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Industrial Revolution

2022-01-19T05:12:35Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:351E:E4A5:A6DD:7126: Put it somewhere else, it fucks the top quotes

[[File:Steam engine in action.gif|300px|thumb|left|Knights clash, Nobles Plot, Kings Proclaim and Priests Preach. But for all their ambition, passion, glory, drive and zeal it's a few modestly well off men trying to figure out how to better drain flooded mines that change the world]]
{{topquote|The more we progress the more we tend to progress. We advance not in arithmetical but in geometrical progression. We draw compound interest on the whole capital of knowledge and virtue which has been accumulated since the dawning of time. Some eighty thousand years are supposed to have existed between paleolithic and neolithic man. Yet in all that time he only learned to grind his flint stones instead of chipping them. But within our father's lives what changes have there not been? The railway and the telegraph, chloroform and applied electricity. Ten years now go further than a thousand then, not so much on account of our finer intellects as because the light we have shows us the way to more. Primeval man stumbled along with peering eyes, and slow, uncertain footsteps. Now we walk briskly towards our unknown goal.|Arthur Conan Doyle}}
The '''Industrial Revolution''' was a period from about 1776 to 1914 which was a major game changer for humanity. Many periods of history are laid out arbitrarily by historians for book-keeping purposes. A peasant born at the transition at the tail end of the [[High Middle Ages]] in 1340 and lived to see the [[Renaissance]] over some 90 years would not think the world he was born in to be too different to the one he died, even if he was glad that the whole "everybody's dropping dead of plague" spell did not come back. But the same could not be said if said fellow was born in England in 1780. In that time the majority of people had moved from the countryside to cities, factories were making everything, you could cross the country in a train in a day and send a message to newfangled Dominion of Canada at the speed of light.

The big thing of note here is energy. For most of the history of civilization if humans wanted to get something done like move some thing from point A to Point B, dig a hole, grind grain, work iron or whatever they had to do it with muscle power, either their own, other peoples' or by those of some cows or horses. Later they worked out how to put wind and flowing water to use with sails, watermills and windmills. Both of which were useful in their own right and by the 1700s they were used in a wide variety of operations but both had serious limitations. There are only so many rivers where you can build watermills and even in windy places there are calm days, so they primarily supplemented wind and water power. A human can produce about 100 watts (joules per second) of motive power continuously, a horse can provide about 750 watts. In contrast a kilogram of wood has about 16-21 megajoules of energy if burned and coal has about 30 megajoules, though this comes in heat. Steam engines use boiling water to turn that heat into motive force which can operate factory machines, propel ships and locomotives to carry cargo, dig ditches and more. Once they had been refined to a level of comparative efficiency they changed the nature of how work got done. First this was done by belts, gears and rods and latter by electrical power generated by steam (or other sources) turning generators to power electric motors and lights.

One of the key advances of the Industrial Revolution was the assembly line which allowed rapid construction of goods by giving each worker a single task to be repeated instead of requiring they have specialized knowledge of the whole process. While this idea goes back to at least the Venetian Arsenal in 1320, it became the standard during this era thanks to breakthroughs in milling, grinding and lathing metal powered by steam. One side effect of making things on an assembly line is that items were broken into interchangeable parts that were replaceable if they broke, where before repairs were specialized work, if they could be accomplished at all. It would not be until World War Two however, that quality control was tight enough that parts were interchangeable between factories. The assembly line led to widespread and cheap automobiles. The most prominent example was the Ford Model T. These early cars all had unique controls and the modern, standardized control layout would not be invented until 1916 and would not achieve popularity until after 1922.

Education also improved and became more universal during this era. By 1800 literacy was near universal in the United States, though this figure may not be counting slaves. Indeed, high literacy was critical to the American Revolution, which made extensive use of mass printed propaganda like ''[[Wikipedia:Common Sense (pamphlet)|Common Sense]]''. Public Education further improved this. Democracy would gradually rise in prominence during this period thanks to increased literacy. The abolition of slavery and women's emancipation would also make serious progress during this era AS an extension of this.

Communications would advance rapidly, with radio quickly becoming a standard possession. The telegraph and later telephone would also be invented during this era. The earliest traces of film recording started here. Photography has matured enough by this time that photographs of most important figures from ~1840 onward exist.

Weapons technology advanced by leaps and bounds. At the start of the Industrial Revolution the average soldier had a flintlock musket that could be shot maybe four times a minute and was accurate up to maybe 100 meters. Breech-loading rifles came around very shortly into the period, though the complexity of the mechanism made large scale manufacture impossible. Guns became mass produced (and were among the first complex machines with metal mechanisms to be so), but over the early 19th century they gradually became rifled as standard and switched over to percussion locks and were complemented with the first mass produced revolvers. Starting in 1848, muskets began being phased out for breech-loading rifles. Metallic cartridge and smokeless powder would arrive towards the end of this era. Since black powder would rapidly foul any repeating action, smokeless powder was critical to the function of any self-loading firearm. Machine guns became common during this era with Sir Hiram Maxim's invention of his famous gun in 1886. Self loading pistols emerged as well. Artillery advanced from simple iron tubes firing iron balls straight ahead to breech-loading steel guns which fired explosive shells on predictable ballistic trajectories.

Of course, there was a downside. Industrialization did generate a lot of wealth, but not everyone profited from it. Rural landlords found that their fields were full of surplus farmhands who weren't needed and they [the landlords] promptly kicked them [the surplus farmhands] off their land to go into dirty overcrowded cities full of cheaply made apartments in which people were crammed in like sardines. To get enough to survive, everyone in a poor family older than six would have to work in unsafe conditions for 12 hours or more, often operating dangerous machines that could take the hand off the unwary in the heat, dark, stink and noise of it all while [[Wikipedia:Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire|forcibly locked their workers into the building]].

There were various responses to these conditions, some of which were more extreme than others. The best-known of these is the concept of the labor union, which allowed for workers in the same industry to group together and demand better working conditions from their employers, as did regulations against child labor, safety standards and so forth. And of course, there was the enormous amount of pollution and general environmental destruction, whose effects are coming back to bite us in the ass a little over a century later.

== Napoleonic Wars ==

Imagine a world where Tom Cruise succeeded in killing Hitler and then Rommel proceeded to do all the conquering that Hitler promised to do except without all the genocide, only to lose it all by invading Russia in winter. Replace Hitler with Maximilien Robespierre and Rommel with Napoleon Bonaparte and that's basically the Napoleonic Wars.

France is a shit place to live. It always has been. But the 1790s were particularly shitty. Like "why is my bread made of sawdust" shitty (no, really, that happened). Seeing that America had a good end throwing out the monarchy, a bunch of French people decided they had nothing to lose and tried the same. Things got a little [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror out of hand] as they [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_massacre tend to in France] and before long a young military officer decided that the best course of action was to shoot some protesters with cannons, and the country loved him for it.

Now that he was in control [[Emprah|Emperor Napoleon]] had a relatively short to-do list, he wanted to: Lead and shape <s>Man</s>Frenchkind <s>into a psychic race</s> and surpass the <s>Eldar</s> '''Romans''' by learning from their mistakes, unite Humanity under one aegis and allow for <s>instant</s> communication and travel <s>across all human inhabited worlds</s>, kill literally every <s>Xenos</s> Brit and most importantly, prevent another calamity like the Age of Strife or Fall of the <s>Eldar</s> '''Romans'''.

Five coalitions were raised against the Emperor's Great Crusade, and each was smashed to pieces by his <s>Astartes</s> '''Horse Artillery''' and the <s>Solar Auxilia</s> '''Garde Impériale'''. This went on until the Emperor was betrayed by <s>Horus</s> '''the weather'''. In the disastrous invasion of <s>Isstvan V</s> '''Russia''', the Grand Army would suffer 80% losses, many due to freezing to death.

While Napoleon would fight against two more coalitions against him, the defeat in Russia would prove to be the beginning of the end.

