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Sentient Xenos have a presence in the warp. The Emperor who Protects knew this during his Great Reconquest. Whilst stifling Humanities presence in the Warp, with the Imperial Truth, the Emperor sought to stop the energy that feeds the denizens of the Warp. With a calm Warp Humanity would truly be in a position to become a race of great science and scholarship, living up to the potential it possesses.
Due to the forces that shall not be named, his vision has been corrupted by the very forces he sought to destroy.
The Imperium, knowing of the Emperors Teachings, but not his meaning, continue to extinguish the psychic flame that is Xenos.

Many of the fundamental concepts of the grimdark gothic background of 40K are lifted straight out of a 2000AD comic called Nemesis the Warlock.

It featured an extremely xenophobic terran culture as the antagonists, ruled by an immortal emperor that relied on an arcane machine to keep him 'alive', convoluted gothic architecture and techno-arcana, hive worlds, warriors called terminators that shout things like "Cleanse and Purify" while scouring the galaxy of aliens, walking bipedal multi-story war machines, inquisitors, space travel, it goes on and on and on.

One of the greatest travesties in the history of gaming is that no-one associated with GW has admitted Nemesis the Warlock was a primary source- at least to my knowledge. Even though we know with 100% certainly they were serious fans of the 2000AD mag. Seriously, read the series. It's astonishing and the parallels are mind-blowing.

In short, the Imperium in 40K is xenophobic because the culture it is modeled after (the humans of Termight, i.e. Earth) is xenophobic.

From my understanding of it the empra said to get rid of them all intending to later clarify which ones where bad since most of the crusade was freeing humans from xenos. Then he got stuck in the throne and never said otherwise. Just like landraiders.

Because pretty much all xenos met are donkey-caves, chaos worshipers, cannot coexist with humans, or would make useless allies. Eldar and Dark Eldar are donkey-caves, Necrons are donkey-caves, the Laer worshiped Slaanesh, the Hrud cause people to age faster, and the Tau are too naive to be useful.

Because they arn't humans....

The key phrase is "There is only War" not "There is mostly war with friendly relations with aliens who may or may not betray you"

Again its safer for the Imperium (In their view) to only ally with Xenos like Tau or Eldar if absolutely necessary

Because that nice gentlmen with a bolt gun and a hat told me to kill them.

and that xeno over there said something about my mother... plus its fun to kill them.

Nothing unites a populace like a common enemy.

Mankind wants to rule the galaxy. The Xenos don't want them to.

In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, that's reason enough to try to kill everyone.

 garret wrote:
I can understand chaos and tyranids and any army trying to kill ya. But why kill xenos who have nothing. Do they kill only sentient xenos or are animals killed as well.

I believe the Imperium hates Xenos because of a massive stereotype that all xeno seek the destruction or enslavement of mankind. The Great Crusade freed countless worlds from Xeno races who ruled the human populace, so began the image of vile aliens that treated humans liked cattle and used them as so. Another event was when the Eldar Farseer Ulthran foresaw the Horus Heresy and tried to warn the Emperor. The Emperor sent Fulgrim as an envoy after Ulthran called for a meeting. But Fulgrim was already under the influence of Chaos and attacked Ulthran, later claiming the Eldar were trying to draw the Emperor out and kill him, but did not expect Fulgrim so they tried to kill him instead. So the Eldar were labeled sneaky, lying,schemers( which they are). Humanity encountered far more hostile Xenos races than peaceful ones during the Great Crusade, so they are always met with caution. Caution turned into hatred after the Imperial Cult popped up, which was originally founded on (snicker) hope,peace and forgiveness by the first Imperial Saint, Euhrati Keeler, but got twisted and promoted a sort of Manifest destiny within the Cult, where it promoted mankinds divinity and that it was Humankinds destiny to rule the stars. Over time, multiple conflicts with the xenos bred a fear and hatred of anything non human.

