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iproxtaco wrote:

Being good and evil are on the opposite ends of a scale, with neutral at the middle. The Imperium is on the evil side of Neutral, but not actually wholly evil. The Tau and the Eldar are on the other side, but they aren't wholly good. Orks and Tyranids are neutral. Chaos and the Necrons are evil

iproxtaco wrote:True, the C'tan don't need to harvest the souls of the entire Galaxy, they did because souls tasted better than stars. Pretty evil to me.

Why are the necrons evil in your book when its not their fault their "gods" are that hungry? And in the same boat these nids, whose
hivemind is also hungry... but neutral?

I'd place chaos in all its forms and Dark eldar at evil, the rest is neutral in general but surely good in their own POV.
True neutral, ie not siding because of good/evil are orks, tyranids and necrons. A tendency to join to survive have Humans, Eldar and Tau.
Seems the fully fledged communities ( Eldar craftworlders, IoM ,Tau ) are willing to restrain themselves, whilst those without known civilians
( orks , necrons , nids ) act as pure military affair and we don't know of any agenda of them to place them at good or evil.

That's pretty much what I think, although we differ on what we think of the Necrons.
Tyranids are hungry, because it is their nature and their survival method.
Necrons are controlled by the C'tan, who are sapient creatures wishing to harvest the galaxy, not because they're hungry, but because it tastes good. The Necrons are the C'tan, they serve their masters, and willingly gave themselves to their new bodies, although they had no idea it would strip them of their minds. The Necron Lords however are supposedly largely aware of what they're doing, so they aren't all mindless servants.

iproxtaco wrote:That's pretty much what we said, although we differ on what we think of the Necrons.
Tyranids are hungry, because it is their nature and their survival method.
Necrons are controlled by the C'tan, who are sapient creatures wishing to harvest the galaxy, not because they're hungry, but because it tastes good.

This. A lion isn't evil if it eats you. It's just a lion. On the other hand a human being that chooses to kill another human being because his flesh tastes better than pork chops is quite evil...

Remember that C'Tans are so self centered and "gluttonous" that once tasted their own brethren and discovered that they taste even better than common souls, they all but extinguished each other... Just because it tasted good.

It can be argued that the Hive Mind is somewhat intelligent, but while it may be important on the tactical/strategical level, its overall behavior is quite beast - like: feed and reproduce. Nothing more.

The imperium isn't good, but it's the better than other groups.

The Hive Mind is a tricky thing to define. Essentially it's like an ant colony. The neurons of an average ant colony make about one human brain. The Tyranids, I theorize, are the same, in that the Hive Mind exists in every Tyranid, more strongly in some creatures. It has no definite place of residence. I also theorize that the Hive Mind has no sapient intelligence like a human does, with choices based on emotion and logic. It is again, like a Lion. The Lion is able to pick out weak animals from a heard and cooperate with other Lions to take it down. It has no emotional part to it's decision making, just instinct. The Tyranid Hive Mind exists as more advanced hunter brain.

Nids and Crons are neutral, the former just being an organism programed to devour, and the later are just mindless machines, their masters are evil but 99.9% of necrons are not.

The Necrons are their servants who gave themselves largely willingly into service. The C'tan and the Necrons are a faction, they are evil.

iproxtaco wrote:The Old Ones were nearly destroyed, until they started to sue the Warp as a weapon. Before any conclusion to the War could come, The Enslavers basically destroyed what was left of The C'tans food, so they went into hibernation to wait until The Enslavers were gone and the Galaxy rife with souls again.

They sue'd the warp? Hope it was no win no fee.

The Necrontyr, or Tau.0 as I like to call them, were tricked/coerced into entering those bodies. They were, however, omnicidal before that stage, out of anger at their short lifespans. So yeah, they were bitter genocidal maniacs before, and mindless machines after. I suppose that's technically an improvement, if a stupid one...

The C'tan (more specifically The Deceiver) said
"Oh hey ya'll, whys dont's you just come here and get in these bodies, a likes these new bodies ya'll, maybe yous can serve us with you immortality". They willingly subjected themselves to it, although the trickery part comes in when their minds were dulled. Those who retained themselves, The Necron Lords willingly serve, and command their brethren in service of their Masters.