To fund these wars Napoleon sold the United States a '''huge''' chunk of land that's now known as the Louisiana Purchase. This was actually controversial in the United States at the time since it wasn't ''explicitly'' allowed by the Constitution of the United States. The sheer size of the acquisition surprised nearly everyone except Napoleon; the negotiators sent by President Jefferson were only looking to acquire New Orleans and access to the Mississippi. Napoleon was eager to divest himself of his New World holdings because they were more trouble than they were worth (a lesson Spain never took to heart and the British only after a very long time); this was shortly after France embarrassingly lost Haiti to the world's first successful slave revolt. Ultimately, the argument that the power to make treaties was sufficient to make a treaty exchanging money for land won out and American settlers soon flooded the largely undeveloped land. Another lasting consequence was that Napoleon's government offered a large reward for anyone who could develop a cost effective method of preserving food. Nicolas Appert claimed this prize when he discovered that food cooked in sealed jars would last for a long time. This would eventually be refined into canning.

=== War of 1812 ===
The young USA would engage in its own, concurrent, fight against the British. In 1812, the U.S. would declare war on the British over press-ganging of American sailors... two days after the British put a stop to it (transatlantic communication could go no faster than transatlantic ships, which took roughly two months). The official ''casus belli'' aside, the real reason the United States declared war on Britain was in retaliation for British support of Tecumseh's Shawnee Confederation and a desire to conquer Canada. Despite terrible results for the US on land, which saw the White House burned down by Canadians, the U.S. did better than expected on the naval front. Even with Napoleon tying up most of the Royal Navy, the hastily raised and underfunded U.S. Navy matching them was a serious accomplishment.

One especially notable U.S. vessel was the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_floating_battery_Demologos United States floating battery ''Demologos''] (retroactively renamed the ''Fulton'' after its creator), the first documented steam warship. However, the principle muscle of the USN was the nation's first six frigates, originally constructed to fight the Barbary pirates. Although aged at the start of the war, they were still well armed, sturdy, exceptionally fast for their weight and virtually cannon proof due to their composite armor hull built with American live oak instead of comparatively flimsy European wood. After a string of high profile defeats the Royal Navy forbade their captains to engage them with less than a two-to-one advantage.

In December 1814 both sides declared peace since they weren’t getting anywhere and the original cause for the war was no longer applicable. On 8 January 1815 [sic] the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans Battle of New Orleans] was fought, to overwhelming U.S. victory, despite the war being over (see the above point of communication being slow).

==Meiji Revolution ==
{{topquote|智識ヲ世界ニ求メ大ニ皇基ヲ振起スべシ (Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundation of imperial rule.)|Meiji Charter Oath}}

During the Age of Exploration, Japan had closed its borders to most of the outside world to prevent foreign influence (even going so far as to kill castaways, missionaries and their converts - even Japanese sailors who were rescued by foreign ships were prevented from returning home), and for a time, the Shogunate was successful in preventing Europeans from encroaching on Japan like they had in so many other parts of the world. This came to a crashing halt over 200 years later on the 8th of July 1853, the USS Mississippi and some other American ships arrived in Edo to deliver a message from US President (at the time of the Mississippi's departure) Millard Fillmore requesting the reopening of trade. The Mississippi and its companions returned on 12th of February 1854 and led to the Convention of Kanagawa in March (funny enough, Fillmore's term in office was over before this). There were other developments like the British bombing a port in revenge for a murdered businessman, said ports rulers in the Satsuma domain agreeing to pay reparations by buying warships, having been thoroughly impressed, the assassination of the Shogun's number two Ii Naosuke and an attempt to burn the Imperial Palace. This led to a weakening of the ruling Shogunate that allowed Emperor Meiji to seize back power in the violent but swift Boshin War in 1868, permanently ending the Shogunate and the feudal system that ruled Japan for centuries. The die-hard Shogunate loyalists briefly declared a Republic but they were defeated at Hakodate in the final weeks of the war. One of the foremost Imperial samurai and part of the ruling triumvirate under the Emperor, Saigo Takamori, led his home domain of Satsuma to a brief rebellion after disagreeing with some of the reforms and the triumvirate falling apart with one of them dying of illness and Saigo being rivals with the other guy. During the Battle of Shiroyama Saigo's last charge, mortal wounding and assisted Seppuku, followed by the final charge of his 50 remaining followers marked the end of the samurai in the face of conscripted peasants with rifles and cannons. With the last remaining of the big three being assassinated by ex-samurai after the Rebellion, ironically not far from where Naosuke had been shot and decapitated, it was over.

The new Meiji government, not wanting to be consumed by the western powers as many other countries already had, led to a rapid adoption of western technology and, eventually, some empire building of its own. On the one hand, the fact that a formerly isolated nation could go from a feudal backwater to a competitive modern nation in just a scant few decades was remarkable. On the other hand, the need to maintain Japan's power to prevent Western Imperialism directly lead to Japan's own growing military autocracy. Military success against China in 1894, and against Russia in 1905 (the architect of that, Admiral Togo Heihachiro, was a young samurai brat who was fanatically on the Imperial side in the Boshin War while he missed out on the Satsuma Rebellion due to studying abroad at the time) would put it on the world stage. And while the Samurai as a class lost their traditional power of free money and being able to execute disrespectful peasants, enough saw the writing on the wall that they found positions in the new order, using the wealth and education their families had accumulated to enter politics or found many modern institutions one would recognize today, such as Mitsubishi.

== The United States Civil War ==

Shortly after achieving independence a split in the new U.S. States formed as a distinction became more and more pressing. The Southern Colonies were settled by men who wanted to make a lot of money in the New World and who set up plantations manned by slaves growing tobacco and cotton. The Northern Colonies were settled by groups who wanted to recreate England (or their ideal version there-of) where the cash crops grown on plantations where not profitable and to whom slavery increasingly became morally unpalatable. Stunts like counting slaves in population censuses towards legislative representation while they did not vote inflamed issues. There was some hope that it was on its way out at first (many of the Founding Fathers believed that the growth of industrialization would make slavery obsolete and thus left the problem for future generations to solve), then Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin which made the slave owners very wealthy. Even those who did not profit directly from slavery still supported the institution, if only because they were terrified of the possibility of a slave revolt, or an outright race war, as had been the case in Haiti just a few decades prior.

There was also a growing sense of Abolitionism with the British shutting down the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1807 and abolishing slavery in 1833 with France following in 1848. While the number of hard-line abolitionists in the North was comparatively small, they were making some headway and there were various groups opposed to slavery to various degrees. Tensions rose gradually in the first few decades of the nineteenth century, from outright brawls in the United States Senate to the "Bleeding Kansas" incident, to John Brown's attempted slave revolt at Harper's Ferry. This led to plays to create slave states as fast as possible and other ploys which spiraled things out until the election of President Abraham Lincoln on a generalized anti-slavery plan. Fearing that "The Peculiar Institution" would be contained, constrained and eventually brought to inevitable extinction the powers that be in the South pushed for a violent breakaway.

This war is notable for being the most destructive conflict to take place within the United States (700,000 people dead (more than any other American war) as well as a lot of buildings and infrastructure destroyed) and one of the biggest wars that was fought between industrial powers. One reason for this is the North simultaneously held that South never left the US but total war with intentional targeting of the civilian population and infrastructure was OK. Another was a fear among the North that if the war was not won quickly (regardless of cost in lives) public opinion on it would sour, Lincoln would lose reelection and the war might end without the South's defeat.

The war consisted broadly of two halves, cleanly divided by the Battle of Gettysburg. The first half was characterized by a series of grand maneuver battles in the east in which the Confederate States of America tended to win on account of all the really competent generals picking their side, most notably the legendary [[tactical genius]] Robert E. Lee. A vicious cycle ensued where every moron Lincoln gave command to would boldly set out to conquer Richmond and end the war in one stroke, only to run into Lee playing tower defense on the most unfair terrain available. Union Commander of the Month would furiously throw men at Lee's lines until the grumbling from the ranks started to sound mutinous (Fredericksburg, Peninsula) or just stare at his lines until getting blindsided outta fucking nowhere (Chambersburg). Either way, it'd end with the Union sulking back to Washington with about 2/3rds the army they started with. This would repeat several times until eventually Lee got cocky and tried the same thing (Gettysburg, and technically Antietam although that was more of a really bloody draw).
[[Image:ShermansMarch.jpg|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufSGd58gjAM M-i-c, k-e-y, m-o-u-s-e. Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?]|thumb|right|250px]]
However, the Western Theater was a different story; a pair of grimdark badasses named Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman were leading the Union on a steady slog of wins up and down the Mississippi river system. After Gettysburg, Lincoln decided he just wanted to win and didn't care how messy it got, so he gave Grant command. Grant knew that the Union had more men, and was perfectly content to [[Imperial Guard|win by attrition]]. Grant sent Sherman rampaging through Georgia like an [[Eversor]] with flamers, and then settled in for a year of meatgrinder trench warfare with Lee that was basically just World War One without biplanes.

