same dancer), the whole thing just looks like an [[edgy]] [[Magical Realm]] based on "hordes of eastern savages" clichés.
* [[My Little Pony|Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons]] is a fanfiction about magical ponies so grim, dark, and derp that it would almost be comical if it wasn't so fucking horrifying. With characters that get shit on (both figuratively and literally) more than the [[Lamenters]], and with a world so bleak (missing the point of Fallout, FiM, ''and'' the original Fallout: Equestria) that becoming an hero WOULD ACTUALLY BE the happiest ending, it's the prime example of how to make readers stop giving a fuck about the story at all.
* On that note, 90% of all grimdark fics are grimderp since writers are under the impression that [[Edgy|just making things dark makes it good writing]]. There are exceptions, but they are rare, because Sturgeon's Law is a thing. On the flip side, however, [[DOOM: Repercussions of Evil|certain examples]] have reached the apotheosis of Grimderp and become gut-bustingly hilarious.
* Warhammer 40,000 gets called out as this by some. Certainly it's a valid criticism of certain parts, but as we said earlier, [[Skub|you could argue about what is and is not grimderp in 40k for weeks without conclusion.]] For example, the Imperium is excessively self-destructive and tyrannical to its own people, but in the hands of a good writer, it's meant to underline how corrupt and desperate the Imperium has become without the Emperor's guidance, and how even those who are neither incompetent nor malicious still have to make brutally difficult choices. In the hands of a lesser writer, it's unnecessary evil purely for the sake of evil. We should call our next book "[[C.S. Goto|Darkness of Darkest Dark!]]"
** Historically, the Grail myths drift, not from [[Ecclesiarchy|Christian sources]], but Celtic ones (and beyond the Celts, older civilizations), and a typical feature of these myths happens to be the healing of a King through forces of restauration and regeneration (i.e. to put one in touch with his sources, with his roots), and the King was typically seen in agrarian societies as the King of a land, avatara of a Sky-Father, and [[Alarielle|the Queen as the Earth Goddess]]. The [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Psychic 101|Geokinesis psychic discipline]] has a power called '''Earth Blood''' who would do just that; if only [[Adeptus Custodes|someone]] let Librarians enter the Imperial Palace to do some Perceval style healing.
**[[Khornate Knights]].
**The [[Grey Knights]]' (who seem to get this a lot, really) equipment and how it is made. Specifically, every bolt shell that the Grey Knights use is consecrated by the blood sacrifice of a righteous man or woman in a borderline Khornate ritual (and it has to be a ''good'' person, not just anyone. How the Imperium determines if someone is sufficiently "good" or not remains an open question). Those Aegis armors? Made from thousands of psykers (including ''children'') burned alive in a furnace to channel their power to the armor. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people have to die to make ''one'' Grey Knight combat-effective. This has caused a lot of [[skub]] as to whether it is grimderp or not, as it raises the question of where the Grey Knights find enough good people to consecrate all of the bolter rounds they go through every battle (especially in the 42nd millennium, considering the monstrous spike in Chaos activity post-Rift).
**[[Gellar Field]]s being powered by the dreams of a comatose psyker being used as a battery (which also burns out and has to be replaced regularly). While very dark, it crosses the line into grimderp when one realizes 1) that Gellar Fields were said to be invented long before psykers began appearing among humanity, and 2) psykers are apparently rare enough in the Imperium that the Imperium has [[Black_Ships|an entire institution]] dedicated to rounding up psykers and bringing them back to Terra to make use of them, like making [[Astropath]]s or feeding the [[Astronomican]] and the [[Golden Throne]]. And according to recent editions the Black Ships are just barely meeting the quota to keep the [[Golden Throne]] going, so it's not like there are a lot of spare psykers around to be made into Gellar Field batteries.
**Originally, the [[Black Templars]] were treated as refusing to suffer the witch no matter who they were, to the point of refusing to ally with any Imperial institution that made use of them. This got retconned to only hate ''enemy'' psykers in 6th edition after it was pointed out it would be really hard for the Black Templars to do anything if they refused to tolerate Astropaths or Navigators, and thus have no Warp travel or faster-than-light communication.
**[[Imperial_Worlds#Agri-World|Agri-Worlds]]. Seemingly in response to the common fandom sentiment that [[The_Imperium_of_Man#However.2C_is_the_Imperium_really_that_bad.3F|most worlds in the Imperium are actually quite decent places to live]], just so long as you don't get invaded by [[Orks]], [[Chris Wraight]] in ''Lords of Silence'' outlines a typical Agri-World, describing a horrific hellscape wracked by permanent Dust Bowl conditions and so much pesticides that the sky turns orange and it is not safe to walk around outside without a biohazard suit, and goes on to say that all Agri-Worlds are like this. This has caused a lot of [[skub]] within the community. Some say that this practice is perfectly acceptable grimdark, and that unsustainable farming practices aren't exactly unusual in human history (look at slash-and-burn farming practices in Brazil, or aquifer use in the United States). However, what people find issue with is the claim that ''all'' agri-worlds are invariably like this, when [[Your Dudes|the fact that conditions on various planets in the Imperium vary massively from world to world as needed for the plot and there is almost no standardization]] has always been considered one of the big selling points of the setting (not to mention contradicting descriptions of Agri-Worlds in [[Ciaphas Cain]] and the [[Last Chancers]]). The other aspect that people tend to find unbelievable is that the Imperium is claimed to not even use crop rotation in their Agri-Worlds, simply farming the same crop over and over again until the soil gives out and the planet becomes a [[Death World]]. The Imperium may have lost a lot of its ancient knowledge, but crop rotation as a practice goes back to the freaking ''Stone Age''. [[Derp|Its absurd to see knowledge that basic being lost in the horrors of Old Night]], or not been rediscovered in the time after. This also means the Imperium would literally have run out of planets thousands of years ago if this was true.
** The nature of how Imperial ships work has caused a great deal of [[skub]]. Namely the fact that the weapons of Imperial ships are loaded by hundreds of chem-bulked, rabid slaves dragging them into place while being whipped, the exertion being so great that many die frothing at the mouth by the effort or have their hands crushed by chains. They do this completely by hand, hauling the munitions across the ship with chains. This despite the fact that hydraulic power systems have existed since the 18th century. They don't even use inclined planes or levers, something which humanity has been using to haul large objects where they want them to go since the days of Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and Easter Island. Or they could literally just use a [[Chimera Transport|Chimera]] or a team of grox to do the job, you know, the reason why humanity built large vehicles and domesticated large animals? Meanwhile the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] is using autoloaders, and is deliberately go keeping the technology from the rest of the Imperium so they will have an advantage in case another civil war ever breaks out. Some say this is perfectly acceptable grimdark, others say that this is just too ridiculously inefficient to take seriously, even for the Imperium.
**The Marneus Calgar comic has caused a shitstorm with the recent revelations that the average life expectancy of the BEST place in the Imperium is in the mid-thirties, which is fucking <u>[[FAIL|'''STUPID''']]</U>. Because that means that the life expectancy of other non-Ultramar worlds are drastically shorter, which makes the machinations on how the Imperium is run, fucking unsustainable. If child mortality rates are ''that high'', then entire worlds would have quite literally run out of humans especially in warzones, while entire sectors' worth of economies would collapse or stagnate as more kids die before they grow up and be a productive member of society. This creates a drain in resources and long-term stability; it was already considered unsustainable during MEDIEVAL times, so you could just extrapolate this to a million worlds and the Imperium should collapse under its own inertia and weight by this point. I don't care how 'disposable' human life is, it is still a resource and the [[Emprah]] fucking hates wasting resources. We get that the comic writer is trying to shoehorn even more feudalist themes in the comics, but the problem is, this is not Krieg we're talking about, but fucking ''Ultramar''. So either the author does not know what sense of scale is, or that he does not understand the works of [[Roboute Guilliman|Guilliman]] because Grandpa Smurf [[Rage|'''WOULD. NOT.''' let this shit fly under the radar.]] The author has confirmed, however, that it was added to make Ultramar feel more grimdark. To give you some context, Somalia in the mid 1960s has a higher life expectancy than this. This is not grimdark, this is just fucking stupid that breaks the suspension of disbelief. It is one of the few things that both 4Chan and Reddit concurrently agree upon as fluff breaking.
**To be honest, the whole idea of humans being the "teeming multitudes" faction [[Imperial Guard|winning battles by sheer weight of numbers]] and which [[Skaven|breed quickly and are easily replaced]] is kind of silly if you know anything about human reproduction. Among species on Earth, humans are notable for being one of the ''slowest'' reproducing species out there. It takes nine months for a human to gestate to maturity in the womb, more than any other animal aside from elephants and whales, and even after birth humans take longer to reach maturity even compared to our close relatives the Neanderthals and ''Homo erectus''. Additionally, it takes a huge amount of parental care to care for a child and raise them to functional adulthood, more than any other animal. On top of this, pregnancy is incredibly crippling for human females, and women have a one in three chance of dying in childbirth if giving birth without any external aid or midwives (as would be the case for a citizen of the underhives), something almost no other species has to deal with. The way our species generally works is we breed incredibly slowly but live an incredibly long time and invest a lot of resources to make sure those few that are born survive to adulthood, which basically makes us the [[elves]] of the animal kingdom. Barring some major technological breakthrough like artificial wombs or genetic engineering to reduce the crippling side effects of human pregnancy or long adolescence, humans are unlikely to be able to outbreed anything. And while some factions in the Imperium do have access to artificial wombs (like the [[Mechanicus]], most of humanity in 40k are shown to still reproducing the old fashioned way. Even if humanity starts out with a huge population it can throw at any problem, that population is going to be depleted pretty fast because humanity [[Eldar|can't replace their losses]]. Even if they are the greatest resource the Imperium has, they're still trying to fight a war of attrition against foes including [[Daemons|ones who can't even be properly killed]] and two races who can easily outbreed humanity; [[Orks|one reproduces by fighting]] and [[Tyranids|the other are a rapidly reproducing horde of space locusts who go from conception to combat-ready within a Terran week]]. However, fans tend to ignore this because of the whole “to be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions” thing that is part of the general lack of regard for human life that makes 40k 40k, so people give it a pass.
** Some 40k sources claim that millions if not billions of guardsmen are killed EVERY SECOND. Even with the scale of the imperium taken into the account, having many times the current population of the Earth die every minute would be ridiculous for the whole of Imperium, let alone just the Imperial Guard.
**[[Deathwatch|Watch Captain Artemis]] saying [[Heresy|better to let the galaxy burn and allow the Imperium to fall to Chaos than allow the xenos to live]], right before [[Battle_of_Coheria|fucking up an eldar ritual that would have awakened Ynnead early and fucked over Slaanesh]], indirectly [[Gathering Storm|causing all of the ruckus of 8th Edition]]. Granted, while this does come from the [[Deathwatch]], who tend to be rabidly anti-xenos even by the Imperium's standards, this is for ''Chaos'', the Archenemy, the [[Big Bad Evil Guy]] of the Warhammer 40k setting, the one faction that even the notoriously xenophobic Imperium will begrudgingly admit is a bigger threat than the xenos and will team up with them to fight against it. A loyalist saying they ''prefer Chaos'' over anything, even as the lesser of two evils, should be grounds for an insta-[[BLAM]]ing and a red flag for Chaos corruption. And no, Watch Captain Artemis was not [[BLAM]]-ed for this, nor is this treated as the beginnings of his corruption and a slow fall to [[Chaos]]. And so a loyalist Space Marine managed to [[Fail|single-handedly save Slaanesh]]. Seriously, Chaos champions have been elevated to [[Daemon Prince|Daemon Princehood]] for less.
** The whole thing reached the lowest point by 3rd edition, considered the Darker and Edgier version of 40k, this is when some of the silliest things mentioned in this wiki were added or accentuated, after that 40k required more than 5 EDITIONS of fluff update, novels, characters and additional background to finally come back from "we no longer care" to an actual war with stakes and actual chances for all sides involved.
** On [[Catachan]], half the population doesnt survive infancy. Of the ones that do, half don't survive past 10 years. Its not even a guarantee that people past ten years of age survive into adulthood. Between the amount of kids EACH WOMAN would be required to have just to SUSTAIN the population, the amount of care that would be required for the pregnant women and her kids, along with (at absolute best) a precarious battle against nature itself, the Catachan population would be completely unsustainable. It's an honest to God-Emperor miracle that the planet even managed to accumulate a population of 12 million people, and even more miraculous that the Space Rambos were the byproduct.
** The Emperor forcibly teleports Angron away from his final stand with his gladiator comrades, leaving them to die and telling Angron to get over himself. He also does absolutely nothing to ease Angron's suffering or convince him of the necessity of the Great Crusade. When asked by Angron why He would do something like this in spite of the wealth of other options, the only excuse Big E gives is that He's the Emperor and has more important shit to do on a much wider scale. Between there being no narrative or in-character precedent for Big E doing this and a laundry list of explanations as to what He could've done differently, this part of Angron's backstory and The Emperor's role in it can only be summed up as ADB yet again being guilty of shit writing and overly relying on daddy issues as a plot device.

* [[Star Wars]]: Although Star Wars is 40k's high fantasy twin, there have been a few grimderp things that came out recently in Canon that has given 40k a run for its money. According to Canon, specifically the novel ''Ashoka,'' the Galactic Empire forces farming worlds by gunpoint to harvest a particular breed of crop to be used as rations for their troops. The problem? These crops were specifically designed to [[Wat|soak up every bit of nutrients on the planet until it becomes sterile.]] Meaning that the particular farming world is only capable of harvesting the crops a few times [[FAIL|<u>''AT BEST''</u>]] before it becomes a sterile death world. Let's put this in context here, the Galactic Empire is currently fighting a galaxy-wide insurgency and being a galaxy-wide government, the GE NEEDS a sustainable way to produce food in order to keep its giant military well-fed for long-term campaigns. So forcing farming worlds to produce crops that intentionally leave their worlds sterile after a few farming cycles is just fucking [[EPIC FAIL|<u>'''STUPID'''</u>.]] Because realistically, the GE would have quite literally, ran out of food in a decade, collapsing due to galaxy-wide famine. [[FAIL|This shit is so fucking stupid and retarded that it makes the abovementioned IoM agri-world farming practises look eco-friendly in comparison.]] Even if they did something somewhat reasonable like restricting this practice to worlds that sided with the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars as a punishment, it's just spiteful beyond all reason.
** Seriously, this is a level of grimderp surpassing the [[Skub|Yuuzhan Vong]]; sure, they were be a race of machine-hating, masochistic religious zealots, but even they had organic technology to compensate, some were capable of pragmatism and they didn't make unsustainable food sources... and this is before they overhauled their society.
* [[Drowtales]]: The whole series is Grimderp on steroids, but there are a few particularly nauseating examples: nothing like the protagonist [[Mary Sue]] of innocence and purity blowing up the light elf MILF slave called Maya in an argument with a rival, an argument in which she feels morally justified right after buying a fighting slave which was doomed to die in underground Arenas even most Drow find disgusting, ran by a complete monster of a drow, regularly visited to watch slaves die, that's right, by the protagonist Ariel. Maya dies crying in her native tongue about "what she did to deserve this", crying she'll never see sunlight again. Protagonist feels a bit bad about a few days, and only that when she sees a few naked light elf slaves for sale, reminiscing Maya's face. Years pass and she thinks all the slavery and needless murder isn't so cool... just before visiting a surface colony who was taken from humans. She and her lesbian lover have an orgy on the settlement they just conquered by massacre. After a blissful after-sex sleep, the settlement is counterattacked by desperate humans coming to save their kin... which are promptly murdered by the half-light half-dark elf paladin of Sharess (Yes, a [[Mary Sue]] worshipping a total [[Baldur's Gate]] rip-off) who is all high and righteous when she is burning innocent humans who wanted to save their kin from slave traders about to buy the survivors. The protagonist's lesbian empath Drow (yes, with a length of purple hair paint, straight out of Deviantart) friend berates the cornered humans with a lame excuse line of "I feel your pain, why don't you take your survivors and run?!" when the said humans scream in desperation to save their families from the town's locked buildings, die horribly and our "I'm glad my clan Sarghress prevents slavery, let's shake hands and feast on the food we just plundered!" protagonist shakes hands on it. It's not even depressing, it's plain fucking logic diarrhea with enough depressive themes to OD an edgy 13 year old. (considering the authors were that old when they started...)
* Jeph Loeb's run on [[/co/|Ultimate Marvel]]: people dying brutally (most well known being Wasp getting eaten by the Blob) and completely gratuitously (Dr. Strange is killed the one page he shows up on and is completely forgotten afterwards), lore rape worst than anything Ward ever did (the heroic Pyro is now a rapist version of the mainline Marvel Pyro with no explanation; Thor going from new age hippie to mainline-style viking with no explanation... at least that last one is kinda cool). Overall it was so bad it effectively made the Ultimate Marvel universe (with the exception of Spider-Man and his cast) completely unusable. Small wonder that years later, Marvel thought smashing it and the main Marvel universe together would be a good idea.
** Jeph had lost his 17-year-old son to cancer not long before and apparently was taking his sorrow and anger out on the Ultiverse. It's no excuse, I suppose, but it ''is'' actually kind of sad.
* Koutetsujou no Kabaneri, an anime with a similar premise to the already-grimdark ''Attack on Titan'': It's set in (presumably feudal) Japan, where people are hiding behind walls and communicate with each others using trains to travel from town to town, and trades the giants and horses for guns and [[zombie]]s. Several of the characters have moments of team-killing ineptitude that end up prolonging the conflict far longer than it should:
**The [[samurai]] don't bother with armor and generally aren't very combat-savvy when it comes to zombies, and their [[Lawful Stupid]] tendencies turn any defense against a wall breach into an utter clusterfuck. The antagonist is [[Abaddon|an absolute failure AND wanted for crimes against humanity]], being a [[Edgy|pretentious Che Guevara wannabe]] [[Chaos Pretty Marines|with pink hair]] and wielder of an ugly-yet-somewhat effective [[Sword|sabre]]. He also has a devoted following despite being thoroughly unable to grasp the basics of warfare and its ethics (he thinks children are cowards for not being able to fight monsters that ambush and run through trained adult fighters with ease, and [[What|considers destroying one's own resources and castles to be a viable strategy]]). Meanwhile, the main protagonist has found not one, but TWO miracle solutions that would allow mankind to fight back against the zombie plague, but no one will listen to him, especially not the main antagonist, both because of the above and because ''of course they wouldn't'', it's <s>grimderp</s> GRIMDARK.
**Ironically, Ancient Shintoism (a main religion of that period) has the only known anti-[[Nurgle|zombie]] deities: ''Kukuri hime no kami'', a goddess of purification ([[Reasonable Daemonette|''despite'' being rather sado-masochist]]) whose followers would bind a corpse with ropes, place a big stone on the chest and bury it (coffins are optional). [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Insane as it was]], it was the most common form of burial in the Jomon period, and never went completely out of date through all the medieval period. Despite the rites being a perfect defense against [[Dark Souls|an undead invasion]], apparently they didn't take in this setting. Three guesses why.
*Most dark fantasy/"Ryona" hentai like Redo of a Healer (see [[Edgy]] for details), Kuroinu, Maggot Baits and whatever bargain basement hentai game developer puts the heroines through horrifying rapes, tortures and debauchery with no way to escape, all for little more purposes than to degrade, humiliate and mind-break them.
* [[FATAL]].
* [[Black Tokyo]]
* About half of Garth Ennis's work goes so far around the bend that, if you don't stop caring about anyone in the story and put it down first, it becomes compelling or hilarious. Practically all of his original stories are drowning in grimderp (and author ax grinding). Prime examples include:
** The Boys: Almost every superhero is an irredeemable sexual deviant and loose cannon whose only crime fighting accomplishments come from corporate PR lies, and the story's protagonists are little better.
*** Surprisingly averted for the most part with its Amazon Prime adaptation. By actually making most of the heroes less unambiguously rotten, cutting down the childish silliness, making the violence less gratuitous and more justified, and making the Boys themselves more human, the series actually manages to be WAY darker than the comics. Hell, Billy Butcher actually contemplates MURDERING A CHILD in the series, which is something the way more psychotic Butcher of the comics would not. On the other hand, Homelander was made worse: Homelander's worst atrocities from the comics were actually done by Black Noir who was gaslighting him, while Homelander in the series really did those things and Black Noir has another story.
** Preacher: One of his most infamous works. An edgelord power fantasy against all Christianity, including/especially God, it revolves around a former priest with a mysterious power, his criminal ex and a heroin addicted vampire.
*** Even worse in the Amazon Prime adaptation. The salvageable parts of the plot were swapped out for even more edgelordery, a prime example is dinosaurs being extinct because God killed them all when one did something gross.
** Crossed: Another of his most infamous creations. Most of the world is dead or turned into [[Slaanesh|murder-raping sadists]] á la the Reavers from Firefly due to a virus with a visible symptom being boils forming a cross pattern on the infectee's face. Showing any courage will get you killed or turned into one of the aforementioned murder-rapists, and there are survivors that are just as fucked up as the infectees. Supposedly a dig at arm chair survivalists, it's now mostly remembered for being edgy for the sake of edginess and being overall boring as hell.
* Hatred: Remember how your family told you that GTA was breeding criminals and that games created "monsters"? Well, Hatred tries to cash in on that by making a game dedicated to killing innocent people and making a "parody" out of those reactions, but [[FAIL|fails miserably]] to do that. This is because not only is our main "hero" a complete asshole with literally nothing redeeming about him, but most of the gameplay consists on you shooting unnarmed civilians and members of the policy/military that are easy to beat, and coupled with the monochrome colors the game becomes ''very'' boring in a ''very'' quick pace. And unlike these old games that caused oh so much controversy, Hatred doesn't even have that good old orkish humor (unlike the video game "Postal 2") and tries to [[Serious Business|take everything inside it seriously]], which makes the "Grimdark" aspect come off as ''very'' dumb.
* [[Carl Sargent]]'s total rape of the [[Greyhawk]] setting in ''[[From The Ashes]]''. This is a unique case in that the grimdark was actually fairly well-done; it's that he had to fuck over the game's oldest and most-beloved setting by retconning out (ex.: The Horned Society) or altering to the point of demonization (ex.: Celene, the southern duchies) anything that disagreed with the new über-grimdark direction he wanted it to take that made it grimderp.
* Most of the anti-[[HFY]] content in the [[World of Darkness]], especially the unmitigated misanthropy in parts of [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]. Humans vary from 'Apathetic fools responsible for most of the world's ills' to 'Cackling, moustache-twirling villains', civilization and all its fruits are EVIL!, and [[Red Talons (Werewolf)|the tribe of bestiality-born werewolves that want to exterminate the human race down to pre-Stone Age levels]] are presented as heroes that're unequivocally morally justified in their actions both in and out of setting. [[FAIL|Yeah.]]
* Anything made by biggest hack in Hollywood, <s>Zack</s> Hack Snyder.
* LifeWeb: A complex SS13 spinoff taking place in a cave fortress of a neo-medieval world in the far future, combat is more lethal, and it claims to explore subjects like murder, corruption, rape(with no regard for age), torture, cultism and general human suffering. In reality, the themes it "explores" just means "it's in the game and you can do it" and it's a farce on every level possible.
* The ''Hearts of Iron IV'' mod ''The New Order: Last Days of Europe'' has numerous dystopian "failstates", but there are a few standouts.
** The first is the SS Ordenstaat Burgund, also known as Burgundy. Covering northeastern France and Belgium, Burgundy is ruled by [[Nazi|Heinrich Himmler and the SS]] as a giant concentration camp. Its sole purpose is genocide, first on the local and ultimately on the [[Exterminatus|global]] scale. When it isn't killing its own inhabitants, it's backing SS agents throughout the Third Reich's sphere of influence to further its cause of EEEVIL. Economic minister Oswald Pohl even points out that killing massive swathes of the nation's population just for not being Aryan isn't sustainable, but Himmler regards such criticism as treason. Realistically, Burgundy should have collapsed on itself before the game started, but it can stick around regardless. Playing as it is as difficult and miserable as you'd expect from a Holocaust management sim.
*** Recent updates have focused more on the "derp" than the "grim", apparently as a reaction to Burgundy's pre-rework supervillainy. Unlike before, where it could last into the '80s [[Plot Armor|because the plot would break otherwise]], nü-Burgundy experiences [[Not As Planned]] moments on a near-[[Abbadon|FAILbaddon]] scale. Himmler [[BLAM|shooting Oswald Pohl]] for his "treason" not only tanks the economy but also makes economic management ''impossible''. Over time, the slaves, French and Belgian collaborator legions, and even Burgundy's own ministers will eventually get fed up and rebel. If Himmler purges them, ''literally everyone else'' will rise up in an event called the "Burgundian Spring". Even in the rare event that Himmler actually gets his nuclear Holocaust, it ultimately fails; the "pure" Aryans he chose to preserve emerge from their bunkers...and peacefully join post-apocalyptic society without issue. Why? Himmler told them that only true Aryans would survive the nuclear holocaust, so they assume that [[Derp|all the survivors are Aryan ''by Himmler's definition'']], [[Wat|even if said survivors are Jewish or black]].
** The next is the entirety of Russia. What-was-once Soviet Russia has collapsed into several warlord states, and many of these are grimdark as fuck. Standouts include All-Russian Black League of Omsk, a hyper-nationalist warlord state led by revenge-mad ex-Soviet generals determined to launch a no-holds-barred genocidal war against Germany called the "Great Trial" (imagine if the [[Death Korps of Krieg]] ended up in charge of Russia and you have a pretty good idea); Hyperborea, which is Russia run by [[Chaos Space Marines|batshit-insane neo-pagan Slav supremacists who practice human sacrifice]]; and the Holy Russian Empire, which... honestly deserves its own section, it's so utterly glorious in its grimdark:
*** Russia is unified by a ultra-right wing Komi government headed by a deranged, self-loathing Jewish antisemite named Sergey Taboritsky who believes that [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Tsarevich Alexei miraculously survived the massacre of the Romanovs in 1918 and, like a proverbial king under the mountain, will come back to rule once Russia is sufficiently "purified"]]. To this end, Taboritsky implements "Esoteric National Socialism" i.e the "Burgundian System" (an even more extreme ideological offshoot of Nazism emphasizing inflicting horrible state-mandated cruelty on everyone living under it to strengthen the Aryan race) in Russia, creating a [[The Imperium of Man|theocratic totalitarian dictatorship]] that purges anyone deemed sufficiently "un-Russian", with an emphasis on the Jews. To this end Taboritsky deploys [[The Purge|copious amounts of chemical weapons against dissidents, including one named "Taborite" that melts people's flesh into slurry on contact]], to the extent that vast tracts of Russia are ecologically devastated for thousands of years. Murdering the mentally-ill and disabled children, burning priests at the stake, declaring that [[Inquisition|the idea of innocence ''doesn't exist'']] and changing laws so that even dropping your tools at work can get you tried and summarily executed; that kind of shit. In a world where Adolf Hitler not only exists but achieved even more of his evil plans to reshape the world than in real life, he is considered a ''secondary evil'' to Taboritsky. But eventually Taboritsky has a beautiful vision of Alexei coming back that turns into a vision of a little pile of bones with a bullet hole through the skull, and the old man realizes that Alexei is dead and not coming back and literally ''dies of despair''. This is only the ''very beginning'' of Taboritsky's wild ride and subsequent events show the nation's descent into complete insanity that has been affectionately named "Post-Taboritsky Meta-Horror Neo-Warlordism". Because nobody in their right mind would dare confront or question a man who might strangle you thinking you are Cain, everyone settles into default orders through sheer fear. Purification squads just... keep killing, until they lose their minds ''a la'' ''Heart of Darkness''; one soldier is so far-gone that he doesn't even recognize his own parents shortly after executing them. Factory workers are made to work themselves to death because the order to let them go home never comes through. Whole towns and swathes of Russia are completely destroyed by the army bombarding them with chemical weapons or abandoned as people begin ''fleeing west into Nazi Germany'' just to escape the horror. Eventually the armies, the ministers and even the ''flag'' of the Holy Russian Empire disappear, Russia turns into a black borderless DMZ, and the portrait changes to an unlit abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere and the nation gains the "Radio Silence" trait, with only one broadcast leaving the nation's borders, presumably forevermore: ''"REMAIN CALM. THE REGENT ENDURES. ALEXEI LIVES. THE HOLY RUSSIAN EMPIRE SHALL ENDURE. THERE IS MUCH WORK TO BE DONE"''. Apparently according to the developers, what Taboritsky does to Russia is ''so thorough that it's like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust'' and the trauma is so great that Russia will ''never'' reunify ''ever again''. The sheer number of references to the Imperium of Man in Taboritsky's path is sometimes seen as a message: in literally any setting except [[Warhammer 40,000]]'s unique circumstances, a theo-fascist state comparable to the Imperium is [[FAIL|doomed to auto-genocide]]. And it only gets worse from there...
*** The ''After Midnight'' update adds a post-Taboritsky epilogue and paints a nightmarish picture of what "Post-Taboritsky Meta-Horror Neo-Warlordism" fully entails. After a period of total anarchy where mechanized warbands of radicalized ultranationalist soldiers roam the country killing everyone they encounter, successor states eventually emerge headed by some of the most deranged and unstable people you can imagine. The Black League of Omsk becomes even more insane, expanding the Great Trial, a project of genocidal war against the Germans, to also include any "corrupted" Russians not outside their borders. The once-persecuted Kazakhs are launching genocidal crusades into Russia to wipe the Russian people from the earth as revenge. A band of Shturmoviki stranded in Omsk and driven mad by the revelation that the head of the Holy Russian Empire was a Jew have [[Chaos Space Marines|pledged their allegiance to Satan out of despair and madness, engaging in human sacrifice and inviting nihilistic thugs and serial killers into their ranks]]. Magadan is a wretched hive of smugglers and ex-fascist thugs. The Eurasian Republic is a megacorp warlord state convinced that explicitly rejects all dreams and ideals beyond sustaining the state, and that Russian national identity is so tainted irrevocably by the HRE that it seeks to create a new "Eurasian" identity in its place. I could go on.
* Kane & Lynch: Dog Days. The First game already bordered on Grimderp thanks to having two completely villanious outlaws going against others villanious outlaws, but avoided it by having an engaging if [[edgy]] plot, but the second game? Oh boy, it jumps the shark from grimvile to shitvile. Our "heroes" return, just as horrible as ever, except with the addendum that the game tries to create the [[Daemonculaba|most disgusting, creepy atmosphere]] possible - shaky camera in order to portray the protagonists diminishing mental health, flares that block your victims blown up parts and others thing done to really showcase violence as "disturbing". It "succeeds" while making the game completely unplayable as the shaky camera ends up being vomit-inducing, the screen being blocked by blood and trash coming off as more obnoxious than anything else and the lack of heroic, or even simpathetic motivation from the main characters making it impossible for a player to empathize with the [[edgy|omnicidal maniacs who by the end of the campaign have ruined the lives of hundreds of innocent people just save their own face]]. Your "reward" for going through this shit treck? A [[troll|clifhanger ending that doesn't promise a single good thing out of it]]. Imagine all the problems mentioned above regarding The Last Of Us 2, swap the zombie apocalypse scenario for a criminal story and slap outdated gameplay and an atmosphere done on purpose to be off-putting in it, and you have a game a player will barely endure a single playthrough - while at the same time not caring for any of the two assholes you are controlling. Or to quote our hate/fuck buddy from [[Zero Punctuation]]:
{{topquote|Much as the visuals succeed too well at being deliberately hideous, the characters succeed too well at being deliberately wankers. There's nothing fun about the game. No light relief, just one nauseating heap on unpleasantness after another, like a roadside café breakfast special by Jeffrey Dahmer.|Yahtzee}}

== Grim Tragedy ==
Naturally in a universe such as 40k, the grimdarkness of the setting would mean nothing if not tied into the ironic tragedy of the lore. This includes:

*[[Imperium|A species]] with so much potential, but so afraid of the dauntless perils of Chaos that they will brutally harass and execute entire populations out of mere suspicion, all to stop the spread of ruin while indirectly strengthening those who seek to destroy them (''particularly'' Chaos). They, as a people, have progressed massively in population, technology and power since their species conception, yet they, more than anyone else, have lost one vital element: their humanity.

