Is Warhammer 40k actually that grimmdark?

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**im2randomghgh**

halonachos wrote:
Melissia wrote:The Imperial inquisition ain't the Spanish Inquisition.

They're more efficient and have a purpose aside from the furthering of their own employment.

Inquisiton decides to use an entire company of guardsmen to help cleanse the planet. Cleansing is done, Inquisitor decides company of guardsmen is tainted. Inquisitor orders death of entire company of guardsmen.

*finishing sentence*

Because they can.

**Corporal_Reznov**

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.

wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT

wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

**Melissia**

Indeed, Inquisitors who abuse their power are the exception.

You don't hear about the good Inquisitors for the same reason that you don't hear about Ninjas.

To quote Freefall:

**CadianCommander**

OMG. Someone who actually knows what a ninja is. <cries with happiness>

**im2randomghgh**

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.
wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT
wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

In just about every inquisitorial book, the inquisitors have been rogue or extreme. It is not as rare as you seem to think it is. Having the power to destroy worlds in the blink of an eye kind of unhinges the mind. In savage scars, an Inquisitor attempt to kill a world simply because the Tau used to live on it, after months of campaigning on the ground, after losing titans, guardsmen, and astartes, after the Tau had already evacuated, after being commanded not to by Lord Inquisitor Kryptmann. The only thing that stopped him were several Guardsmen and Sergeant Sarik of the Scars.

**Melissia**

Not only is that not true (I can think of quite a few books with non-rogue and non-extreme inquisitors), that's only because the rogue and extreme Inquistiors are the only ones you ever notice. As noted by Inquisitor Vail, the best Inquisitors are the ones you don't suspect are Inquisitors.

Most Inquisitors are puritan, as noted by Dark Heresy.

**im2randomghgh**

Melissia wrote:Not only is that not true (I can think of quite a few books with non-rogue and non-extreme inquisitors), that's only because the rogue and extreme Inquistiors are the only ones you ever notice. As noted by Inquisitor Vail, the best Inquisitors are the ones you don't suspect are Inquisitors.

Most Inquisitors are puritan, as noted by Dark Heresy.

I am simply stating what I have noticed in my experience. I respect your point to, but have my views.

Of course, the only books I've read with inquisitors were:

Scourge the Heretic
The Ravenor books
The Eisenhorn books
Savage Scars
The Lost
GK Omnibus

I have read others with inquisitors, obviously, but these are the only ones where the inquisitors played a major role.

Almost all those books have rogue/extreme/eisenhornish Inquisitors.

**Melissia**

im2randomghgh wrote:I respect your point to, but have my views.

Which are wrong.

GW has a tendency to use rogue inquisitors as a plot point, because they're dangerous and GW's Black Library writers are often low quality to begin with. But the actual lore of the Inquisition, in Inquisition source material, proves that just because there's a few notable exceptions does not mean that Inquisitors commonly go rogue.

**Uhlan**

The vast majority of the Inquisition rumbles along unseen and unheralded for obvious reasons. A well known inquisitors presence can still have a dramatic effect by weight of sheer reputation, but I think it would be the those hidden assets that would be the ones to capitalize on those effects.

**Corporal_Reznov**

im2randomghgh wrote:
Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.
wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT
wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

In just about every inquisitorial book, the inquisitors have been rogue or extreme. It is not as rare as you seem to think it is. Having the power to destroy worlds in the blink of an eye kind of unhinges the mind. In savage scars, an Inquisitor attempt to kill a world simply because the Tau used to live on it, after months of campaigning on the ground, after losing titans, guardsmen, and astartes, after the Tau had already evacuated, after being commanded not to by Lord Inquisitor Kryptmann. The only thing that stopped him were several Guardsmen and Sergeant Sarik of the Scars.