The Imperium hates the Tau, because they have been portrayed as the Xeno Overlords of the Old night, before the Great Crusade. Living as chained hounds. The Eldar, I already explained but for those imperial citizens that know about xeno's, most dont know the difference between them and the Dark Eldar, so horror stories of the Dark Eldar take image in most peoples minds. Orks and nids are obvious. Ditto for Necrons. Taking Xenophobia to a whole nother level.

In simplest terms, the Emperor was a raging human supremacist who believed aliens were inferior life forms unworthy of existence.

The imperium literally hunts down peaceful harmless Xenos like this: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Diasporex without mercy.

In this case a co-existing human and Xenos space faring mining civilization.

I would love to see the human racist supremacist trolls on this forum defending the imperium on why the Imperium needs to exterminate races like this instead of just ignoring them since they pose little to no threat.

Because I mean what happened to that Xenos-Human race is literally like the extermination of the Jews and the definition of evil.

Something interesting I have noticed is that even as far back as the great crusades, the Eldar have sometimes gotten a pass, not always, but the conflict has usually been of the Eldar's making, because they are protecting a webway portal, a warp portal, some extremely dangerous, chaos in origin artefact. Maiden worlds seem to be the main instance when it is the Imperium initiate the conflict, and that is only if the Eldar are there, if not, the Eldar initiate by attacking the Imperial forces there.

Do we know why the Eldar seem to get this free pass, yet others (like the Tau) don't?

icn1982 wrote:
Something interesting I have noticed is that even as far back as the great crusades, the Eldar have sometimes gotten a pass, not always, but the conflict has usually been of the Eldar's making, because they are protecting a webway portal, a warp portal, some extremely dangerous, chaos in origin artefact. Maiden worlds seem to be the main instance when it is the Imperium initiate the conflict, and that is only if the Eldar are there, if not, the Eldar initiate by attacking the Imperial forces there.

Do we know why the Eldar seem to get this free pass, yet others (like the Tau) don't?

Eldar are both more useful alive and more difficult to kill.

pm713 wrote:

icn1982 wrote:
Something interesting I have noticed is that even as far back as the great crusades, the Eldar have sometimes gotten a pass, not always, but the conflict has usually been of the Eldar's making, because they are protecting a webway portal, a warp portal, some extremely dangerous, chaos in origin artefact. Maiden worlds seem to be the main instance when it is the Imperium initiate the conflict, and that is only if the Eldar are there, if not, the Eldar initiate by attacking the Imperial forces there.

Do we know why the Eldar seem to get this free pass, yet others (like the Tau) don't?

Eldar are both more useful alive and more difficult to kill.

I'd mostly agree with the 'too difficult to kill' side of things. It's why the Tau aren't the subject of a crusade at the moment: the Imperium has bigger fish to fry. They were much smaller when the Imperium made first contact, but proved themselves to be more trouble than they were worth given that there were Tyranids munching their way through Ultramar during the crusade.

Not sure about the more useful alive thing. I think that the times you hear about Eldar assisting the Imperium are the exception rather than the rule. The majority of Eldar interaction with the Imperium is through subtle manipulation of the strands of fate to benefit their own kind. That's where the seemingly capricious nature of the Eldar comes from. The same craftworld will simultaneously assist the Imperium in one sector, and annihilate a helpless colony in another, all because the chain of events they put into motion will benefit them in the future.

"Trust not in their appearance, for the Eldar are as alien to good, honest men as the vile Tyranids and savage Orks. There is no understanding them for there is nothing to understand - they are a random force in the universe." - Imperial Commander Abriel Hume, Codex Eldar 4th ed.

I feel that particular quote sums up the opinion of the majority of Imperial Brass. It's only really people with access to a lot more information about the Great Enemy, like Inquisitors, that see the Eldar as 'on their side'. Even then, the Eldar are only really on their own side, it just so happens that in this particular conflict their goals are mutually beneficial.

The brutality and ignorance of mankind appalls the Eldar, whilst the aloof arrogance of the Eldar race has never fostered the trust of the Adeptus of Earth.

p. 5, 2nd edition Eldar Codex

That sums up relations and why there is not more open communication and trust. The Eldar don't trust humans to handle the truth (and they are at times right) while the behavior of the Eldar is seen as arrogant and self-serving. The history of their interactions colors any future interactions between them.

