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Ive been reading through the 40k wiki recently and have found apart from orks tyrands and chaos, humans seem to be the bad guys, often killing before even trying to contact races and killing even when peace is proposed.

Your thoughts on this?

In 40k, everyone is the bad guy. Humanity is simply one of the least dickish races.

Every faction is a bad guy.

There are good humans. But they don't have positions of power, and they don't get to make very important decisions.

Most major SM chapters are considered good guys. UM and BA are good guys.

If you're a lesser xenos race or the Tau, then yes they are.

As it is in real life, there are no "good" or "bad" factions. 40k exists in greyscale.

 Amaya wrote:
As it is in real life, there are no "good" or "bad" factions. 40k exists in greyscale.

If war crimes, tyranny, and genocide are grayscale, sure.

I think when they say "grimdark" they don't mean "grayscale," I think they mean grimdark.

 liam10191 wrote:
Ive been reading through the 40k wiki recently and have found apart from orks tyrands and chaos, humans seem to be the bad guys, often killing before even trying to contact races and killing even when peace is proposed.

Your thoughts on this?

In 40k, the only races that have survived in the Galaxy are those that have been agressive enough to hold their own.

While there are peaceful races, none of them last very long. Because eventually they get conquored by Orks, raided by Dark Eldar, subverted by Chaos, or had other unmentional things done by any of the other myriad hostile races out there.


Mankind has learned to be very paranoid. Aliens are almost always trouble, better stamp em out good before they get the chance to hurt you.



Case in point: Tau.

Several thousand years ago, an Imperial survey ship discovered the planet that would later be the capital of the Tau Empire.

The Tau were very primative at the time, having only barely discovered Fire.

The planet was slated for colonization and several colony ships were dispatched. They were destroyed by a warp storm that blanketed the area, making further attempts at colonization impossable. And so the area was forgotten.

A couple thousand years passed and, due to some fluke of the Warp Storm, the Tau had advanced to the point of having Interplanetary travel capabilities. As well as being enough of a military threat to warrent an Imperial retaliation.


The Imperium knows this is what happens if you leave Xenos alone. Thus they are always exterminated unless some value can be found for them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TedNugent wrote:

If war crimes, tyranny, and genocide are grayscale, sure.

Depends. If they are done against Aliens, are they truly warcrimes/genocide?

Those things only apply to things with human rights. The key word being Human.

They are not human, so they cannot have human rights.


Even more so when the aliens in question are just as hostile as you are, or even more so.

Eldar view humans as nothing more than animals, and would gladly slaughter billions of humans to save a single Eldar life, soulstone, or for a bit of a laugh and because they need to do it to avoid getting soulmunched by a ravenous warp diety.

Orksies arent da bad guy! We gud to 'very one! Who dun like gettin' krumped in da mornin anyway?

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Orksies arent da bad guy! We gud to 'very one! Who dun like gettin' krumped in da mornin anyway?

And no discrimination. Everybody gets krumped equally. You just gotta wait your turn.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Most major SM chapters are considered good guys. UM and BA are good guys.

Wait what?? I guess you could say that if you AREN'T one of the countless civilizations that these chapters have exterminated over the centuries. Just because you wear bright colors like superman doesn't mean you aren't an evil bastard.

There is no "good" or "evil" in Warhammer. Everyone is equally guilty.

The answer to this is actually the essence of what makes a setting GrimDark (which, for the record is more a style of black humour/parody than something you play straight).

Basically, in any setting that is so horrible where the best you can muster for the forces of good are, say, the Imperium of Man (or for another example the Judges of the Hall of Justice); then you know you have a crapsack world.

That's part of the central humour of the 40k setting. The humans are the goodguys, because even though they are intolerant, genocidal xenophobes; they are still heads and tails over almost every other faction.

This is part of why I hope they change the Tau up a little, because they kind of ruin the joke if they keep them as shining paragons of justice (or at least less tarnished than the IoM). But luckily the subtext of them being a depraved, Orwellian dystopia seems to be closer to the mark these days (now they just need to play down the naivete a tad more).

The setting is funnier when the Imperium are the good guys. If that ever ceases to be true then the setting will have drifted to far from proper GrimDark. Never play GrimDark straight, never.

In a lot of ways it is a fairly British thing and I enjoy 40k's overblown GrimDark for the same reason I love Judge Dredd. In any other setting the progtagonists of these properties would be the villains, they would be the evil empire that everyone boos. But in the settings they exist in we cheer for them only because the alternatives are worse. They would both loose something if the jack-boot pressed against the throat of the downtrodden were also the shining hero everyone roots for. Because it is all played for humour it just ends up making it even darker when you think about it.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Most major SM chapters are considered good guys. UM and BA are good guys.

