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I just created this after thinking about what armies are good, neutral and bad.

GOOD
Space Marines
Blood Angels
Imperial Guard\Astra Militarum
Militarum Tempestus
Adepta Sorotias
Dark Angels
Grey Knights
Imperial Knights
Space Wolves
Adeptus Mechanicus
Tau

NEUTRAL
Dark Eldar
Necrons

BAD
Chaos Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Khorne Daemonkin
Orks
Tyranids
Eldar
Inquisition

Do you think this looks good? Or have I messed things up?

I think it depends on your definition of bad.

Tyranids are effectively doing what comes naturally to them (same could be said for orks) by attacking/harvesting worlds, so in theory could be put in the neutral category.

Eldar I probably wouldn't put in the bad category personally, but that's my opinion.

It's a tough one as each faction has their own agenda, despite some appearing more 'good' than others.

The 40k univers is not really a Good vs. Evil place, but more Law vs. Chaos. It’s not even really a “shades of grey” kind of murky morality. Shades of black is more like it.

Most of what you have under “good” are really neutral, with occasional good acts.

Dark Eldar are Bad. They hurt people for fun. Pretty textbook evil there.

Orks, Nids, and probably Eldar should not be under bad (although I could understand Eldar). But there is not malice in orks and nids. They are more akin to an animalistic force of nature.

Let me fix this for you:

GOOD

. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . . Salamanders maybe?

NEUTRAL
Orks
Tyranids

BAD
Dark Eldar
Necrons
Space Marines
Blood Angels
Imperial Guard\Astra Militarum
Militarum Tempestus
Adepta Sorotias
Dark Angels
Grey Knights
Imperial Knights
Space Wolves
Adeptus Mechanicus
Tau
Chaos Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Khorne Daemonkin
Eldar
Inquisition
The Ecclesiarchy
Adeptus Custodus
Administratum
Rak-Gol
Squats
Matt Ward
C.S. Goto

Dude if you're dropping ANY of the 40K factions into the "good" column I think you need to have a sit down and a think about the calibration of your moral compass.

EnTyme wrote:Let me fix this for you:

GOOD

. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . . Salamanders maybe?

NEUTRAL
Orks
Tyranids

BAD
Dark Eldar
Necrons
Space Marines
Blood Angels
Imperial Guard\Astra Militarum
Militarum Tempestus
Adepta Sorotias
Dark Angels
Grey Knights
Imperial Knights
Space Wolves
Adeptus Mechanicus
Tau
Chaos Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Khorne Daemonkin
Eldar
Inquisition
The Ecclesiarchy
Adeptus Custodus
Administratum
Rak-Gol
Squats
Matt Ward
C.S. Goto

Y'know, I kinda like that better.

I'm sure we can go full D&D here:
Lawful Good | Neutral Good | Chaotic Good
Lawful Neutral | True Neutral | Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Evil | Neutral Evil | Chaotic Evil

How can Grey Knights be good and Inquisiton bad ? They do the same job ! They even were in the same codex^^

The two save people, the GK killing daemons and occasionally others people / xenos, the Inquisiton killing people and occasionally daemons / xenos.

I don't think Eldars are bad, ok they kill humans to save their own race, but humans kill every other race to save themselves. The two just want to survive.

Alignments for political entities are different than for people, in that individuals are expected to sacrifice for the good of others in a way that sovereign states are not.

The main morality axis in 40k is the axis between chaos, meaning the actual gods, daemons, and followers of Chaos, and order. The secondary axis is between good and evil, which I would define as the willingness of the faction to exploit others for their own gain.

Good/Ordered
Space Marines (some chapters)
Grey Knights
Sisters

Neutral/Ordered
Craftworld Eldar
Inquisition
Imperial Guard
Space Marines (the rest)

Evil/Ordered
Dark Eldar

Good/Neutral
Tau

Neutral/Neutral
???

Evil/Neutral
Orcs
Tyranids
Necrons

Good/Chaos
Alpha Legion??

neutral/Chaos
Chaos Legions (some)
Chaos Cults

Evil/Chaos
Daemons
Chaos Legions (most)

I think there's a strong correlagtion between being a follower of chaos and being evil, but a much weaker one in opposing chaos. Look at Dark Eldar and Grey Knights: two factions that both hate Chaos, but in very, very different ways.