While the war was fought over slavery, complete emancipation was not an original war aim of the North. However as territory fell to the Union advance, slaves came into the custody of the Union army. This became troublesome in the latter years of the war as it presented a serious logistical challenge to feed not only a fighting army on the move but their ever growing camp follower train of liberated slaves. This problem was particularly acute for [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea Sherman's March to the Sea]. Some U.S. generals addressed this problem by offering enlistment to liberated slaves, although this practice was not universal. However, many slaves fled Confederate territory to join up with Union forces and a good number of them ended up serving in the Union Army. Ending slavery not only became political policy, but also a weapon of war since it destroyed the Confederacy's economy. This led to the Emancipation Proclamation and eventually the 13th Amendment and with it abolition.

== The American Frontier ==
{{topquote|You have died of dysentery.|''The Oregon Trail''}}
Throughout the mid 1800s Americans spread rapidly westward. This was aided by several large land purchases such as the aforementioned Lousiana Purchase; this was a huge step for the young nation as they now had a major highway (The Mississippi River) linking the entire back country from the Great Lakes down to the Gulf of Mexico. But said expansion would only accelerate after a little incident south of the border where American settlers living in the Texas territory got fed up with the Mexican government and seceded the entire territory north of the Rio Grande. Texas joined the Union and Mexico gave up a bunch of land after getting its ass kicked. This led the United States to stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Fueling this was several gold rushes and a series of Homestead Acts, which gave ownership of land for free if you lived on it and maintained it. Canada also had a western frontier at the same time, but that part isn't nearly as well remembered (Did you play Yukon Trail? Did you even know it existed?). Huge waves of settlers were eager to reach the newly claimed California and Oregon territories, but before any railroads were laid down, they had to travel by wagon through the barren and hostile wilderness in between, with many would-be settlers dying to disease, hypothermia, hyperthermia, attacks from upset Native American tribes, and in at least one infamous case, [[Wikipedia:Donner_Party|cannibalism]].

This era has long been dramatized to the point it has become its own genre, the Western. This goes so far back ''[[Wikipedia:The Great Train Robbery (1903 film)|The Great Train Robbery]]'', one of the first films with a narrative '''ever''', was a western. Westerns dramatized the "Wild" West as a chaotic wasteland full of bandits and savages where a man would be killed for any or no reason, but historically this was not the case. Statistically the west was actually very peaceful outside of the wars, especially compared to cities out east. The big outlaws, shootouts and murders were simply very publicized '''because''' they were unusual. Still, many of these more famous incidents showed how loose the power of the law was out in the frontier, as in several cases, you had several figures who had been on both sides of the law (Billy the Kid’s Regulators, Wyatt Earp’s revenge ride, etc) usually due to conflicting interests between locally powerful factions.

== The Unification of Germany ==
{{topquote|The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.|Otto von Bismarck about the unification of Germany}}

One of the aftereffects of Napoleons brief stint into making France the all-encompassing superpower of Europe was that he motivated quite a lot of people to identify themselves with their nation instead of families or rulers. The place where this nascent idea of Nationalism reverberated the most were the German states. Liberal and nationalist ideas that sought to unify Germany into one nation ultimately culminated in a series of revolutions that all failed until Prussia, under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck (a man with a political genius as massive as his mustache), kicked the Austrians out of the German territories and won the successive war against France in 1871.

The unification of Germany marked a massive power shift in the balance of the European powers, the weakest power in the European concert (Prussia) suddenly became the strongest on the continent, with a massive population, a disciplined and modern army that ground every enemy it faced into the dirt like they were nothing and a huge industrial base that was kicked into overdrive once the multitude of national barriers between the small German dukedoms were abolished (also helped by the reparations France had to pay to the Germans as well as the capture of Alsace-Lothringia and its rich deposits of ore). It grew so fast and rapidly that only in the span of 30 years, it managed to surpass the production of steel and coal of every other imperial power in the world, including Britain and the United States and singlehandedly pioneered large-scale industral chemical production with inventions like, for example, the Haber process for synthesizing Ammonia from atmospheric Nitrogen (invaluable and irreplaceable in anything that has to do with anorganic chemistry).

The Germans, being late to the party as far as Imperialism was concerned, wanted a piece of that big fat colonial cake that they felt were owed and used their industrial and military leverage to exhibit massive pressure on the other powers of Europe. This, combined with the inherent semi-feudal social order that persisted in Prussia since the 1600s and a rampant militarism of the entire German society, lead to a very aggressive nationalist machismo which ultimately contributed a lot to the crisis that lead to World War One with all of its cataclysmic consequences. Nearly all negative stereotypes people associate with Germany to this day, like militarism, brutishness, obedience, lack of humour, strict workplace discipline, punctuality and being unemotional come from this particular era. The culture that this attitude bred eventually lead to the mindset that gave to the Nazis after Germanys defeat in The Great War and only started to fizzle out after the old elites of the German Empire were permanently removed from power after World War Two forced the Germans to reinvent themselves and their nation.

== The British Empire ==
{{British}}
{{topquote|On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the spires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson, and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior, his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges.|The Caledonian Mercury}}

Remember the British East India Company from the [[Age of Enlightenment]]? Well, eventually Britain decided to drop the pretense that it was merely an English corporation that was building colonies everywhere and just owned it that, yes, they were trying to take over the world. They hadn't been the only ones; the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Germans, Russians, and several American presidents were as well, and near the end Japan would try to get in on the action.

The Napoleonic wars left the British in the enviable position of having the world's biggest, baddest navy. A title they would hold until the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 recognized the American navy as at least roughly equal in might. They would lose it entirely after the Second World War, due to the tremendous debts of fighting that war and the previous one.

Having a massive navy at its disposal meant that the British could be extremely persuasive in dealing with anyone within sight of the sea. This persuasion was not solely political strong-arming, but also strong anti-slavery actions, with the West Africa Squadron alone freeing over a 10th of a million slaves and largely shutting down the Atlantic Triangle. At its height the British Empire had founded colonies or established protectorates on almost every major landmass on Earth, and had presences at the choke points of Gibraltar, the Suez, the Cape of Good Hope, Singapore, and the Falklands near Cape Horn. It was said that "The sun never sets on the British Empire," which is still true due to the existence of the Pitcairn Islands.


=== The Indian Munity ===
In 1853 the cost of rifling had come down enough that the British would start to transition from smooth-bore firearms supplemented by specialist riflemen, both using the slow and relatively unreliable flint lock system, to standardizing on a rifled, percussion fired gun, resulting in the 1853 Enfield. Like many firearms of this era, it was loaded by paper cartridges consisting of the powder and ball in a sealed paper sleeve that allowed loading the rifle by tearing open the cartridge (often by biting it), pouring in the powder, and ramming in the ball. This significant arms upgrade eventually reached India. In 1857 rumors (which were never proven) developed that the cartridges were sealed with animal fats including beef tallow and pork lard, pissing off the Hindu and Muslim natives, leading to the final sparks for a long brewing rebellion. Shortly into this, mutineers at Cawnpore slaughtering women and children who had surrendered would be a PR disaster for the rebels, kill any claims of legitimacy, and enrage the British public enough to warrant a very strong response. One important note is that the mutiny was not total (in-fact, the conflict was mostly contained to Bengal), and many colonial troops fought against the mutineers, particularly Sikhs who had no prohibitions on pork or beef and were keen on the idea of getting to kill Hindus and Muslims. The conflict would lead to an effective end of the British East India Company in favor of direct rule ("Raj"), which was generally a serious improvement in conditions for Indians.

