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 raiden wrote:
nids are evil, if chaos is evil, also, I don't see how the eldar are evil in any way, (snooty, perhaps)but that hardly warrents evil, and Orks, ahh, good ole fun loving orks, can be seen as evil for their love of violence, (almost makes khorne shed a tear ;')

How are Tyranids evil? That's like calling a tornado evil.

Now keep in mind this is simply my personal opinion.... Is chaos good? Is chaos evil? Honestly, I argue chaos is neither. Chaos is, if I would pick anything, naturally chaotic neutral. What is a chaos god? What is the warp? The warp is something that is there and not. A sifting world of ether and nonsense that the human mind constructs in constantly shifting yet similar forms. The gods both exists as an entity and simply as a mass off swirling power. Chaos isn't evil nor is it good. It is everything. The gods represent both good virtues and bad virtues. Some have predispositions (particularly Khorne to being one of the more "evil" ones) yet even he has some virtues. To not slay the defenseless is his. Look at somebody like Tzeentch. He feeds off of dreams, desires, ambition, hope, change. Are these not things that can be both positive and negative?

Chaos is simply by itself neither. What it is... is a reflection of the world itself. The real world survives on senseless murder, inequality, and suffering. War is eternal and the worlds crumble apart. The poor lament decaying of disease whilst the rich live ages in pleasure scheming to grow mightier. And how does the warp react? It grows increasingly corrupt. The spiral continues as more and more senseless murder occurs until those "positive" emotions are blotched out by the darkness. Whilst a few glimmers remain they are vastly outnumbered by the GRIMDAK! And so in the end chaos begins to spew out, in a sort of loop, daemons (negativity) increasing the suffering eternally.

In terms of races... Whilst to our interpretation (as we are about to get gobbled up), many would call them evil. Yet look at it from a more observant way. They are acting upon their instincts. They are more of a typhoon of mother nature/evolution than anything else. Arguably you can state that chaos isn't evil as much as a mirror of the world (which happens to be evil so in the end ). Orks? Well they just like to have fun! That being said they brutalitize, murder, back stab, and enslave. And finally you have the people you couldn't think of being evil. Eldar. What are they? Liers, deceitful, overly arrogant. They created a god from their own selfish pleasures. They are willing to slaughter a million humans to save a single Eldar life whilst their lore claims that their race must die for their time to return. They are not kind nor are they generous. The only seperations between an eldar and dark eldar is that one chose to continue their pleasure rampage whilst the other did not.

curran12 wrote:And what, exactly, is there to like or admire about Chaos?

Lots of things.

People who don't get chaos are people who just aren't thinking big enough. The meek get nothing but a short life filled with suffering. The powerful can change the world, or, as it is, the galaxy. Only when you have power can you set things straight.

 curran12 wrote:

 raiden wrote:
nids are evil, if chaos is evil, also, I don't see how the eldar are evil in any way, (snooty, perhaps)but that hardly warrents evil, and Orks, ahh, good ole fun loving orks, can be seen as evil for their love of violence, (almost makes khorne shed a tear ;')

How are Tyranids evil? That's like calling a tornado evil.

the beings themselves arent, just the hive mind, it is sentient enough to realize it is wiping out entire civilizations and stripping all galaxies of life, and doesn't care and goes on its merry way, thats evil.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:

curran12 wrote:And what, exactly, is there to like or admire about Chaos?

Lots of things.

People who don't get chaos are people who just aren't thinking big enough. The meek get nothing but a short life filled with suffering. The powerful can change the world, or, as it is, the galaxy. Only when you have power can you set things straight.

I like this. !

 curran12 wrote:

And what, exactly, is there to like or admire about Chaos?

The fact that they are way more badass than about 92.435435% of the Imperium.

The Chaos Gods are not even sentient. They can't be evil.

 Ailaros wrote:
Lots of things.

You seem to have the impression that Chaos are a load of freedom fighters, letting people express themselves however they want and trying to liberate humanity. But they're not, they're even more oppressive than the Imperium. To a Chaos god, a human is a plaything, to be twisted mind, body and soul in whatever way that Chaos desires. You don't get any say in the matter. If you resist, you'll have those changes forced upon you anyway. You don't get to be the best you that you can be, you get to be the you that Chaos forces you to be.

 Ailaros wrote:
The meek get nothing but a short life filled with suffering.

The problem being that you or I would most likely be considered "meek" next to a massive superhuman.

Chaos would be considered heinously, unspeakably, incomprehensibly evil by most other universe's bad guy factions. We're talking Hitler would piss himself in terror level evil.