*[[Eldar|A race who]] was once at a zenith of civilization and prosperity, capable of bending the very Gods to their will. But by their own hand reduced themselves to scattered isolated fleets and colonies always on the run; their pompous and arrogant leaders hide behind a dwindling sense of security based in superiority over other races who are far more successful and perhaps destined to be greater than they ever were. [[Dark Eldar|A number among them]], after their unholy and insidious near-demise, continue (with oblivious glee) to empower [[Slaanesh|the very being that brought them to ruin]] in order to save themselves.

*[[Orks|A race of creatures]] who possess the brightest "potential"; with near mastery over the psychic, near-natural physical perfection and almost limitless numbers from their highly successful methods of reproduction... And yet they are genetically restricted by an unquenchable thirst for conflict which drives each to idiocy, leaving them hopeless of advancing beyond simple barbarians.

*[[Necron|An ancient people]] who were so envious of their neighbors' lifespans that they were ready to cripple the entire galaxy just for the sake of petty superiority - a superiority neutered by their unwitting transformation into metaphorical and literal automatons. They are now mindless machines who, bar few, care nothing of their past and seek only one thing: Conquest. And those who still have their personalities are either insane, demented, depressed, brooding, psychotic, or any combination of these in various proportions.

*[[Tau|A newborn race]] who innocently believes that there can be peace and acknowledgement among each other. Unfortunately the sinister methods they employ hoping that it is for [[Greater Good|something better]] is slowly, but steadily driving them into the decadence that plagues the other species. In doing so they become proof, both of the fact that [[Horus|anyone]], [[Emperor|no matter their intentions]], can be corrupted, and also of the kindness that the rest have forsaken for damnation and despair...

*The fact that, despite tens of thousands of years of knowing nothing but war, these peoples are woefully unprepared for what is to come. No matter how many regiments can be raised or Craftworlds restored, what is out there is [[Tyranids|all consuming, diabolical and numberless...]] Unless, they are themselves on the verge of extinction, and as such, desperately trying to cross over the great void between galaxies, which implies fighting against [[Ork|invincibles foes]] and [[Ultramarines|fate dodging cheaters]] unnaturaly empowered by the grief of an [[Games Workshop|unspeakable Eldritch Abomination beyond the cosmos]]. The good option is that there are a thousand galaxies worth of the fucking bugs; the bad option is that there are billions upon billions of galaxies worth of the fucking bugs. The worse option is that billions upon billions galaxies worth of what is essentially the perfect organism is running away from something worse.

== See also ==
*[[Noblebright]]
*[[Edgy]]
*[[Eversor]]
*[[Lamenters]]

== External Links ==
* [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/grimdark KnowYourMeme has examples from outside of /tg/]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQAWBeFnkg8 Trope Talk: Grimdark], a analysis of the "Grimdark" style of storytelling and why it works (and why sometimes it doesn't)
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Grimdark

2022-12-16T14:29:40Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:C570:F909:4D50:3C58: /* IRL */ Bullshit, each gun only weighed a bit over 100 tonnes. Each TURRET was over 2000, but even then that's 'only' a destroyer

{{Grimdark}}
[[File:P23436_p_v10_aa.jpg|300px|right|thumb|If your protagonist or antagonist isn't at least this [[edgy]], then you're probably doing Grimdark wrong.]]
[[Image:Lovepeace.png|thumb|right|It's totally the opposite of this.]][[Image:Inspector Grimgadget.jpg|thumb|right|Inspector Gadget, reimagined with a grimdark feel.]]
[[Image:Grimdark.jpg|thumb|right|Grimdark versions of the TMNT. Their mentor is a Skaven.]]
[[Image:Grimdarkery.jpg|thumb|right|Grimdark means war, and always endless, brutal war.]]
{{topquote|We are not men disguised as mere dogs, we are wolves disguised as men|Captain Muroto, ''Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade''}}
{{topquote|They say, 'Evil prevails when good men fail to act.' What they ought to say is, 'Evil prevails.'|Yuri Orlov, ''Lord of War''}}
{{topquote|Tᴀᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɢʀɪɴᴅ ɪᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪɴᴇsᴛ ᴘᴏᴡᴅᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ sɪᴇᴠᴇ ɪᴛ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪɴᴇsᴛ sɪᴇᴠᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇɴ sʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴇ ᴏɴᴇ ᴀᴛᴏᴍ ᴏғ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴏʟᴇᴄᴜʟᴇ ᴏғ ᴍᴇʀᴄʏ ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴇᴛ... Aɴᴅ ʏᴇᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀᴄᴛ ᴀs ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs sᴏᴍᴇ ɪᴅᴇᴀʟ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ, ᴀs ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs sᴏᴍᴇ... Sᴏᴍᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛɴᴇss ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsᴇ ʙʏ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ɪᴛ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ ʙᴇ ᴊᴜᴅɢᴇᴅ.|DEATH, [[Discworld|Hogfather]] (while explaining that since humans believe that it does, the way we believe Santa or the "Hogfather" does, we make it so it does.)}}

'''Grimdark''' is an adjective derived from the tagline for [[Warhammer 40,000]], which states that "In the '''grim darkness''' of the far future, there is only war," and in some of the novels (at least a few of the [[Ciaphas Cain]] stories, for instance) it states straightforwardly, "in the '''grim dark''' future..." Whether this came after "grimdark" began to be popularly used as an adjective is not wholly clear (probably after). It is generally used to describe a dilapidated, dystopian "crapsack world" setting in which it would really suck to live, and it is the setting of Warhammer 40,000 itself. In fairness to the franchise and its defenders, this is because the published material primarily focuses on war and [[Chaos Gods|cults]] and other [[Daemonculaba|horrible things]]. There are supposed to be many pleasant and peaceful worlds and sectors in the Imperium, but they are mostly ignored as they are boring -- and when they DO appear in lore or fluff, they're usually to go from "0 problems" to "totally fucked", very quickly. It can also be used to describe artwork that has a ''grimdark'' feel, even if the setting itself would not normally be considered grim or dark, or something sinister or uncommonly threatening/intimidating in real-life. This often applies to fan-art and writefaggotry as well.

Depending on your own personal tolerances for grim darkness of course, it can be taken to the extreme, just like with all descriptive traits. There is a point in which it becomes more ridiculous than anything else, because everything is indefeasibly tragic all the time - the term for this being [[Grimdark#Grimderp|grimderp]], which is explained further below.

This is an accusation often leveled at Warhammer itself, and leads some to rail against "Grimdark" as a whole, decrying the concept as ridiculous attempts at [[edgy|edginess]] (typically by teenagers), and using the expression to refer solely to such over-the-top settings in a strictly pejorative manner. Others actually embrace this ridiculousness and run with it (including Warhammer 40K itself, due to being a much more obviously comedic setting [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|in early editions]]), insisting that the detractors or even the creators who take it seriously are making a mistake. Some people embrace the grimdarkness and mix it up with some humor (like painting Necrons with bright colors to make them look like edible candy figurines), especially if they are Ork players. But the schism between taking Warhammer's grimdarkness seriously or not is mostly visible with races such as the Tau, who are noticeably less grimdark ''visually'' than most of the other races and are either loved or absolutely hated for it (when not hated for being overpowered as shit). Meanwhile, another sizable percentage postulate that Grimdarkness lends greater moral and ethical complexity to a setting, based on [[Edgy|the fallacy that darkness always equals depth]]. Such people usually cite the works of Dan Abnett and many other Warhammer 40K writers to lend credence to such suppositions; these people are clearly ignoring that fact that most writers tone the grimdark WAY down. What, you didn't think the fact that the Imperium being an effective government, civilians having normal happy lives on par with the Scandinavians, Commissars who never *BLAM* their troops was odd? Needless to say, grimdark is [[Skub|a rather polarizing subject whose discussion often leaves little room for a middle ground]].

Speaking of, the polar opposite of grimdark is [[Noblebright]], a deliberate inversion of grim and dark nature where honor, chivalry, happiness and high adventure rule the day, as opposed to dying in a ditch from a supernatural plague as you run out of potable water and can no longer wait for the logistics department to process your dead comrades into something slightly more palatable before you start eating them. Oh, and being {{BLAM}}ed by a Commissar for even starting to look a little sad from these thoughts.

Although, it could be argued that 40K proper is actually Nobledark. Although the lore claims one man cannot make a difference and heroes are meaningless (Grim), we see the complete opposite of that actually happening in the lore. 40K fluff (40K, not just 30K) is crammed to bursting with heroes who made major differences. If anything, 40K seems to be about the difference one man ''can'' make rather than showing one man cannot make a difference. Even the events revolve around the Great Man idea of basically superheroes and supervillains moving the galaxy (and it's not just actual superhumans doing this). It is nonetheless a very dark setting, though.

== Common grimdark themes ==
*[[1984|Massive, imperialist, overbearing, bureaucratic, dystopian dictatorships]]; e.g. [[Imperium of Man|Nazi Germany clones]], [[Tau|Soviet Union/China clones]], or straight out examples of [[Paranoia|"Big Brother is watching you"]].
*Constant, never ever-ending warfare, usually as a horrific combination of outdated tactics and technology (And sometimes overly advanced technology). E.g., sending line infantry armed with single-shot [[Lasgun|Lasguns]] against a [[Bolter|Heavy Bolter]] nest.
*Horrifyingly large death tolls are perfectly normal. Genocide is also perfectly normal, and in many cases encouraged and espoused.
*Slavery is also perfectly normal, and sometimes considered a great necessity. Massive constructs are often built via slave labor.
*Everyone is racist towards non-humans/[[Eldar|elves]]/[[Mutant|mutants]]/[[Orks|fungus]]/[[Rak'gol|lizards]]/[[Slaugth|worms]]/[[Necrons|robots]]/[[Tyranids|aliens]]/[[Chaos|each other]]. Vice versa for literally every race.
*Speaking of xenophobia towards every species, those who express sympathy for a hated race and/or intermingle with said race, are usually publicly humiliated, tortured, and usually purged.
*Daily dose of [[HFY]]. [[Astral Knights|And]] [[Awesome]].
*[[Shadowrun|The vast majority are poor people who literally live in shit, pollution, crime]], and a plethora of [[Nurgle|all kinds of filthy diseases]], except for a [[Monopoly|few greedy upper 1% who own 99.9% of everything. This has become increasingly ironic as 0.1% of our real world population began to own 99.999% of everything.]]
*You, a poor bastard, are being farmed for shits and giggles by said few greedy upper 1%.
*Most of the poor bastards are being forced to work 23 hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, in factories and/or forced labour camps, until their bodies give out. Forever.
*They're probably making weapons and equipment for [[Imperial Guard|the military]] (which is where the rest of the poor bastards are).
*[[Age of Strife|Dark, disgraceful and recondite past]] covered with [[Alpha Legion|lies]] [[Imperium|propanganda]], [[Tzeentch|deception]] and [[Eldar|partiality]].
*The Higher Powers do indeed give you consideration, they're just malevolent as all fuck.
*Chronic backstabbing. Just like in real life relationships. (''Who hurt you?'')
*[[Ork Snipers|"Frie]][[Marines Malevolent|ndly]] [[Kharn|fire"]]
*[[Space Marines|Child]] [[Imperial Guard|soldiers]]. Just like in real life.
*Your morning alarm clock is the stray bullets you hope don't hit you, from [[Necromunda|the gangsters doing a drive-by on their enemy who happens to be in the same district]] to whom you don't even belong to or like.
*Status quo is god. [[Nurgle|Literally.]]
*[[Tzeentch|Change is worse]].
*[[Cyberpunk|Cybernetics and cyborgs]]; the less human, the better.
*[[Commissar|Daily forecasts reguarly call for a 80% chance or more of *BLAM*]].
*[[Judge Dredd|Police]] [[Adeptus Arbites|brutality]].
*Even minor crimes can have major punishments.
*[[Inquisition|Being innocent or even a victim of crime can be counted as a crime]]. All participants in a crime, whether perpetrator or victim, are charged.
*[[Inquisition|Government agencies that are always there to fuck you over]] at the slightest hint of [[heresy]].
*Did I mention that the [[Inquisition]] commits planetary genocide 24/7?
*The [[Erebus|cock]][[Dark Eldar|suckers]] responsible for most of the shittiness are not only getting away with it, but are surviving and thriving, without becoming major targets for the [[noblebright]] forces.
*Torture that makes the CIA look like saints.
*[[Call of Cthulhu|Sanity checks]].
*Criminally insane delusional psychotics tortured in filthy mental asylums (in case of no/failed SAN checks).
*[[H.P. Lovecraft|Disgusting, horrifying, tentacled eldritch abominations]] that are often the cause of aforementioned criminal insanity.
*Rape. Just like in real life. ([[/d/|And often by said tentacled Eldritch Abominations]].)
*Surgery without anesthesia.
*[[Cannibalism]], in three forms:
*# For power (embracing the myth of "you are what you eat").
*# For food value; sometimes this is concealed by callous authorities as some other kind of food; sometimes, it's just a biological, cultural or desperation thing.
*# For the sheer fun of it.
*Want chemotherapy or some other expensive treatment? Well, you have to eviscerate that old dropout student of yours in order to pay.
*In fact even surgery without anesthesia is a luxury available only to wealthy or important ones, as are all other forms of medicine. 99% of people are expected to die when they fall sick or get injured. That is when they don't get executed FOR falling sick or getting injured.
*[[Fleshcrafting|Human experiments]]. [[Fabius Bile|Sometimes willingly, but most of the time not]]!
*Zombie plagues.
*Ritual cult sacrifices.
*Massive amounts of blood, gore, guts, pain and hatred.
*No personal opinion or choice. Only the illusion of it, in which you probably end up an [[Magnus|unwil]][[Mortarion|ling]] [[Rubric Marines|sla]][[necron|ve]]. Or...[[Chaos spawn|something worse]].
*Anti-intellectualism.
*...and it's justified because even an instant of unprotected thinking risks mass destruction.
*PTSD.
*Nihilism.
* Racism is actually right.
*Gothic and emo aesthetics (with the help of tons of ''"decorative"'' skulls).
*There are no "good guys". Everyone's a jerk, including yourself. ''Especially yourself.''
* Everyone is evil either because they’re just plain monsters or because they are trying to survive which makes everyone evil to everyone else.
*[[Tau|The guys everyone refer to be "good" or "nice"]] are actually just ''the least'' evil bunch, and would still make your average high fantasy/sci-fi arch-villains look like saints in comparison.
*The REAL good guys are either [[Lamenters|the ones (usually) mostly hated, and are going to get fucked over beyond human recognition usually without any logical reason]] or [[Salamanders|too few to make any difference]].
*Aforementioned "good guys" are only "good" because they do care about their allies and civilians, and generally try to make the place less shitty for those they care for. But they still wouldn't hesitate a second before doing pretty horrible things like [[Shadowrun|terrorist actions against "The Man"]], [[Warhammer 40k|killing a defenseless xeno child]], etc...
* The aforementioned defenseless xeno-child needed to be killed either because it was guaranteed to grow up to be a monster, would grow to compete for resources needed for survival, would be corrupted, was already a monster, or any number of reasonable justifications that would leave a modern man in frustrated tears trying to justify not killing it. Welcome to Warhammer 40,000.
*Magic is [[Warp|inherently malevolent]] and actively seeks to [[Cenobites|corrupt]] and [[Khorne|destroy]] those unfortunates 'gifted' with magical abilities. And everything around them at the time.
*You either die a [[Sanguinius|worthy death]] or you live long enough to see yourself becoming something that [[Mortarion|you've]] [[Perturabo|always]] [[Fulgrim|hated]].
*Everyone will most likely die in the end. Especially the ones important to and including the main character.
*Always polluted, never sunny.
*No ice cream. No lollipops either.
*Death or suicide will only make things much, much worse in [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraftian]] levels, as a hive of disgusting, incomprehensibly evil supernatural daemons are waiting patiently to eternally torment your un-life and roast your soul alive day and night forever and ever, again and again and again and again.
*Tremendous potential for offensive/dark comedy/[[lulz]].
*[[God-Emperor of Mankind|And if you ever, EVER try to change this shitty world or try to help one person just a little, you will probably suffer terrible consequences,]] because altruism is a dying philosophy. (And because your reasoning is flawed.)
*Life sucks.
*There's only war.
*You're probably going to get eaten by Tyranids.
*no gf
*Good luck and [[Dwarf_Fortress|have fun.]]
*Even using the wrong calendar is [[heresy]].

== Stuff considered Grimdark ==

[[File:Tyrus.jpg|400px|thumb|A world where the only way to beat grimdark is by introducing something even grimmer and darker]]
[[File:The_grimdarkian_by_ironshrinemaiden_d1i73bl.jpg|400px|thumb|[https://www.deviantart.com/ironshrinemaiden/art/The-Grimdarkian-91030161| The Grimdarkian, by IronShrineMaiden]]]
===/tg/===
* '''''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''''' (Naturally, coined the term).
* '''''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]''''', <strike>but less than you'd think. It's a lot closer to nobledark</strike> until the world [[Derp|was]] [[Bullshit|actually]] [[End Times|destroyed]]. Now, [[Age of Sigmar]] continues it and is slightly better, in so much that it is unlikely to be destroyed, though [[Warhammer Meta-Setting|that may imply an even worse eternal stalemate]].
* '''[[Grimdark Songwriting]]'''
* '''''[[Dark Sun]]'''''
* '''''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'''''
* '''''[[CthulhuTech]]'''''
* '''''[[Don't Rest Your Head]]'''''
* Playing mortals in '''''[[Exalted]]'''''
* '''''[[FATAL]]'''''
* '''''[[Kingdom Death]]'''''. Makes 40k's setting seem pleasant and cheerful.
* '''''[[Midnight]]''''' setting for D&D.
* '''''[[Paranoia]]''''' (though used for parodying 1984).
* '''''[[Pokemon Tabletop Adventures]]''''' (optionally).
* '''''[[RIFTS]]'''''
* '''''Fragged Cyberpunk''''': A prequel to the more optimistic Fragged Empire. Fragged Cyberpunk focuses on the twilight years of humanity as Habsburgian levels of genetic erosion and degradation leave it only a few centuries of life, while the powers that be, that could cure it do not bother and instead focus their efforts on terraforming hospitable worlds for their new, engineered super species. All the while herding humans into cramped cities on dead planets that are effectively concentration/death camps for what remains of mankind.
* '''''[[Shadowrun]]'''''. While not the worst in the grimdark department, Shadowrun definitely has its moments (the Renraku Archology Shutdown being a prime example); for instance the oppressive megacorporations reducing people to an identification number, with people not having one ([[Derp|for... reasons]]) don't exist legally.
* '''''SLA Industries'''''. Imagine if the Emperor was not only still walking around, but was a callous businessman with a permanent skeleton face and no bling armor. Imagine a civilization that exists almost entirely to strip mine itself in the name of consumerism, with snuff television being the primary source of entertainment and anyone trying to do business not on SLA's pay roll being branded a "Soft Company" to be exterminated. Oh, and truly horrid aliens that were thought extinct centuries ago are now making a comeback AND occult fuckery of varying flavors is manifesting in increasing amounts in Mort City, SLA's capital.
*'''''[http://www.synthiciderpg.com/ Synthicide]'''''. "When robots are gods, killing humans is fair game." In the deep darkness of the far, post-mutagen virus future, Human life is worthless (Murder and theft against them and each other is entirely legal), murder of sentient bots (Who are given free-range to torment humans with impunity after being let go from service to the major faction that makes them), however is one of the greatest offenses, and one the PC's are bound to commit at some point in their careers. Also, everything has a black and white color pallete.
* '''''[[Unhallowed Metropolis]]''''', a game representing probably the outer limits of how Grimdark you can go without sliding into Grimderp.
* '''''[[World of Darkness]]''''', with special mention going to [[Wraith: The Oblivion]], a game so bleak it's rumored to have actually caused fits of chronic depression in players.

===Vidya===
* '''''Armored Warfare'''''. Terrorist/ultra-nationalist/anarchists with tanks, corporations that rule and enslave large portions of the world and the rest of the world might as well be a wasteland, as far as we know.
* '''''Barotrauma''''' : Inspired by Space Station 13, centered on a submarine crew in the underground oceans of Europa. Crew members are expendable, you're ''always'' outgunned, the submarine is almost [[Death World|constantly under attack by massive sea creatures]], and most missions are much more likely to end in disaster than success. Also, you explode as soon as you step outside the sub.
* '''''[[Battletech]]''''' about half the time. On a good day, mercenaries fight proxy wars and follow the Geneva convention to keep damage and body counts low, ComStar keeps everyone in line, and "bombed back to the stone age" actually means "your spaceships blew up and you enjoy a comfortable 1990s era lifestyle." On bad days, the Crusader Clans storm in and break everything, the Word of Blake jihad starts nuking everyone they don't like, and all FTL communication breaks plunging the galaxy into a new dark age, erasing centuries of political and technological progress.
* '''''[[Darkest Dungeon]]'''''. Your ancestor awakened some kind of God that is pretty much Cthulhu's brother and sent you a letter before killing himself, asking you to mop up the huge mess he created. Enjoy sending parties of 4 adventurers ranging from badass lepers to sickle-wielding jesters to their deaths in cultist-infested ruins, sewers filled with mutated cannibalistic pigmen, sea caverns serving as anthropomorphic sea creatures and forests corrupted by evil. And I'm not going to talk about the Darkest Dungeon itself. Also, have fun dealing with those bandits that are raiding the Hamlet for which you spent a fuckton of resources in upgrades.
* '''''Bet On Soldier/Iron Storm''''': WW1 got extended by 80 years, leading to a world where war is everything (including a televised past time), peace is considered a horrifically dissident ideal and there is a shadowy cabal behind the scenes plotting to make the war last forever. We're pretty sure the creators are Warhammer fans since one of the DLC bosses is an Inquisijanny stamping out heresies (read: you infected with the vampire curse).
* '''''Bloodborne''''' or the love child of Dark Souls (gameplay) and Lovecraftian mythology (its main inspiration for setting and theme). Another masterpiece from FROM software and Hidetaka Miyazaki. TLDR, the game is a mix of elritch horrors, omnipotent creatures which are fundementally gods and Dark Souls, though this time there is no fire to link, only FEAR.
* '''''[[Cyberpunk 2077]]'''''
* '''''Dark Seed''''', Grimdark to the core! the first game is about the main character being fucked in the head. HR Giger's artwork helps too.
* '''''Dark Souls'''''. The entire ''world'' is ''dying''. Specifically, most of the population is undead, you die constantly, and you have to fight enemies larger and filthier than you are, [[Heresy|including a naked bitch with a spider vagina]]. Also, [[Extra Heresy|FAKE TITS]]. Stuck in an infinite loop where a hero constantly saves the world, and everything goes back to normal before hitting another grimdark cycle every thousand years. Compare with nobledark and check your mileage.
* '''''Dead Space'''''. A group of human discovered a device of unknown origin called a '''Marker''' and it turned them into undead alien monsters. In the sequel, it was revealed Markers were created by a long extinct alien species, and the Markers continue to infect other intelligent species, to the point the corpses of their entire civilizations formed into a [[Atropus|giant undead moon capable of telepathically mind fucking people]].
*'''''Destiny''''': While the game itself is Noble Bright/Neutral, the lore is definitively Grim Dark. Entire civilisations were destroy by the Darkness, Brainiac style. Humanity is reduced to one big city on Earth, literally under a the protection of a paracausal entity, the Traveller, that actively help you AND your enemies. Through experimentation that would make [[Fabius Bile]] proud, millions of humans were transform into robot to fight a secret and seemingly endless war against temporal machines. At one point, you and your kind, the Guardians, were hunted down to serve as battery, and the carcass of your companions, the Ghosts, which give you your "immortality", were used as currency. And I did not talk about the Hive and their Gods.
* '''''Dishonored''''' - Grimdark, and steampunk. Only in the "Kill fucking everyone" ending though.
* '''''[[Doom]]'''''. Demons from Hell have overrun Mars and Earth. You are the lone space marine capable of anything. Somewhat of a subversive case of grimdark: it's not you who is afraid of demons, [[awesome|it's the demons who are afraid of you]]. Commence with the [[Rip and Tear]].
* '''''Drakengard''''' and its related franchise: '''''Nier'''''. Basically, the "god" in this setting is a massive dick so he infects humans with zombie aids out of boredom and watch them kill each other for the [[lulz]]. You play Caim, a mute [[rip and tear|zombie slaughter enthusiast]] who teams up with a blind pedophile priest, a baby eating elf witch, and a ageless shota. The true ending for the game involves Cain and his dragon transporting the queen of the Lovecraftian Watchers to a greyscale version of Tokyo (Yes, the Tokyo of our world) and engages it in a rythm-based battle of song. After defeating it, the queen disintegrates into particles that start turning the entire population into salt statues, while Caim and his dragon [[fail|get shot down by fighter jets.]]
* '''''Elden Ring''''', aka [[meme|Dark Souls 2: Electric Boogalooo]]. The titular metaphysical object responsible for the previous prosperity of the world has been shattered, the demigods are in an eternal stalemate, and you are called upon to decide the fate of the Lands Between. A magnum opus of a collaboration between FROMsoft, Miyazaki, and George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. Like the other Soulsborne (would it be Soulsborne''ring'' now?) games, be prepared to die. A lot.
** '''''Nier''''' takes place 1462 years into the future. After countless grimdark conflicts involving child soldiers, human experiments and more resource shortages, a scientist decided to separate the rest of the survivors' souls (gestalt) from their bodies, hoping they could outlast a mind rape pandemic. But of course all these attempts are futile failures because Nier, our "hero" ended up killing the only thing that could save humankind, dooming them all to extinction.
*** Finally we have '''''Nier: Automata''''', 8480 years later, where androids were created by the last human survivors. But the humans that escaped to the moon turn out to be long dead. When the rest of androids find out, they proceed to kill themselves in a batshit frenzy. To make this even more painful and tragic, the androids have the human concepts of pain and emotions programmed to them, making their death even more painful.
* '''''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'''''
* '''''Factorio'''''. You're a lone human, aliens want to kill you, everything you do makes smog, and your goal is to cover the world in industry, concrete, machines, and gun turrets. The world isn't dead when you arrive, but you're damn well going to kill it yourself or die trying.
* '''''Grim Dawn'''''. A farming game about a never-ending struggle between humans and multiple otherworldly powers.
* '''''Hellgate London'''''
* '''''I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream'''''. Just the title itself should give you a clue on how horrific the game is. (The video game is terrifying, especially with its endings, and the short story it is based on is even more horrifying). Humanity has been wiped out except for five people, who trapped inside a complex controlled by a misanthropic, reality-warping supercomputer keeping them alive to torture them and altered their minds and/or bodies in cruelly ironic ways.
* '''''LISA the RPG.'''''
* '''''Lobotomy Corp/Library of Ruina AKA Project Moon's setting'''''. To summarize its setting, think of it as Shadowrun with less gun, more melee combat, and subtle rants on corporate dystopias. Also has a bit of philosophies and studies on human behavior, personalities and emotions. Read more on their lore wiki.
* '''''Madness Combat'''''. No regret, no remorse, no reason, only [[Khorne|madness]].
* '''''Mass Effect'''''. While its universe is hardly grimdark overall, the Reapers and what happens to "harvested" individuals are some of the sickest forms of grimdark possible. During the Reaper War, trillions of people across the galaxy were vaporized, crushed, dissolved slowly and/or violently converted into cyber zombies or brainwashed slaves. And that's just the latest Reaper War. The Reapers have committed so much galactic genocide beforehand, they turned it into a regularly scheduled event and made the galaxy their farm/laboratory.
** There is also the Genophage, a bioweapon deployed against the Krogan race as to halt the Krogan Rebellions. This bioweapon was basically a massive, permanent genetic Fetus Deletus that dramatically lowered Krogan birthrates and caused a lot of stillbirths (literal "piles of children that never lived" - actual in-game quote). If that wasn't bad enough, they live on a death-world and have a warlike culture, so this puts them at risk of extinction. And if THAT wasn't bad enough, they've been suffering under the Genophage for over a thousand years after the Krogan Rebellions ended, with prior attempts to cure it unsuccessful or sabotaged.
* '''''Path of Exile'''''. The game's setting is basically a documentary on the corruption of [[Roman Empire]].
* '''''Portal''''' once you get past the memes
* '''''Postal'''''. Not the sequels, which play the violence for laughs and topical humor, or the crap Uwe Boll movie, just the first game and it's remake (''Postal Redux''). Once you get past all the shock and outrage of being a forefather of the [[Satanic Panic|"Ban Violent Video Games"]] movement, you'll realize that this game is genuinely fucked up with its imagery and the protagonist is a mentally unwell individual.
* The '''''Prototype''''' games. New York City is infected with a virus created by a generically-unethical corporation called GenTek that mutates people into mutant zombies and/or fucking huge deformed beasts. A secret division called Blackwatch is sent to brutally contain the virus, except it turns out they originally created the virus as a way to purge minorities. This may sound like Resident Evil but the resemblance ends here because you play as Alex Mercer (Prototype 1) and James Heller (Prototype 2), both of them infected by a strain the virus and became superhumans who can shapeshift and gain someone's memories by consuming them (read violently absorbing them into their bodies) and can grow weapons like claws or a blade arm.
* '''''[[Space Station 13]]''''' : Space paranoia simulator set in a dystopian future where capitalism and unforgiving bureaucracy rules the universe, your life is expandable, and the media is controlled; your only choice is working until you die, or getting killed by either rival corporate operatives, space wizards, cultists, deathsquads or spies posing as your co-workers.
* '''''Total War: Attila'''''. Unlike the previous Total War titles, which were about your faction's rise to power from small backwater city/tribe/country into a mighty empire able to boss around its neighbors into doing your bidding, this one is about the decline of your faction as you desperately try to survive the onslaught of the Huns, who's sole purpose in the game is to worship Tengri by burning, pillaging, and raping their way through the known world. Particularly if you are the Romans. Winning is defined by being the last guy standing who gets to clean up the rubble and dead bodies, trying to rebuild their world after Attila destroyed it. Seriously, even the music sounds depressing and foreboding as fuck.
* '''''[[Humanity Fuck Yeah|X-Com]]''''' (The remake and the original, as a parody of the G.I. Joe Badass stereo type, you're struggling with funding and even your gods in human form, some of whom make certain chapters of Astartes weep, can get fucked over by Sectoids!)