Of course Inquisitors become unhinged with time because they unlike everyone else who are either thick headed, ignorant or brainwashed.They know all about the horrors that threaten to destroy humanity and the galaxy. They may be extraordinary humans with strong mental fortitude but they are still humans and thus have limits to how much they can take. Jesus Christ, their is an Inquisitor in the dark heresy core rulebook who has become cynical and pessimistic due to his long fight against daemons and those who worship achieving nothing in the long run. He believes humanity is doomed to destruction and that it is desirable because their will be no more sufering. In the rpg books which I consider to be more canon than the crappy fluff that GW and ward are releasing, their is a story of an Inquisitor stuck on an imperial world invaded by daemons threatening to overrun the planet. He sent a call of reinforcements of daemon-hunters but they can't arrive due to a warp storm. He has the other choice of exterminatus but he doesn't want to issue that order so he asks the church to raise a militia to fight the daemons, instead they give him exorcists which help him banish the daemons.

But of course, to you the fact that Inquisitors can become insane due them knowing things man was not meant to know or going crazy like in cthulhu means their pure evil because the perfect Tau are above such things. The 40k Inquisition are better than the Real Life inquisition because they fight against real daemons, aliens and cults. While our earths inquisition fought against nothing but their imaginations and lust for power.

**Ascalam**

"tau are above such things'

They don't summon deamons, mut they've had their share of 'bargaining with the devil' nonetheless. I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good

' quite easily.

**ChocolateGork**

It depends who is writing what your reading.

Most authors portray it as a harsh restricted life. And as a human, if you don't run into any invasion fleets, or join the military, or have your world overrun by chaos. you should usually be fine.

But then some authors make the entire galaxy feel like a depressing hell-pit that makes you want to cut yourself with a broken toothpick.

**im2randomghgh**

Ascalam wrote:"tau are above such things'

They don't summon deamons, mut they've had their share of 'bargaining with the devil' nonetheless. I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

They couldn't, they are almost psychic pariahs, and they barely register in the warp.

Plus their sheltered, devout ways would help them resist the Taint even if they were susceptible to it. The "Plague of Unbelief" wouldn't affect them, for example, due to their faith in their Ethereals.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if you want proof that there are thousands, many, many thousands, of extremist inquisitors, then take the example of the Illuminati, and more specifically, the Ordo Hydra.

Star Child my ass...

**Ascalam**

You don't need to register in the warp to perform a ritual

I grant it to be unlikely, but since they are so frickin' gullible i could see them being tricked into activating a chaos Icon or similar artifact

Agree 110% on the Star Child lunacy

Ridiculous piece of fluff..

**im2randomghgh**

Ascalam wrote:You don't need to register in the warp to perform a ritual

I grant it to be unlikely, but since they are so frickin' gullible i could see them being tricked into activating a chaos Icon or similar artifact

Agree 110% on the Star Child lunacy Ridiculous piece of fluff..

You DO need to register in the warp for it to have an effect though.

And I wouldn't say gullible so much as naive...

Back on topic...a good example of grimdark would be:

The crime scene in Nemesis
or
Mechanicum
or
Fulgrim (the novel)
or
well...most of the HH books actually, or most of the BL books really...

**Pacific**

Melissia wrote:Not only is that not true (I can think of quite a few books with non-rogue and non-extreme inquisitors), that's only because the rogue and extreme Inquistiors are the only ones you ever notice. As noted by Inquisitor Vail, the best Inquisitors are the ones you don't suspect are Inquisitors.

Most Inquisitors are puritan, as noted by Dark Heresy.

Indeed, it's generally just the 'characterful' ones which are worth reading about

**Swiftblade**

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.
wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT
wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

Time to point out random fluff to help prove my point!

Inqusitor Kryptman ordered the Exterminatus of several planets simply on the hint the nid's might use them. Inquisitors vary from humanitarian heroes to horrible souless monsters.

**Platuan4th**

Ascalam wrote:I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

Except for the fact that the Tau still don't have a firm grasp on that whole concept of gods.

Oh, and im2randomghgh, by faith in the Ethereals, I assume you mean mind controlled by the Ethereals thanks to the Eldar.

**im2randomghgh**

Platuan4th wrote:
Ascalam wrote:I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

Except for the fact that the Tau still don't have a firm grasp on that whole concept of gods.