The admittedly cliche plot of the Dawn of War game is a stereotypical example of what happens when the Eldar trying being truthful and direct with humans in 40K:

Space Marine stop the Eldar from carrying out their plans.

Eldar: Don't mess with this thing. It's dangerous.

Space Marine: How dare you tell us not to mess with this! Arrogant alien! Well I'll show him... *messes with the artifact and a daemon gets released* Deceitful Eldar! You tricked me!

Facepalming Eldar: Oh FFS!

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

pm713 wrote:

icn1982 wrote:
Something interesting I have noticed is that even as far back as the great crusades, the Eldar have sometimes gotten a pass, not always, but the conflict has usually been of the Eldar's making, because they are protecting a webway portal, a warp portal, some extremely dangerous, chaos in origin artefact. Maiden worlds seem to be the main instance when it is the Imperium initiate the conflict, and that is only if the Eldar are there, if not, the Eldar initiate by attacking the Imperial forces there.

Do we know why the Eldar seem to get this free pass, yet others (like the Tau) don't?

Eldar are both more useful alive and more difficult to kill.

I'd mostly agree with the 'too difficult to kill' side of things. It's why the Tau aren't the subject of a crusade at the moment: the Imperium has bigger fish to fry. They were much smaller when the Imperium made first contact, but proved themselves to be more trouble than they were worth given that there were Tyranids munching their way through Ultramar during the crusade.

Not sure about the more useful alive thing. I think that the times you hear about Eldar assisting the Imperium are the exception rather than the rule. The majority of Eldar interaction with the Imperium is through subtle manipulation of the strands of fate to benefit their own kind. That's where the seemingly capricious nature of the Eldar comes from. The same craftworld will simultaneously assist the Imperium in one sector, and annihilate a helpless colony in another, all because the chain of events they put into motion will benefit them in the future.

"Trust not in their appearance, for the Eldar are as alien to good, honest men as the vile Tyranids and savage Orks. There is no understanding them for there is nothing to understand - they are a random force in the universe." - Imperial Commander Abriel Hume, Codex Eldar 4th ed.

I feel that particular quote sums up the opinion of the majority of Imperial Brass. It's only really people with access to a lot more information about the Great Enemy, like Inquisitors, that see the Eldar as 'on their side'. Even then, the Eldar are only really on their own side, it just so happens that in this particular conflict their goals are mutually beneficial.

Being useful once in a while particularly against big Chaos invasions is still way better than what Tau do.

pm713 wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

pm713 wrote:

icn1982 wrote:
Something interesting I have noticed is that even as far back as the great crusades, the Eldar have sometimes gotten a pass, not always, but the conflict has usually been of the Eldar's making, because they are protecting a webway portal, a warp portal, some extremely dangerous, chaos in origin artefact. Maiden worlds seem to be the main instance when it is the Imperium initiate the conflict, and that is only if the Eldar are there, if not, the Eldar initiate by attacking the Imperial forces there.

Do we know why the Eldar seem to get this free pass, yet others (like the Tau) don't?

Eldar are both more useful alive and more difficult to kill.

I'd mostly agree with the 'too difficult to kill' side of things. It's why the Tau aren't the subject of a crusade at the moment: the Imperium has bigger fish to fry. They were much smaller when the Imperium made first contact, but proved themselves to be more trouble than they were worth given that there were Tyranids munching their way through Ultramar during the crusade.

Not sure about the more useful alive thing. I think that the times you hear about Eldar assisting the Imperium are the exception rather than the rule. The majority of Eldar interaction with the Imperium is through subtle manipulation of the strands of fate to benefit their own kind. That's where the seemingly capricious nature of the Eldar comes from. The same craftworld will simultaneously assist the Imperium in one sector, and annihilate a helpless colony in another, all because the chain of events they put into motion will benefit them in the future.