===Animation and Comics===
* '''''[[Adventure Time]]''''''s backstory.
* The first two seasons of '''''Animals of Farthing Wood''''', a animated series for kids ''infamous'' for having graphic depictions of violence and a death rate of major characters on par with Game of Thrones. Notable deaths in the series include but are not limited to: the pheasants, a couple who die at a farm in an extremely cruel manner; three baby mice who are all killed onscreen by a shrike, a bird infamous for impaling its prey; and the hedgehogs. While trying to cross a road, have to fight not to curl up into a ball... but eventually, the husband goes crazy, unable to stop himself from curling up, and his wife elects to stay with him, leading to both their deaths when a lorry runs them over.
* '''''Armored Trooper Votoms''''', an old-school mech anime. [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Mankind has been at war for so long that even the computers created to direct strategy don't know what the goal is]]. War isn't glorious either, most of the first arc is about a squad that goes rogue and raids their own side's armory to find some loot. While the mech designs aren't pretty or fancy, they are more industrial and utilitarian than many contemporaries, being repurposed exo-suits. The main character is a [[Perpetual]] done right, through a mix of natural regeneration abilities, skills and nigh supernatural luck; unlike, you know, [[Vulkan]], who was just handed something that should have probably belong to all Primarchs just so that he could make [[Horus|some]] [[Sanguinius|people]] [[Ferrus Manus|jealous]].
[[File:Digimon_Tamers_Nope_Nope_Nope!.jpg|300px|right|thumb|[[RIP AND TEAR|It was going to be a kids show they said. It was going to be as whimsical as Pokemon they said...]]]]
* '''''Attack on Titan'''''. You cannot win, ever. And if you do, you've probably lost all your friends, who've been eaten by giant freaky Mutants, who don't even need food. Yeeeah.
* '''''Ava's Demon'''''. A planet is destroyed by Silent Scavengers, which are Tyranids and Necrons mixed together, then the main character ends up impaled when they crash land, her soul going to turn into space dust until she agrees to help the demon who's been possessing her since she was born to get revenge on TITAN, who can at best be described as the God-Emperor if he were every negative stereotype about the Imperium taken to the extreme and then some.
* '''''[[Blame!]]'''''
* '''''[[Berserk]]'''''
* '''''Devilman'''''. Especially CRYBABY
* '''''[[Digimon: Digital Adventures|Digimon Tamers]]'''''. (Digimon as a franchise is noted to be surprisingly dark and adult for a kids anime in the 'Mon' genre, but Digimon Tamers is exceptionally depressing even by the series standard. Children attempting suicide, child abuse, attempted murder on a child, multiple on-screen deaths of major characters, torture, psychological mind rape on a young girl, PTSD on said young girl, eldritch abominations, horror and psychological horror. You think Tamers would have a happy ending? Lolnope, Tamers has a bittersweet ending in which the main kids lose their Digimon partners <u>''for ever''</u>. This is what happens when you allow a guy notorious in psychological horror anime to do a kids show. There is a reason why Tamers is considered the Neon Genesis Evangelion for kids.) Unsurprisingly, the writer has written Cthulhu Mythos short stories.
** '''''Digimon Adventure Tri''''' (aimed towards adult fans of the series) takes Tamers up a notch in just plain creepiness. Deaths, assisted suicide, infanticide of Digimon babies, psychological damage, grief-induced madness, corruption, attempted genocide, racial supremacy, racism, immense property damage with collateral damage and attempted rape from the series' former mentor and teacher becoming a creepy sexual predator molesting one of the main characters and choking another one to near death (Both female by the way). Digimon doesn't fuck around.
* '''''Dorohedoro'''''. The entire setting is a massive slum, with horrible pollution, mass poverty, and human body parts polluting the waterways. Your options for living are being a normal human, living in poverty and treated like toys, lab rats, and livestock by the various magic users. Or being a [[psyker|magic user]], and either be lynched by the terrified normies or captured by other magic users and boiled down to make drugs. And if you're a magic user, regardless of how good you are when you die you're [[Warp|guaranteed to be sent to hell to be tortured by devils for all eternity]] ([[Daemon Prince|unless you become a devil yourself]]). Or being a devil, and worry about being [[Tzeentch|screwed over by your boss for shits and giggles]] or eaten by Store, who is implied to be an angel and treats devils the same way devils treat mortals. Or being said boss, [[Necron|and dick around with people for all eternity because you're absolutely bored with existence]], can't die, and are horribly lonely since you can't form a meaningful bond with anyone else.
* '''''Dragon Ball Z: History of Trunks'''''. Could just be expanded to Trunks' timeline in general. Dragon Ball has always been known as a sort of noble bright anime, but ''this'', damn. Everyone is either dead, dying, or living in fear of two walking machines of pure evil. And then when Trunks does actually take care of his enemies, another more powerful one shows up and just sends everything back to the way it was. Even the parody of this movie is oddly depressing.
* Most good 'Real Robot' anime/video games. Further discussion will result in [[skub]].
* '''''Elfen Lied'''''. Where the next step of the evolution of mankind is a group of schizophrenic homicidal mutant girls with invisible tentacle hands and a hair-trigger temper who will either kill you in the worst way possible or [[Genestealer|infect you with their gene to increase their numbers]].
* '''''[[Emergence aka Metamorphosis]]'''''. 177013.
* '''''Everything is Fine'''''. A horror webtoon about a seemingly perfect society where everyone wears giant cat masks with cutesy expressions, have to pretend that everything is fine at all times and be perfectly moral, upstanding citizens... or watch their kids commit suicide in real-time. In other words, it's a horrific dystopia taking the image of a perfect suburb where you are made to ignore everything that is going wrong, or those you love most kill themselves horribly, then you get kicked to the curb as a broken shell of a human being, forgotten and ignored.
* '''''Full Metal Alchemist''''': The World is coated by a side of Noblebright at the beginning but morphs into 1984 the more you watch/read. The world Amestris starts out as fine and dandy (despite being a fascist military Dictatorship (the head of state is literaly called [[nazi|führer]])), then it morphs into a world where the Main Country (Amestris.) is at constant war with almost all it's neighbors commits Genocides Left and right and Murder's anyone who finds out the dark truth.
* '''''The Goon''''' comic series by Eric Powell (because circus hillbillies, werewolves with midget hand phobias, and the Zombie Priest are the least of it all).
* '''''GANTZ'''''
* '''''[[Goblin Slayer]]'''''. Pretty much [[Berserk]] if it was set in a Dungeons and Dragons world.
* '''''Grave of the Fireflies'''''. The plot of film is "A pair WW2 of orphans from a high ranking officer in the brutal Japanese military freeloads off on his aunt's goodwill then refuses to sell his mother's clothes and piano and sets off on his own without a plan, only for him and his sister to starve to death." The movie is taken by 99% of the viewers overseas as showing how innocent the Japanese were, but the Japanese see it as an allegory about the leaders of Japan (the older brother) disregarding the suffering of their own people (his little sister), telling them childish propaganda that they are doing really well in war, and then obliging the childish tantrums of the populace enabled by such propaganda. '''This is an allegory of Japan,''' when shit hit the fan, told people to press on and declared everyone must sacrifice their life for the one true living god that is Emperor Hirohito.
** Even in this period millions of people did what work they could find to feed themselves despite the war time inflation brought on by the wars they started, yet the protagonist would not "deign" menial labor because he was the son of a rich, high ranking Naval officer. ''Starvation was NOT rampant in Japan, but the protagonist (Japan)'s arrogant laziness and subsequent death was an allegory of making his bed and sleeping in it.'' Note how while it wasn’t easy, they WEREN'T starving when they were under their “evil” aunt's care.
*** For instance, the day the battleship Yamato sank in 1945, it was scheduled to serve the men aboard canned beef, canned red bean rice, and sweet bean porridge for dessert.
** This movie was based on a book by Akiyuki Nosaka who lived through WW2 as a boy. He admittedly regretted killing his toddler of a little sister by hungrily stealing food from her and dashing her head against the ground and giving her concussions when she would cry about it. The novel was to be his penance of sorts.
*** This is still absolutely nothing compared to what the Japanese were doing to other colonies though, '''it was rather 2 million Vietnamese that were butchered to rob and feed Japanese,''' just between October of 1944 to August of 1945 alone. Not counting all the families traumatized or permanently crippled via malnutrition. Thankfully the war ended with an Allied victory that put a quick end to this, Japan surrendered because of USSR's August push through Manchuria and was poised to land on Japan proper (Japan did not surrender because of American nukes which they themselves were busy making unlike the Nazis who didn't bother. Japanese high command got casualty reports like that everyday at the end of the war, they were only afraid of being split in two like Germany did in May. Japan also sent only foreign slaves to clean up the radiation and killed them afterwards to hide their war crimes.) In Korea people were dying from intestinal bleeding from eating boiled tree barks too rough for the human body as a regular prolonged diet because anyone who touched the crops were beaten or executed, because food was robbed and taken to Japan. In Korea particular, due to proximity, the nation’s hills were rendered barren dirt hills for all the trees were cut down to make desperate turpentine oil that was going to be a makeshift fuel source for ships and planes, sent to Japan once the Southeast Asian territories and their oil fields were liberated by Allies. The dead cannot speak and the [[grimdark|living can whine louder about the troubles they faced,]] that's why so many killings happened at the end of the war to hide war crimes.
*** Director Takahata Isao himself said this is '''NOT an anti-war anime,''' but an allegory of idealists bringing people death. Also note he is a rare kind in modern Japan who accuses the Japanese government for all the sins of WW2, and used to fight the riot police who were quelling anti-imperialists like him. Note that Japan is a place where saying Japan was at fault can get one shot dead. Mayor Motoshima of Nagasaki in 1990 got shot in the heart for accusing his government of starting the wars that got his city nuked. Mayor Itoh got shot in the heart for saying the same in 2007. There's just no way ordinary criminals could get their hands on a gun in a country with really tight gun control laws, [[Assassin|unless...]]
* '''''[[Hellsing]]'''''... just all of Hellsing... Though it can easily slide into grimderp. (A little girl seeing her mother killed while hiding in a closet? Yeah that's intense. In a moment of desperation, shove a rod into the guy's eyeball, only for him to not be mortally wounded? That's pretty unfortunate. Said guy deciding to fuck the corpse as his smashed eyeball hangs from the socket? That's just silly.)
**'''''Drifters''''', by the same author. The protagonists are a bunch of [[murderhobo|kill-happy murderhoboes]] drawn from various psychos from all throughout history into [[Isekai|a generic fantasy world]] who have decided to [[Great Crusade|save the world by conquering it, one country at a time]]. One of the major powers of the setting turns out to have been founded by ''Adolph friggin' Hitler''. Even Joan of Arc, who IRL was noted for being a pacifist, is warped into a bloodthirsty psycho. The [[BBEG]], who wants to kill all humans (and is noted to be a step up from his subordinates, who want to kill [[Necron|everything]]) is all but outright stated to be ''Jesus''.
* The '''Kerberos''' trilogy, but special mentions to '''Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade'''. A series of films that basically gave birth to Killzone singlehandedly (Seriously, look at the comparisons between the Helghast and the film's Protect Gear, [[Original character, do not steal|it is ''blatant'']]). Set in an alternate-history where Japan was occupied by Germany rather than America at the end of WW2. In Jin-Roh, the nation is constantly in social turmoil with left-wing communist terrorist guerillas using children as bomb couriers against two police force of Japan: the normal-looking police force (Backed by the Japanese KGB/CIA hybrid) and the <u>'''ORIGINAL'''</u> Helghasts called the Kerberos Panzer Cops. Jin-Roh is a political thriller film that largely talks about the problems of the "Good guy, bad guy" dichotomy and how juvenile it is for stories to portray these things in real life. All of the films have a downer ending, so if you are looking for a happy ending, you're gonna get dissapointed. Despite what [[/pol/|some people]] [[SJW|may argue,]] the Kerberos trilogy is a condemnation of all extremist ideas and actions. Its a Mamoru Oshii film of Ghost in the Shell fame, what do you fucking expect.
* '''''Magical Girl Site'''''. So grimdark it makes Meguca look Noblebright.
* '''''Made in Abyss'''''. A death world disguised as a cute loli adventure featuring on-screen death and mutilation, child labor, and philosophical exploration of just how far humanity can go before completely losing it.
* '''''Muv-Luv''''' Often compared to 40k in how bleak and brutal the series is.
* '''''Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind'''''. A manga/anime film made by Hayao Miyazaki, yes you heard us right. The man who was the main founder of Studio Ghibli and gave us childhood gems such as Totoro, Spirited Away and Ponyo, gave us a Science-Fantasy Epic of the brutality of war. Nausicaa, especially the manga, does not shy away from human slavery, biological WMDS, genocides, nuclear holocaust, a gratuitous amount of inferred and overt infanticides, inquisitorial purging and the likes.
* '''''Neon Genesis Evangelion''''' (Especially End).
* '''''Now and Then, Here and There'''''. The setting takes place in an alternate world, ''10 billion years'' into the future where the [[Xeelee Sequence|sun is about to go into a red giant]] and whatever scraps of humanity are fighting each other for the last remaining sources of water. Expect a lot of child soldiers, child abuse, child torture, child rape and ethnic cleansing to a scarily realistic degree. This is a post-post-apocalyptic world that is designed to break the viewers. It is an anime darker than 40k despite the 'happy' ending due the sheer levels of nihilism and unforgiving horrors of human depravity.
* '''''[[Isekai|Re:Zero]]'''''
* '''''The Promised Neverland'''''. An anime/manga about a bunch of cute children raised in a nice orphanage, that is really a farm set up by demons who raise the children as food. A handful girls get to survive until adulthood by getting selected to act as mothers to children, but they are still prisoners who can't leave the farm. If they are unlucky they will have to watch over their own children until the day they are killed.
** The world outside the farms is even worse. A thousand years ago the world was divided between humans and demons. Demons used to hunt humans until the two sides made a truce where the world was divided in two halves to keep peace and humans were handed over to the demons to farm as food and the wealthy family of humans who made the deal are out to kill the escaped children to uphold it. Demons actually need to eat humans or they degenerate into mindless animals that attack everything in sight, except of the demon nobility thanks to them consuming blood that removed the need. And they still insist on hoarding the best quality human meat for themselves while leaving the commoners to feed on meat from humans raised on factory farms where the humans are force fed until they die.
* '''''Puella Magi Madoka Magica'''''. Being Meguca is suffering.
* '''''Uzumaki'''''. Basically a Lovecraftian horror manga where a seaside town gets [[rape]]d by spirals. Not as weird as it sounds. Or maybe it is as weird as it sounds but not as bad. Also has enough body horror to put most [[Chaos Spawn]] to shame.
** Pretty much anything by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junji_Ito Junji Ito.] Except ''Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu''.
* '''''Wanted'''''. The villains won the war against the heroes and completely erased them from reality. Crime is not only rampant but is actually part of the law, enforced by the Fraternity (Justice League for bad guys), and the only way to even have the closest thing to a 'safe and happy life' is by murdering your next door neighbor out of paranoia. Furthermore, as the world is cut up into sections and ruled by different supervillains, you will most likely be born in a country ruled by either a psychotic bastard who shoots children for shits and giggles, a Lex Luthor archetype who hungers for more unrestrained power, a literal Nazi from the future who wants another Holocaust, or a megalomaniac and sociopathic Chinese emperor who makes Mao Zedong like a chump or a completely immortal 'President-for-Life' Mugabe expy that will probably rule for eternity.

===Literature===
* '''''[[1984]]'''''
* '''''All Quiet on the Western Front''''' Among all the wars World War I was particularly grimdark one and the writer, who himself served in the war, thought that the war destroyed his whole generation whether or not they survived the shells. The book follows a group of Germans barely the age of 18 who join the war with enthusiasm, only to be met with the worst kinds of horrors of war only World War I could bring. Even if they survive the battles, they are broken by the war. By the end of the novel they are all dead and the field report simply states "all quiet on the western front".
* '''''Cormac McCarthy''''' is an American writer whose most famous works are considered some of the darkest novels ever written, due to the near casual way violence is depicted and the rather bleak outlook it takes on humanity's place in the world. Notables include:
** '''''Blood Meridian''''' by Cormac McCarthy, a book following the exploits of the Glanton Gang, a real-life group of scalpers in the 19th Century. Kids die left and right, lawlessness runs rampant, sickfuckery abounds, it's... brutal.
** '''''No Country for Old Men,''''' also adapted as a film, covers the rising violence of the drug war on the US-Mexico border. Or simply suggests things have always been that bad and there's no way for good men to stop it.
** '''''The Road''''', along with the film, can be summarized as follows - the biosphere is dead with no hope of reviving it. A man and his son now traverse the dying, bleak landscape along a road, without any remnant of human civilization left, only able to depend on each other. Seriously, this setting is bleak in ways Warhammer 40k can only have nightmares about.
* '''''Clive Barker''''' in general. His works include Hellraiser, Rawhead Rex where an ancient god of male sex eats kids, the Midnight Meat Train where an ancient cult feeds people to an underground society of monsters so New York isn't destroyed, and... let's just say there's a reason he's basically a BDSM enthusiast given way too much handle.
* Everything from '''''[[H.P. Lovecraft]]''''' and the '''''Cthulhu Mythos''''', though this can vary when you add in other Mythos writers like August Derleth.
*'''Mistborn''', a trilogy of books by Brandon Sanderson (at least the first Era). The stories themselves rarely meet the criteria of Grimdark, but hoooo boy the background setting and villains sure do. About a thousand years ago, a hero rose up to stop a mysterious enemy… and failed. Now, volcanoes spew ash down on the land, choking all but the most hardy plants. The brightest color is yellow, and flowers are an alien idea. Modern fauna include ectoplasmic monsters composed of the skeletons of other creatures and… that’s mostly it. The rest is dead. 95% of the population are slaves, and it’s a revolutionary idea to consider that they may be able to think. The nobility rule mostly because the immortal Lord Ruler gave their ancestors powers, and some of them still have some today (the titular Mistborn). The only way to trigger these powers is through trauma, and so even among the good portion of the population, all children are nearly beaten to death to see if they have these powers. Usually, they don’t. The villains also deserve a dishonorable mention, as the average one is a pedophiliac, slave owning rapist. Even the “good guys,” are only good by comparison. Variously, they are rebels who know full well there is no hope, a thief who could and would kill anything that contradicts him, and an optimistic young man who is eventually forged into a warmongering emperor. Oh, and the only way to “save the day” involves killing a minimum 1/16th of the planetary population.
* '''''Grimm's Fairy Tales''''' ("Hansel and Gretel", for example).
* The first two '''''Hyperion''''' books.
* '''''Metro'''''. Both the books and games, but mostly in the books, where the last known humans are hiding in underground subway tunnels, and when not trying to finish each other off are fighting endless hordes of [[mutant]]s [[/b/|and other, much worse things]]. Also, if you're one of the stalkers, the few brave ones that head to the surface to [[Blood Ravens|loot anything they can find]], you risk [[Tyranid|being eaten by flying daemons]]. Hell, it even has the same "abandon all hope" vibe in the intro, just like 40k. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Note as the books go on the grimdarkness does tone down by showing the areas outside of the city to be in much better living conditions and other metros.(though not all the books are written by the same author).
* Noir in general, from Raymond Chandler's novels to games like This is the Police.
* [[Post Apocalyptic]] stuff tends to default to Grimdark.
* World Devastators in '''''[[Star Wars]]'''''. Seriously, if you read about them without knowing that they are from Star Wars, you could easily mistake them for something from 40k. And we're not talking about Star Wars Legacy and the genocide of the Mon Calamari.
** All of '''Steven Baxter's works''' arguably qualify. '''''Evolution''''' can be summed up as "humanity almost overcame its flaws, fixed the damage it did to Earth, and ushered in a [[noblebright]] future, and it might have worked, but [[Rocks_fall,_everyone_dies|just then a supervolcano erupted, wiped out human civilization, and everyone died]]. The end. There's even a chapter in the middle of the book outright stating it. Also that humans [[Imperium|are nothing but vicious bastards who rape, kill, and destroy everything they touch]] and have been ever since our ancestors were rats under the feet of dinosaurs, but other animals aren't much better.
* '''''[[SCP Foundation]]''''' universe as a whole is borderline grimdark, as many aspects of the Foundation are mixed between absurd comedy, derp, and pure grimdark. At its very worst, the SCP Foundation has things that make the [[Daemonculaba]] look nice by comparison. Above all: [[Inquisition|Secure. Contain. Protect.]]
* '''''Shakespeare's tragedies''''', especially ''Macbeth'' and ''Hamlet''.
* '''''Shin Sekai Yori''''' also known as From the New World is a novel by Yusuke Nishi (also has an anime adaptation). Basically it's a dystopian story with people using magic to run their society instead of machines in a world that has deliberately regressed to the medieval level. Every child who doesn't manifest magical abilities by a certain age is killed, and all existing non-magical humans have been genetically engineered into a slave-race of mole-people so long ago they've forgotten their origins. The magical people are instead engineered to commit unwilling suicide should they use their powers to harm another human (mole people are fair game, though), and those of them who are too strong and can't manage to control themselves become Lovecraftian abominations.
* '''''The Slenderman Mythos''''' (HE ALWAYS WATCHES).
* '''''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''''' AKA Game of Thrones: Good guys screw up monumentally or never win, the only people who get ahead are amorally manipulative assholes and everyone is going to be massacred and enslaved by the evil ice elf necromancers in the end. And if they somehow survive, then another war for the Iron Throne will happen after the winner gets their revenge-boner satisfied and later, their kids would need to clean up the wankstains.
* Most of '''Stephen King's''' works. As the joke goes, some people say that Stephen King's works are so fucked up they should come with a content warning. The reply is that they ''do'' have a content warning, they have the words "written by Stephen King" on the front.
* '''Peter Watts'''. Brutal neuropunk sci-fi horror, as bleak as H. P. Lovecraft but with a list of scientific citations at the end to let you know just how realistic it really is. Hits you with a world-ending catastrophe and then manages to make it a thousand times worse -- an alien invasion DURING a hard-takeoff singularity, for example. Sociopathy and post-human augments abound. [http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm Also, the books are free!]
* The majority of the '''Tragedy''' genre of stories.
* '''''[[The Witcher]]'''''. Racism, genocides, dozens of monsters that want to eat your face whenever you enter a random forest. Or cave. Or ruins. The video game adaptation even features a medieval Hitler running the [[Inquisition|Witch Hunters]], a fanatical order of [[Black Templars|racist scumbags dedicated to wiping out both mages and non-humans]] in the name of the Eternal Fire. Meanwhile, the neighboring empire starts a series of wars against northern kingdoms (where the series takes place), in which both sides descend into scorched earth warfare, all the while backstabbing their allies and generally being a colossal wall of dicks to the point that close to 70% of civilian population in war-zones died from raiding, famine and occasional outbreaks of extradimensional plagues. To add insult to injury, the whole world is doomed due to the (slowly) encroaching Ice Age, and the only person that could save it took two glances at this shitshow and decided to fuck off to a parallel universe and let them all die, ''because it would be a mercy''. (To be fair, though, she comes back, if only to save her adoptive mother and father from said Ice Age, as she still maintains her 'fuck the rest of humanity' attitude.
* '''''World War Z''''' (the book). After zombies overran most of the world, many people had it so bad that they simply lost the will to live. Fighting in the Paris Catacombs with weaker weapons that wouldn't cause a cave-in due to hazardous gasses everywhere. Russian soldiers rioting over unfair treatment and enforced secrecy ordered under pain of death to kill one in ten of their own squadmates - with rocks - to teach them the price of freedom and democracy. Which they then happily traded away. The survival of the human race hinged on governments following a plan including elements of eugenics and leaving settlements of people behind as zombie bait. People resorted to cannibalism to survive in Canada. North Korea entirely vanished without a trace. Pakistan and Iran nuked each other. After the war officially ended, there are still loose zombies wandering around, Russia has started a breeding program to deal with severe underpopulation, several species are extinct, and diseases thought to be wiped out are coming back en masse.
* Anything from the '''''[[Xeelee Sequence]]'''''.

===Films and TV===
* '''''Alien''''' (as in the biomechanical, parasitic, acid-blooded brainchild of Ridley Scott and the late H.R. Giger). Bonus points when you realize it's pretty much an allegory of the human fear of unwanted pregnancy, with sexual role reversal thrown in.
* The aftermath of '''''Avengers: Infinity War'''''. After the [[Rubric Marines|battledust]] settles, no one really wins at the end of the movie. Even the villain, who won, was badly injured and the victory was very costly.
* '''''Children of Men''''': A future where humans are no longer fertile and going extinct, and then someone finds a pregnant woman and nearly everyone in the world fights over her.
* '''''Come and See''''' A World War II movie which instead of focusing on big battles focuses on Nazi death squads in the Byelorussian SSR. Do we even need to say more?
* '''''Eastenders''''', Especially at Christmas.
* '''''End of War'''''
* '''''Event Horizon'''''
* The first two '''''Hellraiser''''' movies
* '''''The Day After''''', and its worse Brit counterpart, '''''Threads'''''.
* '''''Lord Of War'''''. The worst is that it's based on real events.
* '''''The Matrix'''''
* '''''Power Rangers RPM''''' plays with this trope, being what is effectively ''Terminator'' meets ''Mad Max'' "for kids." It is still Power Rangers, and does still have its fair share of comic relief, but this is also the season where a young girl is brainwashed into becoming a child soldier for Skynet and HAL 9000's demented love child, while also having her humanity stripped away and replaced with cold metal. That's not even starting to mention the fact that most of the planet is wiped out, with billions dying over the course of what seems like a few weeks.
* ''''' Requiem for a Dream'''''
* '''''Romero's "Dead" series''''', especially the later entries. ''Night'' is grim for the heroes, even if the overall story ends somewhat happily with the zombies taken care of. On the other hand, ''Dawn'' and ''Day'' are much darker, with zombies overrunning society, and though both end on positive notes, the journey there is a grim fight for survival. Most of the heroes die in ''Dawn'' (all of them if you count the depressing alternate cut), and in ''Day'' most of the characters, even the heroes, are hateful, unhinged, and/or just plain crazy.
* Saw: [[Cegorach|I just wanna play a game.]]
* '''''Shisha no Teikoku''''', the Empire of Corpses. Steampunk, Grimdark, Zombies, Cross-References and Conspiracies everywhere. It has even become possible to resurrect the dead, giving them their soul and intelligence back, but only 2 characters profit from it in the end, while everyone else stays a slave.
* '''''Soylent Green''''' Inspiration for 40k’s Soylens Viridian.
* '''''Tetsuo: The Iron Man''''' A cult Japanese horror film about two men slowly becoming cold heartless machine men settling a score with each other and then deciding to destroy the world.