Oh, and im2randomghgh, by faith in the Ethereals, I assume you mean mind controlled by the Ethereals thanks to the Eldar.

Where did you get Eldar from?

And no, the pheromone thing is just supposition, and even so, it is not like all Tau have ethereals beside them all day being like "smell me"

**Munga**

To think that only the "good guys" win is wrong, even in the fiction. Bad things do happen. Very very bad things.

**im2randomghgh**

Munga wrote:To think that only the "good guys" win is wrong, even in the fiction. Bad things do happen. Very very bad things.

There are no good guys in wh40k. The Tau are the least evil, but are still, in the opinion of some (not me), morally dubious. And even their relative beneficence is due in fairly large part to their naivety and relative youth (as a species).

And I will assume you meant the IoM, but they lose, often. Very often. (storm of iron). And speaking of SoI, that novel was a perfect example of grimdark.

**Jaon**

When you think about it, 40k is still fairly grimdark. While I am certain a lot of the 5th edition codexes have completely lost their connection to the fluff and are much less grimdark, theres still the other stuff. Like the description on Guass Flayers! They take your skin off layer by layer...in most of the fluff you can hear of space marines being heard over the vox screaming as their skin is flayed from their bones...yowch!

I would like it if (there was no matt ward) 40k was much more grimdark, but it isnt exactly lacking....oh and I am not found wanting *dodges daemonhammer*

**imark789**

the fact that the prominent Space Marine chapters such as the Space Wolves, Salamanders, Blood Angels and the Ultramarines have humanitarian motives seems to lighten things up as well

Humanitarian? Ha, if you thats what you call dedicating themselves to exterminating all xenos in the galaxy without prejudice.

**Sir Pseudonymous**

im2randomghgh wrote:
Platuan4th wrote:
Ascalam wrote:I could see tau chaos cults 'for the greater good ' quite easily.

Except for the fact that the Tau still don't have a firm grasp on that whole concept of gods.

Oh, and im2randomghgh, by faith in the Ethereals, I assume you mean mind controlled by the Ethereals thanks to the Eldar.

Where did you get Eldar from?

And no, the pheromone thing is just supposition, and even so, it is not like all Tau have ethereals beside them all day being like "smell me"

No, but they do have them on hand very frequently, and constantly in the case of the leadership of the different castes. What happens the second all the Ethereals with Farsight's expeditionary force are killed? He realizes they were screwing with his head and goes rogue with the forces under his command, getting as far away from their influence as he can.

im2randomghgh wrote:
Munga wrote:To think that only the "good guys" win is wrong, even in the fiction. Bad things do happen. Very very bad things.

There are no good guys in wh40k. The Tau are the least evil, but are still, in the opinion of some (not me), morally dubious. And even their relative beneficence is due in fairly large part to their naivety and relative youth (as a species).

And I will assume you meant the IoM, but they lose, often. Very often. (storm of iron). And speaking of SoI, that novel was a perfect example of grimdark.

To me they're worse than the Imperium. The Imperium is brutal because what it's facing demands it, and its xenophobia is justified in that Xenos generally want to eat humans, and when they don't, who cares what happens to them? It's not like they're humans. The Tau, on the otherhand, are no less brutal when it comes to dealing with threats they perceive, but they're naive and ignorant of the worst threats. Brutality can be justified; incompetence can't.

**Corporal_Reznov**

Swiftblade wrote:
Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Swiftblade wrote:
Eh, in some ways, I certainly find IoM Inquisition just as scary, if not scarier, than the Spanish Inquisition. They can kill off an entire planet simply because they think it could be tainted with chaos. Its like a witchunt, except billions die instead of hundreds.
wrong