There are no real good guys in 40k. It's all varying acts of evil all committed for the sake of survival, imo. In the grimdark future of the 41st millennium, it's even hard being a cockroach.

You mean good as a moral position?

They aren't. The Imperium is, as a whole, are bad guys. So is every other faction. There are not good guys in 40k.

iproxtaco wrote:The Necrons are their servants who gave themselves largely willingly into service. The C'tan and the Necrons are a faction, they are evil.

Are we sure it stays that way? Considering the necron rumor thread, this may change and the Lords get more background and in this, personality. The latest BL book including necrons I've read ( dead men walking ) had the necrons "first line of defense" just attacking per instinct, but when a Lord showed up it offered a choice to leave and this may hint on Necrons able to interact if they want to.
Wouldn't write the necrons off as whole as evil. Could change to a faction like any other, where elements are evil and others just alien.

The ancients from the beginning of this galaxy may be above such petty concepts as good vs evil. Plus their role should be cold logic.
Makes the behaviour of necrons recently ( killing nids, harvesting Tau, not attacking BA ) somehow interesting....
...maybe to support the imperium does compute.

Could end as a case of necrons getting splintered into factions still worshipping C'tan and "free necrons" too.
As allys, I think necrons should have a wildcard and join the side lacking numbers but certainly an alliance with chaos or eldar or orks is
IMO unfluffy.

The influence of the C'tan / necrons did something for the IoM, in helping the mechanicum. Is this good?
Or the seeds of evil, rooting in the cult mechanicus?

Yes. I meant morally. There are no good guys and a helluva a lot of bad guys. Mmmm. Evil... It's delicious.

I think this pretty much explains the morality of 40k (NSFW):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-jBnE3LYo4

1hadhq wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:The Necrons are their servants who gave themselves largely willingly into service. The C'tan and the Necrons are a faction, they are evil.

Are we sure it stays that way? Considering the necron rumor thread, this may change and the Lords get more background and in this, personality. The latest BL book including necrons I've read ( dead men walking ) had the necrons "first line of defense" just attacking per instinct, but when a Lord showed up it offered a choice to leave and this may hint on Necrons able to interact if they want to.
Wouldn't write the necrons off as whole as evil. Could change to a faction like any other, where elements are evil and others just alien.

In the future possibly, right now though they're all mindless servants with The Necron Lords having some form of personality whilst still being servants of The C'tan.

The ancients from the beginning of this galaxy may be above such petty concepts as good vs evil. Plus their role should be cold logic.
Makes the behaviour of necrons recently ( killing nids, harvesting Tau, not attacking BA ) somehow interesting....
...maybe to support the imperium does compute.

I dunno, the Blood Angels allegiance thing just annoys the hell put of me. It does just make me think how He Who Must Not Be Named did a lot of bad things to the fluff. It's wildy conflicting between sources, which is why I really want the Necron codex for the fluff clarification, so long as He doesn't write it.

Could end as a case of necrons getting splintered into factions still worshipping C'tan and "free necrons" too.
As allys, I think necrons should have a wildcard and join the side lacking numbers but certainly an alliance with chaos or eldar or orks is
IMO unfluffy.

40k is lacking a non-unified force, that doesn't have this massive apocalytic goal. I don't think The Necrons are it however, I would prefer them to stay as the mindless automatons they are now.

The influence of the C'tan / necrons did something for the IoM, in helping the mechanicum. Is this good?
Or the seeds of evil, rooting in the cult mechanicus?

It's good for speculation at least, it would make a good twist if the story would ever to progress. Maybe there are those who know what The Void Dragon is on Mars and worship it already.

You have a point

@iproxtaco:

I also hope He-who-must-not-be-named would been stuck with rules only or sent to "care" for LoTR
( where the fluff is under someone elses control and GW won't risk their licence... ).

But if were lucky and necrons aren't bound in the same stasis field of eternal M41 ( they should know how to escape ),
all hints go for necrons as not that interested in kicking imperial ass and instead taking down nids.
Could imagine an advancement where necrons see humans as :
- a) food for their masters, and deem themselves the "shepherds" and thus keep the predators off. ( nids ).
- b) already infiltrated ( mechanicum ) and easy to control. Thus primary opponents would be their old enemys and annoying competition.
- c) a pest of tomb raiders, and just want not to be disturbed. Those too curious however will suffer from their ignorance.