===IRL===
* '''Africa's wars''', including, but not limited to: The French extorting its ex-colonies to still PAY FRANCE for “[[what|letting them become independent]]” (Even Haiti in the Caribbean had to go through this), the French assassinating presidents who wanted to break free from France's tyranny just to get a puppet installed who would gladly sell their national resources for dirt cheap to France, The Rwandan Genocide, Liberian child soldiers, Sierra Leonean amputations of voting populations, slave labor in all but name in the Congo, etc.
** Belgian Congo. Throngs of people put to work to get their masters rubber, and when they spend so much as an hour getting food to prepare for week-long trip to the rubber forests, the masters will chop not their hands, oh no, but their children's hands and feet. Photographs remain of shocked father listlessly staring at such his toddler daughter's feet thrown to the floor.
** Post Colonial Africa in general until the 21st century and even then there are various ''minor'' problems like ISIS and other religious extremists, rebel attacks, constant coups and piracy.
* '''Ancient Sparta:''' A militaristic empire thankfully smaller than it could have been due to its innate oppressive brutality not guaranteeing you can afford to expand far and wide. Eventually the Spartans got too busy quelling slave rebellions to expand far enough, particularly frequent as even the slavers of other cities were appalled at particularly brutal and violent slavery under the Spartans. Some rebellions were deliberately instigated by Spartan spies as an excuse to go in and slaughter 100s of slaves and add another tally to their "honor" and martial glory, rather than actual martial glory fighting tough external threats.
** The Battle of Thermopylae of 300 fame was a hoax: Along with 300 Spartans guarding the retreat of the 5,000 Greek coalition, there were 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, and 900 Messenian Helot slaves under Spartans with the promise to free them if they fought with them. The Spartans spread the propaganda that 300 Spartans did all the fighting because they were the only true warriors there. So essentially, it wasn’t enough for the 900 Helot slaves to have spent their entire lives toiling in the fields to '''feed good food for the Spartan warriors to oppress and kill their Helot children for fun,''' they were baited by Spartans to shell out the last thing they had, their lives, with promise of freedom of their families and kids back home. Turns out that was an empty lie as [[Rage|Spartans still enslaved them most brutally.]] So the Messenian city rebelled more fervently than ever before, until Thebans later forever freed them from Spartan slavery. Still, Spartans used this false propaganda to garner political clout within the Greek world on par with the rich powerful Athenians for some time.
** The myth that ascetically culling men from youth guarantees tough warriors the Spartans tricked themselves into believing was proven false when the 300-man Theban Sacred Band, aka "The REAL 300," crushed them at Battles of Leuctra and Tegyra. The Sacred Band was recruited from 150 pairs of certifiably gay adult couples. So instead of killing like 10 kids to get 1 kid honed in war from youth, these guys made full use of ancient era birth rates and were not psychos devoid of humanity whose individual rite of passage was to [[Edgy|slaughter a slave up close and personal and offer the superiors his corpse as proof.]]
*** The fall of the Spartans in Leuctra also herald the coming of an age where the brainpower to think up new tactics have proven to outperform individual martial prowess of murder machines.
*** Not to mention, the Spartans culling their boys from youth is plain stupid and wasteful. Being a strong boy is no guarantee that he will be the strongest man by adulthood. There are plenty of late bloomers, and boys who were picked on who want to overcome their weakness to become strong when given a chance later in life, like [[Robert E. Howard]] and Fyodor Emilianenko. Aleksandr Karelin couldn't even do a single chin-up when he was a boy! So, countless kids were killed in Sparta for nothing. Not to mention boys who could grow to lead other fields of excellence than fighting died, and for [[Edgy|what.]]
** The Spartans did all that only for their rival, Athens, to achieve a grander victory through cultural legacy. Effects of Athenian version of the Greek culture are felt all over the Western World to this day.
* '''Aztec Empire''' Let's just say there was a good reason 1,000s of natives from different cities subjugated throughout the Aztec Empire happily rushed to join Hernan Cortes and his few hundred Conquistadors in a united front to overthrow the cannibalistic oppressors of Tenochtitlan. What, you thought 400 men could conquer a subcontinent let alone a city?
* '''North Korea''', a regime like all other communist regimes in Asia, was born only because of the hyperinflation and power vacuums left by Japan's destruction of regimes that could have normally stamped out puppet communist cells, much like Germany's destruction left Eastern Europe communized. In fact it should not even exist but was artificially prolonged through aid from the old USSR, and this existential crisis is what drives it to focus its efforts to brutally keeping people in line. It LOOKS like it has a huge military but that's really declaring half your workers as "military" to cook the numbers as a bluff, those soldiers don't even have the fuel to run exercises and spend all day farming instead. Because it is a starving nation where climbing the ration distribution listing is important for most people, but not a problem for the elites so they can afford to ignore military service. Almost completely isolated from the rest of the world, it's own intranet with government controlled websites spouts propaganda, desperately trying to keep its people from rebelling from the famines and poverty. But this is in vain because ironically the stark famines eventually got the police desperate enough to accept bribes and turn a blind out to black markets and through these, the people have imported (largely South Korean products and bootleg media through Chinese bootleggers) learned the truth and nobody over the age of 12 believes in state run propaganda for decades. The elites are genuinely frightened any leniency will get them and their family lynched by the mob as they have seen many other regimes fall in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, so they clutch their power and shrink back into isolation ever harder, and the only way they keep the civilians down is take entire families hostage. So if you get on the government's really bad side, you and 2 other generations of your family get sent to prison camps to be executed or become the playthings of the prison guards until you die. Proving the writing is on the wall, every year, 3,000 people escape and make it to South Korea as refugees.
** For comparison, South Korea has a compulsory military service length is also among the highest in the world due to being beset and outnumbered by enemies on all sides harder than Israel (Israel itself has 32 months of mandatory military service for men, 24 for women as of 2022). Japan still actively attempts to reinvade and take islands to the East, China not making any movements yet but is looming in the West. Both are within the top 5 military powers in the world. Thus Korean miilitary service length is 21 to 24 months depending on the chosen branch, but women are exempt from both service, and neither do they pay a defense tax for not going into service.
* '''Incan Empire:''' '''[[What|Massive, massive child sacrifices by the 100s at a time.]]''' Even when the Empire was waning. ''Especially'' when the Empire was waning, in hopes to garner favor from the gods to save the empire.
* '''World Wars'''
** '''Western Front of WW1:''' the Armenian/Greek/Assyrian genocides, the Eastern Front of WW2. Feel free to fill in.
** '''WW2 and Meiji Japan:''' The perfect real world example of the [[Imperium of Man]]. Due to the Japanese, 30+ million lives were lost due to [[Edgy]] rape and massacres that served no purpose, but also due to indolence, short-sightedness, racism, jingoism, stubbornness, nepotism, arrogance, and all flavors of [[Administratum|bureaucratic fail]]. It may actually justify some of the sillier grimderp listed in Warhammer 40,000 in sections below his page, by virtue of being a real-life example. Aside from the basic massacres of a bloodthirsty empire, includes [[Khorne|'''Cannibalism''']], mass suicide, half a million [[Slaanesh|'''Sex Slavery of underage girls then summarily executed after use''']], [[Tzeentch|'''false apologies''' to lower your would-be opponent's guard,]] [https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1967/december/panay-incident-prelude-pearl-harbor preceding undeclared war], and use of [[Nurgle|'''all 3 kinds of Weapons of Mass Destruction''' (Atomic, Biological, Chemical).]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> Belief in the '''[[Samurai|Yamato Tamashi samurai spirit]]''' that the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|One True God that is Emperor Hirohito]] is proof that the [[RaHoWa|Japanese are the chosen race and will easily subjugate all inferior others]] because if your [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|'''faith in the Yamato Spirit is hard enough, you can even weather through bullets.''']] Death is just proof you didn’t believe it hard enough and are unworthy, traitor. The Americans, not having the holy '''Yamato Tamashi''' (Note that Yamato is the ancient name of Japan, like Albion is for England.), are but indolent undisciplined capitalist swine, and will fall to the might of the holy samurai, making them cowering sheep just like the billion enslaved in Asia. If Japan immediately follows Pearl Harbor with an offering of peace so magnanimously, Americans will gratefully worship the Japanese for their infinite mercy and gladly give Japan the American Oil they sorely need to continue invading dozens of nations (invading Southeast Asia for its strategic resources like rubber and oil). [[Not as planned|Oh, how wrong, ''literally'' dead wrong they were.]] <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** [[Xenos|The extent of their xenophobia was so vast,]] they chose to erase Western culture since it was deemed indolent and not blessed with samurai spirit. From tiny things like the musical scale was renamed from Do Re Mi etc. into Japanese syllables, [https://www.pacificatrocities.org/blog/torture-execution-and-cannibalism-on-chichi-jima-and-george-hw-bushs-narrow-escape to eating them because they were subhuman livestock]. Colonials must speak Japanese or be punished, even clothing was sometimes enforced, and only the approved Japanese hairstyle was allowed.
***** Karate, from Okinawa (think of England ruling over its Irish colony), was originally named 唐手 (Karate, "Chinese-hand"), owing to originating from what was taught by a passing Chinese voyager. It was taken and sold as Japanese while being respelled to 空手 (Karate, "Empty hand") when it wasn't even meant to be done unarmed, as much of its "unarmed" movements don't make sense unless paired with weapons, because most of these movements were preliminary exercises to wield as weapons, everyday agricultural tools like grindstone handles (Tonfa), threshing flails (Nunchaku), chained sickles (Kusarigama), because the oppressive samurai have been taxing the Okinawans with a 90% tax rate and to deter rebellion, confiscated all weapons.
**** [[WAAAGH|The weathering through bullets by belief part]] was actually applied from analyzing the WW1 French military doctrine of “Attaque à Outrance,” which focused on fearless charges to keep the pace of the offensive going. <s>Heresy grows from</s> Idleness, and caution will get soldiers’ mind to wander and morale to waver. Sounds good when you want to [[Imperial Guard|affix bayonets]] and the only thing that can break a charge is terror among the soldiers when they get shot at with a volley of semi-accurate musket balls. [[Krieg|Battle of Verdun begs to differ.]] 20th century weapons were too [[Dakka|deadly]] to breakthrough with fearless charges without massive casualties. Problem is, this was already the case in 1914. [[Rape|Imagine trying this shit in 1944.]] [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|Bonus points for yelling TENNOU HEIKA BANZAIIIII ('''”For the Emperor!”''') as loud as one can for buffs from the <s>Holy Spirit</s> Yamato Tamashi.]] There’s a reason everyone ditched this doctrine and was criticized both inside and outside France. But the Toyama institute salvaged it, devised tactics and training regimen and requested every soldier to be [[Meme|equipped with a useless katana so he can hit the enemy with his sword]] for a trench warfare that never came in the very mobile WW2 warfare. They were also advising officers to march/charge headfirst through enemy territory because romanticism with samurai and whatnot. Whereupon he will be the first to fall and the squad will soon be running around like a headless chicken, [[Rip and Tear|ripe for the butchering.]] Which was a problem especially for the Japanese Army, because they were notoriously rigid and did not trust soldiers to understand objectives but merely as [[Imperial Guard|expendable automatons to be commanded around, even through heavy gunfire.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''The [[Imperial Cult]]:''' In the civilian sector, all religions were one by one, abolished. Even the Shintoists were kicked out of their temples and the local shamanistic deities they worshiped were replaced by the mandatory cult that worshiped the Emperor Hirohito as the [[God-Emperor|'''One True Living God-Emperor''']]. The rhetoric was, Emperor-worship is not even "religion" like Christianity or Islam, those delusions of inferior races. National Shintoism was BEYOND such a childish concept. Every man, woman, and child must therefore bow towards Tokyo every day, the holy city where their emperor resided in his palace. A portrait of the Emperor was to be put up in every public space, office, and school classrooms. Indoctrinated kids were praised and went on newspaper as heroes for jumping into burning buildings to (die trying to) rescue the Emperor's portrait. It was taught, sacrificing your life for Him will get you to become a minor god enshrined in a Shinto shrine. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** Zen Buddhists also proclaimed that blowing yourself up in kamikazes will get you to Zen Buddhist Pure Land Paradise and ultimate bliss in Nirvana, and to kill a slave or an American is to do the ultimate good by giving them an early access to the Pure Land. Pretty <s>ironic</s> sinister the Zen Buddhists have never repented for their part in their war machine, and have marketed their religion to the Western World as "esoteric '''religion of peace''' so much better than the barbaric Christianity with their Crusades" for decades, and gullible people gobbled it up.
**** Centuries-old Shinto temples have been accused of being [[Heresy|HERETICAL]] by that uppity new government-backed cult of personality, and had gone into hiding in rural mountains for a time. After the war, understandably the real Shinto priests were angry to return to see their deities' statues defaced, and that the offending cult still persists, is still funded by the government ran much by the same fascist families who successfully scapegoated a few of their own to escape responsibility. The cult still pretends to serve as a national cemetery that enshrines literally convicted war criminals so bad the emperors themselves, whom the cultists purportedly support, all stopped going there after the enshrinement.
**** Emperor Hirohito himself scapegoated his war crimes onto generals. He merely doesn't want to "honor" the generals who gifted him a humiliating defeat and an embarrassing photo time trying to look tall next to the 6' of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaetano_Faillace#/media/File:Macarthur_hirohito.jpg Douglas Motherfucking MacArthur], which did demoralize the Japanese.
***** Along with having had to go on radio to declare surrender and embarrassingly admit [[Goge Vandire|'''he lied when he said he was God Himself.''']]
***** Son of Emperor Hirohito, Akihito, who was a grade schooler during WW2, was always against the war, and as a gesture of repentence, has said in 2001 he is not alien to the pains of his closest neighbors as he himself owes his ancestry to Korean kings according to the Shoku Nihongi. He is powerlessly called by Prime Ministers to ultranationalist gatherings where [[Imperial Cult|against his approval,]] is given the Imperial Japanese hail to the emperor and worshiped. His grandson takes after him, having said he wants to go formally apologize for his nation's and grandfather's crimes, but having been stripped of powers since WW2, the government did not allow that.)
***** Anyone who was deemed weaseling out of service or coming back as a survivor of a bloody battle, had their families lynched by local mobs for being a coward and branded "[[Gue'vesa|not a citizen [of the Japanese Empire] (Hikokumin)]]." This was one of the reasons why hardly anyone surrendered even in impossible odds. The other major reason being, they were scared all the war crimes they already gladly did, as "right of conquerors," will be done back to them. [[weeaboo|No, it is not some superficial cultural difference like bushido or shame in surrender, and even if it was, this was the underlying core reason behind that.]] [[Weeaboo Fightan Magic|You thought it was some fictitious bushido, something the government went at great lengths to propagandize and glorify but deep down not even the Japanese believed it? That's both a faux pas by orientalism and also an over-focus on the wrong cultural differences.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''[[Rogue Trader| Civilian imperialism]]:''' You thought military=bad, therefore you can clearly separate the civilians from military and peg all the bad stuff on the military, didn't you? Oh you naive thing, that's not how grimdark works: if you read any bit about Clausewitz's ''On War'', on how civilian sentiment drives war, you will know that already. [[what|Because Japan banned eating legged animals for 1200 years from 675 to 1872,]] its livestock was of rather poor stock and not very palatable. Hence millions of cattle were robbed from other Asian nations and rebranded as Japanese for consumption and sale overseas, while crop fields in colonies were [[Agri-World|commandeered and reformatted to be forcibly standardized to an unhealthy monoculture, to maximize their robbing away to Japan for Japanese civilians and soldiers to eat for cheap while creating a shortage in the colonies that caused hyperinflation. This also had the side effect of uniform agriculture that became susceptible to diseases and thus famine.]] Japanese civilians by the millions gladly taking land stolen from people of other nations and forcing them into slavery on ancestral farmlands because the Japanese government cooked the books and put them under the settlers' names. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The ruined colonials were deliberately kept more illiterate than their fathers (reading Chinese, Korean, Ryukyuan is forbidden) so as to not know how to better their station but be gaslighted to believe the [[Dark Eldar|robbers and slavers sprinkling mere crumbs towards them were the only source of food and should be worshiped.]] Illiteracy was so deliberate in the colonies (and indigenous languages forbidden), that it just took 5 years to fix it after American nukes liberated 1 billion Asians from the looming Japanese threat and years if not decades of oppression. Malnutrition widespread because of the crops robbed away for the hungry Japanese military to eat (this is how 2 million Vietnamese died so quickly). Civilian companies were gladly using slave labor to keep their munitions and weapons factories running, like Toyota and Mitsubishi who, unlike Porsche and Krupp, still in their grimdark, deny their war crimes.
**** Colonial kids were put into tiny coal mine shafts and forced to work 16 hour days and their exhausted dying bodies burnt like in concentration camps.
**** When slave factory complex that is Nagasaki was nuked, and the war was over, Japan sent slaves forced to work in dark mines of nearby Hashima Island, to clean up the radiation with no radiation protection. They died most painfully as their flesh slowly sloughed off with no idea how and why, as Japan dumped them into the sea. The few survivors still say '''"despite that, I am grateful for the American nukes, because otherwise we would have all died on that Japanese slave camp island."''' On this island, slaves were dying so often, that by 1944 the bodies being burned created a constant black streak of smoke. Slaves were put in basements without sunlight, injuries were deliberately not treated with anesthetic (those were reserved for the Japanese laborers who commanded them around), and even rats would only pick out a few grains of rice in the black sludge they were given to eat (made from beans pressed clean of oil to use as crude bio-fuel when Japan lost its Indonesian oil fields). This was actually one of the "nicer" slave camps, in some of the other mines [https://apjjf.org/2022/5/Johnsen.html sent foreign slaves down and when it got flooded or gas was flowing in, the Japanese civilians deliberately locked the gates and tried to kill the workers desperate to escape.]
**** In many places, for several months AFTER the surrender, Japanese civilians tried to hide the truth that the war was over and kept slaves in the dark and tried to [[RAGE|work them to death to avoid paying reparations and simultaneously ask Americans for alms for the evil destruction they caused.]]
**** [https://apjjf.org/2021/19/Bull-Ivings.html 1,000s who did survive the brutal slavery, were made sure to be killed by the Japanese spiteful to their victims]. Like on the Ukishima-maru, deliberately advertising a Japanese transport ship as the final one of its kind to go back to ex-colonial homelands, packing it to 7,000 passengers when the maximum space was for 1,000, then the Japanese crew telling all the slaves to go underdeck, then blowing the engine room up internally in a series of 3 or 4 small blasts while secretly leaving the ship on a lifeboat in the dead of night before it happened. Japanese again, blamed it on American depth charges but wreckage showed all the steel warping ''outwards''.
**** The militaristic machine that had Japan a field a whopping 3-million-man military force from just barely over 70-million population. This should normally be impossible, but only enabled by having the economic footprint of a nation many times its size. This means the oversized military force was powered by slave labor and robbed crop requisitions across its numerous colonies, and the military was backing all this. Also note that there are millions more veterans which meant everyone knew a family member who served. This also meant since Japan had decades of conquest after all, there were generation upon generation of millions of people who raped and massacred and gassed civilians for fun. Across generations, this skewed and redefined what meant to be “the norm.”Consider how Nazi Germany only lasted 12 years. The Japanese Empire lasted 77. Already in 1870 recommencing of the butchering the last native tribe of Japan to escape total eradication, the Ainu, whom they chased away to Hokkaido in feudal times, officially calling it their "colony."
***** These men would be emboldened to commit heinous crimes back at home when they ran out of foreign slaves to butcher, and had their crimes be waived off to a degree due to entire generations of men were collectively introduced to the experience of rape and cannibalism. (Example: Kodaira Yoshio who was a veteran coming back to supervise munitions factories, but having his way with the female students requisitioned for the war effort there, because "I can't forget the taste of young girls savored back in the conquered Chinese territories." because such things were deemed normal in wartime by Japan. Only after the war he was caught and only because he started murdering the women too.) Unlike Germany, millions of Japanese soldiers were allowed to return to Japan safe and sound, with no accounting for their crimes, and even given several months to finish pillaging and butchering millions of victims to cut down on reparations and hide war crimes or sometimes blame it American troops instead (like the Chichijima Incident.) Unlike Germany, Japan's soldiery was allowed to peacefully go back home, and were expressly protected by Allied forces as they robbed the last things they could to take back to Japan to use it for its post-war economy, primarily because everyone was focused on making Germany pay, they totally did not care about Asia.
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">'''Infighting at the expense of soldiers and nations:''' The Navy and Army had such bad blood since they were centered on rival feudal fiefdoms of the Meiji Restoration period, that they refused to share information with each other that could prevent them from saving soldiers' lives. So the emperor had to act as go between at times. Instead of a normal country whose government singly collects resources and distributes them as needed, the Army and Navy had their own separate oil fields conquered from places like Indonesia. Thus the Army couldn't even reliably count on the logistics of the Navy, and vice-versa, [[DERP|so the Army started making little supply submarines out of train engines and the Navy tried to make tanks]]. They wouldn't even agree on a unified maintenance system so some machines had pentagonal instead of hexagonal nut, just to screw with each other + discourage the other side requisitioning their stuff on the "pretense" of an emergency. This meant that in real emergencies, they can't limp to a closer base for repairs if they weren't correctly affiliated. They were already spread thin with dozens of invasions (all undeclared, as per Japanese tradition), yet the Navy was uncooperative while the Army had to rely on them for logistics and transporting soldiers overseas. But to win the emperor's favor, instead of cooperating they went back to the time-old Meiji Restoration (the civil war that was the 1868 Boshin War) tradition of "Peace comes from unification through killing all opposition." They each saw the other as another enemy to conquer, instead of partners. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** This is why they were constantly trying to convince the emperor that they should be given more clout and order the other side to become auxiliaries for their campaign... by going off and starting their own invasions without a plan. ('''[[Indrick Boreale|Sometimes, when that didn't work, they surrounded and besieged the other's HQ.]]''') The Army decided that killing and pillaging and raping would be a good substitute for proper logistical support from the Navy. The Navy in turn decided that they can't let the Army shine so they needed a separate simultaneous war of their own (a war on two fronts, which only America was ever to pull off through sheer production scale and population. Except, for Japan it was more like 3+ fronts since the invasion of China in 1937 that saved the Chinese Communist Party was still going), so they decided to '''attack America for Oil,''' because America forbade exports of steel and oil when it was clear that these were enabling Japan to invade the Republic of China.
**** America already had reasons to be unhappy with Japan, from being backstabbed over Japan breaking the 2nd London Naval Treaty Japan got America to sign that restricted each nations' total naval tonnage, so relations were already sour + [https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1967/december/panay-incident-prelude-pearl-harbor preceding undeclared war, the killing the men on the USS Panay escorting oil tankers, a prelude to Pearl Harbor.] America on the other hand, by upholding the Naval Treaty, was tied down by the Japanese to a disadvantage, and did not have the ships that could have defended Southeast Asia by the time Pearl Harbor was attacked).
***** The aforementioned USS Panay incident was when Japanese were bombing cities through China. In 1937, the US Embassy officially warned Japan in advance of US ships and oil tankers planning to pass through the warzone in Nanking (right before the Rape of Nanking) on a specific day when the skies were clear and American colors were flying on those ships. The Japanese sank US ships and killing of Americans by Japanese bombers. Japan's insidious response was '''1)''' make a show about firing the commander of that bombing (then promote him secretly for "showing the white devils the samurai spirit and teaching them fear") '''2)''' give a dumb excuse saying "we were sure Chinese soldiers were retreating away from the Japanese army via that ship" which makes no sense cuz the US Ship was sailing TOWARDS Japanese positions, why would anyone retreat towards the enemy they are running from. Still no excuse for bombing a 3rd nation's ship no matter who is aboard it, it's not their jurisdiction. '''3)''' And send 1,000s of handwritten apologist letters by Japanese schoolgirls to the US Embassy saying how sorry they are.
****** They just thought it was not the time to attack America yet, but plans were already underway at that point, with making casual and not serious proposals with the 2nd London Naval Treaty to tie Allied navies down with full intent to back out of the Treaty shortly after. Anyway, 4 years later, Pearl Harbor.
****** They did the same thing in the failed assassination of Czarist Russia's Crown Prince Nicholas during his tour in Japan in 1897. Shit fails, send apology letters, bide time, then launch an undeclared war on Russia.
**** Sometimes even within the branch, generals would do stupid things to get in each others' way: the infantry generals did not want to be outshone by the cavalry so they would rather put 10s of 1,000s of their soldiers into the grinder instead of using tanks, with the excuse of "we cannot sacrifice armored vehicles as they are sacred gifts from the God-Emperor."
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''Stubborn Pride, glorifying death, military first:''' Instead of receiving feedback from the field and spending money to develop better planes throughout the course of the war like a sane military, the Imperial Navy had only 1 type of ''shipborne'' plane actually fielded throughout the entire war (Mitsubishi A6M "Zero"). No, the Empire thought it was more cost-effective to sacrifice 1,000s of men on [[Grot_Bomm_Launcha|human-guided '''suicide bombing tactics''' known as Kamikazes]], going to Paradise in the afterlife for blowing themselves up for their one true god whom they prey towards everyday. Nowhere else will you find mass-produced, standardized models (of a regular military no less) that have no weapons but are solely designed for the purpose of blowing up, with designs that are absolutely made to prevent (with gas tanks too small for return flights and cockpits with holes for screwing shut) the pilot from every surviving lest he "be a coward" and try to veer off course and NOT sacrifice himself for the Emperor to go to Zen Buddhist Paradise. Even that wasn't enough so the pilots were given their final drink, [[drug|a cup of sake laced with '''meth''']] and squadrons were accompanied by a veteran plane that acted like an [[Commissar|'''AIRPLANE COMMISSAR''' that BLAM'd anybody daring to veer off course.]] By the time they got to the battle, the veteran would leave to round up more kamikaze planes. There are actually more designs fielded as human-guided bombs than there were fighter planes (The Yokosuka MXY-7 "Ohka (cherry blossom)" and Nakajima Ki-115 "Tsurugi (sword)" ). <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The kicker was they thought this was an effective tactic because the Japanese command looked at the statistics and decided that massed suicide planes actually had BETTER kill to death ratio than conventional warplanes as the war progressed. But this is a fallacy: it meant the original designs need to be updated and newer, more advanced models should be fielded, [[Tech Priest|not to stubbornly keep the old designs that the enemy is developing specialized counters for,]] and certainly not to keep [[Chenkov|SENDING IN THE NEXT WAVE.]] In which even the better-educated college students and factory technicians were conscripted to blow themselves up while unskilled schoolgirls took up producing the goods at shoddier quality which made weapon quality and operational failures more rampant than the already shoddy Japanese weapons because they didn’t realize that all these years, they were heavily dependent on importing superior American machinery for their industries (Which resulted in things like grenades that went off prematurely way too often, and the Nambu Pistol: a gun that BLAM'd the shooter).
***** Contrary to popular belief, suicide planes weren't even the only weapon mass-produced for kamikaze tactics. Boats, manned-torpedoes, submarines, diving suits, trucks, manned anti-tank mines, <s>[[Miscellaneous_Weapons#Tankhammer|'''TANKHAMMER''']]</s> lunge mines (I don't care how any Battlefield games depict this, you're not surviving a shaped charge explosion designed to blow a tank up at point-blank, let alone be able to run fast with a heavy charge while dodging M4 Sherman's [[Dakka|hull + coaxial + cupola machine guns]] to get that close in the first place, and even if you found someone who can, congratulations, you wasted an Olympics-level, 1-in-a-million athlete on a suicide mission to take out a medium tank. [[Armageddon Steel Legion|Now do that '''50,000''' times. (not counting the other tanks in the Allied arsenal)]].)... the list is too long to cover. Coupled with the 4,000 men on suicide planes, these rocketed the number of suicide bombings to 5-digits. Imagine how many regiments you can fill out with this headcount in a military with any sense of sanity.
**** Naval captains were encouraged to be like the fictional notion that samurai died in battle so if their ship sank they were to die with it. This led to a lot of blunders [[DERP|because nobody came back alive to report how the US Navy was exploiting Japanese weaknesses.]] Captains who dared come back from defeat were disgraced and sent on a '''penal crusade''' of sorts, like being sent back to the frontlines in a more minor position, their original position filled by a rookie commander who would [[Tactica Imperialis|play by the strategies laid out by the high command]] which were based on wrong assumptions and thus would also lose, and the with each repeat of this vicious cycle, 1,000s of men died pointlessly. All because the strategists who were appointed due to nepotism were insecure with their lack of skill and took an affront to any implication that they made errors in their strategies, and so blamed every failure on the field commander.
***** Ironic when you know the Sengoku period history, the heyday of the [[samurai]]. This is when opportunistic brutal samurai saw "backstabbing" as "pragmatic" for survival amidst 200 years of civil war and if brutal and ungrateful, '''had no hollow delusions about honor in death.''' The false notion of a samurai who is "unquestioningly loyal" was made in the 18th century romanticists, namely Tsunetomo Yamamoto, a chickenhawk who never saw a single battle yet lamented how samurai like him are not respected like in the "good ol' days." [[Lorgar|His greatly influential and hilariously wrong book on what samurai is supposed to be, '''Hagakure, ''']] literally began with [[Chenkov|''"To die is to be samurai."'']] and his book was primary reading material for the militarists, [[Grimdark|which is why Japan was very liberal with spending human lives.]] 18th century was actually when samurai started reading Confucianist books and was fantasizing about "(unquestioning) loyalty" no matter the evil of the regime. Note that samurai have been upholding the oppressive regime by taxing 3 times more than both the European and Asian feudal averages (25%). According to 19th century scholar Nobuhiro Sato, 1 in 3 peasant households commited Mabiki infanticide every year (remember contraceptives didn't exist then), due to lack of food. The resulting desperate disgruntlement was quelled with terror of the "kirisute gomen," a license to [[CHOP|BLAM]] any peasant on the spot without any trial or reason given.
****** This is rather grimdark considering [[Ferrus_Manus#The_flesh_is..._strong.3F|Confucius ''taught the '''exactly opposite''' lesson'']], since he himself said something along the lines of [[Awesome|"an evil subject lies and praises his lord's tyranny as benevolent leadership, but the truly loyal subject tells tyrants 'fuck you']] to amend their evil ways. [[Ollanius Pius|Even in the face of likely death,]] and those who were executed for speaking the truth were oft hailed as martyrs posthumously. This is the very essence of [[Awesome|'''true loyalty.''']] And the ideal lord listens to such subjects." A sort of social contract. And he did exactly that himself, publicly opposing tyrants. Blind obedience praised by 18th century samurai from a proper Confucianist light, was seen as being a cowardly or scheming yes man.
***** The propaganda machine did not help, either. The Battle of Midway, turning point of the Pacific Theater, was a devastating defeat for the Japanese Navy, but the Daihon'ei (Imperial General HQ) reported to all the media that it was a heroic victory. Officers who made it back though, were all locked up to prevent them from speaking the truth, because the Navy did not want to be upstaged by the Army's own bluffs and tried to hide their failures, and over-reported the enemy's losses. The term "Daihon'ei report" since has become a tongue-in-cheek phrase of government/corporate claims pretending everything is fine and no mistakes were made when the situation is actually [[Fail|FUBAR]].
****** This battle was ultimately lost by the Japanese due to arrogance, underestimating the enemy, being ill-prepared, and overturning every bad result in simulations as "There's no way the Imperial Majesty's Navy would be hit by that many torpedos from those inept Americans!" (Admiral Ugaki did this A LOT), and complete lack of radar. [[RaHoWa|Again, racist doctrine]] posited that, the US Navy uses radar but have no fear, [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer|that's actually because the American eyesight is racially inferior to the unerring eyes of the seamen of the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy, who do not need them!]] This is hilarious when you realize the radar that was used then were the old "TV-antenna" that is the Yagi-Uda Radar made by a Japanese lab assistant Uda (who for decades was sidelined as his professor, Yagi, unjustly took all the credit, typical), patented in England, thus legally used by the Allies, but shunned by the Japanese because [https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/pearl-harbor-december-7-1941 "'''His Imperial Majesty's Military lives by ambush'''"] and to use a radar that emits radio waves just means exposing your ambuscade to the enemy.
***** The Japanese Navy stupidly was obsessed building the largest ship on the planet at the time, the Yamato-class battleships, but the irony is that because they were afraid of losing face in a possible battle, they actively avoided these truly expensive ships from engaging in combat and had the lesser ships do all the fighting throughout the war. This was so stupid because unlike the new main naval weapon that was the aircraft carrier, this ship was built using the old naval doctrines of uselessly big [[Dreadnought]] [[Nazi_Equipment#Wunderwaffen|battleships slugging it out with enemy battleships, where bigger guns with longer ranges prevailed, hopefully in a ''single decisive victory'' that would turn the tide of war (Wunderwaffen)]]. So the Navy was both being a bit behind the times AND not using the Yamato-class for what it was built for. Despite being able to, America did not see a need to nor delighted in building a battleship that huge, but instead focused more on the new technology of "Aircraft Carriers," [[Forge World|made 98 carriers throughout the war]] [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs|starting out from just 7 surviving after Pearl Harbor]], against Japan's 14 carriers.
****** A whopping full 1% of Japan’s GDP was spent on maintaining this pampered monstrosity of a superweapon that did jack all. Contrast this to how modern European nations in 2022 except Poland are struggling to raise its military spending to 2% of its GDP.
****** The Yamato was also furbished full of luxuries and served lavish food while the other parts of the military were starving, they were actually nicknamed [[Noble|"The Yamato Hotel,"]] for so pampered were the men aboard, just to bestow prestige to service aboard the flagship. By 1945, when people were malnourished and cannibalizing their slaves and robbing locals at gunpoint was rampant in the Pacific island holdouts (some soldiers would do this into the 1970s), and even government MINISTERS could barely afford to get "a sweet potato dipped in butter" (according to Nobusuke Kishi, grandpa and nepotic sponsor of the Prime Minister that got shot), the folks at the Yamato Hotel were living it up -- journals of the sailors at the time of its sinking in 1945 showed, [[RAGE|they had meaty curry over rice with ice cream for dessert and were sleeping in beds.]] Oh and they even had a full complement of musicians aboard to play music for the feasts. And feasts it often had whenever an important figure was visiting (and that was frequent both because it was the flagship, and also because it was always available for feasts due to being too busy [[RAGE|AVOIDING THE DECISIVE BATTLES IT WAS SUPPOSED TO FIGHT.]]) Chefs conscripted aboard were required to hone their skills to chefs of 5 star hotels. Apologists argue the luxuries were all for morale that can win the war, but even those sailors with journals even admitted feeling guilt whether they should even be savoring these luxuries in a time like this, and the sailors of other ships in the Japanese Navy were suffering from putting too many guns on deck to sidestep the restrictions on naval power by making each tonnage account for more firepower, at the expense of crew spaces and shared magazines (a huge fire risk). In contrast, the US Navy just used hammocks for most sailors, and you know, actually won the war.
****** The end of the Yamato was a hilarious mess of saving face and idiocy. Because the flagship kept dodging engagement for the [[Macha|excuse that it’s saving itself]] for a hypothetical "final decisive battle" between battleships, the Japanese Navy wasted its advantage from ambusing Pearl Harbor without declaration of war, and wrote its battleplan entirely on the monolithic idea that the US Navy will desperately go through all the fortified islands in the Pacific, whereupon the Japanese Navy will hound the US fleet and whittle them down to a ripe size for the “final decisive battle." And so because not declaring war and hitting Pearl Harbor was so successful, they will recreate a microcosm with “a top secret superweapon saved for the final strike.” This didn't work because there's [[DERP|no guarantee the enemy will move into your traps like some tower defense game, much less in the very maneuverable open ocean.]] The Yamato could have finally gotten its big battle in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, but had no fuel to fuel the Yamato... [[FAIL|because they decided to give its fuel to the lesser ships]] to go fight in Guadalcanal in its stead. On top of that, to save face, they couldn’t ask the Army for spare fuel, so it sat that one out. In the end, the writing was on the wall when it found that it no longer had a sizable fleet to accompany the Yamato. So against every general's wishes, high command took it out to battle with the argument, "if the Yamato doesn't fight at least once before the war ends it will look like they cost Japan the war by being cowards." So just to save the Daihon'ei high command's face, 4242 Japanese sailors were sacrificed... while taking out 12 Americans in Operation Ten-Go. The biggest ship on the planet that was top secret by an evil naval-based empire, went down hordes of torpedo bombers which swirved the behemoth just enough to make the [[Macrocannon|colossal 18.1” gun]], slide off internally and spill its load of massive ammo in a deadly cascade, setting them off and with it, all the shells stored deep down in the magazine. [[Star Wars|Picture the Rebel Alliance sending fighter planes dropping torpedos to set off a chain reaction that destroyed the never-before revealed imperial superweapon called the Death Star, the largest ship in the galaxy... built by the leader of an empire who was actually called “The Emperor” who purportedly has supernatural powers... hmmmmm]]
******* [[Aristocrat|The scheduled dinner on the day it sank was to be canned beef, canned red bean rice, and sweet bean porridge for dessert.]] It was lavish for war time, to the point even the crewmen worried whether it was even right for them to be eating like this, putting the military before the civilians even for a militaristic empire hellbent on conquest.
**** As mentioned above, waging war for glory of conquest without a proper plan for logistics nor cooperation between the Army and Navy led to the outcome of [[World Eaters|2 million of 3 million soldiers committing '''cannibalism at least once, usually eating the slaves.]] In fear of the looming threat of American forces, [[The Black Feast|ate American POWs to dehumanize them]] and raise their failing morale. One famous example is on Chichijima, [[RAGE|which the Japanese on trial for war crimes actually dare claim they died from American bombs, because American bombers loved bombing too much they didn't even care about blowing up their own boys.]] The truth is "'they were eaten as sushi."' George H.W. Bush was the sole survivor because he was the only man who was rescued by the US Navy when they crashed from enemy fire. He went on to become a senator, the director of the CIA, and in his Presidency won the Gulf War... and reminded of the fate of his brothers in arms upon being served sushi, [[Internet Troll|threw it up on the Japanese diplomat's lap in revenge.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> '''Sexual violence on a scale unprecedented in history:''' Someone in high command somehow got it in their head the idea that somehow, raping underage girls is a crucial component of what makes a mighty samurai warrior. (Historically speaking, they are not far off if that is whom they wanted to model their soldiers after, and by all the propaganda they spew out, they were). In the indoctrination written in soldiers' field manuals, it was even written raping any underage girl they could see was actually ENCOURAGED as an exercise of the "righteous conqueror." When raping and killing girls in lands they conquered wasn't enough, they would "'''[[what|maximize rape efficiency]]'''" by having [https://www.ftm.eu/articles/dutch-state-and-royal-family-profited-from-money-comfort-women 500,000 girls of 35 nations] were permanently kidnapped/captured/coerced/lied in military brothels to be '''[[RAGE|raped with 80-men quotas per day.]]''' 100 when the men are flocking right before a major offensive. The girls are raped till they die, get too sick, or get pregnant by which they will get executed with their unwanted baby. If they are in the chemical/germ bomb human experimentation center, Unit 731, under the direct command of the emperor and nobody else (unlike the Army/Navy), girls were impregnated by the scientists [[daemonculaba|precisely for the purpose of making '''pregnant specimen''' for various vivisections of either the baby, the mother with the fetus,]] or the mother and the newborn together in pointless experiments like "How long does it take until the mother in a hot furnace goes from trying to save her baby in her stead to sacrificing her baby to save her own life, on average?" And countless other evil shit that would make slightly more sense but was done just to get slightly more accurate medical data than experiments about poisoning/vivisecting animals already done in Europe 20+ years ago. Scientists claimed after they got used to the lab environment, [[Haemonculus|they soon had developed daily cravings for vivisections saying, the day did not feel over until they cut up at least 2 people.]] <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** The Japanese to this day tote documents on how girls as young as 10 years old somehow "signed" papers that they agree to go to the frontlines to "comfort" the soldiers, claiming that Japanese soldiers were not rapists and the girls were just very willing prostitutes. But if you have an actual brain, it shouldn't take much to realize 10 year girls will have no idea what that “job” even entails, let alone 10 year-olds should not be given any agency to make such decisions. It's the typical tactic of putting someone's name on paper at gunpoint, exploiting the fact that it is easier to prove there was something signed rather than trying to prove there were guns pointed to someone's head at the time, because that leaves no traces. It's even less legal than the contracts illiterate men had to "sign" for [[Imperial Navy|press-ganging AFTER they were kidnapped and out at sea.]] Minus actually being paid: the best "payment" was in Japanese military ration tickets which were deliberately designed by the Japanese to be worthless after the war and prevent a way to run off and live in a town elsewhere with money that could be used in the civilian sector. Disencourage them from running away to ease butchering them '''after [[Daemonculaba|giving them unwanted pregnancies]]''', both as a way to get rid of mouths to feed during the war, and after the war, kill as many survivors possible to hide their war crimes to ease in playing victim later. Aside from the rampant rape-and-kill in the midst of tearing through towns, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Dutch, Australian girls were raped repeatedly and then executed in ditches or random locations in jungles.
**** The origins of trafficking sex slaves goes back to 1500 when samurai, like numerous African warlords, used to sell girls to buy muskets from Portuguese slavers to better kill each other. When the exorbitant 60-90% tax rates wasn't enough to fund their wars, (Hideyoshi also abruptly banned the sale of Japanese girls but started to kidnap Chinese and Korean instead to sell to the slavers... at one point trying to make up for the losses incurred in the failed invasion of Korea in the 1590s, started capturing so many slaves to sell to the Portuguese that this temporarily crashed the European slave market prices by 1/6th going rate), the samurai looked to earn income by establishing overseas brothels. The thing is, this never stopped until the early 20th century. In the short Meiji period alone, '''the Japanese sold 300,000 Japanese girls overseas''' to earn expensive American dollars and British pounds which were vastly stronger than the Japanese yen, to make easy money to fund the over-glorified Meiji Restoration. The leaders of Japan weren't even ashamed, either. The girls, who earned the nickname "Karayuki-san" ("Miss-gone-to-China" where "China" in this sense can mean anything overseas) by the 19th century, were praised by Japan's leaders and foremost thinkers as "Joshigun," meaning "Army of Girls," in the sense they are (forced to) fighting and sacrificing themselves for Japan's progress. These Japanese brothels reached far and wide, up to America, Australia, and even India. Using girls as military sex slaves from 1930s till the end of WW2 was a natural conclusion to this barbaric practice. In rare occasions a few made it long enough to amass enough money to buy themselves a small, easily forgotten tombstone for their own death, and these are scattered around Southeast Asia but mostly neglected and forgotten and/or the jungles swallowed them.
**** The Rape of Nanking was where the killing and raping was so horrendous and massive, '''''[[What|a full-on Nazi Party member, John Rabe, had to do the Schindler's List]] thing''''' to save the Chinese citizens around Nanking, who were Allied and therefore should've been his enemies, against the Japanese, who were Axis and should've been his allies. One of the many beheading contests of civilians was gleefully reported back home as heroics between two rivals with historic [[katana]]s they brought from home, [https://i.imgur.com/r7G4ejB.jpg babies were thrown into the air and caught with bayonets], people were tied to posts and used as live bayonet practice up close and personal, soldiers stuffed glass bottles in girls' vaginas and shattered them for fun, samurai katanas were proudly brandished to threaten civilians to put on shows for the Japanese troops such as [[What|fathers forced to rape their daughters and mother forced to rape their sons.]]
***** The woman whose book exposed this in the West, Iris Chang, was hounded by Japanese for so long, slandered and sent death threats for years, that she ended her own life. Daring to be a champion of light gets one attacked and slandered, unto death. Truly Grimdark.
**** Girls like Jan Ruff O'Herne and women like Vivian Bullwinkel were raped, and many were executed. A rare few barely managed to survive, but were shamed by the Australian and actually [https://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-nurse-was-ordered-to-keep-war-crimes-secret-20190322-p516jg.html commanded such girls/women to shut the fuck up so they can appease the sensitive Japanese overlords and recommence trade with them.] The Dutch government even brokered [https://www.ftm.eu/articles/dutch-state-and-royal-family-profited-from-money-comfort-women a deal with Japan and took bribes to keep this war crime quiet in spite of the protests of the girls who were raped periodically as permanent sex slaves.] When O'Herne before she died, did finally brave through her PTSD and started to speak about her experiences in the 90s, [[Angron|she was actually counter-accused by Japanese and Japanese-Australians, of being a racist and bigoted liar.]]
*** <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">Aftermath over Okinawa was especially grimdark. The Japanese occupiers already experienced Pacific Islands' natives eagerly cooperating with the American liberators and telling them weaknesses in Japanese positions, so by the time US forces arrived around Okinawa they [[Tzeentch|made sure to strengthen propaganda]] [[Eldar|and corral the colonials to fight as pawns.]] The Japanese gaslighted the Okinawan natives to die as cannon fodder under the rhetoric, that if they did not blow themselves up for Empire and the holy God-Emperor, Americans will land, and will proceed to eat their babies and violate them. Basically gaslighting that the enemies are worse than all the Japanese brutality the people have suffered thus far (for 400 years), kind of like some reverse-[[Commissar]]. In just WW2 alone Okinawans were forced to fight and when wounded were executed (given milk secretly spiked with cyanide, etc.), butchered for slightest offences like speaking native Ryukyuan instead of Japanese, executed for picking up airdropped American pamphlets written in Japanese offering them a chance to surrender while warning them the destruction the US forces are capable (you dare come in contact with the bluff of filthy American pigs!?), or gaslighted in fear to flee to uninhabited islands where many died from hunger and malaria. On top of all that, when Okinawa was finally about to be taken, the Japanese were not ready go peacefully, and forced everyone to commit suicide to "show them the iron will of the superior Japanese race and refusal to be slaves." The real reason though, is sinister and fucked up: <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
**** What really happened was the Japanese overlords wanted to fool and discourage Americans from landing in Japan proper, so they banked on the expectation that Americans won't know the difference from the enslaved Okinawans and Japanese, and so if the people on this small island "appear" that all civilians are willing to fight and die to the last man, the Americans will hopefully be afraid to land on the Japanese mainland lest they face even fiercer resistance. The Japanese were also, as seen post war, very keen on killing all victims/witnesses to their war crimes, so they thought, "might as well use them up now." [[RAGE|Mass seppukus were forced upon them to make it look "voluntary" just to save Japanese face of being "fearless samurai" at the expense of not-Japanese.]] Okinawans were surprised to find US forces did not come to rape their children but give out much needed medical care and food.
***** This mentally devastated the Okinawans who were prepared to go down fighting (some were even told to make makeshift bamboo spears and use kitchen knives and attack from ambushes), because the Japanese already told many Okinawans to kill their own children to spare them the fate of being gang raped by American devils, and follow suit with their own seppukus. Accounts say the horrified parents took the food and medical aid they received as offerings to the graves of their own children they buried, and wailed cursing Japan, crying tears of blood. This is the aftermath of being enslaved for 400 years and suddenly offloaded the duties of a full citizen to die for the God-Emperor so that mainlanders don't have to.
***** In some cases it was the opposite, like a conscripted teenage boy commanded to murder his sister and mother before battle so he would have nowhere to return to and fight harder, uner the excuse that he is saving them from rape and sending them to Zen Buddhist Pure Land paradise early.
***** This is why when prince Akihito came ashore Okinawa in the 1970s when Okinawa was "returned" to Japan, the enraged natives sent numerous death threats. Originally, his father emperor Hirohito was going to come, but this was deemed too dangerous.
***** You will not believe the uproar when the Okinawan survivors found out that, without their knowledge, the names of Okinawan men forced to die for Japan have been for years enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine, the de facto national shrine headed by remnants of [[Imperial Cult|National Shintoist organization]] and still used in nationalist rhetoric to glorify the Empire of Japan. The shrine refused to have those names erased. This is also the case for other colonials conscripted as cannon fodder. Okinawans erected memorials for both Okinawans and Koreans who were sent there as slaves and cannon fodder and accuses the Japanese government for lies and denial of their atrocities.
**** That's not all, the survivors soon found that it was the Japanese who have been raping their children anyway. One such infamous example was the Himeyuri Schoolgirls, who were lied to by the Japanese army they will just be taken to make knickknacks and provide basic medical care for soldiers, but really conscripted for far more than that (sex slavery) and once the Japanese had their fun, tried to get rid of proof of their war crimes by sending the victims to attack US lines where they were shot as they were not proper combatants in uniforms, because the Geneva Convention only protects regular uniformed troops and not insurgents and fighters hidden among the population. The Japanese exploit the worldwide publics' lack of knowledge of how the Geneva Convention works, and actually makes it sound like an American war crime to shoot attackers not wearing uniforms. And on top of that, used these Okinawan girls they forced to die, as propaganda to drive the rhetoric that [[Tzeentch|"so righteous was the Japanese Empire, even underage girls by the droves willingly laid their life down for God-Emperor Hirohito, and it is a tragedy the American invaders were so brutal and ruthless monsters to cut them down. This underlines why America should not have attacked Japan."]] Textbooks were found saying this as recent as 2011 and unedited since. Basically, innocent girls' deaths are used as political fodder by an unrepentant regime to fuel more jingoism and fool people to come feed the meat grinder.
***** Just like the glorified Kamikaze pilots screwed shut into cockpits. Non-kamikaze pilots in the Navy testified they have never seen anyone eager to blow themselves up like wartime propaganda said. The closest would be people gaslighted to believe if they did not blow themselves up for Japan, Americans will eat and rape their family... This notion ordinarily would be too far-fetched, passed over for propaganda in any normal nation, but it WORKED in Japan because that's what the Japanese soldiers themselves were doing for GENERATIONS, it felt all too real a prospect when those things were taught and done as the "natural right of victors in war."
****** What makes this even grimmer is that all those people that even died for this lie died in vain because, their own Japanese government themselves, NOT 10 DAYS AFTER SURRENDER, founds an organization called the [https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Recreation_and_Amusement_Association Recreation and Amusement Association], specifically made to pimp out girls to those Americans who not 10 days prior, were propagandized as subhuman rapist demons that must be put down. And unlike the wartime sex slaves, the women were voluntarily coming for work and the promised pay was not robbed away, not entirely, once the program was shut down by Eleanor Roosevelt's pleas in 1946, and allowed to start a burgeoning prostitution industry as "pan-pan girls" instead of being taken out back and knifed in the belly with the unwanted fetus and thrown in a ditch or the jungle for animals to tear apart. [[Tzeentch|The Japanese government lulling the Allied troops into prostitution is used to poison the well on the issue of wartime sex slavery, to exaggerate and incriminate any incidents among prostitution caused by Allied troops as "being no different from Japanese troops after all" and simultaneously play down their own wartime sex slavery as being well-natured,]] and also drive the rhetoric that [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18355292 the onus of this is all on Allied invaders, that Japan was forced against its will to make their own girls prostitutes in a systematic "wall of flesh" to calm the torrent of violent sexual energy the Allied troops exuded who will "undoubtedly" rape everyone if their sex drive is not appeased.] (Who do they think the GIs are, Japanese?)
***** Battle of Saipan was the first time the Japanese government told civilians to commit mass suicide, a direct order from God-Emperor Hirohito no less, on the 30th of June, 1944. This was in fear that Japan will lose face if the Japanese settlers (who lynched and killed the natives to take their land and belongings) ever became displayed on US media. Like [[samurai]] seppuku of the past, the God-emperor promised glory after "brave" suicide. [[What|A whopping civilians 20,200 complied]], lots of them pushing their families off cliffs and being pushed by others in a stampede, so effective was the Japanese propaganda about subhuman American devils they chose death. One such cliff is now called the [https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/banzai-cliff-site-hundreds-suicides-end-battle-saipan.html?chrome=1 Banzai Cliff] because 5,000-8,000 people in one sitting were marching off cliffs "supposedly" voluntarily, shouting TENNOU HEIKA BANZAI ('''"For the Emperor!"'''). The place now features memorials including those for the Korean and Okinawan plantation workers sacrificed in this way.
****** One time some scared civilians hesitated before jumping off some cliffs, and were found at a distance by US troops who coaxed them to turn away from a cliff. Civilians were still scared of US troops, and did not dare come closer but hesitated. But soon this hesitation was rectified by a Japanese soldier who shot them dead to [[Commissar|"inspire" the remaining survivors to suicide.]] They were mere moments away having the war end for them, but Japan was determined to '''not lose face, nor allow peace before death.''' Worried about mere national image before lives. '''GRIM DARK.''' The Japanese soldier was later caught and killed by angry US troops.
****** Like in other islands, Japanese troops hid out in mountains and caves and soon started killing each other for limited resources and butchered natives, slaves, and eventually each other as food. Grim dark. The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On is a documentary following a Japanese veteran who accuses the government of war crimes and hunts down his former officers.
****** Some islands like in the Philippines, had Japanese officers using their own rifles to terrorize and kill the locals and steal their livestock and supplies and refused to surrender until the 1970s. Some of them did so because they wanted to avoid being told to answer for their war crimes, like Hiroo Onoda, [https://globalnation.inquirer.net/101899/hiroo-onoda-hero-or-villain#:~:text=Reports%20say%20that%20Onoda%20and,was%20hailed%20as%20a%20hero. and even when finally surrendering, was proud to be a bandit and murderer and was totally unapologetic to the locals, posing like some samurai hero, and even wrote books glorifying his "heroic" acts] and was received by the Japanese as an exemplary man of justice who did not bow down to the evil Americans.
*** [[Nurgle|'''All out ABC warfare:''']] Atomic, Biological, Chemical, the 3 main pillars of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Unlike Germany, Japan was very into using chemical and germ weapons on the battlefield. Anthrax, bubonic plague, dysentery, typhoid fever, diseased fleas, etc. all flavors of germs were used. Cyanide grenades, mustard gas bombs, CS gas bombs, etc. were used on both civilian and military targets, much of these WMDs were produced in factories of Hiroshima. The bulk of these were used in the vast, continent-wide theater of the invasion into China (1937-1945) up to 2,000 odd usage cases. Biowarfare was scheduled to extend to America in the September of 1945, in [https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-057/h-057-2.html Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night]. Japanese nuclear weapons development was going on right up to the end of the war as well, hellbent on trying to finish the nuke without knowing anybody else was trying to make them as well (the Manhattan Project was Top Secret). Two nukes were in development, the Ni-Go and F-Go, unlike Nazis who hardly decided to pursue this when Nobel Prize winner Werner Heisenberg deliberately canceled the German nuclear weapons project (1992 declassified 6-month recordings listening in on him and his fellow scientists prove this was intentional).
**** On the other side, Japan actually '''did not give a damn about nuclear casualties,''' (you thought a government that gaslighted 10s of 1,000s of civilians to die, just to save face, cared about that?), records and witness accounts actually cite that when the nukes hit, it was considered nothing special because Daihon'ei high command has been receiving casualty reports on that scale for months by then, and high command proceeded to argue about how to fool the Americans to accept letting them keep all their remaining unliberated colonies under Japanese enslavement, and sign a peace treaty favorable to Japan. The firebombing of Tokyo had greater casualties (150k) and you hardly see it toted as a political talking point. Nor the according to General Curtis Le May, he bombed 20% (4 million) of the population to death in the Korean War that happened 5 years later, and you hardly hear any Korean complain about that. Oh, and just like with the Okinawan schoolgirls sent to die and tallied along with "loyal citizens of the empire willingly sacrificing their lives for the God-Emperor Hirohito," about 1/3 of the nuclear casualty numbers include these foreign slaves, both those who got bombed, and both those forbidden from returning home after WW2 but instead commanded to clean up irradiated cities, all of them who wouldn't even have been there were it not for Japan forcibly putting them there. Only foreign slaves were sent to clean up the irradiated rubble, and Japan dumped their moaning dying bodies were into the sea, [https://youtu.be/IOwwi97XTYA?t=690 then proceeded to start propaganda that goes on to this day, on why Americans must bow in apology to innocent victimhood of Japanese while denying any wrongdoing or demanding everyone forget their war crimes.] Nagasaki was a civilian hub for driving slaves in Mitsubishi's war factories. Hiroshima was the poison gas WMD production hub. 1 billion Asians cheered for their liberation (even if nukes weren't the cause, and the Japanese were actually too stubborn to fear the nukes they themselves were making).
* <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">'''The Cold War:''' You know what is the most grimdark about the Cold War? The nations devastated the most from the [[Axis]] Powers Germany and Japan, one would think their happy liberation would last thereafter and great evils of history rectified, right? But on the contrary: for the crime of not destroying other countries and colonizing them for their greedy personal benefit, they were not able to become as powerful as those who happily bloodied their hands with the blood of others, and thus became subjugated. And even after they were liberated, by Allies, they were left so weak, their people butchered, their governments destroyed, their economies left with hyperinflation... that they were not able to stamp out communist cells like they normally would have, had their capitalist regimes not been attacked by the Axis. (Eastern Europe may have been directly conquered by Soviet forces, but in Asia, the communization started with the largest nation: China, from where communization of other nations were enabled). In fear of the Domino Theory, Germany and Japan were soon rewarded with trillions of dollars for butchering millions, to build up their economies and given loads of American tech. Despite several backstabbings like [https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/russia/toshiba.htm Japan selling US tech to the USSR,] (even after America totally excused from any war reparations, too), the nations did not actually do anything for checking the Soviets, and the role soon fell to China itself in the 70s, it too getting a late cash boost and tech transfer just like Japan, which was responsible for sparking the post-war Chinese economy as much as it did Japan's. <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
** TL;DR The perpetrators of WW2 caused a bigger problem for their old victims and the victims are left having to waste a huge portion of their economies to maintain militaries and establish highly dangerous frontlines against whatever their old oppressors left behind, while the people who caused this were given vast sums of money instead, because it was thought that frontlines were too risky to invest in. Also victims of war crimes were told to keep quiet because those Axis Powers are being hailed as (hopefully) bulwarks against the communist tide when they didn't actually do anything.
** If China was not communist, the Laotian, Cambodian, North Vietnamese, and North Korean communist regimes would either not even have happened or been mere footnotes in history, as they would not have received backing from Communist China, or capitalist forces would not have to worry about escalating into World War 3 if they helped these weak nations on the brink of communization. In fact a capitalist China would have actively sought to end communist regimes on its borders, so great were the Nationalists' hatred of communists represented by Mao.
*** [https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3085206/mao-zedong-thought-japan-did-communist-party-great-favour-invading Mao Zedong and his communists were mere weeks away from finally being arrested and executed, when the Japanese invaded in 1937, starting World War 2.] The Chinese Nationalist army had to put out this bigger fire, and reluctantly signed a peace treaty with the Chinese Communist Party. Throughout the war, the Nationalists suffered many gas and germ attacks from the Japanese, 200 Chinese generals died, 25 million people died, and most of the elite soldiery were killed in action. Meanwhile, even the Soviet military advisors for the CCP reported to Moscow that the CCP avoided all conflict, and focused on amassing resources and spreading influence by lying that it was THEY who were bleeding in the frontlines for China, while Nationalists sat back and hoarded all the supplies. When the Japanese were finally being beaten back in 1945, the communists backstabbed the Nationalists by starting a new front all of a sudden, and in 3 years drove them to the small island of Taiwan. In 40k terms this would be if an Imperial world was finally beating back some massive [[Xenos]] occupation, only to find their homeworld overtaken by Chaos cultists, then finding refuge on fringe world they liberated, but much to their dismay discovered this last refuge too was contaminated, through decades of foul indoctrination, the [[Avatar|worshiping of Xenos as gods and hating their own humanity.]] [[What|This is why Mao Zedong later thanked the Japanese for invading China and saving him, and without their help, he would have been dead.]]
** After killing 2 million people in Vietnam in WW2, Japan during the Vietnam War got trillions MORE US dollars while not shedding a single blood to help fix the problems they created. By the time Vietnam was hung out to dry and became overrun by communists, Japan was glad it did not have to pay a single yen as reparations to Vietnam because the Cold War atmosphere provided easy excuse for not paying communists anything. In 40k terms this is deliberately throwing the surviving families of your victims to chaos cults just to get them hunted down by the [[Inquisition]]/[[Exterminatus]]ed.
** Once the Cold War was over, Japan's backstabbings (because unlike Germany, Japan's same WW2 fascist political families who feign alliance with America but have always spoken of conquering America with their own dollars, still ruled Japan to this day, 50% of their positions hereditary and one-party rule has been in effect since 1955, [https://www.ndl.go.jp/modern/e/cha6/index.html called the 1955 system]) and outright tech thefts were seen to with lawsuits from various tech firms [https://prabook.com/web/andreas.pavel/2578953 (side note: The SONY Walkman wasn't invented by SONY at all, but stolen, then with ill-gotten profits sued the inventor to bankruptcy, and finally when everyone was done with it decades later, settled for a measly sum. There are tons of false propaganda like this)]. They still managed to lobby Senators to get them out of paying for their treachery, but even so, future American aid was cut short. Without trillions foreign aid, without colonies to exploit, they have finally had to rely on their own selves: and are now wallowing in the world's greatest debt-to-GDP ratio (only recently surpassed by Venezuela) and a 30-year recession unprecedented in the history of any human civilization on the planet, starting right from the end of the Cold War in 1992. [[Weeaboo]]s pretty much have been worshiping what was essentially their grandparents' tax dollars. And you thought 2.3 trillion spent in Afghanistan was costly.
** Polish soldiers and government-in-exile in of Free Poland fought for against the Germans in WW2 on the Allied side, but around 1944, the Allies decided to fuck them over, and was happy to let them not take back their country but instead merely change hands and become taken over by pro-Soviet communist puppets. This decision among the Allies was even deliberately kept hidden until the end of the war so the Polish would keep on laying their lives down for them and fight until Germany surrendered. The veterans had no choice but to live in allied nations, mostly England. These veterans were not allowed to rear their heads in the Allied nations they were taking refuge in, and were ostracized, spat on, or even depicted as squatters who were taking jobs from the English. Those few who did go back to their now communist homeland were living lives worse than before, or outright arrested and executed for political reasons, as the communist puppets were worried their true heroic deeds would drive an insurrection to retake Poland from foreign powers once more. Most never lived to see their country finally regain its sovereignty when the USSR dissolved in 1991.
*** Wojtek the bear, a hero of WW2 who caught Nazi spies and carried heavy artillery shells for his platoon of the Polish Armed Forces in the West, was also not able to go back to his homeland in Poland, but had to live out his days in a pen with other bears in a Edinburgh Zoo. He was ostracized among the other bears and lived a lonely existence. His rare moments of joy were when his old comrades from the platoon visited and gave him the cigarettes they used to give him back in the army. They commiserated both being backstabbed and unwanted persons by the society they live in despite fighting for its freedom.
** The South Vietnamese government in exile suffers the same, as having to weather through the colonization of the French, then the abject butchering rape and destruction caused by the Japanese in WW2, then the destruction causing a power vacuum and a fight that went on for decades, only for the communist North to takeover in full, and the South Vietnamese refugees had to discard all their livelihoods or be raped or butchered by the communists. The communists' Hue Massacre during the Vietnam War was nothing compared to what was in store for people who were not able to escape South Vietnam in 1975... Only for Cambodia to start a war with Vietnam. And while Vietnamese army was putting that fire out, the Chinese suddenly invaded from a 2nd front (which quickly ended when the Soviets, having skirmishes and even threatened a very one-sided nuclear war with China, threatened the Chinese to pull out of Vietnam). For the Vietnamese for quite some decades, it was quite grim dark and there was only war.
* Most of '''David Bowie''''s songs about 1990s.