Oppression, slavery, and Xenophobic massacre does not a good guy make.

Well, its more like the Imperium is the good guys because they're human. And we here on Earth are humans. So naturally we root for our species.

When extinction is on the line, you gotta go with your species. And its your duty to make sure your species continues

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
In 40k, everyone is the bad guy. Humanity is simply one of the most dickish races.

Fixed that for you.

The other races aren't nice either, to be sure, but when it comes to blind, bigoted asshattery the IOM has every other gakker beat.

Eldar run a close second, but at least they know how to party

To OP: Humans are the bad guys. So are everyone else, except maybe the Tau, but who cares about them.. They're nice... and not into mind control hoodoo at all.. nooo my precious...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well, its more like the Imperium is the good guys because they're human. And we here on Earth are humans. So naturally we root for our species.

When extinction is on the line, you gotta go with your species. And its your duty to make sure your species continues

Given what we do to each other on a daily basis, and doubly so for in the 41st millenium, i'm not rooting for Humanity. Orks are a good deal more humane, and given what Humanity's turned into in 40k they're better off extinct.




As they put it in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country

Inalienable. Human Rights. The very name is racist..

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

Sorry if you can't watch, this is from my phone, hence youtube mobile, otherwise just look up "are we the baddies"

Yes everyone is evil except the Big E but he's dead so he doesn't count... Basically GrimDark is usually told following the story of the last hope of humanity but unfortunately the character is flawed in one way or another and everyone hates him and whenever the story has an upturn and you start to reach the end it suddenly gets much much worse, worse than you can imagine then a miracle and things get better for a bit but its all gilded and was secretly leading to an even worse problem.

If you have any questions read the manga "Berserk" it's amazing and so GrimDark

Oh the Tau are definitely the bad guys, they just don't really know it. Have you ever heard the saying, "The path to hell is paved with good intentions."? There seems to be some sort of warp entity guiding them along to a specific goal (which warp entities being what they are is usually a bad thing) (I think they are the ultimate tongue in check joke of this darkgrim comedy)

Sure humans are the "good guy" if you are A) a human and B) a terran and C) NOT a psyker if yuou are all three then, yes they are good guys. Just like CWE are the good guys to CWE, to everybody else they are the ultimate dicks.

Orks are good guys to everyone. They gives yus da dakka, yus no like the dakka?

DE are also really nice, you were into the entire S&M scene, right? You never said the safety word so we thought you were.

 Ronin_eX wrote:
The answer to this is actually the essence of what makes a setting GrimDark (which, for the record is more a style of black humour/parody than something you play straight).

Basically, in any setting that is so horrible where the best you can muster for the forces of good are, say, the Imperium of Man (or for another example the Judges of the Hall of Justice); then you know you have a crapsack world.

That's part of the central humour of the 40k setting. The humans are the goodguys, because even though they are intolerant, genocidal xenophobes; they are still heads and tails over almost every other faction.

This is part of why I hope they change the Tau up a little, because they kind of ruin the joke if they keep them as shining paragons of justice (or at least less tarnished than the IoM). But luckily the subtext of them being a depraved, Orwellian dystopia seems to be closer to the mark these days (now they just need to play down the naivete a tad more).

The setting is funnier when the Imperium are the good guys. If that ever ceases to be true then the setting will have drifted to far from proper GrimDark. Never play GrimDark straight, never.

In a lot of ways it is a fairly British thing and I enjoy 40k's overblown GrimDark for the same reason I love Judge Dredd. In any other setting the progtagonists of these properties would be the villains, they would be the evil empire that everyone boos. But in the settings they exist in we cheer for them only because the alternatives are worse. They would both loose something if the jack-boot pressed against the throat of the downtrodden were also the shining hero everyone roots for. Because it is all played for humour it just ends up making it even darker when you think about it.

I agree with this statement reallly adds to the game when the hero in the end really is not a hero, but is the only one out there that is worth cheering for.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Depends. If they are done against Aliens, are they truly warcrimes/genocide?

Those things only apply to things with human rights. The key word being Human.

They are not human, so they cannot have human rights.


Even more so when the aliens in question are just as hostile as you are, or even more so.

Eldar view humans as nothing more than animals, and would gladly slaughter billions of humans to save a single Eldar life, soulstone, or for a bit of a laugh and because they need to do it to avoid getting soulmunched by a ravenous warp diety.

