Chaos is one of the great, cosmic forces in Warhammer 40,000 with the desire to corrupt mortals and get to their souls. In the world, there are races that are more or less susceptible, but one seems completely immune: the Orks. What is the reason for this? If you are now hoping for superpowers: the truth behind it is disappointingly simple.
With Chaos, the name is program: it simply wants to destroy order and return to a “natural”, thus chaotic state of the universe. The Warp, the realm of Chaos, is a kind of parallel world with its own rules, shaped by the emotions of psychically gifted beings like humans and Aeldari.
Correspondingly, the four great Chaos Gods are closely tied to such feelings and traits, especially the negative and dangerous ones: suffering, hate, deception, desire. With the promise to liberate them from the yoke of the dictatorial empire and to grant them power, Chaos repeatedly manages to pull humans, Space Marines, or other beings to its side.
In the lore of Warhammer 40,000, there are numerous beings that are less sensitive to Chaos. Certain mutants can virtually “turn off” the Warp, the Space Dwarfs of the Votann conglomerates are too stubborn to be corrupted.
Nevertheless, there is some form of Chaos corruption in almost all factions – except among the Orks, the most warlike race from Warhammer 40,000. On Reddit, a user asks how exactly this comes about. The answer fits perfectly with the Orks.
Orks are Orks and “green is better”
In over 200 comments, Warhammer fans discuss why Orks seem immune to the influences of Chaos. The speculations range from protection by Gork and Mork, the Ork gods, to the psychic WAAAGH! field that constantly surrounds Orks.
In the end, probably a little bit of all this flows in: Orks are inherently wired to want and be able to live only in an Ork society. That is how their entire existence works.
Orks follow other Orks who are stronger because that increases the chance of fights, and that is all they live for. Or as a user puts it succinctly: “They don’t want to serve Chaos, they want to be Orks.”
In any case, Orks have a great resilience against other influences. The Genestealer Cults of the Tyranids, for example, with which the bug aliens infiltrate other races, cannot gain a foothold in an Ork society. The greenskins could literally smell that there is something “unorkish” about their sideboy and would promptly take him down.
“They don’t have much to offer Chaos”
Besides the actual Orks, there are Grots and Snotlings among the greenskins. They are compared to their “big brothers” and even when compared to humans, merely small weaklings. It should be easy for gods like Khorne and Nurgle to promise them power and corrupt them.
However, just like Orks, Grots and Snotlings are … Orks. So they want to be Orks, not Chaos servants. But even if they were interested in Chaos, it would probably be quite one-sided, as a user explains:
Simply put, Grots and Snotlings don’t have much to offer Chaos. You corrupt a Grot and you have… a puny weakling with the brain of a particularly smart Rottweiler. Hardly enticing for the Chaos gods, when they have billions of more interesting toys.
theginger99 on Reddit
Aside from that, it is difficult for the gods to pull Orks further in the directions they are already in: They won’t become much more warlike, their desire for combat cannot be increased, they have no interest in sex, as they are literally mushrooms. They are not necessarily clever and complex enough for intrigues, and diseases do not exist in their relatively short lifespan. They are not interested in physical ailments at all.
Now, one might think that Orks sound a bit OP and like the kind of guys who could easily take over the world. And that is even true, if there wasn’t a small but important detail holding them back: A species in Warhammer 40,000 probably does not dominate the galaxy only because they constantly fight among themselves.