"Trust not in their appearance, for the Eldar are as alien to good, honest men as the vile Tyranids and savage Orks. There is no understanding them for there is nothing to understand - they are a random force in the universe." - Imperial Commander Abriel Hume, Codex Eldar 4th ed.

I feel that particular quote sums up the opinion of the majority of Imperial Brass. It's only really people with access to a lot more information about the Great Enemy, like Inquisitors, that see the Eldar as 'on their side'. Even then, the Eldar are only really on their own side, it just so happens that in this particular conflict their goals are mutually beneficial.

Being useful once in a while particularly against big Chaos invasions is still way better than what Tau do.

Hey! The Tau are doing a sterling job being a meatshield against Hive Fleet Kraken

In all honesty, I would do the same in such a man-eating universe. Everything's out to kill you, and there's not really anyone (other than other humans) who will care about you. They're enemies and have been for thousands of years, some of them, and true, some xeno races aren't too awful, but.... The Russians and Americans are basically just different countries who seek to look after themselves, yet they hate each other. Why? Different views, pretty much, and "being the best is everything". It's the same in W40k, where EVERYONE wants to be the best... and EVERYONE is very, very different and has different views, especially because they're completely different races and everything's different about them.

Plus it's kinda bred into humans that aliens are evil and bad, especially since they've gone through millennia of war with them it kinda reinforces that belief.

Its a general theme in a lot of classical Sifi novels such as The Mote in God's Eye.

The issue isn't just xenos species, grox are ok remember. It is xenos species with expansion habits or at leas a habit of defending their planets.
If the IoM did not eradicate those xenos species they would soon be locked in and unable to expand, speeding up the collapse of the empire.

Like someone said earlier, the Tau are the perfect example of why all Xenos should be purged at the earliest opportunity. Give them a chance to live past the throwing rocks level and you have Riptides and Ta'Unar all up in your face and helpless humans being enslaved to their wicked philosophies.

 blood ravens addiction wrote:
In all honesty, I would do the same in such a man-eating universe. Everything's out to kill you, and there's not really anyone (other than other humans) who will care about you. They're enemies and have been for thousands of years, some of them, and true, some xeno races aren't too awful, but.... The Russians and Americans are basically just different countries who seek to look after themselves, yet they hate each other. Why? Different views, pretty much, and "being the best is everything". It's the same in W40k, where EVERYONE wants to be the best... and EVERYONE is very, very different and has different views, especially because they're completely different races and everything's different about them.

Plus it's kinda bred into humans that aliens are evil and bad, especially since they've gone through millennia of war with them it kinda reinforces that belief.

Find some Aussies, Africans and South Americans to agree that everything that might kill you needs to be eliminated and you'd really have a case with this.

Fascism doesn't work without some random group of people you blame for everything evil and use as excuse to keep your dictatorship as ruthless as it is. With the imperium it's a bit more complicated as it doesn't want people to know about the real enemy (Chaos). Everywhere in the imperium there's some alien close by that you can use as justification for oppression.

F4LL3NWarrior, this thread is very old. Any thread more than a few months old is considered too old to dig up from the grave, and the moderators dislike when you do so. Start a new thread if you feel you still wish to discuss the subject.

 Dr Mathias wrote:
Many of the fundamental concepts of the grimdark gothic background of 40K are lifted straight out of a 2000AD comic called Nemesis the Warlock.

It featured an extremely xenophobic terran culture as the antagonists, ruled by an immortal emperor that relied on an arcane machine to keep him 'alive', convoluted gothic architecture and techno-arcana, hive worlds, warriors called terminators that shout things like "Cleanse and Purify" while scouring the galaxy of aliens, walking bipedal multi-story war machines, inquisitors, space travel, it goes on and on and on.

One of the greatest travesties in the history of gaming is that no-one associated with GW has admitted Nemesis the Warlock was a primary source- at least to my knowledge. Even though we know with 100% certainly they were serious fans of the 2000AD mag. Seriously, read the series. It's astonishing and the parallels are mind-blowing.

In short, the Imperium in 40K is xenophobic because the culture it is modeled after (the humans of Termight, i.e. Earth) is xenophobic.