While relatively short (a year and a half), there was little lull in the action and there's a lot of first hand accounts one can look through to get an understanding of combat in the era. Of particular note is the several accounts of rebels being shot multiple times with a revolver but living long enough to kill or seriously injure men with their swords, which remain important in any consideration of knife vs. gun. One officer, Hodson of the British even managed to kill ~10 rebels with a ''spear'' by abusing a narrow doorway.

As a side note, the rifle at the center of this would eventually be exported to the Confederate States of America (see above) in large numbers, which after its defeat would then be sold surplus to the post-Sakoku Japanese government (see above again).

=== The Boer Wars ===
During the Napoleonic Wars the British gained control of every Dutch colony, and while they handed most of them back afterwards, they decided the Cape colony in what is now South Africa was too good to let go, so they bought it. [[Rape|The Dutch weren't in a position to refuse the offer]]. A long series of disputes arising from this rose to war between inhabitants and the British Empire. Both wars were disasters for the British (even though they eventually won the second through overwhelming force) thanks to trying Napoleonic tactics in an era of rifled repeating firearms. This was even worse in the first war since the British had not yet ditched their bright red uniforms and things did not improve in the early stages of the Second Boer War and Redvers Buller, in charge on behalf of Garnet Wolseley, proved an unmitigated failure losing battle after battle. After Buller got fired and was replaced by Wolseley's rival (to such an extent that the British army was basically split in two through tensions of Wolseley's African colonial veteran followers against the Indian service) Frederick Roberts (who lead the Indian veteran contingents in the rivalry), the Brits won on the field and things devolved to an insurgency which was brutally suppressed. Adding insult to injury, Roberts replaced Wolseley as Commander-in-Chief after the war.

These wars are largely forgotten except by military historians due to its [[The World Wars|premonitions of things to come]]. One thing that survives the wars however is the term "Commando", which originally referred to the organization of the Boer forces during the wars and acquired its modern usage due to their unorthodox (for the time) tactics it enabled.

== Notes ==
*This was the Era where Europe, and the nations descended from them, truly and unquestionably ruled the world. The British Empire alone controlled a quarter of the globe and the few nations that were capable of resisting European imperialism were entirely dependent on them. With that came a lot of nastiness. You see, the notion that people not born with a silver spoon up their arses being more than mostly expendable meatshields carried over from middle ages hasn't catched on yet, and this went double for foreigners. The ruthlessness and blatant disregard for human life with which the Imperial powers of that time exploited the people they ruled over caused, later down the line, most of the efforts of decolonization and the brutal struggle of the underclasses for equal rights and humane treatment.
*The agricultural revolution, where machines and other modern technology were applied to farming, accompanied the industrial revolution. Indeed, this fed it by allowing enough food to be produced that the majority of workers could take factory jobs instead of agricultural work.
* Several technologies supported the process of industrialization. Steam Power helped kick things off by revolutionizing manufacturing and transportation, but two others were also important. Large machinery and tall buildings required steel to become cheap enough that it could be made on a massive scale. Historically, making good-quality steel was a time-consuming process that needed the careful attention of expert craftsmen. But with the Bessemer process, bellows would be used to blast hot air directly into the molten iron to get it hot enough to melt impurities. Electricity also helped tremendously, allowing for much longer working cycles through lightbulbs and improved communications through telegraph and radio.
*The invention of vapor-compression cycle cooling was also a major innovation of this era, although until electricity became widely available its use was mostly constrained to steam powered dairies in cities. This allowed for much denser and heavily mechanized industrial centers, as well greater population in warmer areas. The flush toilet and toilet paper also originated at this time.
*Vulcanized rubber arose during this era. While important for sealing and tires, one major change this facilitated was in clothing. The elastic waistband brought about modern undergarments among other things. The first plastics also arose during this era, but these early plastics were brittle and had few practical uses, so the true rise of plastics would not be till the era of [[The World Wars]] and [[The Cold War|and beyond]].
*Food preservation made large advances. In most of history methods were limited to drying (though methods including salt, smoke and/or sugar), pickling and (in climates that allowed it) freezing food, all of which originated in the [[Bronze Age]] at the latest. Now methods like jarring and canning (though early sealing methods turned out to be toxic themselves) food emerged and serious improvements to old methods like like quick freezing, the electric icemaker/freezer/refrigerator (domestic versions won't appear till the interwar though), freeze drying, and spray drying led to food that took less and less space while having lifespans measured in ''years''. These methods continue to be refined in [[Post-Cold War|the current era]], largely through new materials and understanding of microscopic organisms.
**To add to that, the invention of Beef Extract by the German chemist Justus von Liebig revolutionized the way food could be produced at larger scales at less of a cost. It served as the catalyst for the invention of most modern processed foods and the birth of large scale food factories, where cheap food could be produced to feed an ever increasing amount of mouths, further accelerating the population boom that conincided with the improvement of healthcare that is outlined below.
*The invention of modern medicine, which arguably started with the Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis' research into the childbed fever (a dangerous infection of the uterus thorugh bacteria that enter the body after giving birth), delivered the modern template of how medical research is conducted. Combined with the rise of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, this lead to a massive increase of birth rates and life expectancy for every human on the planet. As a result, the world population increased rapidly, starting in the 1850s, a trend that peaked in the 1960s and is continuously decreasing ever since (not that bad of a thing as one might think, with climate change, limited resources and all)
*The Scramble for Africa begins in 1881 and ends in 1914. Almost all modern "explorer" cliches and imagery began here, Theodore Roosevelt's midadventures, or the Indiana Jones movies. The two main exceptions, the coonskin cap American and breastplate clad Spanish Conquistador, are both strongly linked to a specific type and time of explorer instead of explorers in general. The Pith Helmet, binoculars, khaki overalls and cutting through foliage with big knives stereotype started here.
*Human flight was first achieved in this era. In 1783 the first air balloon flight took place, and was used for military use in 1794. The Wright Flyer took flight in late 1903, marking the first heavier than air flying machine. Zeppelins became practical just before World War I.
* Naval technology went through multiple revolutions. The wooden sailing ships of the Napoleonic Wars gave way to ironclad tallships with steam and sail propulsion, only to be replaced in turn by steel armored warships. The famous duel of the Merrimack and the Monitor marked the end of the sail, the Turbinia led to a transition to turbine engines, and the British dreadnought heralded the modern battleship. The first submarines appeared, although the concept wouldn't be perfected until the Great War.

== The appeal of the Industrial Revolution ==
This era produced many things modern people take for granted and have difficulty considering life without. The rise of film and audio recording during this era and mass printing of advertisement and newspapers during this era mean there is no shortage of records of daily life, so this era is fairly well understood. Of particular note is that the late 1800s printed mail order catalogs started being printed, and these now provide quality information on everyday items, complete with cost and illustrations, that simply don't exist in earlier eras. Those researching earlier eras for this kind of thing have to go through the rare surviving records of estate sales, government orders and business transactions to get a ''fraction'' the understanding a layman can obtain from viewing a simple public domain catalog. These have proven such good resources some historically set RPGs outright say to find catalogs from companies like Bannerman (A surplus arms dealer so successful he built a castle on a private island next to West Point as an advertisement, since everyone traveling the Hudson had to see the sign on it), Montgomery Ward, and Sears Roebuck to fill in the blanks of the equipment list. Before this period, historians were mostly concerned with Big Things: wars, generals, kings, nobles, priests and the occasional artist, merchant, architect, engineer or inventor thrown in, often because there was so few records of the common man. In the Industrial Revolution historians became able and willing to adequately research the way people lived their lives day to day, from well-to-do merchants and skilled tradesmen to factory workers to scavengers picking through garbage for bones, rages, scraps of metal and dog turds to sell.

The Industrial Revolution allowed for inventors to not only create meaningful new creations, but see them become common overnight. [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Before the Industrial Revolution changes generally happened slowly with various small tweaks on things and methods, the compilation of said tweaks rolling over and the occasional breakthrough like the water wheel or gunpowder every once and a while which would take centuries to come into it's own]]. A peasant would assume that his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren would till the soil just as he did with what changes that did happen in his lifetime being largely minor stuff that tweaked the board but did not change the game. Industrialization changed all that, lives were changed for better or worse by mechanization suddenly and totally. Progress became an idea that would drive the world, even if problems were also mounting. People came to understand that the past was not just the present which happened beforehand and the future could be more than just more of the same. It's not surprising that science fiction started up in the 19th century, as did horror. Jules Verne, HG Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Shelley, and Edgar Allan Poe were all active writers of the era.