== Grimderp ==
{{topquote| Why don't people band together to fix things? Because GRIMDARK. Why hasn't an external system supplanted the current, barely functioning one? Because GRIMDARK. How does such a woefully inefficient system manage the logistical nightmare of endless total war? Because I murdered a baby seal, that's why! You should feel bad.|Terrible Writing Advice (The GRIMDARK Episode)}}

Grimderp is what happens when a writer takes grimdark so far that it goes [[derp]]. The writer puts something in that makes the setting more grimdark, but it's generally reliant on at least one party involved [[Fail|suddenly abandoning all sense of reason and logic]], or else caused by a lack of forethought on the implications of how the element interacts with the world. Many long-runner grimdark works will become this sooner or later, as either the setting or the cast's morality (rather a usually extreme lack thereof) will induce complete and utter apathy in the audience and cause them to give up out of sheer pointlessness. Most "dark" anime/manga tend to be more or less grimderp, as attempts to attract mature audiences ends in violence, blood, and sex without consequence (at BEST, mind you. [[Rape|At worst...]]), all in gratuitous quantities.

To be clear, grimderp is not just that something is "dark" or that a character behaves stupidly. Human beings make dumb, short-sighted, irrational, and morally objectionable decisions all the time, just crack open about any book on human history. Grimderp is when a character breaks character to do something they would normally never do or engage in behavior that is logistically impossible [[Gav Thorpe|("there are as many elves as the plot demands")]], simply "because it's dark". To put it in another way, it is basically the author(s) writing dark things for the sake of [[Edgy|edginess]]. The end product often comes out as painfully juvenile and sounding like something out of a 13-year-old fanfic that thinks adding barbwire coated in feces to everything makes something 'deep'.

That is not to say it is impossible to make an absurdly dark fiction without straying off course into grimderp territory. The post-apocalyptic short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison avoids the grimderp label due to the historical context the story was written in as well as the philosophical debate on the idea of cruelty as presented through AM. Is AM a spiteful, cruel monster or a product of man's penchant for violence and warfare trapped in its own database prison? Another example that avoids this title would be Stephen Baxter's [[Xeelee Sequence]], whose entire ethos is a critique and ruthless deconstruction on the entire [[Humanity Fuck Yeah]] and [[Cthulhu|Cosmic Horror]] tropes whilst still crafting an unbelievably depressing multiverse. So yes, it is possible to write pure concentrated grimdark, but it should be done with a level of delicacy and self-awareness for it to be seen as legible.

