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There is this argument of "hate" threads which comes down to:

- people want their choosen faction to be grimdark
- grimdarkness comes in spades if everyone is evil
- if everyone is evil, no one shall be not evil

Thus claims like this were made:
Q: (of mine) Tabletop wargamers want their chosen faction to massacre someone?

A: ( of tau support) Obviously many 40k gamers can't live with one fraction not being TH3 3VULZZZ. That's what is at the root of all Tau hate.

Really?
What does dakka think about it?

Every races has elements of "the grim" in it, but they're all not equally evil

Inb4 IoM flamestorm...

A flamestorm?

The IoM admits its actions.
Its a vast organization with all shades from black to white and lots of greys inbetween.

But the question at hand is:

- is evil neccessary to be a faction in the 40k verse?

Fair. It was in ill taste.

Every single faction in 40k is, to some extent and in some way, evil. Even Tau. My comment came from my expectation that insinuating Tau are not evil (maybe you were, maybe you weren't) will bring all the Imperial fanboys flaming the Tau's 'lack of logic', 'Mary Sue-ishness', and them trying to prove that Imperial technology is 'better' than the Tau's. See what I mean?

Could cut the reference out. It may still be too obvious who is claiming his faction is not evil at all.

Would a reminder the question of the poll includes every existant and possible new faction help?






For the sake of the thread, please do not start to prove the mary-sue ishness or superior tech or lack therof of any faction of 40k, thanks.

Don't worry, I'm not. All I'm saying is that mentioning the Tau - and just the Tau - is an iffy thing to do if you're going for an unbiased result.

Each faction can be considered evil or good depending on the point of view they are looked at from.

EX: IoM Slaughters thousands of psykers daily in order to maintain interstellar travel for the rest of mankind. obviosly, killing thousands of people seems evil. but forcing the entire empire to fend for itself would be FAR worse.

From a cold survivalist standpoint not many of the factions come across as evil. Tyranids are a purely primal force that simply arrive on a planet and take Everything out of it before leaving. They have no intention behind it other then to continue to survive which is neither inherently good nor evil. By a similar token Necrons could be taken, they kill at the order of their gods. They themselves have no feeling so don't do it out of hate or love, so I think in this circumstance to there is no 'good' or 'evil'.

I don't get this whole "Tau are the good guys" point of view.

Don't they basically brainwash everyone to think their way with pheremones and propaganda? Also they practice eugenics, sterilisation and basically go around their sector of space subjugating all that they meet in any way possible? Just because they say they are the good guys everyone seems to believe them.

Tau, when they were originally released, were more or less idealistic good guys. They were retconned slightly in their current ruleset to make them more grimdark.

Retribution wrote:Every races has elements of "the grim" in it, but they're all not equally evil

Here here! I voted the last option, as I do not think that a pure, unambiguous "good guy" belongs in 40K. Tau are borderline, but within bounds. 40K is made of shades of grey and black. There is not any room for white, just light shades of grey. I personally liked the progression of the tau from an idealistic expantionist movement to a socialist oligarchy that breaks the Geneva Convention daily, still obstinently in the name of the greater good. Their Pure, whitey-white purey-pureness got dirty. It is charecter development, as far as it goes. A meta-kinda-sorta development, but there it is nonetheless.

Obviously, nomatter how much anyone wants to argue about it, the IoM is less evil than, say, the CSM and Dark Mechanicum, but that doesn't make the IoM superheros saving the day, even if they are generally agreed upon as the protagonist.

I think it's a stupid idea. The 40k universe is a place where not being evil is a handicap, but that does not mean that all factions should be evil, only that a good faction's unwillingness to take shortcuts will slow them down. Frankly, the idea of a good faction that has a hard time holding its own because nobody else fights fair is more interesting than another evil faction for the sake of GRIMDARK.

Big Mek Dattrukk wrote:EX: IoM Slaughters thousands of psykers daily in order to maintain interstellar travel for the rest of mankind. obviosly, killing thousands of people seems evil. but forcing the entire empire to fend for itself would be FAR worse.

If feeding these psykers to the Golden Throne was morally justified, it would only be because those psykers are justifiably believed to be a significant threat to everyone around them (either directly or through the risk of daemonic possession), not simply because the Imperium is willing to throw a few psykers under the bus for their own benefit.

Himmmmm. interesting. I will watch this debate and may even post...opps that was quick.

As was already posted, most of the races' "evil" actions are for survival. it's simply a matter of how far they will go- and for most races their mantra is "the ends justify the means". GW has created a universe where many of the races have to do distasteful things to get by. Of course there are those who do evil for the sake of evil. Those are the real "bad guys".

AlexHolker wrote:If feeding these psykers to the Golden Throne was morally justified, it would only be because those psykers are justifiably believed to be a significant threat to everyone around them (either directly or through the risk of daemonic possession), not simply because the Imperium is willing to throw a few psykers under the bus for their own benefit.

Without those sacrifices the Imperium would collapse and the xenos/traitor/heretic would descend upon the stranded remnants of the Imperium and tear it apart. It's balancing the lives of thousands versus trillions (virtually the entire Imperium). Utilitarianism would certainly view that as morally justified.


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Wraithlordmechanic wrote:As was already posted, most of the races' "evil" actions are for survival. it's simply a matter of how far they will go- and for most races their mantra is "the ends justify the means". GW has created a universe where many of the races have to do distasteful things to get by. Of course there are those who do evil for the sake of evil. Those are the real "bad guys".