Of course the 40k ladder of morality starts at the substnatially worse than Adolf Hitler and Friends Tau Empire and only gets more and more evil until you get to the Dark Eldar who pretty much just flat out break the scale of being a horrible person.

Every major faction in 40k is literally at least a thousand times worse than the Nazis and more unrepentantly evil.

Everyone is extremely evil to some degree, Chaos and the Dark Eldar are so evil that their immorality collapses into a black hole of unstoppable horribleness from which only bad may escape.

It a matter of perspective.

On the world where you grew up, worshiping the pantheon as you were told to by your elders, where you farm Grox and say your prays every night, giving thanks to the Great Four. Then one day it all changed, when Iron Clad warriors from the stars came down and warred with your kindred for no reason other than not knowing about a mythical figure called the God Emperor. You had only ever been told of four, so who was this pretender. Your people had done no wrong, you had been good, so why were they being slaughtered? You pray to the Pantheon for help, for blood, death, hope and joyous victory, you pray and the Gods answer.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
It a matter of perspective.

On the world where you grew up, worshiping the pantheon as you were told to by your elders, where you farm Grox and say your prays every night, giving thanks to the Great Four. Then one day it all changed, when Iron Clad warriors from the stars came down and warred with your kindred for no reason other than not knowing about a mythical figure called the God Emperor. You had only ever been told of four, so who was this pretender. Your people had done no wrong, you had been good, so why were they being slaughtered? You pray to the Pantheon for help, for blood, death, hope and joyous victory, you pray and the Gods answer.

Alternatively, you see a small metal object in the sky and something plunging down to the surface.

And then everything burns while your planet turns itself inside out before exploding into a new asteroid belt.

 Kain wrote:

 Pilau Rice wrote:
It a matter of perspective.

On the world where you grew up, worshiping the pantheon as you were told to by your elders, where you farm Grox and say your prays every night, giving thanks to the Great Four. Then one day it all changed, when Iron Clad warriors from the stars came down and warred with your kindred for no reason other than not knowing about a mythical figure called the God Emperor. You had only ever been told of four, so who was this pretender. Your people had done no wrong, you had been good, so why were they being slaughtered? You pray to the Pantheon for help, for blood, death, hope and joyous victory, you pray and the Gods answer.

Alternatively, you see a small metal object in the sky and something plunging down to the surface.

And then everything burns while your planet turns itself inside out before exploding into a new asteroid belt.

Or that yeah, but only the guy who presses the button gets all the fun

Chaos = More eviler than Skeletor!

Maybe chaos is a little bit evil then...

But hands down the most twisted and perverse EVIL race in the universe is the dark elder...

What is evil anyway?
Is there reason to the rhyme?
Without Evil there can be no good,
so it must be good to be evil sometimes.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
It a matter of perspective.

On the world where you grew up, worshiping the pantheon as you were told to by your elders, where you farm Grox and say your prays every night, giving thanks to the Great Four. Then one day it all changed, when Iron Clad warriors from the stars came down and warred with your kindred for no reason other than not knowing about a mythical figure called the God Emperor. You had only ever been told of four, so who was this pretender. Your people had done no wrong, you had been good, so why were they being slaughtered? You pray to the Pantheon for help, for blood, death, hope and joyous victory, you pray and the Gods answer.

I'll admit I have not read much in the way of the chaos black library books, but everything I have seen in the codex points to something more like this.

On the world where you grew up, never seeing the sun except for when you were brought up from the mines to be ritually scarred in honor of the 4 gods you are forced to worship, you hear a strange rumbling one day. Out of the sky comes large iron pods with great warriors in them who march forth slaughtering the daemonic beings that made the life of you and the other villagers a living nightmare. You shed a tear wishing your parents were alive to see this, but sady they were used as playthings for a Slaanesh orgy last festivus and did not survive the evening.
The great warriors leave and within a day a large number of women in strange armor arrive preaching of a new god, one god who made a great sacrifice in order to save all of mankind from the monstrous false gods that would prey on them. The women are handing out food, medical supplies and offer protection. All that they ask is you forsake the gods that maimed you, and devote yourself to this 'God Emperor' who asks only that you worship him.

 Dannyevilguy wrote:
The great warriors leave and within a day a large number of women With Flamers in strange armor arrive preaching of a new god, one god who made a great sacrifice in order to save all of mankind from the monstrous false gods that would prey on them. The women With Flamers are handing out food, medical supplies and offer protection. All that they ask With Flamers is you forsake the gods that maimed you, and at flamer point devote yourself to this 'God Emperor' who asks only that you worship him.

Fix'd
Oh, and the opt out policy is flamers too.