Everyone in 40k is pretty much morally grey save for daemons.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
I just created this after thinking about what armies are good, neutral and bad.

GOOD
Space Marines
Blood Angels
Imperial Guard\Astra Militarum
Militarum Tempestus
Adepta Sorotias
Dark Angels
Grey Knights
Imperial Knights
Space Wolves
Adeptus Mechanicus
Tau

NEUTRAL
Dark Eldar
Necrons

BAD
Chaos Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Khorne Daemonkin
Orks
Tyranids
Eldar
Inquisition

Do you think this looks good? Or have I messed things up?

Not seeing the logic behind Eldar = bad. Dark Eldar = neutral and Dark Angels = good.

On the whole, there are no factions in 40k which are 'good.'

LN
Virtually every Imperium force
Eldar
Tau

N
Tyranids

LE
Assassins
Necrons

CE
Orks
Dark Eldar
Most Chaos factions


The key difference between law and chaos is the value placed on tradition, order, command, and individual freedom. (Which is why most factions are lawful.)

The key defining factor of 'good' is the willingness to sacrifice for others, or to give up something of one's own (material goods or concepts like safety). Tau as a whole don't sacrifice for "the greater good" because they actually believe in the sanctity of life, they do it because the Ethereals say to. (Hence why they are LN.)

The defining factor of evil is taking pleasure in the suffering of others. The Necrons (the sentient ones, at any rate) and orks enjoy hurting people. That's why they are evil. Nids are just eating machines.

You have some variance on an individual level: many Sisters of Battle, Salamanders, and yes, probably Tau (especially the allied races) are individually goodly in alignment. But as a faction, there aren't any in 40k where the majority of the members (and those truly in power) are good.

There is no "good" in 40k. None. Zero. Zilch.

Everyone and everything is some shade of murky grey.

 Psienesis wrote:
There is no "good" in 40k. None. Zero. Zilch.

Everyone and everything is some shade of murky grey.

/thread

 Nevelon wrote:
Dark Eldar are Bad. They hurt people for fun. Pretty textbook evil there.

Actually they hurt for self preservation. They would die themselves without it. Or rather face fate worse than death.

Good consists of all Imperium. Y'know because we're human and all the other factions are trying to brutally murder, corrupt, corrode or orgy-to-death, or eat, or atomise, or some other horrible thing, to your descendants and people. You might have sympathy for Eldar but they'll kill you all the same.

Tyranids are neutral because they have no alliances.

Everything else that isn't human is bad. End of.

 Deadshot wrote:
Good consists of all Imperium. Y'know because we're human and all the other factions are trying to brutally murder, corrupt, corrode or orgy-to-death, or eat, or atomise, or some other horrible thing, to your descendants and people. You might have sympathy for Eldar but they'll kill you all the same.

Tyranids are neutral because they have no alliances.

Everything else that isn't human is bad. End of.

Yes Commissar!

From a human perspective, the Imperium isn't very nice to humans either. The Imperium is doing whatever it takes to survive (and by extensions, for Humanity to survive) and they are not humanitarians. The Imperium is every human evil made necessary in varying amounts- prejudice, murder, executions, oppression, ignorance, genocide, hate.
The fact that it's the absolute best that we can do under the circumstances (a galaxy of alien horrors and hell spawned demons) doesn't change the fact that every day, the Marines abduct kids and brainwash them into supersoldiers, every night a new world burns for perceived heresy and every morning, a possibly peaceful, self sufficient human society is discovered and forced to join the Imperium.

The Picards and the Janeways are long dead, killed by their own tolerance and morality.

 =Angel= wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
Good consists of all Imperium. Y'know because we're human and all the other factions are trying to brutally murder, corrupt, corrode or orgy-to-death, or eat, or atomise, or some other horrible thing, to your descendants and people. You might have sympathy for Eldar but they'll kill you all the same.

Tyranids are neutral because they have no alliances.

Everything else that isn't human is bad. End of.

Yes Commissar!