Well, Dark Eldar are up there.
Chaos too, I'm guessing.
Necrons would be considered evil I suppose, I mean, I don't really see a valid reason behind their whole "Kill all Life" program.
Tyranids are just plain inconsiderate and not very green, so they're out too.
Orks are a violent, disruptive lot. And there's not even a reason for it. I mean, maybe it's instinctual but there's plenty of stuff they do that most people would view as plain evil. (Giving human children live grenades as sport was one I remember)
Other than that, most evil actions conducted by the remaining races more often than not have a good reason behind them.

I maintain that Tyranids are in absolutely no way 'evil'. They don't even understand evil. They're just hungry. Does a Termagant get all upset when he gets killed? No. So why should his dinner?

SumYungGui wrote:I maintain that Tyranids are in absolutely no way 'evil'. They don't even understand evil. They're just hungry. Does a Termagant get all upset when he gets killed? No. So why should his dinner?

Define 'evil'.

I dont believe in the black and whiteness of "good" and "evil". But I do believe in justice and morality. while the IoM is a symbol for justice, doing whatever it takes for the benefit of the imperium, its hardly moral.

I think that the different factions should just have different balances of justice and morality to create more diversity of "good" and "evil". Somethings like the DE who completely lack both morality and justice, all the way to the tau who look out for the greater good and the individual within there society...

Emperors Faithful wrote:Without those sacrifices the Imperium would collapse and the xenos/traitor/heretic would descend upon the stranded remnants of the Imperium and tear it apart. It's balancing the lives of thousands versus trillions (virtually the entire Imperium). Utilitarianism would certainly view that as morally justified.

That would be relevant, if I was a Utilitarian. Just because a position has a label does not mean it is valid.

SumYungGui wrote:I maintain that Tyranids are in absolutely no way 'evil'. They don't even understand evil. They're just hungry. Does a Termagant get all upset when he gets killed? No. So why should his dinner?

The Termagant is not evil, as it is little more than an animal given purpose by psychic control, but the Hive Mind is.

Swarm of ants kills a family of 4 including a 6 month old infant in south america... are the ants evil?

Laughing God wrote:Swarm of ants kills a family of 4 including a 6 month old infant in south america... are the ants evil?

No, but neither is the man who exterminates the whole lot of them.

AlexHolker wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Without those sacrifices the Imperium would collapse and the xenos/traitor/heretic would descend upon the stranded remnants of the Imperium and tear it apart. It's balancing the lives of thousands versus trillions (virtually the entire Imperium). Utilitarianism would certainly view that as morally justified.

That would be relevant, if I was a Utilitarian. Just because a position has a label does not mean it is valid.

Well, that was just one ideology. Care to label one that doesn't? (Relativism aside, becuase that's not going to work with different races)

Trickstick wrote:I don't get this whole "Tau are the good guys" point of view.

Don't they basically brainwash everyone to think their way with pheremones and propaganda? Also they practice eugenics, sterilisation and basically go around their sector of space subjugating all that they meet in any way possible? Just because they say they are the good guys everyone seems to believe them.

So you hold that every faction must be evil.


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If people cannot stick to the point I will lock the thread.

All the factions, out of Context, are evil. In context...

Imperium of man (As a whole): LN. Do vicious, brutal things, but for the sake of survival.

Craftworld Eldar: LN. See IOM.

Tau: LN. A bunch of Fascists, but they put "Join us or" before "die".

Chaos(ALL): CE. Destroyers for Destrucions sake.

Dark Eldar: CE. Sure, they are doing it for survival, but they enjoy it a bit to much.

Tyranids: N. They are simply hungry, in a predator-prey relationship with the galaxy.

Necrons: LE. Vicious, methodical murder machines who sold their souls for power.

Orks: CN. the Orks big problem is the fact tha they do not understand that others may not enjoy being run through by a rusty sword.

@1hadhq: When daemons materialize, all bets about human evil are off. 40k is the ultimate fascist wetdream, where "what must be done" must actually be done. By IRL standards, yes: to fit into 40k, a faction must be sinister in one way or another.

well what if evil, by 40k definition, is feeding the Primordial Annhilator (aka the 4 Chaos Gods)? If that is the case then wouldn't every faction be evil in some way? I mean Orks feed the crap out of Khorne and Slaanesh(Greed, Excess), Tyranids feed Slaanesh (greed again) and Khorne. Everyone feeds Nurgle, The Necrons feed Khorne, and even the Tau feed Zeentch with their innovations and rapidly evolving civilization.

I think a lot of 40k is about living in the grey without clear black and whte.

For example the book flesh and iron which is a great example of this grey; making the reader think 'what would i do in this situation?'

Manchu wrote:... to fit into 40k, a faction must be sinister in one way or another.

So a certain degree of sinister is neccessary to fit? But how much is enough to gain entry into 40k?

- a few 'accidents' ?
- a secret agenda?
- a general tendency to violence?
- a healthy dose of fanatism ?

IMO, you don't need to be evil 24 hours a day, but you have to be flexible enough to act from "dark grey/near black" to "light grey/ maybe white if ignorant".
A faction unable to do bad/ evil things is rather unbelievable for me,as I expect more than one personality in any faction worth of mentioning in a Galaxy wide eternal
war, which is 40k.

1hadhq wrote: - a general tendency to violence?

In a universe where everyone is constantly at war, you don't survive long without a general tendency to do violence as a society. But I think viewing it as a whole isn't going to get you to any conclusion. If you were to view all of real life humanity throughout all of history, we would most likely be considered evil by a neutral, third party observer who had the same definitions as us.
We kill each other constantly, we let each other starve, we kill things that are different than us to eat, etc. Some things are justifiable from out point of view just as they would most likely be from any Ork, Tau, or Space Marine's.
40k does a good job of not needing to have a "good guy" because when everyone's fighting for their survival, the only one that's right is you and possibly your side/race.