You make it seem as if the imperium would never commit genocide on a massive scale of humans At least the tau have the decency to let you live out the rest of your life in peace after they take over... They just quietly sterilize everyone

 Grey Templar wrote:


Depends. If they are done against Aliens, are they truly warcrimes/genocide?

Those things only apply to things with human rights. The key word being Human.

They are not human, so they cannot have human rights.

There's no reason humans would have any rights that Eldar or Tau are not entitled to. To say different is just random nonsense - like saying warcrimes only apply to things with blonde rights, and as redheads are not blonde, they cannot have blonde rights. It's just a bizarre, irrational statement.

Rights war crimes, and genocide are all made up categories we apply based on parameters we created. I doubt any of the three are things anyone in the 40k universe care about at all, and certainly not the Imperium of man... but if we are going to make use of those categories at all, we are going to have to come up with some kind of rational framework for talking about them. Saying you can commit war crimes against only sentient beings might make sense, but saying you can only make them against humans would be almost impossible to make logically coherent. You'd just end up with some kind of circular gibberish...

We do not slaughter humans because a war crime is wrong;
and a war crime is wrong because it slaughters humans.

The question of if humans are the bad guys is purely a case of perspective. If you were a human born in that time then you'd be raised to believe your the good guys. Of course, we're looking at that universe with the eyes from this timeframe and applying our own values to it.

 Hollowman wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Depends. If they are done against Aliens, are they truly warcrimes/genocide?

Those things only apply to things with human rights. The key word being Human.

They are not human, so they cannot have human rights.

There's no reason humans would have any rights that Eldar or Tau are not entitled to. To say different is just random nonsense - like saying warcrimes only apply to things with blonde rights, and as redheads are not blonde, they cannot have blonde rights. It's just a bizarre, irrational statement.

Rights war crimes, and genocide are all made up categories we apply based on parameters we created. I doubt any of the three are things anyone in the 40k universe care about at all, and certainly not the Imperium of man... but if we are going to make use of those categories at all, we are going to have to come up with some kind of rational framework for talking about them. Saying you can commit war crimes against only sentient beings might make sense, but saying you can only make them against humans would be almost impossible to make logically coherent. You'd just end up with some kind of circular gibberish...

We do not slaughter humans because a war crime is wrong;
and a war crime is wrong because it slaughters humans.

You seem to be equating the differences of Humans and Aliens to the purely cosmetic differences between different human individuals.

Redhead, Blonde, Black, White, etc...

All are Humans. Eldar are not Humans. Orks are not Humans. Tau are not Humans. etc...

Saying they have the same rights as humans is just as absurd as saying a dog or a cow has the same rights as a human. They cannot have the same rights, they arn't Human.

The Chaos Gods are the true good guys lets all just quit denying it.

Humans are certainly the bad guys, epically towards other humans.

Think about it, the IoM enslaves entire sectors of the galaxy to its way of life, where the vast majority of humans are worked to death in appalling conditions, civil liberties and freedom of expression are seen as heresy, the environment is totally populated and toxic towards life, social mobility is none existence and all citizens must worship the God Emperor with fanatic zeal or face punishment.

That is saying nothing about the IG and its treatment of the cannon fodder.

When you consider that, Xenos are lucky they only get shot.

IoM aren't good guys but they are better than the alternative.
That said everyone has a choice.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
In 40k, everyone is the bad guy.

Actually we have a good guys in Warhammer 40.000: Jokaero and Watchers in the Dark.

Jokaero are barely sentient (I could just as easily say dogs are morally good) and the Watchers don't really do anything... I mean they watch things i guess...

People are gonna hate me for this but, think of the IoM as the germans and hittler. In ww2 hitler wanted his people to live in peace and blamed the rest of the world. He thought the only way for peace was world domination. To the german people he was a hero his acts were noble and valorius, and in reality what he wanted would have worked. Now look a the iom same thing, the big E wants the human race to live in peace and in his eyes the only way is complete destruction of non humans, so it depends on how you look at it imo they are the good guys...in the eyes of humans, but if you want to know the true lawful good faction thats the tau

 Backspacehacker wrote:
People are gonna hate me for this but, think of the IoM as the germans and hittler. In ww2 hitler wanted his people to live in peace and blamed the rest of the world. He thought the only way for peace was world domination. To the german people he was a hero his acts were noble and valorius, and in reality what he wanted would have worked. Now look a the iom same thing, the big E wants the human race to live in peace and in his eyes the only way is complete destruction of non humans, so it depends on how you look at it imo they are the good guys...in the eyes of humans, but if you want to know the true lawful good faction thats the tau

I was with you until you said tau were good. They're just as bad as everyone else, they just smile a lot more and whine a lot less.