This time was also one of upheaval socially and politically. Before the Industrial Revolution people generally operated on the idea that one should "Know One's Station", that society was divided into classes that were (with various degrees of legal formality enforcing this) hereditary, static and instead of trying to get out of them they should stay in them, stay out of the affairs of people of other classes and obey their betters. If you were a peasant you'd work for your lord, obey his orders, treat him with reverence as a higher form of human, be jolly grateful to have such a man as your master and avoid thinking about all that politics stuff which is none of your business. While this had not died out in the Industrial Revolution (see all of England's class stuff), it was on the decline both from gradual erosion and active resistance.

The source of wealth shifted from farms and fields to factories and companies which the merchant classes/bourgeois now owned. To be a noble you needed a peerage at least (in England that is, the rest of Europe, especially Spain and Germany remained static feudal societies at heart, while the French and eventually the Russians abolished it in a literally cutthroat fashion) and preferably a dozen generations of pedigree which your fellow nobs would respect even if you were broke, to be a captain of industry you just needed a lot of money invested in the right companies. It was possible for a poor man to rise to the highest echelons of society in the Industrial Revolution, see Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. The downside of it was that these rich buggers tended to view the poor which could not rise from rags (ignoring of course how most of these ''nouveau riche'' then made it as difficult as possible for anyone to actually join their ranks) as being lazy incompetents that were only fit for ruthless exploitation and that attempting to help them out (beyond providing them with just enough education for them to do whatever work the rich needed them to do and healthy enough to keep working) was not only useless, but an active evil in the long term since it meant only more of them in the long run. To quote Charles Dickens' ''A Christmas Carol'':

''"Many cannot go there [Workhouses and Prisons] and many would rather die."''

''“If they'd rather die, they'd better do it and decrease the surplus population."''

Such treatment of the working class, combined with the belief that as the actual producers of wealth it should rightfully belong to the workers, would lead to Karl Marx writing the ''Communist Manifesto':, creating [[communism]], one of the most notable ideologies of the 20th century and also one of the most [[skub|controversial]].

The Industrial Revolution people had oppressive rigid order and stability swapped out for opportunities to excel and thrive or crash and burn. You could be born dirt poor and rise to riches, or you might start out as a skilled tradesmen who ends up as just another disposable factory worker.

That attitude about the poor went doubly so for the colonial subjects and non-white people in general. In 1876 there was a drought which led to crop failure in much of India, instead of importing food to feed the affected masses (which they'd done not long before successfully) the Raj Government allowed merchants to stockpile grain and sell it abroad to drive the price up. The result was famine and starvation which killed 6-10 million people. The Belgians in the Congo made this look saintly by comparison.

The Industrial Revolution is the start of the Modern World and many of its issues still persist to this day. People can relate more to an Industrial Revolution era person more easily than that of a peasant in the Middle Ages, a serf in the Dark Ages, a citizen soldier of the Classical Era, a scribe at a pharaoh's court, a priest king in the Fertile Crescent or Grug and his rocks. The downside of this is that these issues are still politically charged to this day.

== Industrial Revolution inspired Games, Factions and Settings ==
* [[Steampunk]]
* Much of Discworld
* [[Eberron]] before the Last War. After it Eberron is a cross between Industrial Revolution and interwar.
* [[Arcanum]] is a magical world that is currently undergoing a revolution.
* [[Iron Kingdoms]]'s whole schtick is that it's a typical fantasy setting that developed into this.
* The [[Skaven]], particularly their Weapons Teams and anything related to [[Clan Skryre]]. Thankfully one of the reasons why they never achieved world domination in one fell swoop is the overall lack of quality control on their gadgets.

fill me
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[[Category: History]]

Communism

2022-01-17T12:13:32Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:351E:E4A5:A6DD:7126: Undo revision 805499 by 85.142.126.8 (talk) Talk page first, this is a controversial article even if I kinda agree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As a whole, most forms of Marxism are highly skeptical of liberal democracy (albeit supportive of the democratic process itself and direct democracy ((AKA tyranny of the majority)) in particular), as it is considered to be corrupt and easily manipulated by the wealthy (unlike in direct democracy of course! The media would surely NEVER be owned by the wealthy who...would...manipulate...the masses... oh...); similarly, they dismiss the process of slow reform advocated by social democratic ideology as a mass of half-measures intended to preserve a broken system instead of replacing it. In its place, communists propose the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Before you jump to conclusions, Marx considered all forms of government to be a form of dictatorship in that one class held absolute power over all others; in this case, the class in question would be the workers, who would use the innately authoritarian power of the state to ensure that a worker-controlled democratic decision-making process would not be opposed by reactionary elements attempting to re-establish the old order. According to Marx, this dictatorship would last only long enough to eliminate the differences between classes- as the state's existence is due to said class differences, this would eventually lead the state to dissolve when it was no longer needed.

If you're laughing your ass off right now at the notion that every single person with absolute power would just give up all their power to the powerless at some arbitrary point in time as the supposed utopia has been engineered, congratulations! You're a sane and rational adult who isn't [[SJW|possessed by tiresome naivete and gullibility!]]

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

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

===Issues===
One of the (many) major flaws in communist ideology is that its economic theories simply cannot be translated into the real world. For all the bullshit and genuine problems that happen in the free market (or the corporation-dominated form that exists today, at any rate), it still has the advantage of being able to rapidly adapt to changing economic demands. Centrally planned economies on the other hand not only fail to adapt in the same way, but don't even live up to Marx's ideals (e.g. the right not to be reduced to "a cog in the machine", the focus on bottom-up organization, etc.). At best, they provide short-term bursts of productivity at the expense of long-term economic decline.

Another flaw that communism cannot overcome is jobs have a range of utility. For example, the 2019-2022 COVID pandemic had "non-essential" business shut down - such as most of the film industry - while essential businesses - such as doctors clinics - remained open; this shows that not all jobs are equally important, so in this at least the equality communism tries to promote is impractical. There's also the fact that human nature is too competitive and/or selfish to allow for the "equal outcomes" collectivism that communism endorses. The communist idea of utopia is also atheistic, and it could be argued religiosity is part of human nature, but anything else on that subject or the subject of [[god|gods]] can either be found [[religion|here]], [[mythology|here]] or wouldn't be done justice on this site.

Furthermore, Bakunin's predictions about the dictatorship of the proletariat turning into a dictatorship ''over'' the proletariat have proven to be consistently correct, with party bureaucracies quickly assuming the same exploitative practices that their capitalist precursors used and claiming the means of production for themselves rather than passing them onto the workers.

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

Even in an ideal universe where the bureaucracy running a centrally planned economy wasn't corrupt or inept, the technology to monitor and plan any sort of national economy has yet to be invented and what we have now can't keep track of everything well enough to make it work; the average economy is incredibly complex and not even the most advanced computers that currently exist can't predict every possible variable that might effect how the economy functions (let alone predict the long term effects of a plan), so mistakes will inevitably occur and snowball with dangerous consequences. As a result, a centrally planned economy invariably destroys the countries in which it is attempted due to drop of quality in consumer products, and eventually, food sources. Countries like China use the international market to get around this, but this is only delaying the inevitable. It gets even worse when you factor in the further increased complexity demanded by globalization. Technological advancements in the future might be able to mitigate this issue or even solve it outright, but they may not happen for a very long time. (Other types of planned economies exist too, but they are much less common and tend to exist on smaller scales so we can't really tell how well they'd work on a national level, let alone an international one. They do seem to function surprisingly well on a regional/municipal scale though, especially those which are decentralized and use little to no top-down authority when making decisions.) The economic failures of Socialist countries can also be found in Communist ideology itself; if your state says that it the heaven on earth, then said state won't do a whole lot to potentially improve things it has apart from occasional repairs or invent new things that aren't necessary for its own survival. The downfall of the USSR and its aftermath is a good example of this; WWII destroyed a lot of stuff in Russia, so the government increased funding for sectors essential to rebuilding the nation. Productivity remained high until the late 70s, when, paired with party cronyism, the job of rebuilding Russia was finished and productivity started to stagnate on a high level. The only sectors that saw regular innovation and new invention were the arms and nuclear weapons industry. So it came to be that the West ultimately shot waaaay past the USSR in terms of productivity and wealth and ultimately defeated it.

