ive read way too many 40k novels lol (yeah i read theory) and theres a huuuuuge disconnect between the different writers. youre absolutely right that the eisenhorn/ravenor books in particular are all about how incredibly dogshit the imperium is, and other books do make this clear as well

but with a lot of the space marine focused ones you can just feel the authors jerking themselves off as they write (someone should compile all the bits from the horus heresy novels where they first describe each of the primarchs in particular lol) and they are often really uncritical or apologetic about not just the space marines but the imperium itself

and of course the video games mostly go no deeper than "yay space marines"

another thing that nobody mentioned yet is that the imperium has the space marines who are the heavily-armoured genetically-modified superhuman special forces guys, and then the vaaaast majority of the army are the imperial guard who are mostly just conscripts with shitty guns who get sent in human wave style to die en masse

there are various themed imperial guard regiments that have distinctive uniforms and fighting styles of their planet. the most popular amongst warhammer nerds are the death korps of krieg, who resemble gas-masked wwi soldiers with a german-style helmet. purely coincidentally, they seem to be most commonly painted in feldgrau colour schemes

It really doesn’t help that GW constantly oscillates between “the theocratic fascism is really self-destructive and stupid and is why the imperium is a decaying wreck, and having an autocrat and his large adult sons in charge of everything totally fucked it all up in the first place”, “the fascism isn’t great but it’s necessary and justified because it’s the only thing saving humanity from unimaginable horrors that vaguely resemble whatever ethnic group you’re most afraid of”, or “the space marines are unambiguously good heroes with honour and piety who keep everyone safe, yay for the good guys”

not vegan

maple syrup is a good replacement for lots of recipes, and is (usually but not always) vegan

nah earthling ed is dope, hes very lib but hes earnest as hell and his heart is very much in the right place so i would doubt there would be substantive cuts that frame the debate in a different light

hes also the most phenomenal debater ive ever seen in a way thats like the anti-v*ush, and i feel like hes a great example for leftists to look to for how to "debate" someone when your goal is to actually convince them to your point of view rather than EPICLY DESTROY them. knows his shit of course, but its mostly hes unbelievably patient and calm and understanding, doesnt die on pointless hills, doesnt try and make people feel stupid but rather just "oh yeah i hadnt considered that perspective", and generally really tries to avoid things becoming combative and adversarial while still pushing hard. this girl is incredibly defensive and hostile and seems like a lost cause (i couldnt make it more than a few minutes in), but ive watched quite a few of his "debates" and half of them end with the other person halfway or more towards veganism

Also the same problem as New Vegas, you can have the best writing and the best voice acting, but it is 100% impossible to take any of it seriously when it's coming from Oblivion faces