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While the Imperium has the official policy of engaging in wars of extermination against any and all alien races that might even minutely become a threat to humanity at some point in time, it is canon that there are several alien protectorates within the Imperium, with the residents allowed to live their lives but are then restricted to their native world or system. Is there any fluff or other information about any of these races? Also, what is their specific relationship to the Imperium? Are there any secret xenos agents working for the Imperial government, or maybe even top secret alien specialist commando squads or other units? Given how front and center the ideology of 'suffer not the alien to live' is ingrained into Imperial ideology and policy, I would love to know more about this topic and how these arrangements are specifically portrayed in the lore.

I believe it would be aliens that aren't aggressive or immediately threatening marked for extermination when someone has a spare battlefleet equipped for Exterminatus laying around.

Also aliens that are armed with stuff that the Imperium can't handle would be quarantined and largely left alone.

I imagine the Ordo Xenos would have lots of assets involved in suppressing, infiltrating and generally messing with any such protectorates as eventually they would need to be cleansed for the glory of the imperium.

There's also useful aliens like Jokaero whom are highly regulated.

 Flinty wrote:
Also aliens that are armed with stuff that the Imperium can't handle would be quarantined and largely left alone.

Eg. The Megarachnids and the Barghesi.

 Melissia wrote:
There's also useful aliens like Jokaero whom are highly regulated.

Well - they pretend that Jokaero are regulated and the apes don't say anything different.

Otherwise its 40k so it depends.....as others have said some will be isolated and some second class or worse citizens. However even a long established relationship could be overturned by a new Inquisitor in the area or a new Bishop etc...

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Also aliens that are armed with stuff that the Imperium can't handle would be quarantined and largely left alone.

Eg. The Megarachnids and the Barghesi.

I thought the Imperium fully wiped out the Megarachnids.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Also aliens that are armed with stuff that the Imperium can't handle would be quarantined and largely left alone.

Eg. The Megarachnids and the Barghesi.

I thought the Imperium fully wiped out the Megarachnids.

I think they did shortly before the HH?

 Mr Morden wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Also aliens that are armed with stuff that the Imperium can't handle would be quarantined and largely left alone.

Eg. The Megarachnids and the Barghesi.

I thought the Imperium fully wiped out the Megarachnids.

I think they did shortly before the HH?

yeah when they first made contact. it was the Interax that quarrintined them, and that was more of a "we won't wipe out a species" then "we can't manage these guys"

Apologies for the slight necro, but I've just finished 'Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work', and this is in chapter 1 -

Nice find, I think that’s the first direct reference to an alien protectorate, outside of possible considering the laer.

beast_gts wrote:
Apologies for the slight necro, but I've just finished 'Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work', and this is in chapter 1 -

Spoiler:

‘This is the last,’ she said. Marbled, opaque, silvery liquid that moved to currents of its own filled the glass cylinder. ‘The Adarnians are gone. The last rendered down. Their world is empty. Once I inject this dose, there will be no more. I am sorry.’
The Adarnian race was decreed harmless during the Great Crusade, and allowed to live under an Imperial protectorate. It had not prevented them being harvested to extinction. Unluckily for them, their body chemistry had miraculous effects on the human organism.

If these aliens are "miraculous", why in the warp would they be driven to extinction? Was the knowledge of animal husbandry lost during the Age of Strife or something?

Sorry, I'm just ranting.

Tiennos wrote:
If these aliens are "miraculous", why in the warp would they be driven to extinction? Was the knowledge of animal husbandry lost during the Age of Strife or something?

Sorry, I'm just ranting.

Because it's a plot device This is from a bit later on -

I would imagine a combination of lack of knowledge of what the aliens needed (like how some animals or plants have not been successfully raised in captivity), combined with intense greed/demand for using the remaining supply. Imagine some rich individual within the Imperium facing death and offering a life changing amount of money to someone else for more life, even if it meant rendering down the last supply.

beast_gts wrote:
Apologies for the slight necro, but I've just finished 'Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work', and this is in chapter 1 -

Spoiler:

‘This is the last,’ she said. Marbled, opaque, silvery liquid that moved to currents of its own filled the glass cylinder. ‘The Adarnians are gone. The last rendered down. Their world is empty. Once I inject this dose, there will be no more. I am sorry.’
The Adarnian race was decreed harmless during the Great Crusade, and allowed to live under an Imperial protectorate. It had not prevented them being harvested to extinction. Unluckily for them, their body chemistry had miraculous effects on the human organism.