That being said, mixed economies combining elements of communism and capitalism (e.g. Keynesianism and the "Nordic Model") have consistently proven to be more effective than either laissez-faire capitalism or centrally-planned communism, albeit these successes have much more to do with cultural factors than with any success of communist ideology, the latter of which has steadily been abandoned over the last few decades. As mentioned above, these mixed economies are typically viewed by socialists to be more closely related to capitalism than communism, and most of them believe that the welfare systems they depend on are likely to be privatized in the absence of a stronger shift away from a capitalist economy. Several of these economies have indeed been abandoning their socialist elements over time in favor of a more capitalistic system, due in no small part to economic stagnation and near-collapse due to socialist economic policies.

Furthermore, Communist governments tend to move away from the tenets of Marx and Engels in an attempt to force their ideas to work in situations they were never intended to function in. Marx believed that the shift to socialism and then communism could '''only''' work in an advanced industrial capitalist society with an established working class and that any attempt to make it happen before that point was doomed to backfire (and as Venezuela has since shown us, even THAT prediction was clearly wrong); Lenin got around this by claiming that he could "telescope" the capitalist and socialist revolutions into a single event with the aid of the aforementioned vanguard party and proposing an alliance with the Russian peasantry to compensate for the undeveloped presence of the working class. Even then, Lenin tentatively allowed a shift back to private ownership for the Kulaks just so the Soviet economy could get back on its feet, before Stalin purged them all as class enemies and triggered a widespread famine known as the Holodomor (which the vast majority of historians suspect was intentional on Stalin's part).

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

Because of the legacy of the Cold War and everything mentioned above, mass famines among numerous communist countries, and widespread human rights abuses from the regimes of communist leaders, communism is about as "loved" as fascism; there's good reason why people occasionally put Stalin and Mao, and communism/socialism, on equal footing with [[Nazis|Hitler]] and Imperial Japan in terms of evilness.

Even the forms of communism that originated independently of the Leninist traditions are generally poorly regarded at best due to <s>guilt by association</s> their own various, catastrophic failures. This is ironic given that Lenin (and later Stalin) spent a considerable period of time trying to wipe out the forms of communism that diverged from Leninism... if actually believe that a collectivist anti-liberal human rights-disregarding ideology committing atrocities against others who don't have the Correct Opinion is an actual form of irony, at least.

As an interesting closing note, the rise of automation (robotic and algorithmic) has the potential to bringing in a society that resembles what communism tried to achieve. Today (2021) most farming is done either automatically, or by a single dude riding a combine and doing the job of hundreds of farmers in a single day, manufacturing has also similarly gone through a wave of automation which has seen many factories reduce the number of their workers from hundreds to mere dozens, and the recent bastion of human labor - service sector, is slowly seeing the penetration of algorithms and in rare cases robots iNto the fold. What all this means is that humanity needs to do less and less work while the automated systems do it just as well if not better, these 'means of production' can be (in theory) easily nationalized and the usual problems of people slacking off due to everyone being paid equally is eliminated since both the neurosurgeon and waiter who are 'paid the same for their effort' are - robots. Add to that the rise of 3D printing which may act as poor man's Star Trek replicators (eliminating the need to buy a smörgåsbord of stuff) and theoretically we could be on track towards ¨fully automated luxury gay space communism¨, or the 1% who own all the robots can eliminate the 99% Terminator-style and grab it all for themselves, the selfish fucks... then again, Elon "Arch-Capitalist" Musk probably wouldn't. Hopefully... Then again, as all attempts at Marxist ideology have shown, a little power corrupts a little, and absolute power...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People like to call the [[Tau]] communist. There's ''some'' truth to that, given they're a highly-collective society that generally values group achievement over personal accomplishment, but they're also a largely class-stratified society, with only the assurance that their leaders are theoretically cooperating for the [[Greater Good]] to keep them from being out-and-out feudalists with castes. This system is actually very similar to Italian and Spanish ''[[Nazi|fascism]]'', where the economy was split between several large trade-based corporations, where the workers and the bourgeoisie were supposed to talk out their issues together (under the benevolent guidance of the party elites of course).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
File:AK-47.jpg|Glorious Soviet Industries could be used to produce huge numbers of reliable and effective things which are still in high demand after a half a century...
File:Lada 1200.jpg||...Their cars are not on that list.
File:Communism and the NTS Fallacy.png|Still a better track record than the Nazis.
File:Space marine commie.jpg| Do your duty comrade
File: Stalin space marine.jpg| This is how World War II actually went
File: Space marine revolution.jpg| The cure for [[Chick Tracts]]
</gallery></center>

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

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

Ciaphas Cain

2022-01-17T08:06:30Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:351E:E4A5:A6DD:7126: /* The Novels */

[[Image:cain.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Hero of the Imperium, fighting the grim-derp since 2002]]
{{Topquote|Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it.|Lt. John B. Putnam Jr.}}
{{Topquote|I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?|Napoleon Bonaparte}}
{{Topquote|CI-CI-CIAPHAS CAIN! HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!|[https://youtu.be/oRozBAIbaG4 Succinct summary of the Commissar’s whole career]}}
{{Topquote|[SCREAM OF UNENDING IMPOSTER SYNDROME]|[https://youtu.be/oRozBAIbaG4 Also a succinct summary of the Commissar’s whole career]}}

'''Ciaphas Cain, [[Hero of the Imperium|HERO OF THE IMPERIUM]]!''' (and of my heart <3) was a famous [[Commissar]] of the [[Imperium of Man|Imperium]] and is the protagonist of the eponymous series of novels by [[Sandy Mitchell]]. The GRIMDARK [[Flashman]] to [[Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt|Gaunt's]] Sharpe. He spent most of his career in active service attached to [[Imperial Guard]] regiments from the ice world of [[Valhalla]]—most notably the 597th, and accompanied by his aide [[Jurgen]]. He retired to become a professor at a [[Schola Progenium]] later in life, but this did not mark the end of his exploits, being recalled into active service during the [[Black Crusade#13th Black Crusade|13th Black Crusade]]. He was also called upon at many points throughout his life to assist the [[Alienhunters|Ordos Xenos]] [[Inquisitor]] [[Amberley Vail]], who is almost certainly his lover.

The novels are presented as extracts from Cain's personal, unofficial memoirs, edited by Amberley—published only to be kept under lock and key by the [[Inquisition]] as they present a vastly different story to all the official Imperial propaganda about his adventures. Contrary to the heroic image he cultivated to the Imperium at large, Cain described himself as a self-serving coward in his memoirs, spending most of his time trying to ensure his own comfort and survival, only becoming a hero by accident. However, despite his self-deprecation, he routinely demonstrates great bravery and compassion in the stories, leading many to believe he is a much better person than he would admit to himself.

He always subscribed to the long-term version of cowardice, often taking courses of action that appeared extremely dangerous on the basis that they gave him a better chance of survival in the long term, if not the short one. This is most illustrated in his dealings with chaos, from which a broad ''Cain Doctrine'' can be extrapolated as thus: It is safer to blindly disrupt the enemy's activities now, than to wait to find out what the enemy's plan actually is.

He is also well known for being one of the few commissars to earn the trust and respect of the Guardsmen he served with—aided by his heroic reputation, but mainly because he persistently demonstrated care and concern for the soldiers of his regiment. Despite repeated insistence in his memoirs he merely did this to get on their good sides and avoid "friendly fire" incidents, there's a great deal of evidence that his feelings were genuine.