Ps, you know your uncle dave, the one with the club foot? they flamered him for being tainted. Your mate Geoff who didn't want to worship anymore? he got flamered too.
Where can you go to complain about this harsh treatment?
Step over here, thats right, just a little bit further. If you could just make sure you aren't blocking the nozzle...

fwoom, whoosh, other flamer type noises...

Chaos worlds are exterminatus'd. Imperial worlds invaded may potentially be saved if the taint hasn't spread too far, but the population still may not be.

Chaos is obviously evil. And so is Imperium. They're just different sorts of evil. Casting Chaos as bad guys and Imperium as good guys is missing the point.

I'll clarify that saying that the Chaos gods are evil is actually evil is debatable, since they are essentially just constructs of emotion, so we could compare them to a natural disaster. They couldn't act any other way.

But are they bad? Yes, certainly. The baddest, in fact.

 PredaKhaine wrote:

 Dannyevilguy wrote:
The great warriors leave and within a day a large number of women With Flamers in strange armor arrive preaching of a new god, one god who made a great sacrifice in order to save all of mankind from the monstrous false gods that would prey on them. The women With Flamers are handing out food, medical supplies and offer protection. All that they ask With Flamers is you forsake the gods that maimed you, and at flamer point devote yourself to this 'God Emperor' who asks only that you worship him.

Fix'd

Ha!

 Dannyevilguy wrote:
You shed a tear wishing your parents were alive to see this, but sady they were used as playthings for a Slaanesh orgy last festivus and did not survive the evening

And boy, did they have a good time.

There is no question, Chaos is so evil that it makes anything else pale in comparison, hell I think even the most deranged pdictaotr on earth and in the ages to come would be hard pressed to be anything remotely as evil as the rank & file Chaos marine is

There are no 'good guys' in 40k. That is one of the major bullet points of the setting. Everyone is some level of amoral, bloodthirsty or downright evil. The difference between the Imperium and Chaos is:

The Imperium commits atrocities because it is necessary for the survival of the human race.
Chaos commits atrocities 'cause it's fun.

Can there be 'good' Chaos followers? Sure. For a while. But Chaos is a corrupting force. The noble knight who follows Khorne will eventually become a blood-mad berserker.

Someone may turn to Chaos believing it will give them the power to 'set things right', but once they have that power, they only crave more power and control.

 ashrog wrote:

The Imperium commits atrocities because it is necessary for the survival of the human race.

Or so they say.

Chaos commits atrocities 'cause it's fun.

Fun sounds fun.

There's no such thing as good or evil, it's all just a matter of opinion.

We say that Chaos/the Imperium etc are evil because we, personally, dislike what they do. But why are murder, torture, slavery etc deemed "bad"?

Because we choose them to be.

What if we saw life as a tedious slog that we have to put up with?
What if we relished the sensory overload brought on by torture?
What if we believed that freedom was too much responsibility for most people to handle and that we felt content in the servitude of a master?

Then, suddenly, a gang of Khorne Berzerkers go from a mass of blood thirsty lunatics to a bunch of bros who are just cutting short the boredom of countless people in the name of the the god of fun.

 ashrog wrote:
There are no 'good guys' in 40k. That is one of the major bullet points of the setting. Everyone is some level of amoral, bloodthirsty or downright evil. The difference between the Imperium and Chaos is:

The Imperium commits atrocities because it is necessary for the survival of the human race.
Chaos commits atrocities 'cause it's fun.

Can there be 'good' Chaos followers? Sure. For a while. But Chaos is a corrupting force. The noble knight who follows Khorne will eventually become a blood-mad berserker.

Someone may turn to Chaos believing it will give them the power to 'set things right', but once they have that power, they only crave more power and control.

Chaos did not create itself. Chaos mirrors the feelings of mortals (oomies and panzee).

Eldar partied (really) hard and that lead to the creation of Slaanesh. Slaanesh did not just "poof" into existance.

Chaos is only as evil as you are.

I went for the total evil option. Only Tzeentch has any redeeming factors about him and thats only because he schemes for the sake of scheeming and will even mess up his own plans, for the day when Tzeentch stops scheming is the day he stops existing. So its a case of survival for him.

The others however are just totally evil beyond belief.

Khorne - The god of murder, need I say more? Some people say he is also the god of martial honour but so what? He craves skulls for the skull throne like some freaky psychopath who buries dead bodies in his basement and likes nothing better than to take enjoyment in massive slaughter. Totally evil.

Slaneesh - The god of sick and twisted deviant pleasures. I don't think I need to expand on this really. We're talking pleasure from torturing people, pleasure from being tortured, drugs, etc, etc. And thats without all the sick sexual stuff which I just won't go into.