From a human perspective, the Imperium isn't very nice to humans either. The Imperium is doing whatever it takes to survive (and by extensions, for Humanity to survive) and they are not humanitarians. The Imperium is every human evil made necessary in varying amounts- prejudice, murder, executions, oppression, ignorance, genocide, hate.
The fact that it's the absolute best that we can do under the circumstances (a galaxy of alien horrors and hell spawned demons) doesn't change the fact that every day, the Marines abduct kids and brainwash them into supersoldiers, every night a new world burns for perceived heresy and every morning, a possibly peaceful, self sufficient human society is discovered and forced to join the Imperium.

The Picards and the Janeways are long dead, killed by their own tolerance and morality.

That may be, but the Imperium is still trying to make sure humans have a place to live even if millions must die to do it. The alternatives? Slaughtered by Necrons, slaughtered and enslaved for slaughter by Orks, eaten by Nids, souls devoured by Daemons, various unpleasant fates of Chaos victory including souls devoured by Daemons, exterminated by Eldar, captured and tortured overseveral lifetimes by Deldar and turned into monstrous beasts or slaughtered in arena, enslaved and/or slaughtered by Tau, or by any of the other billions of species that are not humans. The Imperium has the only possible outcome in which humans actually survive and rule the galaxy.

For a real world example, you might have a dictator who will make you dissappear for blinking too much and is aiming world domination, which isn't great, but its better than all the other countries in the world who would shoot you on sight just for being from that country.

 EnTyme wrote:
Let me fix this for you:

GOOD

. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . . Salamanders maybe?

NEUTRAL
Orks
Tyranids

BAD
Dark Eldar
Necrons
Space Marines
Blood Angels
Imperial Guard\Astra Militarum
Militarum Tempestus
Adepta Sorotias
Dark Angels
Grey Knights
Imperial Knights
Space Wolves
Adeptus Mechanicus
Tau
Chaos Daemons
Chaos Space Marines
Khorne Daemonkin
Eldar
Inquisition
The Ecclesiarchy
Adeptus Custodus
Administratum
Rak-Gol
Squats
Matt Ward
C.S. Goto

I find this the closest to the lore. Albeit I'd throw Raven Guard with Salamanders as well

Nazrak wrote:Dude if you're dropping ANY of the 40K factions into the "good" column I think you need to have a sit down and a think about the calibration of your moral compass.

Overall, I think you might be right, but I think that's a wildly unfair call to make as well as at least a little bit judgmental towards those that thing there are factions or sub-factions (playable on the tabletop or not) from the 40K universe that can be classified as good. Would you care to explain why you (apparently) think that any given faction in the 40K universe is strictly incapable of being classified as Good?

slogael wrote:

Spoiler:

Not gonna lie: I was amused at first, and then found myself at least sort of agreeing with it.

tneva82 wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Dark Eldar are Bad. They hurt people for fun. Pretty textbook evil there.

Actually they hurt for self preservation. They would die themselves without it. Or rather face fate worse than death.

Oh they do it for fun just as much, how do you think the Eye of Terror came about?

It's impossible to sort them out as good or evil unless you use the particular point of view from one of the faction. The Imperium is an oppressive warmachine, but seen from Inside, that's saying by it's "government" and simple human, it's the only garantee for Mankind to live htrough.

Now, if we look through the eyes of orks, where's it bad to smash your opponent? That's part of a normal life isn't it?

They exception are chaos soldiers and demons who know they're bringing death and suffering amongst the galaxy, do it consciously and take pleasure to this. Even the dark eldars have been forced to turn so to keep their despicable bodies living!

So unless you take a partial look on it, that's useless efforts in my opinion.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
So unless you take a partial look on it, that's useless efforts in my opinion.

Considering that this is a fictional universe and we, as spectators of this universe, can weigh up everything - the good, the bad, and the ugly - about every faction, then I think we can define a faction as Good, Bad, or Neutral based on a consideration of all angles.

For Example:

Consider any given Space Marine Chapter performing an Exterminatus on a planet that is effectively overrun by Chaos, but still has millions of innocent and uncorrupted citizens on the planet's surface. Now let's assume we know absolutely nothing else about this Chapter whatsoever. We can say that, because of the aforementioned action and its casualties, they are very bad (because they just murdered millions of innocent people), thus putting them in the Bad list, even though their actions were to stop Chaos and arguably justified.