I agree, Anyone who has read 2000AD will see the obvious homages that GW took from it ...
Since GW DID have licenses to do 2000AD stuff back in the day (Dredd, Rogue Trooper, etc).

But it's only ONE of the sources they ripped stuff from. There's equal parts Dune and Foundation in the human imperium.

 chromedog wrote:


But it's only ONE of the sources they ripped stuff from. There's equal parts Dune and Foundation in the human imperium.

You're correct, Dune was another massive influence. I'll have to check out Foundation- what is that?

DorianGray wrote:
The imperium literally hunts down peaceful harmless Xenos like this: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Diasporex without mercy.

In this case a co-existing human and Xenos space faring mining civilization.

I would love to see the human racist supremacist trolls on this forum defending the imperium on why the Imperium needs to exterminate races like this instead of just ignoring them since they pose little to no threat.

Because I mean what happened to that Xenos-Human race is literally like the extermination of the Jews and the definition of evil.

Well, I mean, my fanfiction army is made up of xenos and humans who ended up having no problem with these particular xenos. So when they learned what the Imperium was, they, uh, like, left. In space ships. And they went beyond the reach of the Astronomican, and kept going quite a ways. Then they settled down and rebuilt their civilization somewhere the Imperium couldn't reach them. Because the sane thing to do when you have a spacefaring civilization that is neighbours with xenophobes. You move away from them. Like, don't even think about beating them, just, like, go live somewhere else. You can travel to other star systems, you can just go anywhere that you're willing to spend the time traveling to.

You can count only your own species. Even in Star Trek Kirk says in season 2: "Give me your hand. Your hand. (she does) Now feel that. Human flesh against human flesh. We're the same. We share the same history, the same heritage, the same lives. We're tied together beyond any untying. Man or woman, it makes no difference. We're human. We couldn't escape from each other even if we wanted to. That's how you do it, Lieutenant. By remembering who and what you are. A bit of flesh and blood afloat in a universe without end. The only thing that's truly yours is the rest of humanity. That's where our duty lies. Do you understand me?"

Very true although that sounds like Kirk trying to pick someone up tbh

Fairly certain all the OG Trek scripts were written by one of Kirk's mates...

 Pouncey wrote:


Well, I mean, my fanfiction army is made up of xenos and humans who ended up having no problem with these particular xenos. So when they learned what the Imperium was, they, uh, like, left. In space ships. And they went beyond the reach of the Astronomican, and kept going quite a ways. Then they settled down and rebuilt their civilization somewhere the Imperium couldn't reach them. Because the sane thing to do when you have a spacefaring civilization that is neighbours with xenophobes. You move away from them. Like, don't even think about beating them, just, like, go live somewhere else. You can travel to other star systems, you can just go anywhere that you're willing to spend the time traveling to.

One doesn't always have the luxury of that choice. The Diasporex, for example, were forced to remain within certain bounds because they depended on reactors around stars in that area to power their life-necessary systems. To attempt to leave would have seen them all die.

They desired to be left alone, in peace, because they posed no threat to anyone. The Imperium killed all of them. You can't always just pick up and go. The fact is that, in 40k, no-one is in a worse position than minor Xenos factions. They are all doomed to die the moment the Orks, Imperium, Tyranids or Dark Eldar (eternal torment in this case) find them. Any minor Xenos' factions statistical best chance of survival is encountering the Farsight enclaves, Craftworld Eldar (if not on a Maiden World or somehow useful to the Eldar dead) or the Tau Empire (in that order). Any other option is at best slavery (Some Necron) or worse (Every other faction).

In 40k the Imperium controls most of the galaxy and has already rendered extinct dozens, if not hundreds, of alien species for not being human. Simply fleeing clearly isn't an option in many cases, which considering the nature of space travel within the setting isn't a surprise. A culture lacking Warp travel is too slow to escape the Imperium. The original answer 'cause its Grimdark' is still the only one which really I'd agree with, although I become more and more disheartened with time that something I considered satirically and purposefully portrayed as negative is being embraced as positive inspiration for real life motivation.