* The Last of Us: Part 2, the sequel to the critically acclaimed The Last of Us, is Grimderp in its purest form: Characters prolong suffering simply out of the blue. Basic logic is thrown out as countless characters dive headfirst into a rabbit hole of violence, suffering, and depression, often to the point of [[Edgy|literal edginess]].
* The Dothraki of "[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]". We are asked to believe that an entire culture can sustain itself by raiding settled people (when the Mongols and Plains Indians they're based on hunted and herded large animals) while ''not selling or eating the livestock they plunder'', eating horses whenever possible despite borderline worshipping them and relying on them as beasts of burden or war steeds, solve literally all their disputes with murder and defeat their enemies with mass charges (despite real nomads having small populations, and winning battles with cavalry skill and/or surprise). At the point where the story says that "a wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull occasion" and mentions warriors casually raping dancers (the first fight to the death started over two warriors wanting the same dancer), the whole thing just looks like an [[edgy]] [[Magical Realm]] based on "hordes of eastern savages" clichés.
* [[My Little Pony|Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons]] is a fanfiction about magical ponies so grim, dark, and derp that it would almost be comical if it wasn't so fucking horrifying. With characters that get shit on (both figuratively and literally) more than the [[Lamenters]], and with a world so bleak (missing the point of Fallout, FiM, ''and'' the original Fallout: Equestria) that becoming an hero WOULD ACTUALLY BE the happiest ending, it's the prime example of how to make readers stop giving a fuck about the story at all.
* On that note, 90% of all grimdark fics are grimderp since writers are under the impression that [[Edgy|just making things dark makes it good writing]]. There are exceptions, but they are rare, because Sturgeon's Law is a thing. On the flip side, however, [[DOOM: Repercussions of Evil|certain examples]] have reached the apotheosis of Grimderp and become gut-bustingly hilarious.
* Warhammer 40,000 gets called out as this by some. Certainly it's a valid criticism of certain parts, but as we said earlier, [[Skub|you could argue about what is and is not grimderp in 40k for weeks without conclusion.]] For example, the Imperium is excessively self-destructive and tyrannical to its own people, but in the hands of a good writer, it's meant to underline how corrupt and desperate the Imperium has become without the Emperor's guidance, and how even those who are neither incompetent nor malicious still have to make brutally difficult choices. In the hands of a lesser writer, it's unnecessary evil purely for the sake of evil. We should call our next book "[[C.S. Goto|Darkness of Darkest Dark!]]"
** Historically, the Grail myths drift, not from [[Ecclesiarchy|Christian sources]], but Celtic ones (and beyond the Celts, older civilizations), and a typical feature of these myths happens to be the healing of a King through forces of restauration and regeneration (i.e. to put one in touch with his sources, with his roots), and the King was typically seen in agrarian societies as the King of a land, avatara of a Sky-Father, and [[Alarielle|the Queen as the Earth Goddess]]. The [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Psychic 101|Geokinesis psychic discipline]] has a power called '''Earth Blood''' who would do just that; if only [[Adeptus Custodes|someone]] let Librarians enter the Imperial Palace to do some Perceval style healing.
**[[Khornate Knights]].
**The [[Grey Knights]]' (who seem to get this a lot, really) equipment and how it is made. Specifically, every bolt shell that the Grey Knights use is consecrated by the blood sacrifice of a righteous man or woman in a borderline Khornate ritual (and it has to be a ''good'' person, not just anyone. How the Imperium determines if someone is sufficiently "good" or not remains an open question). Those Aegis armors? Made from thousands of psykers (including ''children'') burned alive in a furnace to channel their power to the armor. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people have to die to make ''one'' Grey Knight combat-effective. This has caused a lot of [[skub]] as to whether it is grimderp or not, as it raises the question of where the Grey Knights find enough good people to consecrate all of the bolter rounds they go through every battle (especially in the 42nd millennium, considering the monstrous spike in Chaos activity post-Rift).
**[[Gellar Field]]s being powered by the dreams of a comatose psyker being used as a battery (which also burns out and has to be replaced regularly). While very dark, it crosses the line into grimderp when one realizes 1) that Gellar Fields were said to be invented long before psykers began appearing among humanity, and 2) psykers are apparently rare enough in the Imperium that the Imperium has [[Black_Ships|an entire institution]] dedicated to rounding up psykers and bringing them back to Terra to make use of them, like making [[Astropath]]s or feeding the [[Astronomican]] and the [[Golden Throne]]. And according to recent editions the Black Ships are just barely meeting the quota to keep the [[Golden Throne]] going, so it's not like there are a lot of spare psykers around to be made into Gellar Field batteries.
**Originally, the [[Black Templars]] were treated as refusing to suffer the witch no matter who they were, to the point of refusing to ally with any Imperial institution that made use of them. This got retconned to only hate ''enemy'' psykers in 6th edition after it was pointed out it would be really hard for the Black Templars to do anything if they refused to tolerate Astropaths or Navigators, and thus have no Warp travel or faster-than-light communication.
**[[Imperial_Worlds#Agri-World|Agri-Worlds]]. Seemingly in response to the common fandom sentiment that [[The_Imperium_of_Man#However.2C_is_the_Imperium_really_that_bad.3F|most worlds in the Imperium are actually quite decent places to live]], just so long as you don't get invaded by [[Orks]], [[Chris Wraight]] in ''Lords of Silence'' outlines a typical Agri-World, describing a horrific hellscape wracked by permanent Dust Bowl conditions and so much pesticides that the sky turns orange and it is not safe to walk around outside without a biohazard suit, and goes on to say that all Agri-Worlds are like this. This has caused a lot of [[skub]] within the community. Some say that this practice is perfectly acceptable grimdark, and that unsustainable farming practices aren't exactly unusual in human history (look at slash-and-burn farming practices in Brazil, or aquifer use in the United States). However, what people find issue with is the claim that ''all'' agri-worlds are invariably like this, when [[Your Dudes|the fact that conditions on various planets in the Imperium vary massively from world to world as needed for the plot and there is almost no standardization]] has always been considered one of the big selling points of the setting (not to mention contradicting descriptions of Agri-Worlds in [[Ciaphas Cain]] and the [[Last Chancers]]). The other aspect that people tend to find unbelievable is that the Imperium is claimed to not even use crop rotation in their Agri-Worlds, simply farming the same crop over and over again until the soil gives out and the planet becomes a [[Death World]]. The Imperium may have lost a lot of its ancient knowledge, but crop rotation as a practice goes back to the freaking ''Stone Age''. [[Derp|Its absurd to see knowledge that basic being lost in the horrors of Old Night]], or not been rediscovered in the time after. This also means the Imperium would literally have run out of planets thousands of years ago if this was true.
** The nature of how Imperial ships work has caused a great deal of [[skub]]. Namely the fact that the weapons of Imperial ships are loaded by hundreds of chem-bulked, rabid slaves dragging them into place while being whipped, the exertion being so great that many die frothing at the mouth by the effort or have their hands crushed by chains. They do this completely by hand, hauling the munitions across the ship with chains. This despite the fact that hydraulic power systems have existed since the 18th century. They don't even use inclined planes or levers, something which humanity has been using to haul large objects where they want them to go since the days of Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and Easter Island. Or they could literally just use a [[Chimera Transport|Chimera]] or a team of grox to do the job, you know, the reason why humanity built large vehicles and domesticated large animals? Meanwhile the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] is using autoloaders, and is deliberately go keeping the technology from the rest of the Imperium so they will have an advantage in case another civil war ever breaks out. Some say this is perfectly acceptable grimdark, others say that this is just too ridiculously inefficient to take seriously, even for the Imperium.
**The Marneus Calgar comic has caused a shitstorm with the recent revelations that the average life expectancy of the BEST place in the Imperium is in the mid-thirties, which is fucking <u>[[FAIL|'''STUPID''']]</U>. Because that means that the life expectancy of other non-Ultramar worlds are drastically shorter, which makes the machinations on how the Imperium is run, fucking unsustainable. If child mortality rates are ''that high'', then entire worlds would have quite literally run out of humans especially in warzones, while entire sectors' worth of economies would collapse or stagnate as more kids die before they grow up and be a productive member of society. This creates a drain in resources and long-term stability; it was already considered unsustainable during MEDIEVAL times, so you could just extrapolate this to a million worlds and the Imperium should collapse under its own inertia and weight by this point. I don't care how 'disposable' human life is, it is still a resource and the [[Emprah]] fucking hates wasting resources. We get that the comic writer is trying to shoehorn even more feudalist themes in the comics, but the problem is, this is not Krieg we're talking about, but fucking ''Ultramar''. So either the author does not know what sense of scale is, or that he does not understand the works of [[Roboute Guilliman|Guilliman]] because Grandpa Smurf [[Rage|'''WOULD. NOT.''' let this shit fly under the radar.]] The author has confirmed, however, that it was added to make Ultramar feel more grimdark. To give you some context, Somalia in the mid 1960s has a higher life expectancy than this. This is not grimdark, this is just fucking stupid that breaks the suspension of disbelief. It is one of the few things that both 4Chan and Reddit concurrently agree upon as fluff breaking.
**To be honest, the whole idea of humans being the "teeming multitudes" faction [[Imperial Guard|winning battles by sheer weight of numbers]] and which [[Skaven|breed quickly and are easily replaced]] is kind of silly if you know anything about human reproduction. Among species on Earth, humans are notable for being one of the ''slowest'' reproducing species out there. It takes nine months for a human to gestate to maturity in the womb, more than any other animal aside from elephants and whales, and even after birth humans take longer to reach maturity even compared to our close relatives the Neanderthals and ''Homo erectus''. Additionally, it takes a huge amount of parental care to care for a child and raise them to functional adulthood, more than any other animal. On top of this, pregnancy is incredibly crippling for human females, and women have a one in three chance of dying in childbirth if giving birth without any external aid or midwives (as would be the case for a citizen of the underhives), something almost no other species has to deal with. The way our species generally works is we breed incredibly slowly but live an incredibly long time and invest a lot of resources to make sure those few that are born survive to adulthood, which basically makes us the [[elves]] of the animal kingdom. Barring some major technological breakthrough like artificial wombs or genetic engineering to reduce the crippling side effects of human pregnancy or long adolescence, humans are unlikely to be able to outbreed anything. And while some factions in the Imperium do have access to artificial wombs (like the [[Mechanicus]], most of humanity in 40k are shown to still reproducing the old fashioned way. Even if humanity starts out with a huge population it can throw at any problem, that population is going to be depleted pretty fast because humanity [[Eldar|can't replace their losses]]. Even if they are the greatest resource the Imperium has, they're still trying to fight a war of attrition against foes including [[Daemons|ones who can't even be properly killed]] and two races who can easily outbreed humanity; [[Orks|one reproduces by fighting]] and [[Tyranids|the other are a rapidly reproducing horde of space locusts who go from conception to combat-ready within a Terran week]]. However, fans tend to ignore this because of the whole “to be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions” thing that is part of the general lack of regard for human life that makes 40k 40k, so people give it a pass.
** Some 40k sources claim that millions if not billions of guardsmen are killed EVERY SECOND. Even with the scale of the imperium taken into the account, having many times the current population of the Earth die every minute would be ridiculous for the whole of Imperium, let alone just the Imperial Guard.
**[[Deathwatch|Watch Captain Artemis]] saying [[Heresy|better to let the galaxy burn and allow the Imperium to fall to Chaos than allow the xenos to live]], right before [[Battle_of_Coheria|fucking up an eldar ritual that would have awakened Ynnead early and fucked over Slaanesh]], indirectly [[Gathering Storm|causing all of the ruckus of 8th Edition]]. Granted, while this does come from the [[Deathwatch]], who tend to be rabidly anti-xenos even by the Imperium's standards, this is for ''Chaos'', the Archenemy, the [[Big Bad Evil Guy]] of the Warhammer 40k setting, the one faction that even the notoriously xenophobic Imperium will begrudgingly admit is a bigger threat than the xenos and will team up with them to fight against it. A loyalist saying they ''prefer Chaos'' over anything, even as the lesser of two evils, should be grounds for an insta-[[BLAM]]ing and a red flag for Chaos corruption. And no, Watch Captain Artemis was not [[BLAM]]-ed for this, nor is this treated as the beginnings of his corruption and a slow fall to [[Chaos]]. And so a loyalist Space Marine managed to [[Fail|single-handedly save Slaanesh]]. Seriously, Chaos champions have been elevated to [[Daemon Prince|Daemon Princehood]] for less.
** The whole thing reached the lowest point by 3rd edition, considered the Darker and Edgier version of 40k, this is when some of the silliest things mentioned in this wiki were added or accentuated, after that 40k required more than 5 EDITIONS of fluff update, novels, characters and additional background to finally come back from "we no longer care" to an actual war with stakes and actual chances for all sides involved.
** On [[Catachan]], half the population doesnt survive infancy. Of the ones that do, half don't survive past 10 years. Its not even a guarantee that people past ten years of age survive into adulthood. Between the amount of kids EACH WOMAN would be required to have just to SUSTAIN the population, the amount of care that would be required for the pregnant women and her kids, along with (at absolute best) a precarious battle against nature itself, the Catachan population would be completely unsustainable. It's an honest to God-Emperor miracle that the planet even managed to accumulate a population of 12 million people, and even more miraculous that the Space Rambos were the byproduct.
** The Emperor forcibly teleports Angron away from his final stand with his gladiator comrades, leaving them to die and telling Angron to get over himself. He also does absolutely nothing to ease Angron's suffering or convince him of the necessity of the Great Crusade. When asked by Angron why He would do something like this in spite of the wealth of other options, the only excuse Big E gives is that He's the Emperor and has more important shit to do on a much wider scale. Between there being no narrative or in-character precedent for Big E doing this and a laundry list of explanations as to what He could've done differently, this part of Angron's backstory and The Emperor's role in it can only be summed up as ADB yet again being guilty of shit writing and overly relying on daddy issues as a plot device.

* [[Star Wars]]: Although Star Wars is 40k's high fantasy twin, there have been a few grimderp things that came out recently in Canon that has given 40k a run for its money. According to Canon, specifically the novel ''Ashoka,'' the Galactic Empire forces farming worlds by gunpoint to harvest a particular breed of crop to be used as rations for their troops. The problem? These crops were specifically designed to [[Wat|soak up every bit of nutrients on the planet until it becomes sterile.]] Meaning that the particular farming world is only capable of harvesting the crops a few times [[FAIL|<u>''AT BEST''</u>]] before it becomes a sterile death world. Let's put this in context here, the Galactic Empire is currently fighting a galaxy-wide insurgency and being a galaxy-wide government, the GE NEEDS a sustainable way to produce food in order to keep its giant military well-fed for long-term campaigns. So forcing farming worlds to produce crops that intentionally leave their worlds sterile after a few farming cycles is just fucking [[EPIC FAIL|<u>'''STUPID'''</u>.]] Because realistically, the GE would have quite literally, ran out of food in a decade, collapsing due to galaxy-wide famine. [[FAIL|This shit is so fucking stupid and retarded that it makes the abovementioned IoM agri-world farming practises look eco-friendly in comparison.]] Even if they did something somewhat reasonable like restricting this practice to worlds that sided with the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars as a punishment, it's just spiteful beyond all reason.
** Seriously, this is a level of grimderp surpassing the [[Skub|Yuuzhan Vong]]; sure, they were be a race of machine-hating, masochistic religious zealots, but even they had organic technology to compensate, some were capable of pragmatism and they didn't make unsustainable food sources... and this is before they overhauled their society.
* [[Drowtales]]: The whole series is Grimderp on steroids, but there are a few particularly nauseating examples: nothing like the protagonist [[Mary Sue]] of innocence and purity blowing up the light elf MILF slave called Maya in an argument with a rival, an argument in which she feels morally justified right after buying a fighting slave which was doomed to die in underground Arenas even most Drow find disgusting, ran by a complete monster of a drow, regularly visited to watch slaves die, that's right, by the protagonist Ariel. Maya dies crying in her native tongue about "what she did to deserve this", crying she'll never see sunlight again. Protagonist feels a bit bad about a few days, and only that when she sees a few naked light elf slaves for sale, reminiscing Maya's face. Years pass and she thinks all the slavery and needless murder isn't so cool... just before visiting a surface colony who was taken from humans. She and her lesbian lover have an orgy on the settlement they just conquered by massacre. After a blissful after-sex sleep, the settlement is counterattacked by desperate humans coming to save their kin... which are promptly murdered by the half-light half-dark elf paladin of Sharess (Yes, a [[Mary Sue]] worshipping a total [[Baldur's Gate]] rip-off) who is all high and righteous when she is burning innocent humans who wanted to save their kin from slave traders about to buy the survivors. The protagonist's lesbian empath Drow (yes, with a length of purple hair paint, straight out of Deviantart) friend berates the cornered humans with a lame excuse line of "I feel your pain, why don't you take your survivors and run?!" when the said humans scream in desperation to save their families from the town's locked buildings, die horribly and our "I'm glad my clan Sarghress prevents slavery, let's shake hands and feast on the food we just plundered!" protagonist shakes hands on it. It's not even depressing, it's plain fucking logic diarrhea with enough depressive themes to OD an edgy 13 year old. (considering the authors were that old when they started...)
* Jeph Loeb's run on [[/co/|Ultimate Marvel]]: people dying brutally (most well known being Wasp getting eaten by the Blob) and completely gratuitously (Dr. Strange is killed the one page he shows up on and is completely forgotten afterwards), lore rape worst than anything Ward ever did (the heroic Pyro is now a rapist version of the mainline Marvel Pyro with no explanation; Thor going from new age hippie to mainline-style viking with no explanation... at least that last one is kinda cool). Overall it was so bad it effectively made the Ultimate Marvel universe (with the exception of Spider-Man and his cast) completely unusable. Small wonder that years later, Marvel thought smashing it and the main Marvel universe together would be a good idea.
** Jeph had lost his 17-year-old son to cancer not long before and apparently was taking his sorrow and anger out on the Ultiverse. It's no excuse, I suppose, but it ''is'' actually kind of sad.
* Koutetsujou no Kabaneri, an anime with a similar premise to the already-grimdark ''Attack on Titan'': It's set in (presumably feudal) Japan, where people are hiding behind walls and communicate with each others using trains to travel from town to town, and trades the giants and horses for guns and [[zombie]]s. Several of the characters have moments of team-killing ineptitude that end up prolonging the conflict far longer than it should:
**The [[samurai]] don't bother with armor and generally aren't very combat-savvy when it comes to zombies, and their [[Lawful Stupid]] tendencies turn any defense against a wall breach into an utter clusterfuck. The antagonist is [[Abaddon|an absolute failure AND wanted for crimes against humanity]], being a [[Edgy|pretentious Che Guevara wannabe]] [[Chaos Pretty Marines|with pink hair]] and wielder of an ugly-yet-somewhat effective [[Sword|sabre]]. He also has a devoted following despite being thoroughly unable to grasp the basics of warfare and its ethics (he thinks children are cowards for not being able to fight monsters that ambush and run through trained adult fighters with ease, and [[What|considers destroying one's own resources and castles to be a viable strategy]]). Meanwhile, the main protagonist has found not one, but TWO miracle solutions that would allow mankind to fight back against the zombie plague, but no one will listen to him, especially not the main antagonist, both because of the above and because ''of course they wouldn't'', it's <s>grimderp</s> GRIMDARK.
**Ironically, Ancient Shintoism (a main religion of that period) has the only known anti-[[Nurgle|zombie]] deities: ''Kukuri hime no kami'', a goddess of purification ([[Reasonable Daemonette|''despite'' being rather sado-masochist]]) whose followers would bind a corpse with ropes, place a big stone on the chest and bury it (coffins are optional). [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|Insane as it was]], it was the most common form of burial in the Jomon period, and never went completely out of date through all the medieval period. Despite the rites being a perfect defense against [[Dark Souls|an undead invasion]], apparently they didn't take in this setting. Three guesses why.
*Most dark fantasy/"Ryona" hentai like Redo of a Healer (see [[Edgy]] for details), Kuroinu, Maggot Baits and whatever bargain basement hentai game developer puts the heroines through horrifying rapes, tortures and debauchery with no way to escape, all for little more purposes than to degrade, humiliate and mind-break them.
* [[FATAL]].
* [[Black Tokyo]]
* About half of Garth Ennis's work goes so far around the bend that, if you don't stop caring about anyone in the story and put it down first, it becomes compelling or hilarious. Practically all of his original stories are drowning in grimderp (and author ax grinding). Prime examples include:
** The Boys: Almost every superhero is an irredeemable sexual deviant and loose cannon whose only crime fighting accomplishments come from corporate PR lies, and the story's protagonists are little better.
*** Surprisingly averted for the most part with its Amazon Prime adaptation. By actually making most of the heroes less unambiguously rotten, cutting down the childish silliness, making the violence less gratuitous and more justified, and making the Boys themselves more human, the series actually manages to be WAY darker than the comics. Hell, Billy Butcher actually contemplates MURDERING A CHILD in the series, which is something the way more psychotic Butcher of the comics would not. On the other hand, Homelander was made worse: Homelander's worst atrocities from the comics were actually done by Black Noir who was gaslighting him, while Homelander in the series really did those things and Black Noir has another story.
** Preacher: One of his most infamous works. An edgelord power fantasy against all Christianity, including/especially God, it revolves around a former priest with a mysterious power, his criminal ex and a heroin addicted vampire.
*** Even worse in the Amazon Prime adaptation. The salvageable parts of the plot were swapped out for even more edgelordery, a prime example is dinosaurs being extinct because God killed them all when one did something gross.
** Crossed: Another of his most infamous creations. Most of the world is dead or turned into [[Slaanesh|murder-raping sadists]] á la the Reavers from Firefly due to a virus with a visible symptom being boils forming a cross pattern on the infectee's face. Showing any courage will get you killed or turned into one of the aforementioned murder-rapists, and there are survivors that are just as fucked up as the infectees. Supposedly a dig at arm chair survivalists, it's now mostly remembered for being edgy for the sake of edginess and being overall boring as hell.
* Hatred: Remember how your family told you that GTA was breeding criminals and that games created "monsters"? Well, Hatred tries to cash in on that by making a game dedicated to killing innocent people and making a "parody" out of those reactions, but [[FAIL|fails miserably]] to do that. This is because not only is our main "hero" a complete asshole with literally nothing redeeming about him, but most of the gameplay consists on you shooting unnarmed civilians and members of the policy/military that are easy to beat, and coupled with the monochrome colors the game becomes ''very'' boring in a ''very'' quick pace. And unlike these old games that caused oh so much controversy, Hatred doesn't even have that good old orkish humor (unlike the video game "Postal 2") and tries to [[Serious Business|take everything inside it seriously]], which makes the "Grimdark" aspect come off as ''very'' dumb.
* [[Carl Sargent]]'s total rape of the [[Greyhawk]] setting in ''[[From The Ashes]]''. This is a unique case in that the grimdark was actually fairly well-done; it's that he had to fuck over the game's oldest and most-beloved setting by retconning out (ex.: The Horned Society) or altering to the point of demonization (ex.: Celene, the southern duchies) anything that disagreed with the new über-grimdark direction he wanted it to take that made it grimderp.
* Most of the anti-[[HFY]] content in the [[World of Darkness]], especially the unmitigated misanthropy in parts of [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]. Humans vary from 'Apathetic fools responsible for most of the world's ills' to 'Cackling, moustache-twirling villains', civilization and all its fruits are EVIL!, and [[Red Talons (Werewolf)|the tribe of bestiality-born werewolves that want to exterminate the human race down to pre-Stone Age levels]] are presented as heroes that're unequivocally morally justified in their actions both in and out of setting. [[FAIL|Yeah.]]
* Anything made by biggest hack in Hollywood, <s>Zack</s> Hack Snyder.
* LifeWeb: A complex SS13 spinoff taking place in a cave fortress of a neo-medieval world in the far future, combat is more lethal, and it claims to explore subjects like murder, corruption, rape(with no regard for age), torture, cultism and general human suffering. In reality, the themes it "explores" just means "it's in the game and you can do it" and it's a farce on every level possible.
* The ''Hearts of Iron IV'' mod ''The New Order: Last Days of Europe'' has numerous dystopian "failstates", but there are a few standouts.
** The first is the SS Ordenstaat Burgund, also known as Burgundy. Covering northeastern France and Belgium, Burgundy is ruled by [[Nazi|Heinrich Himmler and the SS]] as a giant concentration camp. Its sole purpose is genocide, first on the local and ultimately on the [[Exterminatus|global]] scale. When it isn't killing its own inhabitants, it's backing SS agents throughout the Third Reich's sphere of influence to further its cause of EEEVIL. Economic minister Oswald Pohl even points out that killing massive swathes of the nation's population just for not being Aryan isn't sustainable, but Himmler regards such criticism as treason. Realistically, Burgundy should have collapsed on itself before the game started, but it can stick around regardless. Playing as it is as difficult and miserable as you'd expect from a Holocaust management sim.
*** Recent updates have focused more on the "derp" than the "grim", apparently as a reaction to Burgundy's pre-rework supervillainy. Unlike before, where it could last into the '80s [[Plot Armor|because the plot would break otherwise]], nü-Burgundy experiences [[Not As Planned]] moments on a near-[[Abbadon|FAILbaddon]] scale. Himmler [[BLAM|shooting Oswald Pohl]] for his "treason" not only tanks the economy but also makes economic management ''impossible''. Over time, the slaves, French and Belgian collaborator legions, and even Burgundy's own ministers will eventually get fed up and rebel. If Himmler purges them, ''literally everyone else'' will rise up in an event called the "Burgundian Spring". Even in the rare event that Himmler actually gets his nuclear Holocaust, it ultimately fails; the "pure" Aryans he chose to preserve emerge from their bunkers...and peacefully join post-apocalyptic society without issue. Why? Himmler told them that only true Aryans would survive the nuclear holocaust, so they assume that [[Derp|all the survivors are Aryan ''by Himmler's definition'']], [[Wat|even if said survivors are Jewish or black]].
** The next is the entirety of Russia. What-was-once Soviet Russia has collapsed into several warlord states, and many of these are grimdark as fuck. Standouts include All-Russian Black League of Omsk, a hyper-nationalist warlord state led by revenge-mad ex-Soviet generals determined to launch a no-holds-barred genocidal war against Germany called the "Great Trial" (imagine if the [[Death Korps of Krieg]] ended up in charge of Russia and you have a pretty good idea); Hyperborea, which is Russia run by [[Chaos Space Marines|batshit-insane neo-pagan Slav supremacists who practice human sacrifice]]; and the Holy Russian Empire, which... honestly deserves its own section, it's so utterly glorious in its grimdark:
*** Russia is unified by a ultra-right wing Komi government headed by a deranged, self-loathing Jewish antisemite named Sergey Taboritsky who believes that [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Tsarevich Alexei miraculously survived the massacre of the Romanovs in 1918 and, like a proverbial king under the mountain, will come back to rule once Russia is sufficiently "purified"]]. To this end, Taboritsky implements "Esoteric National Socialism" i.e the "Burgundian System" (an even more extreme ideological offshoot of Nazism emphasizing inflicting horrible state-mandated cruelty on everyone living under it to strengthen the Aryan race) in Russia, creating a [[The Imperium of Man|theocratic totalitarian dictatorship]] that purges anyone deemed sufficiently "un-Russian", with an emphasis on the Jews. To this end Taboritsky deploys [[The Purge|copious amounts of chemical weapons against dissidents, including one named "Taborite" that melts people's flesh into slurry on contact]], to the extent that vast tracts of Russia are ecologically devastated for thousands of years. Murdering the mentally-ill and disabled children, burning priests at the stake, declaring that [[Inquisition|the idea of innocence ''doesn't exist'']] and changing laws so that even dropping your tools at work can get you tried and summarily executed; that kind of shit. In a world where Adolf Hitler not only exists but achieved even more of his evil plans to reshape the world than in real life, he is considered a ''secondary evil'' to Taboritsky. But eventually Taboritsky has a beautiful vision of Alexei coming back that turns into a vision of a little pile of bones with a bullet hole through the skull, and the old man realizes that Alexei is dead and not coming back and literally ''dies of despair''. This is only the ''very beginning'' of Taboritsky's wild ride and subsequent events show the nation's descent into complete insanity that has been affectionately named "Post-Taboritsky Meta-Horror Neo-Warlordism". Because nobody in their right mind would dare confront or question a man who might strangle you thinking you are Cain, everyone settles into default orders through sheer fear. Purification squads just... keep killing, until they lose their minds ''a la'' ''Heart of Darkness''; one soldier is so far-gone that he doesn't even recognize his own parents shortly after executing them. Factory workers are made to work themselves to death because the order to let them go home never comes through. Whole towns and swathes of Russia are completely destroyed by the army bombarding them with chemical weapons or abandoned as people begin ''fleeing west into Nazi Germany'' just to escape the horror. Eventually the armies, the ministers and even the ''flag'' of the Holy Russian Empire disappear, Russia turns into a black borderless DMZ, and the portrait changes to an unlit abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere and the nation gains the "Radio Silence" trait, with only one broadcast leaving the nation's borders, presumably forevermore: ''"REMAIN CALM. THE REGENT ENDURES. ALEXEI LIVES. THE HOLY RUSSIAN EMPIRE SHALL ENDURE. THERE IS MUCH WORK TO BE DONE"''. Apparently according to the developers, what Taboritsky does to Russia is ''so thorough that it's like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust'' and the trauma is so great that Russia will ''never'' reunify ''ever again''. The sheer number of references to the Imperium of Man in Taboritsky's path is sometimes seen as a message: in literally any setting except [[Warhammer 40,000]]'s unique circumstances, a theo-fascist state comparable to the Imperium is [[FAIL|doomed to auto-genocide]]. And it only gets worse from there...
*** The ''After Midnight'' update adds a post-Taboritsky epilogue and paints a nightmarish picture of what "Post-Taboritsky Meta-Horror Neo-Warlordism" fully entails. After a period of total anarchy where mechanized warbands of radicalized ultranationalist soldiers roam the country killing everyone they encounter, successor states eventually emerge headed by some of the most deranged and unstable people you can imagine. The Black League of Omsk becomes even more insane, expanding the Great Trial, a project of genocidal war against the Germans, to also include any "corrupted" Russians not outside their borders. The once-persecuted Kazakhs are launching genocidal crusades into Russia to wipe the Russian people from the earth as revenge. A band of Shturmoviki stranded in Omsk and driven mad by the revelation that the head of the Holy Russian Empire was a Jew have [[Chaos Space Marines|pledged their allegiance to Satan out of despair and madness, engaging in human sacrifice and inviting nihilistic thugs and serial killers into their ranks]]. Magadan is a wretched hive of smugglers and ex-fascist thugs. The Eurasian Republic is a megacorp warlord state convinced that explicitly rejects all dreams and ideals beyond sustaining the state, and that Russian national identity is so tainted irrevocably by the HRE that it seeks to create a new "Eurasian" identity in its place. I could go on.
* Kane & Lynch: Dog Days. The First game already bordered on Grimderp thanks to having two completely villanious outlaws going against others villanious outlaws, but avoided it by having an engaging if [[edgy]] plot, but the second game? Oh boy, it jumps the shark from grimvile to shitvile. Our "heroes" return, just as horrible as ever, except with the addendum that the game tries to create the [[Daemonculaba|most disgusting, creepy atmosphere]] possible - shaky camera in order to portray the protagonists diminishing mental health, flares that block your victims blown up parts and others thing done to really showcase violence as "disturbing". It "succeeds" while making the game completely unplayable as the shaky camera ends up being vomit-inducing, the screen being blocked by blood and trash coming off as more obnoxious than anything else and the lack of heroic, or even simpathetic motivation from the main characters making it impossible for a player to empathize with the [[edgy|omnicidal maniacs who by the end of the campaign have ruined the lives of hundreds of innocent people just save their own face]]. Your "reward" for going through this shit treck? A [[troll|clifhanger ending that doesn't promise a single good thing out of it]]. Imagine all the problems mentioned above regarding The Last Of Us 2, swap the zombie apocalypse scenario for a criminal story and slap outdated gameplay and an atmosphere done on purpose to be off-putting in it, and you have a game a player will barely endure a single playthrough - while at the same time not caring for any of the two assholes you are controlling. Or to quote our hate/fuck buddy from [[Zero Punctuation]]:
{{topquote|Much as the visuals succeed too well at being deliberately hideous, the characters succeed too well at being deliberately wankers. There's nothing fun about the game. No light relief, just one nauseating heap on unpleasantness after another, like a roadside café breakfast special by Jeffrey Dahmer.|Yahtzee}}

== Grim Tragedy ==
Naturally in a universe such as 40k, the grimdarkness of the setting would mean nothing if not tied into the ironic tragedy of the lore. This includes:

*[[Imperium|A species]] with so much potential, but so afraid of the dauntless perils of Chaos that they will brutally harass and execute entire populations out of mere suspicion, all to stop the spread of ruin while indirectly strengthening those who seek to destroy them (''particularly'' Chaos). They, as a people, have progressed massively in population, technology and power since their species conception, yet they, more than anyone else, have lost one vital element: their humanity.

*[[Eldar|A race who]] was once at a zenith of civilization and prosperity, capable of bending the very Gods to their will. But by their own hand reduced themselves to scattered isolated fleets and colonies always on the run; their pompous and arrogant leaders hide behind a dwindling sense of security based in superiority over other races who are far more successful and perhaps destined to be greater than they ever were. [[Dark Eldar|A number among them]], after their unholy and insidious near-demise, continue (with oblivious glee) to empower [[Slaanesh|the very being that brought them to ruin]] in order to save themselves.

*[[Orks|A race of creatures]] who possess the brightest "potential"; with near mastery over the psychic, near-natural physical perfection and almost limitless numbers from their highly successful methods of reproduction... And yet they are genetically restricted by an unquenchable thirst for conflict which drives each to idiocy, leaving them hopeless of advancing beyond simple barbarians.

*[[Necron|An ancient people]] who were so envious of their neighbors' lifespans that they were ready to cripple the entire galaxy just for the sake of petty superiority - a superiority neutered by their unwitting transformation into metaphorical and literal automatons. They are now mindless machines who, bar few, care nothing of their past and seek only one thing: Conquest. And those who still have their personalities are either insane, demented, depressed, brooding, psychotic, or any combination of these in various proportions.

*[[Tau|A newborn race]] who innocently believes that there can be peace and acknowledgement among each other. Unfortunately the sinister methods they employ hoping that it is for [[Greater Good|something better]] is slowly, but steadily driving them into the decadence that plagues the other species. In doing so they become proof, both of the fact that [[Horus|anyone]], [[Emperor|no matter their intentions]], can be corrupted, and also of the kindness that the rest have forsaken for damnation and despair...

*The fact that, despite tens of thousands of years of knowing nothing but war, these peoples are woefully unprepared for what is to come. No matter how many regiments can be raised or Craftworlds restored, what is out there is [[Tyranids|all consuming, diabolical and numberless...]] Unless, they are themselves on the verge of extinction, and as such, desperately trying to cross over the great void between galaxies, which implies fighting against [[Ork|invincibles foes]] and [[Ultramarines|fate dodging cheaters]] unnaturaly empowered by the grief of an [[Games Workshop|unspeakable Eldritch Abomination beyond the cosmos]]. The good option is that there are a thousand galaxies worth of the fucking bugs; the bad option is that there are billions upon billions of galaxies worth of the fucking bugs. The worse option is that billions upon billions galaxies worth of what is essentially the perfect organism is running away from something worse.

== See also ==
*[[Noblebright]]
*[[Edgy]]
*[[Eversor]]
*[[Lamenters]]

== External Links ==
* [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/grimdark KnowYourMeme has examples from outside of /tg/]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQAWBeFnkg8 Trope Talk: Grimdark], a analysis of the "Grimdark" style of storytelling and why it works (and why sometimes it doesn't)
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Post-Cold War

2022-12-15T22:25:46Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:C570:F909:4D50:3C58: /* Technology */ "Blue energy is the energy available from the difference in the salt concentration between seawater and river water."

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[[File:Modern_city_dubai.jpg|250px|thumb|right|The future is [almost] now!]]
{{topquote|In an era of stress and anxiety, when the present seems unstable and the future unlikely, the natural response is to retreat and withdraw from reality, taking recourse either in fantasies of the future or in modified visions of a half-imagined past.|Alan Moore's Watchmen}}

{{topquote|IN MY EXPERIENCE, SUSAN, WITHIN THEIR HEADS TOO MANY HUMANS SPEND A LOT OF TIME IN THE MIDDLE OF WARS THAT HAPPENED CENTURIES AGO.|Death, [[Discworld|Thief of Time]]}}

You are here.

After the end of most communist regimes and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended almost half a century of [[The Cold War|Cold War]]. The ideological, political and economical clashes between different ideologies that had had its apex during World War II had [[Skub|finally ended, taken a new form or gone underground depending on who you ask]].

==The New Cold War==
{{topquote|History repeats, first as a tragedy, then as a farce.|Karl Marx}}

After the collapse of the USSR in the 90s, the general feeling in the West and the rest was one of semi-cautious optimism. At long last liberal democracy and capitalism had won the day, the ˝evil empire˝ was gone, and we have reached the end of history according to Francis Fukuyama, things were on the up swing it seemed as the USA was left as the only true superpower in the world.

However, this merry period was not to last long, after the 90s which are now ironically seen as somewhat of the last hurrah before the increasing shitstorm of the following century the USA got a series of rude surprises. First was the infamous 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks which saw the first significant attack on American soil by foreign combatants in a century, and a grimly spectacular one at that with close to 3,000 people killed, 25,000 wounded, to say nothing of the damage to infrastructure and collective American psyche. This directly led to America embroiling itself in a series of wars in the Middle East that soon turned into quagmires with no clear winner, with many parallels being drawn to Vietnam. Seven years later the Great Recession of 2008/9 rolled around to further mess up the first decade of M3.