im2randomghgh wrote:
QFT
wrong again

You both are absolutely wrong. The Imperiums Inquisition doesn't Exterminatus worlds at the slightest hint of the taint of chaos or if their are cults. why? Because nearly every world in the Imperium has heretical, near heretical or chaos cults on them and yet the Inquisition hasn't destroyed them all. The Inquisition investigates, observes and then destroys the cults wherever they can find them but not the worlds. If an Inquisitor goes on a witch hunt like a church member its because he/she is a bombastic fanatic which does not represent the whole Inquisition. I will admit that their are some mad Inquisitors that send entire worlds to a pyre but it doesn't mean they destroy the worlds plus take this into context that the Imperium can't ever run as an actual empire if this happens all the time, plus those type of inquisitors don't represent everybody. Fantasy flight games has released several rpg books that talk completely and utterly about the Inquisition and they show that Inquisitors who go mad and start abusing their powers and kill millions or billions of people for no good reason are made an example off.

As for the guardsmen thing that is slightly wrong as not all inquisitors have their guardsmen killed some guardsmen reach a very high rank in the service of an inquisitor who fights chaos. The great problem with the Inquisition is that their are different factions and inquisitors themselves each with their own idea of how to solve a problem, they don't have a handbook that they follow so it leads to situations like that. Who knows maybe those guardsmen are tainted seeing as not even machines are safe from chaos?

Time to point out random fluff to help prove my point!

Inqusitor Kryptman ordered the Exterminatus of several planets simply on the hint the nid's might use them. Inquisitors vary from humanitarian heroes to horrible souless monsters.

Yet Leviathan continued to carve its bloody path through the Imperium. Perhaps Leviathan's main gain was the vital forge world of Gryphone IV, home of the War Griffons Titan legion. Kryptman knew he had to slow down the hive fleet's advance to buy time for Battlefleets Solar and Tempestus to muster. With grim finality, he ordered a cordon to be established. Every world within was to be evacuated and undergo immediate Exterminatus wherever possible. With one stark, callous decision, the Inquisitor had inflicted the Imperium's worst act of genocide upon on its own since the Horus Heresy. Kryptman was denounced as a radical and a traitor; when migrating Orks claimed a score of former human worlds, he was stripped of his title and thrown out of the Inquisition.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
For info on Tau and the races of 40k read a thread I created here it is- http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/364848.page

Many people seem to think that races in 40k are lovy dovey. Tvtropes itself has said that the Imperium and humanity has pretty much ran into thousands of alien races and 9 times out of 10 the aliens were evil and doing things to human. I think tvtropes are wrong, its pretty much to me 8 times out of 10, humans are simply too paranoid but then again they have good reason to be. Here are some races who are evil or just no way to live with them in peace:

Hrud- waiting for the races of the galaxy to pretty much wipe each other and than they will rise up from their warrens and kill the survivors

Thyruss or however its spelled- who make war to please their gods by giving them some nice war series to watch.

Slaught- A race who have been implied to have been playing with the human race since before the age of strife. They like to manipulate humans into causing massive wars with each other or hell anyone else. Then they move in and eat the bodies.

Yu'Vath- An alien empire of slavering warp worshiping sorcerers who built an empire on the back of enslaved humans for well slavery and daemon fodder fuel seeing as the Yu'Vath are sorcerers after all. Their entire tech base is basically sorcery.

from tvtropes wrote:Humans, by official policy of the Imperium of Man, are not supposed to tolerate the existence of xenos. Policy is not always followed.

* Ciaphas Cain exemplifies the trope quite well. You would expect him, of all the people in the WH 40 K universe, to at least be apathetic towards any aliens not actively killing him. Even he is a complete xenophobe; despite never really being put in a situation where it matters if he is actually a xenophobe or not, he still makes a few comments about it.
o Possibly Justified in that 9 times out of 10 pretty much any alien in the known universe will kill a human on sight.
o On the other hand, being an absolute xenophobe eliminates any hope of alliance with the remaining 10%, which is why policy takes a hike in some Enemy Mine situations.

Need I go on?

This is something I found in tvtropes that made me a fan of the Imperium of man in 40k:

For this troper, there's the last part of The Last Chancers, where Kage regains control of himself from a Daemon, before he was about to kill Colonel Schaeffer looks at his comrades and himself and has a personal revalation of what it means to be a Last Chancer, then performs a Heroic Sacrifice.