That's horrific. I love it.

I can't imagine any alien species faring well longterm under imperial protection.

Iracundus wrote:
I would imagine a combination of lack of knowledge of what the aliens needed (like how some animals or plants have not been successfully raised in captivity), combined with intense greed/demand for using the remaining supply. Imagine some rich individual within the Imperium facing death and offering a life changing amount of money to someone else for more life, even if it meant rendering down the last supply.

I'd guess that in order for them to be declared a protectorate they'd either have to be not many of them or they have a very low tech-level (and there be nothing else on the planet worth anything). It might be that by the time the illegal 'poaching' was spotted the population was already unsustainable.

To me that sounds like gratuitous genocide just to make the story more grimdark for the sake of grimdark, but whatever. To each his own.

Tiennos wrote:
To me that sounds like gratuitous genocide just to make the story more grimdark for the sake of grimdark, but whatever. To each his own.

I think the genocide is analogous to previous and current human driven extinctions like with megafauna, the dodo, and the current hunting of tigers for "medical" benefits.

Humans don't change.

"Gratuitous Xenocide" sounds like a great name for a Deathwatch Strike Cruiser.

Nurglitch wrote:
"Gratuitous Xenocide" sounds like a great name for a Deathwatch Strike Cruiser.

Its actually the name of Angron's popemobile.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
To me that sounds like gratuitous genocide just to make the story more grimdark for the sake of grimdark, but whatever. To each his own.

I think the genocide is analogous to previous and current human driven extinctions like with megafauna, the dodo, and the current hunting of tigers for "medical" benefits.

Humans don't change.

Humans drive species to extinction mostly due to their tendency of wrecking the habitats that animals need to live. Hunting is only a problem for species that are already struggling to survive, usually. The dodo is a bit unusual in that regard.
But if people knew that dodos could be turned into magical youth elixir or whatever, I doubt they'd have eaten every single one of them.

As an opposite example: look a the horseshoe crab. Those critters' weird blood is very valuable for medical applications. There are conservation efforts to keep the species from disappearing rather than just bleed every single one dry...

Could just be the Tragedy of the Commons.

Tiennos wrote:

As an opposite example: look a the horseshoe crab. Those critters' weird blood is very valuable for medical applications. There are conservation efforts to keep the species from disappearing rather than just bleed every single one dry...

The Horseshoe Crabians: Threat or Menace?
An essay on the certain necessity of annihilation, by Inquisitor Maximus Thaddeus Rayge

Tiennos wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
To me that sounds like gratuitous genocide just to make the story more grimdark for the sake of grimdark, but whatever. To each his own.

I think the genocide is analogous to previous and current human driven extinctions like with megafauna, the dodo, and the current hunting of tigers for "medical" benefits.

Humans don't change.

Humans drive species to extinction mostly due to their tendency of wrecking the habitats that animals need to live. Hunting is only a problem for species that are already struggling to survive, usually. The dodo is a bit unusual in that regard.
But if people knew that dodos could be turned into magical youth elixir or whatever, I doubt they'd have eaten every single one of them.

As an opposite example: look a the horseshoe crab. Those critters' weird blood is very valuable for medical applications. There are conservation efforts to keep the species from disappearing rather than just bleed every single one dry...

Fair point in the case of the crab, but that's where an effort has been made to conserve a valuable species, something that wasn't done with this alien. Also in the case of the habitat loss etc but that's more recent history.

I wouldn't say hunting is a problem for species that are struggling to survive so I disagree. Animals (or in this case Xenos) that develop without a natural predator become extremely successful (see gigantism) in their environment but quickly die when a predator like a human is introduced. It's a really common occurrence, from humans to other invasive species.

Tragedy of the Commons can explain it all.