Cain himself was an extremely skilled combatant, being an excellent shot with his trusty [[laspistol]] and highly proficient in the use of his [[chainsword]] in melee. Amongst other things, he defeated an [[Ork]] [[warboss]] and stood up to two [[Chaos Space Marines]] in single combat, both incredible feats for an ordinary man, especially as the only bionics he possessed were a few replacement fingers (and good ones at that, custom built by a techmarine). Not to mention going toe to toe with ''two'' [[Tyranid]] [[Hive Tyrant]]s, and wounding them both before his men could help him. Mind you, even ranged Hive Tyrants can rip apart an [[Assault Squad|Assault Marine]] and eat him without too much effort.

Further exploits include holding his own against a fucking [[Daemon]] Princess pretty well (with Jurgen's help, but still he did better than most would have), defeating [[Genestealer]]s in close combat (one of which could kill two [[Word Bearers]] and severely injure a third in a matter of seconds), and standing his ground against a fucking Genestealer Patriarch/[[Broodlord]]. He also has the honour of being forever listed on "Active Battle Duty", according to official records, despite being buried with full battle honours in the early M42's (presumably during the Indomitus Crusade); this is because, in the course of his exploits, he had been assumed to have died only to reappear later so many times that the [[Administratum]] couldn't keep up with the paperwork and simply issued a general order that his recorded status not be changed despite any evidence apparently to the contrary. Of course, his legacy is such that saying he's still in service to the Imperium wouldn't quite be wrong...

==The Novels==
[[File:Cain & Tanna.jpg|300px|thumb|left|Cain, with a cup of his favourite drink (Tanna from Valhalla).]]
Essentially, George MacDonald Fraser's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Paget_Flashman The Flashman Papers] and McAuslan stories transplanted into the 41st Millennium, though, while Cain is more of a Coward with a Heart of Gold, Flashman can best be described as a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk, Braised in a Jamaican Jerk Sauce, then Dried out into Jerked Jerk Jerky and served with a side order of colonial racism.

Cain is also infamous for being one of the more promiscuous characters in 40K. His list of conquests include a smoking hot Inquisitor - his current/probably last lover, a busty governor's daughter, a surprisingly attractive young tech priestess (not confirmed, but likely and wouldn't be surprising), and various other women throughout the series. The first book has Cain nearly put the moves on his regiment's female Colonel when the two attended an Imperial governor's party (with good chance of success), only stopping because he thought it would be better to keep it professional. Unsurprisingly this has led to multiple attempts by the forces of [[Slaanesh]] to corrupt Cain, all of which ended in miserable failure.

Whilst the books are quite well-written, [[Sandy Mitchell]] is a big fan of recycling - even down to specific sentences. Hence each book ''is guaranteed'' to feature exactly the same descriptions of his aide [[Jurgen]] as all the others, someone doing something with "almost indecent haste", and about half a dozen variations on the theme, "Of course, if I knew what I was getting myself into by doing [x], I'd have rather [y]" (usually involving charged into the [[Eye of Terror]] with nothing but a rusty fork). [[Skub|To be fair, this is very much a comedy trope.]]

They are also notable for the Jurgen Ex Melta, where most of the dramatic fights are ended by the intervention of Cain's aide Jurgen armed with a [[melta]]gun and his powers as a [[psyker]]-disrupting "[[blank]]". Over the course of the series, Jurgen has racked up more kills than the rest of the Valhallan 597th put together, and has yet to have any character development whatsoever. But that's fine, because Jurgen is 125% distilled [[awesome]].

While it's unclear if this is an issue with Cain or Mitchell, the books also can't seem to tell the difference between a heavy bolter and a storm bolter, using the terms interchangeably to the point where it can sometimes be difficult to figure out which particular weapon is actually being described.

Also features psychotic lesbian Valhallans, Orky Gargants crumpin' dose [[Necron]] gits, a grinning, friendly neighborhood Inquisitor (who you should flee from at all costs), psychotic psykers who wear dresses too small, savants that are barred from entering casinos, [[World Eaters]] getting killed by "mere" humans, surviving a starship crash, playing ''[[Space Hulk]]'' for real, blue facepainted [[Tau]] supporters yelling that you can take their lives, but not their freedom, and the Harriers getting the goddamn cup, didn't get it though. Space Daemon Werewolf Psyker Hitler being kicked over a dam by a solid boot to the arse, [[Awesome|and an Avatar of Khaine being dynamic entry'd from a Starship right onto a greater daemon]].

==Cain Books and Collected Short Stories==
{{promotions}}
[[File:CAIN-TRUEHERO.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Cain, summed up in all his glory. (The actual SCENE is from ''The Traitor's Hand''.)]]
*''Hero of the Imperium'' (Contains ''For the Emperor'', ''Caves of Ice'', and ''The Traitor's Hand'', as well as three short stories)
**''For the Emperor!''
**''Caves of Ice''
**''The Traitor's Hand''
**''The Beguiling''
**''Fight or Flight''
**''Echoes of the Tomb''
*''Defender of the Imperium'' (Contains ''Death or Glory'', ''Duty Calls'', and ''Cain's Last Stand'', as well as two short stories)
**''Death or Glory''
**''Duty Calls''
**''Cain's Last Stand''
**''Traitor's Gambit''
**''Sector Thirteen''
*''Saviour of the Imperium'' (Contains ''The Emperors Finest'', ''The Last Ditch'', ''The Greater Good'', the novella ''Old Soldiers Never Die'', as well as three short stories)
**''The Emperor's Finest''
**''The Last Ditch''
**''The Greater Good''
**''Old Soldiers Never Die''
**''The Smallest Detail'' is a standalone short (9 pages) story starring Jurgen, rather than Cain himself.
**''The Little Things''
**''A Mug of Recaff''
*''Choose Your Enemies'' The newest book that was just released. Has a cover on which Cain looks [https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLCovers-Apr25-ChooseEnemies5br.jpg very] [https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLCovers-Apr25-ChooseEnemiesGallery3u.jpg smug]

==Units Served With==

* '''12th Valhallan Field Artillery''' - Cain's first assignment after graduation. He was perfectly content to serve out his term in such a civilized post, flinging shells at an enemy too far away to pose much of a threat.
* '''Cain's Heroes''' - A resistance force composed of Perlian civilians and PDF formed by Cain behind enemy lines during an Ork invasion. By the time they reached Imperial lines they'd grown to nearly regimental strength, gutted the Orks rear, and killed their warboss when he came to figure out what the zog was going on behind his lines. It was this event that caused Cain to "lose" his treasured post with the 12th and serve as a general staff commissar.
* '''Reclaimers Chapter''' - For a brief period Cain served as an commissar liaison with the Astartes as they intercepted a space hulk.
* '''[[597th Vahallan infantry Regiment|597th Valhallan Ice Warriors]]''' - A mechanized infantry regiment formed from the remnants of the Valhallan 301st (Assault) and 296th (Garrison). The bulk of Cain's career was with this unit, which was held together largely by collective awe at his reputation.
* '''Schola Progenium of Perlia''' - After formal retirement, Cain became a commissar instructor on Perlia, where he was regarded as a local hero for his exploits a century earlier. The Perlians constructed a clock tower that would ring out the hour by having a clockwork Cain behead a number of clockwork Orks, which he thought was awful.
* '''Ordo Xenos''' - Cain's penchant for finding trouble and surviving it came to the attention of the Inquisition early in his career, which led to him being inducted as an informal member of Inquisitor Vail's retinue during his first campaign with the 597th. Vail used him as something of a [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|high profile decoy]], and to keep Jurgen safely hidden in the guard as an ace in the hole.