* The revelation he comes to right before it really makes me misty eyed.
It all becomes crystal clear in that moment of awakening. Sacrifice, the Imperium is built on it. The sayings are all true. The Blood of Martyrs is the Seed of the Imperium. The Loyal Slave Learns to Love the Lash. Only in Death does Duty End.
For ten thousand years we have endured, sometimes we have prospered, other times merely survived. For a hundred centuries we have fought and died, spilt the blood of of our enemies and our own over an uncountable number of battlefields. Mankind has sacrificed itself, for itself, so that it might last another generation, and another, and another. Those sacrifices are for no greater cause than the acts themeselves. It is done in the unspoken hope that some day, perhaps in another ten thousand years, a generation will live without sacrifice and mankind's destiny is assured for eternity.
The Emperor will not remember you by your medals and diplomas, but by your scars.
It is not only in death that we offer up our lives to Him, but also in life. We are not judged merely by the manner of our deaths, we do not earn His eternal grace merely by dying in His name. It is by the way we live out our lives before we die that defines who we were. it is easy to sacrifice a body, for it's nothing more that a mortal shell for our soul. To sacrifice your life, not your death, is the ultimate test of faith.
It is a test I have always failed. I have lied and cheated and killed my fellow men for my own reasons. I have squandered the opportunities for glory I was given. Time and again I stood upon the precipice of true sacrifice and turned away.
Von Strab's look of triumph turns to horror as I fling my arms around him, lfting him off the ground. I see von Spenk's astonished face flash past as I drive forwardsm with the overlord in my arms, the panicked bellows of Urkug sounding in my ears.
His legs hit them rope barrier and buckle, and my momentum carries us forward, toppling us head or heels into the precipice.
Now I truly understand what it means to have a Last Chance. I'm glad I finally took it.

**im2randomghgh**

@ Sir pseudonymous, the Tau are the only race in the entire galaxy that will ever offer a peaceful alternative, ever.

They are less brutal, only attacking planets that are either a threat to them or that they need for their sphere-expansions, whereas the IoM attacks planets solely because there are xenos on it.

Forgive the Tau for being naive, they were in their stone age 6000 years ago, and humans were 4.4 million years ago, so it is not incompetence of any kind on the Tau's part. Yes, they thought they killed Slaanesh when they destroyed a slaaneshi chaos lord, but that's because they have no gods. If you were part of the army, and heard the enemy soldiers asking someone for direction, and assumed it was a person rather than automatically assuming it was a god, would you be considered naive?

**Mr Nobody**

I think the Tau are there to set the meter on what's good, Tau are their to say this is what counts for nice in 40k.

**Corporal_Reznov**

im2randomghgh wrote:
They are less brutal, only attacking planets that are either a threat to them or that they need for their sphere-expansions, whereas the IoM attacks planets solely because there are xenos on it.

Whats the real difference between the Imperium and Tau in this statement? The Tau attack planets to conquer and take the planet. The Imperium attack planets in order to conquer planets and take them. Both sides do it because they want to expand, so what the Imperium is wrong for expanding but Tau expansion is alright?

The only difference is the way in which they expand and how they handle aliens, thats it.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think the Tau are there to set the meter on what's good, Tau are their to say this is what counts for nice in 40k.

So you are saying that a lighter form of fascism is good. The Tau are a somewhat lighter form of fascist seeing as they say that all sentient beings must stop doing their own things that do not benefit the Greater Good and focus on the greater good, which is essentially fascism seeing as a person must put set aside all individualism and do everything for the greater good.

Read a thread I created especially a post I created recently with evidence of Tau "benevolence".

Their are no good guys in 40k only shades of evil.

**NiallCampbell**

I can't say I know what the definition of Grimdark is...all I know is that I hate how Orks speak in the 40k Universe ;(

**Ascalam**

Would you prefer clipped oxfordian english?

Or bad native-american romance novel speak?
'me big ork..you mine now... '

Orks speak like drunken rednecks because that's basically what they are

*curious not snarky* How would you have them speak?