Necrons are against nids, against chaos, elfs and orks ( logic vs disorder, undead vs elfs , robots vs fungi ) and the Tau are too annoying.
Leaves only 1 viable "ally" ( in necrons terms, vassal...) > humans.

It is maybe a mistake to see the noctis labyrinthus as a prison only. Maybe it keeps the unwanted out, like a labyrinth as a concept was considered to protect tombs, rather then imprison minotaurs.

Looking forward to have the Dragon repairing the GT, unleashing the glorious Lord of Mankind again.
I mean, if everyone shall unite against the nids, why should the necrons not join in this?

For all I've heard he-who-shall-not-be-named is the credited writer for the Necron codex...

The info on the new codex seems to imply that the C'tan are no more... Or at least that they are a shadow of their current self, and enslaved by the Necrons.

It doesn't sound bad per se (though it DOES contradict standing fluff), but the C'tan being alive and commanding the Necrons makes them much more scary than the Necrons themselves being in control, imho. Now I don't mind the Lord retaining some kind of personality and individuality, but there's a difference between being the actual leaders and nothing more than puppets... Like I said I think that a god-like entity that can consume stars and chooses to wipe life from the galaxy just because it tastes good is much more scary than random robots...

Plus the hate the C'tan have for the warp is a great setup for stories and fights, whereas the motives for the Necrons on their own are somewhat lacking (as things stand right now, I guess you could give 'em some different motives...)

Brother Coa wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Not really, if they managed to crush the Old Ones, the Emperor who just sits there all day won't do much, humanity has already proven that they're fairly noneffective against the Necrons, Space Marines are far too few, as are the Eldar, and the Orks aren't unified enough. Chaos has the best chance.

Why I am not surprised to hear that from a Chaos fan?

- Emperor will resurrect.
- Eldar will all sacrifice and create a new god who will consume Slaanesh, then all resurrect.
- Tyranids will attack in much large numbers.
- Orks will almost all unite.

The Old Ones where defeated by Enslavers, not C'Tan. C'Tan went into hibernation because of the Enslavers. With so much forces in the galaxy and so much War effect C'Tan have almost no chance in winning.

sorry but the emperor can never be resurected if the golden throne is deactivated for even a second, the emporer will probably die

SSsilverskullSS wrote:
sorry but the emperor can never be resurected if the golden throne is deactivated for even a second, the emporer will probably die

To resurrect one first must die...
For more information see Star Child...

but if he dies fully, interstellar travel is extremely dangerous

The Imperium is good because they are human and I think 99.999999% of the people that like 40k are human too. I mean who roots for their own race to be destroyed, but all opinions aside this is grim dark they are all bad guy in the universe.

Nicholas wrote: I mean who roots for their own race to be destroyed

Eco-terrorists and all round environment fanatics?

SSsilverskullSS wrote:How is the imperium so good if all they do is kill anything other than humanity, take over and obliterate entire planets, in my books thats a bad thing to do

The Imperium isn't "good". It's all the worst aspects of the worst regimes of human history.

However, it's also better than the alternative of either the annihilation of the human race or the twisted netherrealm of the Warp overrruning the galaxy. Not a great choice, but if it's either "****sux" or "dead" then...

Everyone is good in their own mind; Imperium comes off as "good" since, well, they're us. Also, the average Guardsman or Imperial Citizen isn't that bad, it's the people who indoctrinate them who are at fault here.

SSsilverskullSS wrote:How is the imperium so good if all they do is kill anything other than humanity, take over and obliterate entire planets, in my books thats a bad thing to do

Don't think their supposed to be "good". Think of it as an ultra authoritarian monarchy were any nonbelievers or doubters are burned as heretics, and those are the humans! Xenos have no chance!

Every race is good within their own perception of themselves.
Individuals in these races are generally moral, but their governments ie. The Imperium, has little or no morals. That said, they aren't wholly evil, just not bound by the same morality of the average citizen, because they can't be.