As the resource becomes scarcer, it becomes more valuable, and the temptation rises even more to use it while you still can (or sell it off for ever higher prices). It becomes a race to the bottom, of who can consume or exploit the most the fastest before it is all gone.

Tiennos wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
To me that sounds like gratuitous genocide just to make the story more grimdark for the sake of grimdark, but whatever. To each his own.

I think the genocide is analogous to previous and current human driven extinctions like with megafauna, the dodo, and the current hunting of tigers for "medical" benefits.

Humans don't change.

Humans drive species to extinction mostly due to their tendency of wrecking the habitats that animals need to live. Hunting is only a problem for species that are already struggling to survive, usually. The dodo is a bit unusual in that regard.
But if people knew that dodos could be turned into magical youth elixir or whatever, I doubt they'd have eaten every single one of them.

As an opposite example: look a the horseshoe crab. Those critters' weird blood is very valuable for medical applications. There are conservation efforts to keep the species from disappearing rather than just bleed every single one dry...

Look at the people of Easter island. The trees on there were vital for life on the island and they chopped them all down. Then starved. Even when there was only one left, they still cut it down. Humans are dicks. Greedy, selfish dicks.

Andykp wrote:

Tiennos wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
To me that sounds like gratuitous genocide just to make the story more grimdark for the sake of grimdark, but whatever. To each his own.

I think the genocide is analogous to previous and current human driven extinctions like with megafauna, the dodo, and the current hunting of tigers for "medical" benefits.

Humans don't change.

Humans drive species to extinction mostly due to their tendency of wrecking the habitats that animals need to live. Hunting is only a problem for species that are already struggling to survive, usually. The dodo is a bit unusual in that regard.
But if people knew that dodos could be turned into magical youth elixir or whatever, I doubt they'd have eaten every single one of them.

As an opposite example: look a the horseshoe crab. Those critters' weird blood is very valuable for medical applications. There are conservation efforts to keep the species from disappearing rather than just bleed every single one dry...

Look at the people of Easter island. The trees on there were vital for life on the island and they chopped them all down. Then starved. Even when there was only one left, they still cut it down. Humans are dicks. Greedy, selfish dicks.

In all fairness I'm not sure they actually knew they were that important and IIRC they were used to build more religious stuff to solve their problems.

Humans aren't all that evil. Most of the time it's just stupidity.

Okay, but the people living on Easter Island were primitives who were basically clueless concerning biology and ecology. Does this mean the Imperium has regressed that far?

Anyways, it's possible that these xenos were devastated by pollution or disease or war or plenty of other things, but the way it's written makes it sound that they were specifically destroyed because they were harvested to the last, even though that seems to have been forbidden. If there's so much money to be made, I'm surprised no one decided to grab a bunch and farm them like cattle.

To be fair, remember what this "elixer" did. It staved off the painful and debilitating symptoms of disease and illness. But only for a short time. People suffering from these things tend to be extremely desperate for relief and ignorant of the consequences.

And, I'd assume, maintaining a breeding population of the things while also staying "under the radar" of the Arbites would be extremely difficult and dangerous, so most criminal enterprises would probably just go with the far easier and safer option of just pouching the ones that are already there.

 flandarz wrote:
To be fair, remember what this "elixer" did. It staved off the painful and debilitating symptoms of disease and illness. But only for a short time. People suffering from these things tend to be extremely desperate for relief and ignorant of the consequences.

And, I'd assume, maintaining a breeding population of the things while also staying "under the radar" of the Arbites would be extremely difficult and dangerous, so most criminal enterprises would probably just go with the far easier and safer option of just pouching the ones that are already there.

Unless the population is already on the verge of extinction, it takes a hell of a lot of poaching to end a species. Imagine there's, say, 100 000 of these xenos on their home planet. That's already a really tiny number for an entire species and removing a few hundreds a year wouldn't make a difference.

So either the population was minuscule to begin with and these guys would have been wiped out anyway by the first ork waagh! popping up nearby, or the Arbites are incredibly bad at their job and people have smuggled thousands of these guys over several decades or even centuries. Considering how the Imperium is, I guess incompetence and corruption would be the best explanation...