While this was going on and with America's attention arguably focused elsewhere, Russia and China were slowly growing in power and prominence. China was gradually thundering on ever since the late 90s, slowly surpassing Japan after the latter crashed and burned in 1991. By becoming the next ˝workshop of the world˝ China managed to accrue immense global economic influence and achieve economic growth that was nothing short of meteoric. Russia meanwhile was going through their own Age of Strife as the former USSR splintered into a dozen independent republics with all the economic and social turmoil that entails (exacerbated even worse by the rise of a new class of oligarchs hell-bent on plundering it for all it was worth), the ˝˝Russian 90s˝ still evoke fear and horror as young Russians were desperate to get into the universities of all things in order to avoid the poverty of everyday life or the military where one could get gang-raped among other things, all while the total lack of support from the West reminded a lot of Russians about why exactly they had opposed the US in the first place. Russia's GDP fell by more than 3/5ths between 1991 and 1998 and it would take until 2004 for it to recover to soviet levels. This all changed with Vladimir Putin, who managed to pull the country out of the gutter and started to build up its power again. All the while even though Communism had fallen in Russia Authoritarianism persisted under the new banner.

Arguably, the first signs that something was not quite right came in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the still ongoing war in Ukraine, something that was considered impossible in the prior decade ([[Lulz|and ended 207-year-old Swiss neutrality]]). Additionally, while the Arab Spring saw the fall of many dictators from Libya to Egypt and Tunisia, in Syria the Assad dynasty managed to not only hold its own but push back the "moderate Islamists"(mainly Sunni Arabs who want to kill/rob/rape Shi'ites), ISIS/ISIL (Salafists trying to bring back the Islamic caliphates of old), and people who just don't want to be ruled by a despot, with no small amount of help from Russia (though this holding out is probably going the way of the dodo courtesy of Turkey due to dramatic developments in 2022). China meanwhile was acting far more subtly in exerting its geopolitical influence, making huge loans to other countries and its corporations branching out into all sorts of sectors in Africa, Australia and Asia all the while partnering up with Russia in a general though not overtly belligerent counter-western stance.

The sum of all of this is that as of the third decade of M3 the world is no longer unipolar with USA having to contend with resurgent <s>Russia</s> and China, whose imperial ambitions are seemingly once again stirring. While the three powers are not directly inimical to one another, they each are trying to exert their geopolitical interests and being less and less obliged to ask the USA for an opinion.

Cold War II: Electric Boogaloo was likely locked in as of February 2022 with the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict into a full scale war with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While we won't elaborate on details due to contemporary news being the most [[Skub]]by part of history, the responses afterwards seem to have drawn a line. One thing we have to note however, is the abysmal Russian performance (especially in logistics) with stories ranging from leadership incompetence in the field, difficulty coordinating waves of untrained recruits and even more humiliating logistical mistakes such as entire armored companies grinding to a halt outside invasion points because they ran out of fuel. Completely overturning wargaming with regards to post-Soviet competence (verdict: quite lackluster for a former superpower) and also demonstrating the horrific effectiveness of guided missiles used on both sides and especially drones like the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone. Not to mention the fucktons of NATO equipment being poured into Ukraine giving the country a true fighting chance against its bigger neighbor through a far superior military supply line. Based on available information current Russian victories are appear to be achieved through a combination of overwhelming force on key cities and targets with coordinated artillery/air-strikes with armored tank assaults' along with good old fashioned overwhelming numbers, <s>Nevermind that most of these troops are minorities from poor and rural regions.</s> While moderately effective it is a highly inefficient strategy especially with the Ukrainians far more effective use of strategic missile strikes and less wasteful offensive tactics being bolstered by tremendous material support from Europe, accomplishing in days what took the Russians months to do. This has led to reports of poor morale from Russian conscripts and even field commanders. For the moment, this has made any future hot war essentially suicidal without overwhelming numbers if enemy smart weapons aren't disabled first while reminding everyone just how important supply lines and morale are in any warfare (along with actually having a legitimate long-term plan to begin with). [[Conan the Barbarian|After all, what is steel compared to the hand that wields it?]]

On another note more than a few political and Military scientists have opinioned that this conflict may yet give insight on how major powers will have to counter modern tactics and capabilities. As open conflict with relatively first world nations has been quite rare in recent decades. Advances in the disabling of drone and guided missile technology will likely be a major point of interest for global powers, along with satellite recon and signal jamming. And has opened the door to new leaders in the field arms supply in the future (Germany in particular has stepped up its game on military expenditure not seen in generations in response to renewed Russian aggression). Along with the emboldening of other powers such as China. The lines in a future cold war may well start to draw themselves in the near future.

It should be noted that people have been yelling about Cold War II for the past 20+ years, and the term itself is controversial among political scientists and government officials. The former because they don't think we're there yet, the latter because it would inflame tensions with other countries. Leaving aside the significant differing details.

== Other Regions ==

=== Asia ===
While China's rise has been commented on, it was not the only East Asian country to see a considerable change in fortune at the tail end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong have all emerged as prominent players on the world economy, with a rapid rise in standards of living and economic influence (though increasing political interference from China has negatively affected Hong Kong and Taiwan in that regard).

Notably, India has emerged as a major player on the world scene, particularly with food exports.

=== Europe ===
The biggest trend of Post Cold War Europe has been a push towards integration. The process had begun in the 1950s after WWII in which A: hard-line militarized nationalism was not popular [[nazis|for some fairly obvious reasons]] and B: economic cooperation was seen as a better way to achieve and maintain peace and prosperity. Eastern Europe was added to the mix after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. The eventual result of which was the European Union. In 1995 the EU introduced the Euro as a Common Currency, which was widely adopted by 1999.

Of course, there has been opposition to the EU and pushback by various localist movements. Most notably Brexit which saw a member state leave for the first time ever, with mixed results and feelings both domestically and abroad. Furthermore with the current shitshow going on in the east of the continent several countries have started rearming themselves, including Poland which some describe as the next European heavyweight on par with France and Germany, the latter of which also started rearming for the first time in years and allocated a whopping 100 billion euros for the endeavor.

=== Africa ===
Within the past few centuries there have been widespread problems across the continent of Africa lingering even after the Cold War.
The causes are numerous and include generational tribalistic conflicts, wars over resources and direct interference from foreign governments until the end of the Colonial Era during the Cold War. The most prominent example is the Scramble for Africa, which involved building plantations, mines and railways to support plantations and mines with white guys doing as much of the technical work as possible (and with the native inhabitants being deliberately kept uneducated and untrained lest they become able to use all that infrastructure by themselves). At the same time, it was a common practice to exacerbate existing tribal conflicts (and sometimes they even created new ones!) in order to keep their subjects too busy squabbling with each other to join forces against their overlords.

This dependence on a colonial regime running everything combined with the elimination of pre-colonial social structures led to power vacuums when the various foreigners left, which were often filled by authoritarian strong-men. Various nations also used countries of Africa as a dumping ground for obsolete weapons after the Cold War, which were eagerly seized by governments and warlords seeking to establish control over their newly seized domains. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a series of conflicts and civil wars, notably the Rwandan Genocide. Despite that, there has been a gradual rise in standards of living in many countries of Africa, including stable economies. Algeria and Tunisia, for example, has made significant improvements with their GDP and literacy rates. Several nations of Africa are also the world's leading exporters of various goods - for example, Nigeria has seen considerable GDP growth and industrial development over the last three decades. Even so, it has been a long and difficult climb.

That being said, in many cases Western countries retain disproportionate influence over much of Africa via economic and cultural means (e.g., multinational corporations exploiting cheap labor while reducing countries' access to their own natural resources) while Middle-Eastern and Asian countries are making disturbingly similar in-roads. Some observers have dubbed this phenomenon "neocolonialism"; gaining/retaining control of a region without open use of military force. In this view, the aforementioned exporting is less of a sign of economic progress and more of an indication of their continuing role in extracting resources on the behalf of their former colonizers (this phenomenon is not uniquely inflicted on African countries or solely perpetrated by European nations).

=== The Americas ===

The initial years of the post-cold war have been swimming for North America/USA as the country was left as the only superpower on the planet (so much so that until about 2010s they could even have been considered a hyperpower - a polity that dominates all other states in every major metric). This period extended from about 1989. right until 2001. when USA got punched in the face via 9/11 terrorist attacks and later in 2008. suffered the worst economic downturn since the great depression. However the country still remains ridiculously wealthy an powerful and has a military good enough to easily squash any other rising superpowers and probably wage war against two while defending the mainland from a third one at the same time. Still the country has some serious issues - most notably the increasing wealth-gap and the polarization of society not seen since the Vietnam War along with other factors like climate change finally starting to take it's toll and the COVID-19 pandemic causing serious economic issues. Nevertheless the USA does still seem to be in the best position to weather whatever geopolitical upheavals are coming.

South America meanwhile has been a mixed bag. Aside from not really getting much attention or upheaval except for a few countries, it has enjoyed a relative upswing as industrializing Asian countries developed a need for the raw material exports coming out of S. America. Many nations also begun developing and truly industrializing like Chile or North Mexico though many more remain impoverished and forgotten.

==Technology==
{{topquote|We're living in the age of cellphone cameras. Fuckups ain't tolerated!|Smiling Jack, ''[[Vampire:_The_Masquerade#VtM:_Bloodlines|Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines]]''}}


Storytelling, especially settings placed in a contemporary or "modern" era hit a major hurdle in the 90s and especially early 00s as this newfangled thing called "Internet" arose out of a USA government/military project to link computer systems the states and world-over in order to maintain communication after a hypothetical nuclear war. Thing is, once this was released to the general public the network expanded rapidly until it became a new paradigm of human existence, influencing everything from society, politics, economics, the arts, religion - you name it. Story-wise this made any masquerade or hidden "other world" that much more difficult to maintain as now a schmuck who saw that they shouldn't could blurp it out to thousands of other people. Irl-wise the internet revolutionised /tg/ as a community by...enabling /tg/ to exist in the first place by bringing all the isolated groups of fa/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls together weather on 4chan, 1d4chan (shameless plug, suck it) or dozens of other dedicated forums AND enabling them access to mountains of materials for their chosen hobbies.

The mass popularity of smartphones has made it increasingly difficult to write a plot that cuts characters off from the outside world. This has forced such plots to be moved further and further from civilization (which fights an uphill battle with ever increasing coverage), into massive disasters where cell phone coverage is disrupted and help won’t be coming anyways, or just straight up adding in supernatural disruption of communications.

The rise of mass CCTV and cellphone cameras of increasingly high quality and the ability to post the works taken with them on social media has made it increasingly implausible to keep a [[Masquerade]] going. The original [[World of Darkness]] just [[Gehenna|ends dramatically in 2004]], the year before YouTube launched. The MCB of [[Monster Hunter International]] has all the resources of most of the worlds governments working together to censor the supernatural, but even then those in charge consider exposure an inevitability. Pretty much any conspiracy will be an open-secret, although it might still be popularly viewed as a conspiracy theory depending on how believable it seems. Paradoxically, in an era of limitless access to knowledge, what knowledge the individual chooses to subscribe to has itself become factionalized, and that can be a tool to uphold a Masquerade in itself. The rise of the "Fake News" paradigm means that a person can be looking at a vampire gouging a throat out of some poor bastard and going "meh" as it must be either CGI or some such, and woe betide any intrepid journalist if they don't have at least a good quality video as anything less will get the "photoshopped!" treatment.

Aside from the media and communications , other technological branches are seeing tentative emergence or applications beyond the lab. As of the New 10s (2010-2019) remotely controlled and autonomous UAVs and RPVs popularized as 'drones' have entered commercial usage alongside with multi-pedal robots able to walk, run and perform simple manual tasks while the militaries around the world are actively using aerial combat drones with land and sea variants in development. On another front virtual reality has become a viable entertainment and educational medium due to miniaturization of screens and processors though it still has ways to go in terms of improvement. Artificial intelligence (or rather a set of very adaptive and heuristic algorithms) are also making splashes with the most visible examples being AI capable of emulating speech to varying degrees and art AI capable of creating truly gorgeous and unique pieces of art, likely eventually giving rise to "Expert-Systems" predicted by many sci-fi works.

After the Information Revolution of the late 90s and early 00s biotech is set to become the next big thing. With the Human Genome project completed in 2003 the rate of tech advancement has lowered the costs of individual genomic sequencing from ~100 million USD in 2001 to around 1000 USD making individual genetic screening viable with a popular commercial application being the identification of one's genetic heritage and disease risk. Later during the 2010s a method for targeted genetic editing in-vivo called CRISPR caused a stir among the scientific community as now scientist could genetically modify organisms at any stage of development, not just before birth.

There also has been an increased awareness of [[Frostpunk|humanity's impact on the climate.]] Co2 emissions, resource depletion and destruction of wilderness are increasingly pressing concerns. With them has come a push - especially from younger generations - towards sustainable development, decarbonization and other efforts to reduce humanity's collective footprint. Solar Panels and Wind Farms have become a lot more common, electric cars have come onto the scene along with a pushback against car dependent development, there is renewed interest in nuclear power (both in terms of small-scale fission reactors and promising developments into nuclear fusion) and coal power has been on the decline, among other things. Of course those who profit from said industries have also been fighting against the response, and there's a real chance that a full shift away from fossil fuels might not happen before the effects of said environmental destruction become irreversible. It might not be enough to end human existence outright, but the projections of how climate change will affect the world suggest that it'll screw over a LOT of people in very nasty ways. In the worst case scenario, we'll be unceremoniously driven back into the Stone Age- and since we used up nearly all the easily acquired ores and other natural resources on Earth the first time around we won't be advancing out of it again if that happens.

Related to the above, the development of alternative energy sources (to fossil fuels) has been advancing at a steady pace and picked up some speed in the 21st century with big gains in solar power which is now seeing full returns on investments in 5-10 years as of the 2020s, making installation for the average Joe more and more viable. Wind and sea power however has entered somewhat of a snag since these energy sources tend to be even more situational than power from the Sun. Aside from green energy, nuclear and hydrogen power have seen some expansion and development with new fission plants being built by a number of nations despite Fukushima and a few nations like Japan, China and EU making headways in developing hydrogen systems. Finally, after over 70 years of research and being "only 30 years away" [[Fallout|we finally achieved nuclear fusion breakthrough at the end of 2022 with a lab based in California]] managing to produce more energy than was required to start the fusion reaction.

If the War in Ukraine is an indicator, things start to devolve a bit, at least on the symmetrical side of modern warfare. Artillery, combined with precision-guided ammo and reconnaissance via drones, again becomes the supreme weapon on the ground, as satellite intelligence and effective communications showcase how important it is for battalions to remain cohesive in the fog of war; that and Missiles and Shells fired with pinpoint accuracy nullify drawbacks of previous incarnations of artillery (such as an incredible volume of firepower required to destroy any given target, the logistical hassle of supplying a gun battery with enough ammo, in itself an art form, and the requirement to have a rough idea where the target you want to hit from 20 km away is without any visual contact on the ground or a live feed of information like drones provide) making them much safer and more cost-efficient than airstrikes or ground assaults as a result. Electronic Warfare will probably become central to any given military operation, as blocking surveillance, radar systems and guidance systems have become ever more important. At it's core, Ukraine and the reignited Karabakh War shows that anyone facing smart weapons with Cold War shit is going to get butchered like sheep. Unmanned systems are the defining 21st century paradigm shift in military science, while battles will mostly be resolved between smaller reconnaissance-in-force detachments seeking out concealed defenders in vague contested zones.

Lastly on the Space front - commercial space endeavors are picking up steam as private companies like Space-X, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are seeing wealthy tourists and corpo brass sent to space. Government initiatives are also getting in on the action with Artemis Accords updating the UN Outer Space Treaty, the Artemis Program succeeding the Apollo Program with ultimate aim of returning humans to the Moon by 2024 and the first test flight managing to get a capsule with dummies around the Moon and back to Earth safely.
China has begun the construction and assembly of it's Tiangong space station which will be their equivalent of the Russian Mir and finally the James Webb telescope launched early in 2021 eclipsed Hubble in both size and capability. Improved launch vehicles mean that the cost of launching payloads into orbit per kilogram has significantly gone down.
Humanity also managed to redirect an asteroid for the first time in history as well, giving the Earth a first workable and proven defense system against potentially dangerous asteroids.
It is possible that we are seeing the beginning of a full fledged Second Space Age and the fulfillment of many of the promises of the last one.

==Society==
{{topquote|The great paradox of the 21st century is that, in this age of powerful technology, the biggest problems we face internationally are problems of the human soul.|Ralph Peters}}
[[File:WaaghStreet1.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The internet brought alien communities into contact with each other...]]
While technology has generally advanced in fits and bursts along the lines predicted by most sci-fi works (major exceptions being AI, mass genetic engineering, widespread cybernetics and space colonisation), society has become somewhat of a mix between prior trends and predictions made by said sci-fi.

The predictions that the world will become more united and liberal in addition to the waning of nations in favor of corporations or some other modes of society were only partially realized. Globalization has indeed made the planet more interconnected but the onus of international relations still rests on the state. Corporate entities have become more powerful and wealthy but they still cooperate with governments (if not slowly merging with them due to intertwining of corporate and political interests) while in places like China and Russia the corpos are merely another arm of the government altogether.

The trend towards social liberalism has held partially true with the increase in LGBTQ+ acceptance and diminishment of racism in some places. Political liberalization has however entered something of a slump with the traditional left in EU and USA being relatively dormant though grassroots left is seeing something of a revival in the 2020s. On the other hand Russia and China have moved more towards autocracy and their increasing strength has presented an uncomfortable alternative to the supposedly singularly viable liberal-democratic order, especially with Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Europe has also seen a resurgence of populist, if not hard-right political parties like the french Front Nationale or German Alternative Fur Deutschland with some countries like Hungary and Poland taking on an increasingly right-y colors. In short - politics be skub as usual.

Politically, it seemed that while the triumphant capitalist-liberal-democratic order was considered the ˝end of history˝, it left many people unfulfilled. Worse, it started showing flaws that were overlooked during the ideological fight against the USSR (hence the Russian joke how 'almost everything we were told about communism was a lie, and almost everything we were told about capitalism was true'). To not get too deep into the [[Skub|political theory]] of the whole thing, suffice it to say that the guy who predicted the triumph of this system (Francis Fukuyama) also noted that the people may get so bored of it that they may intentionally choose to 'restart the wheel of history'.
[[File:WaaghStreet2.jpg|thumb|right|200px|... And the results were hilarious.]]

Speaking of matters of the soul, religion - in an ironic twist, given it's ''the'' institute based around matters of the soul - was put in the crosshairs with a sharp spike in Western secularism and anti-theistic/anti-religious sentiment. Though this hostility had been brewing in niches of academia and media long before, now was when it was thrust onto the mainstream. This was mainly due to acts of religious extremism (most often Islamic ones such as the 9/11), failures of various religious leaders and ideological campaigns magnifying empiricism and subjectivism. A new wave of religious apologetics emerged in response to this with some arguments from both sides better received than others ([[religion|more on the issue here]]). This shift in societal attitude towards religion either coincided with or influenced various other socio-political issues listed above and below.

On a more interpersonal scale, the rise of Internet in general and social media in particular has transformed society to a great degree. The ability to connect with people world over and find hundreds or thousands of people with similar interests has lead to formation of digital communities that can be not only as powerful as the ones irl but sometimes even supersede them to a great degree, for good and ill. This has also made how one behaves online as important if not more so than offline - if you take a dump on a city street at most a few dozen people will see it and forget it in a year without a reminder, if you take a proverbial dump online it has potential to be seen by tens of thousands of people and potentially stay there forever, <s>just look at Chris-chan for example.</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|This heresy shall not be tolerated here!}}

On a final note, the COVID-19 pandemic that hit in the late 2019 also had an unintentional effect of forcing vast segments of society to adopt online business and communication models. What this means is that instead of working in a typical cubicle-monkey office one could work from anywhere there was internet - a beach, cafe or a public toilet. While things seem to have calmed down in the latter half of 2022, the ˝work-from-home˝ model is now all but standard for many service jobs, a leap that redefines how a job is perceived before and after the New 10s.

==Conclusion & Mineability==

The Post-Cold war era is a strange one since it directly succeeds a period of history defined by a clear if at times clandestine fight between two superpowers who were politically and ideologically opposed with plenty of history and cultural distinction for each to have it's own strong flavor. A two-pole world collapsed into a unipolar one which is evolving into a multipolar with no clear ideological struggle to really differentiate the sides.

However, this also provides plenty of opportunities to introduce plots and conflicts that are unburdened by vast preset ideologies and factions. Political intrigues between modern state, corporate or even NGO actors, dissolution of countries or formation of new ones upon the collapse of the old order, global terrorism and radicalism, technological, sociological, environmental or neo-ideological struggles and positioning in order to build 'your' faction's or even personal vision of the future!

Admittedly the more exotic genres that lend themselves best to the age are Urban Fantasy, post-apocalyptic scenarios and '20 minutes into the future' science fiction. You can also go down the route of [[Shadowrun|Shadowrun]] and have some sort of event return magic to the world though depending on the intensity, it may radically change the setting into something no longer resembling modern world. There is also a somewhat neglected genre of New Weird/Weirdpunk which allows for a variety of historical settings, including modern ones, while having a potential for being truly unique (for example see such works as the comic Shutter, Dysco Elysium, Persona 4/5, Psychonauts...).

===Impact on /tg/===
/tg/ is, traditionally, a very low tech hobby. Despite this, it still has managed to incorporate some of the new technologies of the era.

One big thing is the rise of e-books. Rather than have a big stack of massive heavy books, you can keep all your books on a small, handy, e-reader. One particular advantage of an electronic book is that the contents can be searched through to quickly get answers to rule questions. The low cost of electronic publishing also means many small groups can easily publish a book and sell it, but this comes at the cost of electronic storefronts being flooded with low effort, poorly written garbage. Electronics also, in theory, lower the need for wasted paper and dice. In practice however, many groups find including any electronics at the table a major distraction and disruptive of play, while many players refuse to trust electronic RNG. Acceptance of computer RNG is actually worse among players into [[Vidya gaems|video games]] due to that medium's documented history of RNG cheating via uneven RNG, poorly randomized number generation, and being easily manipulated. Another issue with electronic books is that [[Wizards of the Coast|some companies]] are Luddites, and refuse to release PDF versions of their books, while others are hamstrung by the IP holder's retarded [[Star Wars|prior licensing agreements]] [[EA|made with the devil]] and legally can’t, or just plain old don't exist anymore and can't do a PDF re-release, but [[Pirate|we have a solution to all those problems]].

Another nifty creation has been 3D printers that can create a variety of objects desired from scratch for cheap. Currently 3d printers are only able to print small, inanimate, plastic things (unless you have a very expensive and large one that can do weak metal) and are a far cry from [[Star Trek|Replicator]] technology everyone panicking about "ghost guns" thinks they are. Fortunately the hobby has substantial use for [[Miniature|small, inanimate, plastic things]]. Eventually there will be a reckoning for the entire minifigure gaming industry over the full implications of 3d printing, but for now the technology still remains a wee bit too bothersome if not expensive for the average user to churn out a thousand point army. However if you have the means and patience to experiment, your imagination is the only limit on what you can do for figure customization.


==The appeal of Post-Cold War world==
Do you want something which you could imagine yourself in? Not as some surrogate who was born in a castle or a Victorian slum or on a colony in Alpha Centauri IV or whatever, but '''''You''''' as an individual. Maybe some larger than life events roll through your door to spur you into action from your normal day-by-day routine and possibly you are idealized, but the person who's now running for their life and forced to deal with whatever outlandish thing has come your way is You.

Do you like stories of special force operators going on incredibly risky missions to take down terrorists, insurgents, and radicals of any ideological or religious flavor? Then this setting might be right for you, due to the prevalence of the Global War on Terror and the almost-extensive use of special forces such as the Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Spetznaz, SAS, and so on. Their chief foe is a new enemy that has largely replaced the Soviet Union in the minds of many in the West - the radical Islamic "jihadist" organizations such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or ISIS and its branches (such as the West African branch, Boko Haram). Their goals range from either kicking all foreign influence out of their country to establishing a global caliphate. The current increasingly polarizing culture war can also be used as inspiration for stories regarding insurgents and radicals of any ideological flavor, albeit something where "handle with care" very much applies for risk of coming across as preachy or [[Skub|adding fuel to the fire]].

Other potential foes can be found in the world of technology, serving as fertile ground for near future sci-fi stories. This era is (currently) as close as we can get to cyberpunk, which lends itself well to the genre. The concept of A.I. as threats or the fear of society undergoing a technological collapse can also find inspiration from here, given the Y2K problem at the turn of the millennium. Big-tech companies getting trigger-happy with censorship from the 2010's onwards also lends itself well to references and themes in cyberpunk stories.

Wargame wise, there is some appeal in recreating the various, drawn-out conflicts such as in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan (to date the longest war in American history at over 17 years if one doesn't count the Korean War, which the US never officially declared war during and has spent most of its existence cold.), pitting [[Team Yankee|the well-equipped, organized, and disciplined forces of the Western powers]] against the zealotry, tenaciousness, and cunning of the various insurgent and terrorist groups that plague the region. Due to the rather asymmetric nature of these wars, as well as the murkiness that comes with it, it's not as popular as the more conventionally focused, more-or-less Black-And-White morality of World War 2 setting. Similarly, the COVID-19 Pandemic can also be used as inspiration for various types of stories regarding pandemics, especially if one wants to up the stakes with things such as a zombie virus.

[[Urban Fantasy]] and [[Supers|Superheroes]] are often set in the current Post-Cold War era. By making fictional, fantastical threats one avoids the question of what the hell is there left to fight. It also benefits from being a world that's largely prebuilt and known to players, allowing writers to focus exclusively on what's different. Specifically in regards to superheroes, note how every two decades or so a gigantic cosmic retcon storm hits and resets the universe by pushing a catalyst point (Superman's arrival and Captain America being pulled out of the ice, simultaneously pushing the births of/major influencing events on characters or reemergence of old powers to the modern world equally long) forward by some years, allowing contemporary stories to be explored without retconning old stories completely, through saying that they happened but no longer matter as big gigantic cosmic event reset the universe, and not indirectly locking new audiences out of continuity by constantly having to read older stuff, allowing anyone to pickup new series issue 1 and read older stuff at leisure.

{{Time Periods}}
[[Category: History]]

Lectitio Divinitatus

2022-12-15T09:45:26Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:C570:F909:4D50:3C58:

[[File:Divinitatus.PNG|200px|right|thumb|The most holy of fan-fics. The space bible.]]
{{Topquote|Rejoice, for I bring glorious news. God walks among us.|First line of the text.}}

{{Topquote|I'm not the Messiah!|[[Monty Python|Monty Python's Life of Brian]]}}

{{Topquote|I say you are, Lord, and I should know, I've followed a few!|[[Monty Python|''Also'' Monty Python's Life of Brian]]}}

Outside of the [[Codex Astartes]], the Lectitio Divinitatus is the most <u>'''''IMPORTANT'''''</u> book in the entirety of [[Warhammer 40,000]]. This fucking [[Lorgar Aurelian|Lorgar fan-fic]] caused everything either directly or indirectly; from the Destruction of Monarchia, to the [[Horus Heresy]], to the creation of the [[Imperial Cult]], which led to the [[Age of Apostasy]], all the way to [[Roboute Guilliman|Robo Guilitan]] being revived and reading the OG copy. It's one ''hell'' of a fan-fic.

==Overview==
The Lectitio Divinitatus (also Lectio Divinitatus) was originally penned by [[Lorgar Aurelian]] after his vision of the [[Emprah]] gave this choir boy a [[Slaanesh|sexual awakening]] during the [[Great Crusade]] and before his fall to Chaos.

It postulated the worship of the Emperor of Mankind as a [[Heresy|divine being]]. The following of the Lectitio Divinitatus became an underground cult, believed to be the precursor of the Temple of the Saviour Emperor and the Imperial Cult, the basis of the modern [[Ecclesiarchy|Adeptus Ministorum]]. During the Great Crusade such cults were frowned upon by the Emperor and the Council of Terra, and most especially by the Astartes and those serving them. The Emperor downplayed his power but those who believed in the Emperor's godhood were of the opinion - as Titus Cassar once put it - that "only the truly divine deny their divinity".

In the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet, commanded by [[Horus Lupercal|Warmaster Horus]] himself, the cult was most prevalent. Horus took steps to try to extinguish the cult, as he perceived it as a threat to his power. The [[remembrancer]] Euphrati Keeler — who was attached to the 63rd - became a major figure, venerated as a [[Living Saint|living saint]] and prophet of the Emperor. As a result, she was the target of Horus' assassins at some point before she escaped from the Vengeful Spirit. Even some Astartes - such as Nathaniel Garro, the Death Guard loyalist who led the Eisenstein escape - became part of the cult at one point.

Both the [[Sisters of Battle]] and the [[Black Templars]] treat this thing as holy writ and parade them inside a warzone.
==Gallery==
<gallery>
Divi_4.PNG
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</gallery>

[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Sisters of Battle]]
[[Category:Black Templars]]
[[Category:Books]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Fascist Italian Equipment

2022-12-14T10:50:30Z

2001:8003:1C20:8C00:C570:F909:4D50:3C58: /* Misc */ The Lanciabombe Controcarro was a proper grenade launcher thing, the one pictured and described is its forerunner, the Tromboncino

While [[Fascist Italy|Fascist Italy]] was never really known for [[FAIL|having even the most basic and functional equipment]] you may be surprised to find some of their weaponries are still commonly used today, both in all forms of fiction and even real life! Lack of resources and basic experience in developing these new weapons born from the first world war both resulted in a very scrapped together arsenal though thanks to some brilliant designers and ambitious manufacturers weapons on a smaller scale would sometimes overshadow even their allied equivalents in quality. Much like how [[Nazi Equipment|Nazi weaponry can be put into four categories]] Italian equipment can generally fall into three.

* Barely usable garbage, often times unusable
* Shockingly effective designs that were around for longer than Benito's government lasted
* Shockingly so ahead of its time it wouldn't be revisited for decades...Which were badly thought out and poorly designed

Be aware going forward due to their constant supply and manufacturing issue Italy would constantly use either capture or gifted foreign equipment as well as weaponry left over from the first world war. While some of those have been included due to their iconic use or of especial note, most have been left out. Seriously a third of this page would have to be dedicated to Nazi stuff if we counted those.

===Small Arms===
====Rifles and SMGs====
[[File:Carcano M1891.jpeg|150px|thumb|left|Carcano:Italian for "President Killer".]]
* '''''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCvIEioG9Y0 Carcano M1891]'':'''A cheap, easy to make rifle that despite receiving a number of updates over the years, were still based on the same basic weapon. Opinions vary depending on the model but of important note was its ammunition. Unlike other rifles the Carcano used soft round tipped ammunition, bullets that were considering horribly out of date back during WW1...While the Italians attempting to produce a more traditional rifle with the Carcano M38 they struggled to keep up with ammunition demands and ended up going back to the old ammunition. Besides imported Austria rifles and a semi-automatic rifle that was so short- lived people seem to disagree on if it was even used at all, the Carcano would end up being the only rifle used during the war. Most famous for being the rifle used to shoot JFK.

[[File:Beretta Model 38.webp|150px|thumb|right|The best SMG of the war, used by the worst army.]]
* '''''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogsdodlT99E Beretta Model38]'':'''Based on an old school semi-auto carbine of all things, this weapon [[AWESOME|would go on to be one of the best performing infantry small arm of the whole war.]] The weapon is most well-known for its iconic four cut muzzle break and a heat shield style barrel that helped in air cooling. It’s also known for its unique double trigger system. Essentially the system used two triggers, one firing the weapon at full auto while the other was used for single shots. While making the weapon heavier (hence why modern SMGs don’t do this) it allowed a commanding officer to take resourceful aimed shots at a distant target before immediately firing full auto if suddenly assaulted or flanked, rather than taking the time to flip a fire switch. It was also super easy to maintain as you can literally just pull the firing mechanism out of the back of that gun (that’s what the large cap on the back is for). The weapon was ultimately so successful that the Italian government attempted to save resources by asking Beretta to purposefully make the later models more shit, and even than they still managed to reach a typical SMG performance for the time. Fun fact, the final airborne drop of the war was performed by Co-Belligerent troops with the goal of preventing German retreat into far North Italy. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Allied commanders allowed these paratroopers to test every American, British and captured German weapon they had access to. After these tests they universally agreed to take their old Berettas M38s. It was also known early war as the ‘burp guns’ as Italy experimented with ten round magazines resulting in a short ‘burp’ of automatic fire.