Nurgle - The fat and smelly god who like to spread disease and suffering. Oh ghee great. And to think he is described as being one of the more caring chaos gods. If his idea of caring for people is to give them some sort of disease that eats away at their body and makes them infested with bugs, then he generally needs to see a psychiatrist.

Thats it really, I don't think I really need to say any more on this.

 Crimson wrote:

 ashrog wrote:

The Imperium commits atrocities because it is necessary for the survival of the human race.

Or so they say.

In-universe, this reasoning might work, but we, as readers have a greater understanding of the 40k universe than the average Imperial citizen. While they may question why and how their leaders can commit such unspeakable acts, we know that burning witches and Exterminatus'ing worlds is often completely necessary. Maybe not every single time it happens, but often.

 illuknisaa wrote:

Chaos is only as evil as you are.

Not quite. More like 'Chaos is only as evil as EVERYBODY is', which can be pretty fething bad in 40k.

 raiden wrote:

 curran12 wrote:

 raiden wrote:
nids are evil, if chaos is evil, also, I don't see how the eldar are evil in any way, (snooty, perhaps)but that hardly warrents evil, and Orks, ahh, good ole fun loving orks, can be seen as evil for their love of violence, (almost makes khorne shed a tear ;')

How are Tyranids evil? That's like calling a tornado evil.

the beings themselves arent, just the hive mind, it is sentient enough to realize it is wiping out entire civilizations and stripping all galaxies of life, and doesn't care and goes on its merry way, thats evil.

Also it works on different principles than the human mind, to it we are just food that somehow knows how to fight back.
Good and Evil are alien concepts to it.

Or maybe because Chaos is reflection of human psyches, and most humans live in a horrible fascist hell-hole, the evilness of chaos is indirectly caused by inhuman attitudes of the Imperium?

Time for a ramble here, please bare with ...

 ashrog wrote:

Chaos commits atrocities 'cause it's fun.

Is that true though, or is it because it's their nature.

Khorne doesn't know how to be anything other than a bloodthirsty God, because it's his being, it's how he was created.

Are the Chaos Gods evil, or is it their followers acting out their masters wishes, or at least how they deem them to be acted out, that are evil? Chaos Space Marines are nasty guys without a doubt, but do the Chaos Gods honestly care how you worship, or just that you are worshiping? Chaos Space Marines don't know any better than to wage war, after all, it's what they were created for, but they also have their own agenda at heart, largely fighting the Long War or for personal gain. So they do what they do in the name of Chaos and they do it in the only way they know how.

If you piss of a Chaos God, you're going to be opened up to a world of pain sure, but if your doing the rounds and keeping them happy, are they that bothered?

The Gods were happy possibly until they started losing ground to the Emperor during the Crusade, the Heresy was an attempt to get back what they thought was theirs. Now it's just all part of the great game and the outcome of the Heresy was what they wanted, war and opportunity.

If Chaos was that bad then why do mortals keep embracing it, something must be pretty off in the Imperium for you to want to embrace something that makes leprosy and syphilis seem like a pleasant experience.

 Pilau Rice wrote:

 Dannyevilguy wrote:
You shed a tear wishing your parents were alive to see this, but sady they were used as playthings for a Slaanesh orgy last festivus and did not survive the evening

And boy, did they have a good time.

Not really. Dad was taken up the back by a rough trick named Bob.

 DarthOvious wrote:
I went for the total evil option. Only Tzeentch has any redeeming factors about him and thats only because he schemes for the sake of scheeming and will even mess up his own plans, for the day when Tzeentch stops scheming is the day he stops existing. So its a case of survival for him.

The others however are just totally evil beyond belief.

Khorne - The god of murder, need I say more? Some people say he is also the god of martial honour but so what? He craves skulls for the skull throne like some freaky psychopath who buries dead bodies in his basement and likes nothing better than to take enjoyment in massive slaughter. Totally evil.

Slaneesh - The god of sick and twisted deviant pleasures. I don't think I need to expand on this really. We're talking pleasure from torturing people, pleasure from being tortured, drugs, etc, etc. And thats without all the sick sexual stuff which I just won't go into.

Nurgle - The fat and smelly god who like to spread disease and suffering. Oh ghee great. And to think he is described as being one of the more caring chaos gods. If his idea of caring for people is to give them some sort of disease that eats away at their body and makes them infested with bugs, then he generally needs to see a psychiatrist.

Thats it really, I don't think I really need to say any more on this.

All the Chaos Gods have some redeeming qualities.
Tzeentch: God of hope
Slaanesh: God of pleasure and perfection.
Khorne: God of martial prowes and honor.
Nurgle: God of life (ironically) and love.
And Malice, which is the Chaos God of anarchy, so that makes it the God of freedom.