==Trivia==
[[File:Young-cain.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Considering his womanizer record we can easily conclude he looked this good (the high rank helps too. And while he never had a shield, he would've really appreciated one. It's a good artwork nonetheless.)]]
* He is essentially the "Edmund Blackadder" of the ''Warhammer 40k'' universe. More specifically, he is the Captain Edmund Blackadder of ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' for ''Warhammer 40k'' universe. Like Captain Blackadder, he is always trying to avoid combat, escape death, and retire from the Imperial Guard. Jurgen can be considered as Cain's "Baldrick" - dirty, disregarded, not all that bright but a good dogsbody to Cain. (Though a slightly more intelligent and significantly more badass Baldrick; think a cross between Baldrick from series 1 and the later Baldricks, but with a [[Meltagun]]. Also, Cain respects Jurgen.)
* Alternately, he is the Sir Harry Paget Flashman (VC KCB KCIE) of the 'Flashman' series of novels for the ''Warhammer 40k'' universe. Flashman was a key inspiration for Edmund Blackadder (although not of the first series; that was different). Seriously, look those books up. They're fantastic. Racist and sexist as hell, (it’s satire, but pretty prolific for more sensitive readers) but fantastic.
* Jurgen can be thought of as Fraser's other classic character Private McAuslan, J., 2nd Gordon Highlanders, Dirtiest Soldier in the World, the Tartan Caliban and the Highland Division's Answer to Peking Man. Think Pigpen in a kilt. Jurgen, however, appears to be smarter and has a Bristolian rather than a Glaswegian accent, which makes him sound inbred as hell - which might explain his psychic blank-ness.
* According to the narrator of his books (no, really) he uses the Lord Commissar rules on the tabletop, but this has become impossible in 8th edition since Lord Commissars (and normal Commissars) cannot wield chainswords or laspistols. Also, Cain wasn't a fan of the Lord Commissar honorific even though he himself was entitled to use it.
* Cain was so [[awesome]] that for decades he was the only entity in the [[Warhammer 40,000|galaxy]] to slip past [[Games Workshop]]'s chrono barrier on moving the setting into the 42nd Millennium. Then [[Gathering Storm]] happened, but then it cheated by saying no one knew what the real year was anyway.
* He is permanently marked as being on active duty because of the number of times he was believed to be dead only to come back from Emperor knows where. Notably this was not rescinded even when confirmed dead and buried in front of thousands as a war hero, he is just that awesome. [[Living Saint|To be fair to the Imperials, this hasn't stopped people in the past.]]
* A pretty good fanfic called ''Tales from the Black Millennium'' has Edmund Blackadder in command of an Imperial Guard regiment. Its sadly unfinished sequel ''More Tales from the Black Millennium'' drags Ciaphas Cain into the mix.
* [[Dune|There is a small section of the Tallarn Desert Raiders that think he is a Prophet of the Emperor]]. Which is at the same time hilarious considering Cain's personality and perfectly understandable after a couple of them seeing Cain [[awesome|challenge a World Eater and prevail over a Daemon Princess!]] The entire thing is the result of Emps himself [[troll]]ing one of Cain's old classmates, Beije, who hates Cain but is stuck in the same unit as the Cain-worshipping Tallarn.

==Stats==

===Commissar Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium!===
{| class=wikitable
!
!Pts
! WS
! BS
! S
! T
! W
! I
! A
! Ld
! Sv
! Unit Type
! Composition
|-
| Ciaphas Cain
| 175
| 6
| 5
| 3
| 3
| 3
| 3
| 3
| 10
| 4+
| Infantry (IC)
| 1 Lord Commissar
|-
|}

*'''Unit Type:''' Infantry (unique) ((uses the Lord Commissar special rules along with those listed here.))
*'''Wargear:''' Carapace armour, Laspistol, Cain's Chainsword, Refractor Field.

{| class=wikitable
!
!S
!AP
|-
| Cain's Chainsword
| +2
| 3
|-
|}

*'''Special Rules:'''
**'''Aura of Discipline, Eternal Warrior, Independent Character, Night Vision, infiltrate'''
**'''Hero of the Imperium!:''' Ciaphas Cain's heroic reputation (regardless of whether it is fraudulent or not) inspires those around him to follow his example. When accompanying a unit, Ciaphas Cain, and the unit he accompanies, are Stubborn. Additionally, all units within 12" of Cain (including one he accompanies) automatically pass tests to Regroup, and may move, shoot (or Run), and declare charges normally in the turn in which they Regroup.
**'''Leader of Men:''' Even though he is a Commissar, Ciaphas Cain can never use Summary Execution, as this would mean one less body standing between him and danger. He may still execute a Psyker that failed Perils of the Warp test, as per the It's For Your Own Good rule.
**'''Pintle Gunner:''' While Ciaphas Cain is embarked on a transport vehicle, that vehicle may fire one pintle weapon using Ciaphas Cain's Ballistic Skill, even if the weapon would otherwise fire at Ballistic Skill 1 (firing snap shots, for instance). The other weapons it is normally allowed to fire do so at their normal Ballistic Skill.
**'''Survival Instincts:''' Commissar Cain's focus on personal safety, and experience in surviving dangerous situations allows him, and any unit he joins, to avoid danger. Cain and any unit he is attached to add 1 to their cover saves. This operates as, and stacks with, the stealth special rule. When he is embarked on a transport, the transport gets the same benefit. The transport may not gain 6+ cover save if it does not have one.
**'''Defensive Fencing Technique:''' Ciaphas Cain developed his own unique fencing style, which revolves around defensive stances, evasion, counter-attack, and running away. Ciaphas Cain adds 4 to his WS when determining how difficult he is to hit in melee. Furthermore, anyone attempting a Glorious Intervention to get him out of a challenge automatically succeeds.
**'''Run Like Frak!''' - Ciaphas Cain, and any unit he is attached to, has the Hit and Run special rule, except that they only roll 2d6 inches for the fleeing distance (he can only run so fast!) and always use Cain's Initiative +2 for the test (he's *always* ready to leg it).
*'''Options:''' Commissar Ciaphas Cain may be accompanied by Gunner Jurgen (130 pts.)
*'''Transport:''' Commissar Ciaphas Cain may take a Chimera or a Salamander as dedicated transport.

===Gunner Jurgen===
{| class=wikitable
!
!Pts
! WS
! BS
! S
! T
! W
! I
! A
! Ld
! Sv
! Unit Type
! Composition
|-
| Gunner Jurgen
| 130
| 3
| 4
| 3
| 3
| 2
| 3
| 1
| 9
| 4+
| Infantry (IC)
| 1
|-
|}

*'''Unit Type:''' Infantry (unique)
*'''Wargear:''' Carapace armour, Lasgun, Meltagun, Frag and Krak grenades.
*'''Special Rules:'''
**'''Look Out - Aargh!, Preferred Enemy (Orks)'''
**'''Commissar's Aide:''' Gunner Jurgen counts as an Independent Character, but must always accompany Ciaphas Cain, joining and leaving units together with him. If Cain is removed as a casualty, Jurgen drags him off the field, and is also removed.
**'''Inconspicuous:''' Gunner Jurgen may not issue challenges, or be the target of a challenge. He may only enter a challenge via the Stand Back, Commissar rule below.
**'''Robust Driving Style:''' While Jurgen is embarked in a transport vehicle, that vehicle is not required to take difficult terrain tests, and treats dangerous terrain as difficult. Additionally, the vehicle may move an additional 3" during its movement phase, and is a Tank if it was not one already.
**'''Robust Body Odor and Psoriasis:''' When a unit successfully Falls Back from melee with Jurgen or a unit he is attached to, it adds 1" to the distance it flees.
**'''Psychic Blank:''' Psykers and Daemons, friend or foe, within 12" of Gunner Jurgen have -3 Leadership, do not generate any Warp Charge (i.e. they do not add dice to their owning player’s Warp Charge Pool in the Psychic phase) and only harness Warp Charge points on a 6.
**'''Stand Back, Commissar (aka Jurgen Ex Melta):''' Gunner Jurgen may not enter a challenge other than through Glorious Intervention to replace Commissar Ciaphas Cain, and he automatically passes the Initiative test to do so. Instead of making a close combat attack, at Jurgen's Initiative turn, he may make a ranged attack with his meltagun. Note that since the enemy will be within 2" of Jurgen, Melta rule for target within 1/2 weapon range applies.
**'''Scrounger:''' Jurgen's voluminous collection of odds and ends can come in handy for offering that one unexpected edge. Once per game, Ciaphas or Jurgen may reroll any one die they are called upon to roll.

==See Also==
[[If I Had Known...]] - A tentative story about Warhammer 40k's three most famous Commissars (Incomplete: Still at Prologue)

==External Links==
*[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ciaphas_Cain Lexicanum page on Cain]
*Cain now has his own (well sculpted) mini: https://www.google.com/search?q=heroic+commissar+miniature&tbm=isch

{{IG-Characters}}

[[Category:Commissars]][[category:Literature]]