[[File:FNAB-43.jpg|100px|thumb|left|The Algerian’s best friend.]]
* '''''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwY5ZQDqG70 FNAB-43]'':'''While originally entering the designing process before the 1943 split, it would later finish designing and enter manufacturing in the RSI North. Was oddly expensive and high quality for the time which resulting in only about a 1000 being produced. Still had issues with being overly complicated and while not a BAD SMG it was basically a more expensive, slightly less effective M38 from above. Oddly enough popped up in Africa and Algeria, and we have no idea why.

[[File:TZ-45.webp|100px|thumb|right|The Burmese’s worst friend.]]
* '''''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5RYzCmK4-Q TZ-45]'':'''A last ditch style weapon produced in the final days of WW2. Very light, performed ok…Better than most last-ditch weapons! The big issue the game has was it being one of the first SMGs to use a grip safety, most likely to stop untrained conscripts from shooting their own feet off or something. This meant that after putting a new clip in, one had to keep a hand on the magazine before taking their firing hand and using that to pull back the bolt. This was VERY unnatural feeling and regular soldiers who had used traditional SMGs for years were bound to stuff it up just as a reaction. Was sold and used by the Burmese Army until 1955.

====Pistols====

[[File: Beretta Modello 1934-1935.jpg|200px|thumb|left|The quintessential pistol]]

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIX1EL1hTmE '''''Beretta Modello 1934-1935'']:''' [[AWESOME|HOLY shit you guys…]] When we say a weapon is ‘the best of the war’ that’s more an opinion. To say that the Beretta pistol is the best pistol of the war is FACT. Hell, saying it is the best pistol period, there are some out there who would agree with that whole heartly. Light, cheap, accurate, easy to make and easy to maintain, this weapon was so beloved everyone from frontline troops to the highest-ranking officers on both sides nicked one whenever they could and only stopped being manufactured in 1993…In ITALY. Foreign versions are still being wildly manufactured today! The only real issue it may have is its use of a 9mm round but many argue that 10mm or .45 is overkill for a sidearm anyway…A ton of these were made too so they’re not exactly uncommon.

[[File: M1942 Sosso Pistol.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Il Duce’s personal firearm.]]

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO3ZAuiq35k '''''Beretta M1942 Sosso Pistol'']:''' A prototype design that’s only on here because it was produced, but only for literally the highest-ranking people in Italy…All five of them. Benito himself got one naturally, as too did the King. Used a holster/stock hybrid along with a curved magazine which held 21 rounds! Pretty good for its size all things saying. Still, the weapon was heavy, the holster/stock was naturally not a good holster OR stock and we can’t say much for performance since it was given to people least likely to ever get into a serious firefight.

[[File: Glisenti Model 1910.jpg|100px|thumb|left|]]

* '''''Glisenti Model 1910'':'''A leftover from WW1 it was more commonly used at the very start of the war. A complex system that was so easy to break it actually needed special [[FAIL|low powered rounds that struggled to cause serious harm at anything but point-blank range.]] Even after this modification the left plate was prone to shaking loose after prolonged firing.

====Machine Guns====

[[File:Breda 30.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Holy shit is the FAIL link going to have to overcharge itself for this one…]]

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFJI04ifSoM '''''Breda Modello 30'']:''' [[FAIL|…OH god…Here we go lads…You’re looking at one of the top five worst weapons of the war period. This thing…This thing is barely good as a club. Every seemingly terrible idea you can think of when designing a weapon was shoved into this one. I mean, where to even begin…Ok so first-off the weapon only had a clip of 20. Doesn’t seem too bad and pretty typical for the weapon category pre-war except those weapons used either a top mounted magazine or side inserted stripper clips. This allowed the reloader to quickly slap on a new magazine or stick in a new clip in just a couple of seconds keeping up a rapid rate of fire. The Breda on the other hand had an in-built magazine meaning to reload you had to push the magazine forward, reload the magazine manually with two strips, lock back into place and cock the gun. The weapon’s primary mechanisms were also exposed to the air not only making maintenance a constant issue but also requiring constant oiling and greasing. So much in fact, that you were expected to oil the firing mechanism BETWEEN RELOADS! Even had a little cover on top you could slide open before dribbling the oil in. This resulted in a very oily and greasy weapon that had mud and dirt stick to it constantly. Now, combine this with North African sand…Even in the best conditions? It wasn’t very accurate, had a slow rate of fire and would jam so often you sometimes couldn’t get a full magazine out without needing to unjamming the gun multiple times. This was some early war model, right? They learned from their mistake and replaced it right? NOPE! Because of resource shortages and the quantity of the weapon already produced it was decided to keep the model in use until the end of the war. Oh, and it also used the same round tipped bullets as the Carcano.]]

[[File: Breda 38.jpg|100px|thumb|right|]]

* '''''Breda 38'':''' Considering the ur…State of the regular light machine gun vehicle crews were very glad to receive their own separate model. The Breda 38 was more on the heavier side for a LMG but it’s compact size better suited the cramped space of a tank with much better accuracy and reliability. While limited by a top mounted 24 round magazine it was very simple and easy to maintain along with having a heavy barrel which in a vehicle allowed the weapon to fire much more often before overheating, which thanks to a quick-change barrel was remedied quickly. It was effective enough that tri-pods were produced so the weapon could be deployed with the infantry.

[[File:Fiat–Revelli Modello 1935.jpg|100px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''Fiat–Revelli Modello 1935.jpg'':''' Essentially just a Fiat–Revelli Modello 1914 taken out of storage and modified to take a belt feed and replace the water-cooled barrel with an air one. Probably the most traditional machine gun used by the Italians despite the barrel overheating, jamming issues and rounds cooking off in the chamber.

====Anti-Tank Infantry Weapons====

[[What|Lol nope.]]

Well, mostly. Italian forces had access to anti-tank grenades (as talked about below) but their primary…Really ONLY anti-tank weapon was the Solothurn series of rifles which are already covered in the [[Nazi Equipment|Nazi Equipment page.]] The RSI was gifted a number of Panzerfausts and Panzershrecks but like before…Covered in their own page. Really, the primary anti-tank weapon for the Italian’s was the Elefantino gun which is covered below being an anti-tank gun and all.

====Misc====

[[File:Lanciabombe Controcarro 60 mm.png|100px|thumb|left|The original [[Meme|Noob Tube.]]]]

*'''''Model 1928 Tromboncino'':''' Essentially a rifle mounted grenade of special note as unlike the other powers that firing the explosive from the top of the rifle’s own barrel this was a separate barrel attached to the rifle as an addon. If that sounds familiar, yes…[[What|The Italians invented the underslung grenade launcher.]] Well, it was attached to the side but you get the idea. Despite being WAY ahead of its time the attachment [[wat|didn’t come with its own bolt]], [[Fail|requiring the user to manually remove the bolt from the rifle itself before inserting it into the attachment.]] Also of note was its primary purpose, as these fired anti-tank grenades rather than fragmentation. While not even close to as powerful compared to something like a Bazooka or Panzershreck it did allow the user to arch the shot into hitting the vehicle’s top where the armour was weak. Too bad the single bolt issue was pretty hard to ignore, so unsurprisingly it was never used in combat.

===Artillery pieces and AT-Guns===

[[File:Cannone da 47-32.jpg|100px|thumb|left|The poor man’s 2 pounder.]]

*'''''Cannone da 47/32 or the Elefantino Gun''''': The Italian’s primary anti-tank weapon, the weapon nicknamed ‘little elephant’ was about on par with a British 2 pounder while having access to high explosive shells. It was designed more to have maximum impact at short ranges and was relatively light for a weapon of its kind, though this was achieved by [[Fail|removing any kind of gun shield and using an odd axel that would break if towed, meaning these things had to be pushed into battle.]] A slightly more powerful version was used in Italian’s early tank designs but the gun would remain a primarily infantry based weapon until the end of the war.

[[File:Cannone da 90-53.jpg|100px|thumb|right|Italy’s own Flak 88.]]

*'''''Cannone da 90/53''''': Originating as a naval cannon the 90/53 was later modified for land in the form of AA and AT guns. In this role it was surprisingly effective much like the German 88, having enough punch to blast open any allied tank in North Africa and Italy. It also served as the main armament of the Semovente 90/53 and while that vehicle had many issues its gun wasn’t one of them. Unfortunately for the Italian’s only about 500 were built, and out of those 48 for vehicle use.

[[File: Obice da 75-18 modello 34.jpg|100px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''Obice da 75/18 modello 34''''': Designed as a mountain gun first and foremost (I mean, you ever been to Italy?) the gun was designed to be easily disassembled and reassembled quickly and efficiently. Also had a nice punch to it, forming the bases of the Semovente 75/18. Probably better known for the funny heat shield style barrel.

===Vehicles===
====Tanks====
Now ultimately the previous entries might give the impression that while Italian weaponry was full of issues there were some standout pieces of equipment that would stand the test of time. That is NOT the case with Italian armour. Saying that every Italian tank was rusty old garbage wouldn’t even be much of a stretch. Of cause, this was thanks to a number of factors the designers and manufacturers of these vehicles couldn’t control, not just in terms of resources. Back in the interwar period Italy never really showed much interest in tanks (the opposite was true in WW1 but France couldn’t afford to send them any at the time and their local models were sub-par). After all, Italy was being equipped for a defensive war with the Italian heartland suiting rough inclined battlefields as opposed to European wide-open fields. Another important aspect was that so far tanks were a relatively unproven concept. They were slow, easy targets for artillery and the rise of anti-tank rifles made many nations, not just Italy, cautious about the weapon. When Benito took over Italy his obsession with Italian military domination pushed armoured vehicles hard resulting in Italian designers ripping apart imported designs to see how they worked. Ultimately Italy simply did not have the time or resources to play catchup with the rest of the world. Every time the Italian tank development teams put together something ‘modern’ it had already been made outdated by recent allied tanks. Resource shortages also forced designs to stay in the ‘light tank’ tonnage with only one exception which we’ll get to below. The most infamous aspect of Italian armour was that most vehicles were either riveted or bolted which means if the armoured plates were dented these connecting pieces could shoot out injuring or even killing the crew. This meant high casualties and very low number of veteran crew.

[[File:L3-33--35--38.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Behold! The armoured workhorse of the mighty Italian Army!]]

*'''''L3/33-35''''': Essentially an armoured go-kart. The primary armoured vehicle of the Italian Army, this little thing was produced in such massive quantities that many were sold to other countries including Spain and Finland. An overall reliable and speedy little bugger, it was also somewhat adaptable with access to a flamethrower variant, artillery tractor and a variety equipped with a Solothurn 1000 rifle like a mini tank destroyer. It unfortunately had about as much armour as a wet paper bag though and was so cramped that the gunner would often sit on top of the tank to give the driver some elbow room. Has gained a bit of a following amongst Italian wargamers (that is to say those that play Italians not Italian players) in the same way as the [[UrbanMech|Urbanmech]] of [[BattleTech|Battletech]] fame. That is to say a small, short underdog of a vehicle that excels in the niche conditions it was designed for but lacklustre in the situations it finds itself in by the nature of the game. I mean, look at this thing! It’s adorable!

[[File:L6-40.gif|100px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''L6/40''''': An attempt to replace the old FIAT 3000 used by Italy since 1921, it was stupidly outdated by the time it entered service and was used up to the battle of Sicily. To make matters even worse the tank was originally designed with reconnaissance in mind (in fact it was quite short to help with this) but due to a lack of vehicles it was instead pushed into [[FAIL|the role of primary battle tank on the Eastern Front against T-34s.]]

[[File:M11-39 tank.jpeg|100px|thumb|right|Diet M3 Lee]]

*'''''M11/39''''': Italian’s first attempt at a modern design, this model of tank did not last long as one can expect from just looking at this thing. Just like the similarly shaped M3 Lee it was tall, bulky and having its primary cannon attached to the hull limited its firing arch which when you consider it was primarily designed for a breakthrough roll is kinda nuts. Unlike the Lee however its turret was equipped with machine guns instead of a smaller cannon, had bolted armour and oh! It wasn’t a medium tank at all! Yeah, despite the M standing for medium Italy decided to base their tank sizes on roles, not weight. This means that all tanks with the M moniker produced in Italy during WW2 were actually all light tanks. Thankfully they weren’t around for long. Unfortunately, they were replaced with…

[[File:M14-40--41--42.jpg|100px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''M13/40-41-42''''': Considered the ‘primary’ Italian tank of the war, the 40 was the first actual modern tank design from the Italians…Not that it was any good. Besides the typical armour and low firepower issue as mentioned above, the tank was also one of the first to use diesel engines. This allowed the tank to perform for longer periods of time and were less likely to explode when hit, but in the earliest models it would fill the vehicle with smoke [[Fail|forcing its crew to open up all the doors in the middle of combat in order to even see what was happening.]] This was quickly fixed though following models were more akin to Germany’s variants then full-on new vehicles.

[[File:P26-40.jpg|150px|thumb|right|The Italian Panther]]

*'''''P26/40''''': Believe it or not this tank actually entered the initial stages of development back in 1940 but issues pushed the release all the way back to late 1943. Most of this revolved around the designers wanting a traditional petrol engine while the Italian Army wanted a diesel, which granted was better but untested at the time. Didn’t help Italy didn’t have any ground-based engines powerful enough to drives this 26-ton tank and unlike the Allies refused to use repurposed aircraft engines. Requested by Benito himself, the P26/40 was inspired by the heavier tanks of Germany but shifted in 1941 (pushing the design back even further) by encounters with the T-34 and then it’s later variants. What resulted from all this was Italy’s only medium tank, which in regards to its performance was surprising effective. While not exactly a ‘good’ tank the P26 had a pretty decent gun, slow but very reliable mechanics and interesting a dual armour system that combined wielded and riveted structures to make it the most durable of the Italian armoured vehicles. Despite this it still couldn’t stand up to late war heavy guns but could take a hit or two from a Sherman. Despite being without a doubt the best Italian tank of the war the design was in the final stage of prototyping before the Armistice of 1943, though fun fact five of these prototypes were actually in Rome when this all went down and were used by the defending Italians during the fall of the city. It would see production by the RSI under German watch with the Nazis receiving and using so many its falsely believed to have been used by the German forces exclusively! Turns out it was somewhat popular as it was much more reliable than the heavier late war German tanks though there was a lot of criticism at its cramped two-person turret.

====Tank Destroyers/Assault Guns====
Turns out while Italian tanks were mostly garbage their destroyers were surprisingly effective, which makes sort of sense when you consider tank destroyers were often used as budget tanks. Most of Italy’s larger guns were reserved for their destroyers and while their variety like tanks was limited, each one performed remarkably well.

[[File:Semovente da 47-32.webp|100px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''Semovente da 47/32''''': …Ok, maybe not ALL their tank destroyers were effective. Based on the L6/40 chassis the 47/32 up-gunned the design with an Elefantino while bolting on some extra armour. In fact, it was the [[What|most armoured Italian vehicle that fought on the Eastern Front.]] While the Elefantino could arguably be effective as an infantry support weapon early war, as a dedicated anti-tank cannon? Yeah, this thing was pinging off T-34s the moment it entered service.

[[File:Semovente da 75-18.jpg|100px|thumb|right|]]

*'''''Semovente da 75/18''''': After the P26/40 saw setback after setback it was decided there had to be an interim vehicle to support the outclassed M13 series. While inspired by the Stug III it was instead used as short ranged artillery support until the increasing usage of medium tanks forced their use in close quarters as tank destroyers. Despite not being the original purpose of the design its 75mm cannon and HEAT ammunition proved devastating to the Shermans and Lees it came across. While using the same bolted armour as the M13 its smaller silhouette and extra added armour increased its survivability. While not produced in huge numbers they were far from uncommon and ultimately went down in history as [[Awesome|the one Italian vehicle the allies feared.]] Since most allied heavy tanks were kept for the Western Front the 75/18 stay effective throughout the whole war.

[[File:Semovente da 75-34.jpg|100px|thumb|left|75/18 version 1.01]]

*'''''Semovente da 75/34''''': Not much to say about this one…it’s pretty much the M13/42 chassis Semovente 75/18 but with a larger gun, most likely to provide the same punch without the reliance on HEAT ammunition. Only serious change was the front armour being made from a single plate instead of having an extra plate bolted onto to the M13s standard. Some were used during the Defence of Rome but was mostly used by the RSI and Germany.

[[File:Semovente da 105-25.jpg|100px|thumb|right|]]

*'''''Semovente da 105/25''''': Originally conceived as a self-propelled gun made from the P26/40 chassis, the ongoing development of the base model and the success of the 75/18 ultimately saw the M13/42 chassis taking on this 105mm monster of a gun. Despite its size and power the vehicle remained enclosed with little issue, the gun able to obliterate anything it aimed at. The gun was even repurposed for defensive bunkers within the Vallo Alpino line. Just like above, some were used during the Defence of Rome but most saw action with the RSI and Germans.

[[File:Semovente da 90-53.webp|150px|thumb|left|The Italian glass cannon. Probably would have made it out of glass if they could get away with it…]]

*'''''Semovente da 105/25''''': When the inability for Italian armour to so much as scratch the T34s and KV-2s on the Eastern Front the call for a vehicle dedicated to raw firepower was called for. At the time, the Cannone da 90/53 seen above was the only practical choice though sacrifices had to be made to the eventual design. Armour was paper thin (seen as a non-issue with the guns range) as well as being opened topped and reared. Probably the worst issue was ammunition. The vehicle itself only had space for eight rounds although a ‘novel’ solution was found. A number of old outdated L6/40 tanks were transformed into ammunition carriers following these 105/25s while also dragging along additional ammunition carriages. Few were made since most Cannone da 90/53s were needed for air defence. While seeing action in North Africa and Sicily, they [[What|never saw action on the Eastern Front.]]

===Halftracks and Armoured Cars===

[[File:Autoblindo 40-41-42.jpg|100px|thumb|right|]]

*'''''Autoblindo 40-41-43''''': Uniquely, the Autoblindo 40 was actually revised and redesigned a few times during its development thanks to its original purpose for recon and policing duties including in oversea colonies. Essentially the car was built from the ground up to perform in the same environments Italy would find itself fighting in during the second world war allowing the vehicle to operate for much longer times compared to their somewhat slapped together allied equivalents. The 41 simply replaced the turrets weapons from two machine guns to a 20mm Breda autocannon in order to make the vehicle more capable during skirmishes with similar vehicles. A more original design similar to the German armoured cars was in mind for the 42 model, but since it had North Africa in mind development stopped after Italy left the area. Instead, the 41 was improved with a better engine and improved armour. It ultimately performed well in all theatres and was even well liked by the Germans who used it.

[[File:S37.jpg|100px|thumb|left|APC. Adorable Personal Carrier.]]

*'''''Autoprotetto S.37''''': While the Italian Army knew from the start of the war that they would need their own armoured personal carriers the three designs proposed were…Less than impressive. The S.37 was the only one to actually see production and was literally just a failed armoured car design with the turret ripped off. Uniquely, despite being designed for transporting squads it used four-wheels left over from the original armoured car design rather than being a half-track preferred by the other major powers. This allowed the vehicle to move faster and was easier to produce and keep running, though naturally had a lot more trouble on muddy off the road terrain. Carried eight men (not great, but not terrible) while having the option for a machine gut both at the front and back, but usually had it at the back. There were also two variants both replacing most of its carry capacity for either a flamethrower or a Elefantino gun.

===Airplanes===
[[File:Fiat CR.42 Falco.jpg|300px|thumb|right|]]

*'''''Fiat CR.42 Falco''''': Before the start of the war biplanes were on their final days, though this doesn’t mean they weren’t still desirable. Beside price and ease of construction monoplanes were still a new, relatively untested design. Most of the major powers saw the numerous advantages that came with monoplanes but most importantly they also had the funds and resources to develop a number of failures. Secondary powers though like Spain, Poland and the Balkan states needed something tried, tested and guaranteed to actually fly. That’s where Italy came in…Yeah despite the reputation their weapons received after the war, before the war Italy was quite the arms dealer, especially to other Fascists or nations sympathetic to the Axis cause. The Fiat CR.42 was probably their best product not only selling a trusted weapon but used many design techniques from the more modern monoplanes. This resulted in a plane more manoeuvrable than a monoplane with a well armoured strengthened frame. Most well known for their use by Spain, the Hungarian Resistance and…Well…Italy, the plane was extremely adaptable being easily equipped for recon, dogfighting and ground attack. Apparently, it was REALLY good at that last one too, with some sources claiming it had a 1 to 12 kill ratio in Hungary.

[[File:Fiat G.50 Freccia.jpg|300px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''Fiat G.50 Freccia ''''': One of Italy’s first monoplane designs, it was quite fast and manoeuvrable during its first deployment in the Spanish Civil War though like many Italian fighters they used Breda-SAFAT machine guns which were unreliable, jammed often, low velocity and low rate of fire. It did have good range so…You know…I guess it has that. Once the war started though they were vastly outclassed by the British fighters they were often sent against.

[[File:Macchi C.202 Folgore.jpg|300px|thumb|right|]]

*'''''Macchi C.202 Folgore''''': The mainstay fighter of the Italian airforce, this monoplane kicked ass. Introduced in 1941 it was durable, fast, manoeuvrable and actually mass produced! It even outperformed the Messerschmitt Bf 109 in North Africa and has been credited as a very underrated fighter by many aces on both sides. Despite this though it did have a habit of entering bad spins, had the same shitty machine guns as above and had radios so bad the pilots often had to wiggle their flaps to communicate. Still, as an actual plane it was top notch but those failings as well as the rapid evolution of aircraft at the time led the model to be used for training and garrison after the 1943 Armistice.

[[File:Fiat G.55 Centauro.jpg|300px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''Fiat G.55 Centauro''''': Declared by the Luftwaffe as [[Awesome|the best Axis fighter,]] the Fiat G.55 had many of the same advantages as the C.202 but didn’t have the same mechanical issues, while also FINALLY getting rid of those machine guns for German replacements. While it was built in smaller numbers and mostly used by the RSI it performed incredibly and was one of the few planes they had that could fight at high altitude.

[[File:Savoia-Marchetti SM.79.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Three is always better then two.]]

*'''''Savoia-Marchetti SM.79''''': Arguably one of Italy’s most well-known military planes, if not downright the most famous of their three engine designs, the SM.79 actually started out as a civilian airliner focusing primarily on speed while also providing a rather sizable hull for passenger transport. Putting the focus on speed over space it was still limited to only eight passengers but in the former regard it was record breaking thanks to its three powerful engines. Many public test flights and races were organized by the Italian government as a propaganda tool and after it became clear they didn’t have to fudge the numbers to come out with a win, discussions on turning the aircraft into a military design were quickly organized. The idea of a medium bomber came naturally with its size and free space, modifying the design to be equipped with four to five machine guns and a bomb bay. On top of that the plane was famously manoeuvrable and easy to control, capable of even doing a loopty-loop! Wasn’t that much of a slouch on durability either…Some had to be sacrificed for the speed but it wasn’t fragile for the time. Sadly, it did come with a couple of issues coming from the original civilian design, mostly in regards to its inability to install turrets and the shape limiting its capacity to hold larger bombs to only a couple (though smaller bombs could be carried in typical quantities). When it saw battle in the Spanish Civil War it was so good at outrunning and outfighting the interceptors it came up against, they weren’t even given escort fighters furthering its reputation. Sadly, while used till the end of the war newer planes quickly caught up with its performance and it was soon brought low by Allied planes.
[[File:CANT_Z506.jpg|300px|thumb|right|A good idea done even better.]]
*'''''CANT Z.506''''': The 506 takes the good idea of the tri-motor SM.79, and does it from the ground up as a military seaplane. It was ostensibly designed as a mail courier, but its tall central fuselage was ready-made for conversion to torpedo bomber and reconnaissance roles. The 506 was regarded as the best seaplane of the entire war, being faster than a typical torpedo bomber and with much better handling than flying boats like the catalina. 506's remained in service as sea-rescue planes until the end of the 50's.

===Ships===
{{topquote|I don't think their remaining three battleships will face us and if they do I'm quite prepared to take them on with only two.|Admiral Cunningham (RN) after Taranto}}

To sum up the Regia Marina (and this is a VERY short summary considering they were the fifth largest navel power) the Italian navy started the war with a massive fleet, though most of these ships were of an earlier design. Still, they weren’t exactly lacking; many sources show the Italian ships to be great in design often able to complete against the allies in a fair one on one fight. Their issues came from modernization and production capacity. They didn't have sonar or radar, which meant any engagement at night or in bad weather would go very badly.

They also purposefully elected to give up on any sort of formalized air arm for the navy since it was seen as unnecessary. Their larger ships carried seaplanes for courier and spotting duties just like everyone else, but as their fleet generally stayed in the Mediterranean they saw no need for carriers; they would always be in range of an Italian airbase.

Italy entered the war with a force that could potentially overpower the British Mediterranean squadron, and had been theory-crafted with an eye towards beating the French (the early ''Condottieris'' were hard counters to the French ''Le Fantasque''). This changed after Taranto, the first all-air vs ship attack in history. Torpedo bombers attacked the Italian fleet in harbor, destroying or disabling half their battleships, as well as a cruiser and two destroyers. Afterwards, they were regarded as more of a nuisance than a threat.

What was left of the Regia Marina didn't take the 1943 disarmament by Germany very well; some scuttled their ships (like France had before them) while others simply hauled anchor and sailed south to the allies. The allied landings in Sicily were essentially unopposed by the Italians at sea.

===Wunderwaffen===
[[Meme|Hahahaha…Oh wait, you’re serious. Let me laugh even louder. AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!]]

===Misc===

[[File:Breda Mod. 35.jpg|150px|thumb|left|In nature, bright colors alert predators to danger.]]

*'''''Breda Mod. 35''''': The 35 along with other series of similar hand grenades was the Italians bread and butter when it came to anti-personal explosives. Often called Red Devils because…Well…Just look at the damn thing, the striking paint job was actually pretty typical at the time. Everyone getting a hand grenade only really became common practice after WW1 so color coding explosives to maximize safety was typical for many countries including America, hence why early Pacific troops had yellow grenades. What made the Italian grenade stand out was its choice of fuse, contact instead of timed. Once activated it would detonate once it was impacted by force meaning it would go off the moment it landed. While the advantages are obvious there were a few reasons other countries avoided this. Activating a grenade only to drop it was a much more deadly mistake with these, plus veteran soldiers would quickly get a feel for the timer and actually manage to get their grenade off while it was still at chest height causing maximum casualties to the enemy. The final reason, which turned out to be an advantage for the Italians, was how fickle the mechanism was. Basically, if you fought in an area with soft ground like say, the deserts of North Africa, the grenade would sometimes not go off on impact. Of cause, the grenade was still armed though and even touching the thing could cause it to detonate. If you toss one into a British foxhole either it immediately went off killing a bunch of guys inside or it wouldn’t and instead just sit there, nice noticeable red in color, telling the troops in the hole they were now sitting on a ticking timebomb that would turn whoever touched it into meat paste. This could lead to MORE soldiers than who have been killed abandoning the hole and getting shot as they retreated. That, and most Allied troops (especially American) was trained to fight the Germans and Japanese not Italians…So a fresh squad out of training would see a red can in the ground, go “Oh what’s this?” and vanish in a cloud of blood.

[[File:Breda Mod. 42.jpg|100px|thumb|right|]]

*'''''Breda Mod. 42''''': Despite the name the 42 was actually an anti-tank grenade instead of a fragmentation like the 35. The name was actually a reference to the fact that mechanically it was pretty much the same grenade using an anti-tank charge and a stick for further throws. Not much more to say beyond that except it was the primary ant-tank weapon of the Italian infantry. No Bazooka for you buddy.

[[File:Passaglia Grenade.jpg|100px|thumb|left|Molotov on crack]]

*'''''Passaglia Grenade and OTO Mod. 42''''': Since the Breda Mod. 42 wasn’t developed till 1942, Italian soldiers in the early years slapped together their own AT grenades in the form of Passaglia grenades. Essentially a bag with some dynamite in it, it was attached to a Mod. 35 to act as a fuse. It was heavy, unstable, difficult to throw and since it relied on concussive force to cause damage it was only effective when tossed onto the engine block. While ineffective it was still examined back in Italy and helped inspire a sister project to the Mod. 42. This new bomb, the OTO Mod. 42, was a large thick glass bottled filled with a mixture of 50% gasoline and 50% flamethrower fluid. It didn’t actually come with any form of explosive or ignition making them safer to transport and carry. Instead, once one was needed, the user would [[Ork|stuff a regular grenade into the neck of the bottle before tossing this double grenade at the enemy.]] This essentially makes it a few molotovs taped to a stick grenade and tossed together. As you can probably expect they were quite effective but did have some issues such as its short range, unstable nature and difficulty transporting (we did say it was safer, not easier…)

[[File: Brixia Model 35.jpg|100px|thumb|right|]]

*'''''Brixia Model 35''''': Mostly known for having a top mounted clip and a nice pad to sit on, this light mortar was known for its surprising accuracy and staggering rate of fire. In fact, it could fire rounds so quickly they had to teach the crews to slow down less they damage the barrel. It also as mentioned came with a comfy little pat so the user could sit or lay upon it for hours without feeling as uncomfortable. Issue came from its complicated nature and light shells lacking any real punch. The clip that sticks out on top isn’t the explosive rounds but separate ignition cartridges. If you are unaware this is how modern cannon-mortars work meaning this is another Italian WW2 weapon that was [[What|ahead of its time.]]

[[File:Mortaio da 81-14 Modello 35.jpg|100px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''Mortaio da 81/14 Modello 35''''': Based on the already well-liked Brandt 81 mm Mle 1927 French mortar the design was further tweaked and messed with to improve the already impressive range and cutting back on weight. As you can probably guess it was very successful and quite popular.

[[File:Breda mod.31 .jpg|100px|thumb|right|]]

*'''''Breda 20/65 mod.35''''': Probably the best well known stationary gun of the Italians, this light AA gun isn’t so much known for its performance (it was sub-par on release, was improved to ‘ok’) but because it was used EVERYWHERE. As you read above Italy and machine guns did not mix well so whenever a vehicle or defensive position needed some heavy rapid-fire weaponry the 20/65 was sought out instead. It had enough punch to deal with most light tanks, didn’t jam every five seconds and was rather light for its purpose. The only serious issue it had was a structural fault that meant dragging it faster than 20 kph could damage the frame so it was often transported (and used) on trucks.

[[File:Lanciafiamme Modello 35.jpg|100px|thumb|left|]]

*'''''Lanciafiamme Modello 35-40''''': Pretty typical for a inter war period flamethrower, the 35 model was rather heavy and required two soldiers (one for the lance, one to carry the tank) in protective gear which granted wasn’t exactly uncommon at the time while the 40 shrunk it down to a more familiar single soldier backpack. Considering the reputation of Italian weaponry, one would think strapping on one of their flamethrowers would be a very, VERY bad idea though thankfully for their users they weren’t much more dangerous than other flamethrower of the time. Both varieties were heavier and had a shorter range however.

[[File:SPA-Viberti AS.42.jpg|100px|thumb|right|Death Limo]]

*'''''SPA-Viberti AS.42''''': Funnily enough based on the chassis of Autoblindo 41 rather than a armoured car based on an established vehicle, the AS.42 was created to fulfill the armies request for a long range reconnaissance and raider inspired by the successful British units of the same variety. While these British models were either jeeps or smaller armoured cars the AS.42 was quite a lot longer with additional seating. This also provided space to equip much larger weapons giving Italy access to a fast-moving heavy weapon platform. It also carried up to 20 jerry cans giving in incredible longevity along with two machine guns standard with the extra space allowing the installation of either a Breda mod.31, S-18/1000 rifle or a Elefantino gun. They performed well, as despite overall having a larger shape they had quite the short profile making it easy to hide plus the cans and extra space gave in much longer longevity then their allied counterparts.

[[Category:History]]