But, if we took a partial look from the perspective of the Space Marine Chapter: We'd could argue that the Space Marines were in fact part of the Good list because they exterminated (some) forces of Chaos, and that the citizens were martyrs who all facilitated this good act.

So I think it's possible to take an overall, objective look at the situation in 40K and define who is good, bad, neutral, or any variation thereof.

How someone can see anything positive about the Imperium is beyond me. The imperium combines every brutal dicatorship human history saw so far and puts it up to 11. Nazis, Pol Pot, Colonial Empires, christian middle age - that's the Imperium and that's why it is losing the war. It makes little difference to live in a forgeworld or to be ruled by a Chaos champion, Archon, Overlord or Ork Warboss - you are a slave and will die more sooner than later.
The 40K universe is only "good" if you are an Ork.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
How someone can see anything positive about the Imperium is beyond me. The imperium combines every brutal dicatorship human history saw so far and puts it up to 11. Nazis, Pol Pot, Colonial Empires, christian middle age - that's the Imperium and that's why it is losing the war. It makes little difference to live in a forgeworld or to be ruled by a Chaos champion, Archon, Overlord or Ork Warboss - you are a slave and will die more sooner than later.
The 40K universe is only "good" if you are an Ork.

Best of a bad bunch. As a human, the Imperium has the only agenda that is even remotely positive. See my earlier post about the numerous horrible fates that the other races seek for mankind. The Imperium is brutal but you die in the knowledge that someone else won't and that one day your great^53 grandchild might live a happy and prosperous life free of war and oppression.

 Deadshot wrote:
For a real world example, you might have a dictator who will make you dissappear for blinking too much and is aiming world domination, which isn't great, but its better than all the other countries in the world who would shoot you on sight just for being from that country.

This of course assumes this country(Imperium) is good compared to dying...Who says it wouldn't be better if Tau were to survive rather than humans?

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
How someone can see anything positive about the Imperium is beyond me. The imperium combines every brutal dicatorship human history saw so far and puts it up to 11. Nazis, Pol Pot, Colonial Empires, christian middle age - that's the Imperium and that's why it is losing the war.

I disagree. It's not losing the war because of these qualities. It has these qualities because it is fighting a losing battle.
The Imperium doesn't have the luxury of granting human rights or any of the niceties that we, from our position of prosperity, have decided humans should be entitled to.
It claims divine ownership of every human and world in the galaxy and then enforces that claim at every possibility -with lasguns if necessary.
It doesn't do this because the people running it are mustache twirling villains but because to do less would be the end of us all. The harsh realities of the universe have forced men collectively to make unpalatable choices.

I agree that it is evil but its evils are absolutely necessary if some humans are to survive.

tneva82 wrote:

This of course assumes this country(Imperium) is good compared to dying...Who says it wouldn't be better if Tau were to survive rather than humans?

Humanity, I expect.
Many people say that they would prefer to die free than live a slave but in practice, the opposite is often true.

Angel, what could I add about the imperium... wait, you said it all!

As a matter of fact, if the tau were a dying or at least endangered race as Mankind, then they would have the evil fluff, and trying to force your neighbours into your empire by intimidation and then weapons has nothing of a the Good's behavor is it? What's more, the tau background always recalled me "The best of the worlds". Has anyone else this feeling?

tneva82 wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
For a real world example, you might have a dictator who will make you dissappear for blinking too much and is aiming world domination, which isn't great, but its better than all the other countries in the world who would shoot you on sight just for being from that country.

This of course assumes this country(Imperium) is good compared to dying...Who says it wouldn't be better if Tau were to survive rather than humans?

Because if you die your soul goes to the warp where it will be eaten and tortured by Daemons and Dark Gods over several eternities. Unless of course the Emperor defends it, which isn't a guarantee, but if Imperium lose the Emperor is gone too so its really really bad. Besides, Tau are aiming to enslave the galaxy. They don't even really promote the greater good, they are more socialist than anything else. Once they conquer the galaxy they have no more need for the auxiliaries like Kroot or humans.