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 Psienesis wrote:
... but, thing is, not every Imperial world is a hellhole, either.

That's what I'm getting at. Some (but not all) Imperial worlds are awful, but I doubt that there is a Chaos world that isn't awful in some way. And I do contend that possible Chaos mutations and effects upon the psyche are worse than what one might get living on a downtrodden Hive World.

 Troike wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
... but, thing is, not every Imperial world is a hellhole, either.

That's what I'm getting at. Some (but not all) Imperial worlds are awful, but I doubt that there is a Chaos world that isn't awful in some way. And I do contend that possible Chaos mutations and effects upon the psyche are worse than what one might get living on a downtrodden Hive World.

Eh, how chaos works there probably are some rather peaceful planets. Sure, there will be some negatives here and there but, well, there's not going to be a planet that doesn't. The real catch of chaos is that it's playing a game of russian roulette with a guy that rigs the gun every time. It might have six bullets, it might have two, it might have one, or none at all. Everything's random. You'll have a peaceful planet for 10000 years and then promptly everything goes to hell in a day before being left desolate or maybe even better. Randomness, inconsistency, chaotic with no sense of real coherent order. Overall, I'd rather live in an Imperial world though simply because I don't want to play the gambling game. Chaos likely would have a chance of literally placing you on the greatest planet possible. It's also just as likely, if not more so, to plunge you into a hell worse than any the Imperium can provide (which is an impressive feat all said and done).

Add to that, it doesn't really feel like a fair argument to assess a planet that isn't a miserable wreck. The closest I can think of is from the tzeentch book of FFG if you so chose to count it as canon. The biggest fault is that it's comparing the Imperium, which has dozens of codices, is the main focus of the story, and is the biased focus to a faction that is treated usually as the big bad enemy. Simply put, even if it exists you will be very unlikely to find a book that even tries to give them positives.

 StarTrotter wrote:

 Troike wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
. The biggest fault is that it's comparing the Imperium, which has dozens of codices, is the main focus of the story, and is the biased focus to a faction that is treated usually as the big bad enemy. Simply put, even if it exists you will be very unlikely to find a book that even tries to give them positives.

It could be bias.

--- or it could simply be that " tries to give " simply isn't possible or applicable.

The truth in fiction as it applies to the problem of evil ; Can you ignore or pass over the question , " WHAT FOR ? " As in, " what was my suffering for ? " Or , " Why play by the rules when cheaters usually win ? What for ? " " If, in fact, bad is usually rewarded , and good punished, then ; what for good ? "
But try to write any substantial story , much less an entire canon of fluff, while passing over or ignoring the , " What for ? " question and you will find that you can't, or, at least, nothing anyone would want to read , because it's so depressingly dismal, or else incoherent babble.

I voted " Yes " for this one reason. The imperium has a , " What for ? " Chaos simply does not.


As for the Xenos, can one even discuss morality and human rights with a cockroach or a horse ? Find any common ground , consensus, or compromise with a cockroach or a horse ? Nope. End of story.

What if it is an INTELLIGENT cockroach , or an INTELLIGENT horse ? That I dunno.

@StarTrotter
Again, I'm very skeptical that a Chaos planet could turn out to be decent. Certainly not long-term. How could it? The Chaos gods and Chaos in General wants to corrupt everything, and ultimately tear down the barrier between Materium and Immaterium so the Daemons can have their way with the Milky Way.

Let's look at the bigger picture, a sec. Who's in charge of Chaos? We have: an enraged god of war who wants to either slaughter mortals or reduce them to crazed, battle-addicted berserkers. Next, there's the one who revels in excess, and wants everybody reduced to a single-minded excess junkie. Then there's the bloated monster who wants everybody turned into walking pustules of horrible diseases. Finally, there's the scheming... Thing who happily mutates his followers and uses them as disposable pawns for his whims schemes. My point is, long-term, I can't see how bring ruled by these powers results in a decent civilisation. As the influence of those powers grows (and it will), it'll get worse and worse for the people on the planet.

At least with the Imperium, all they want is your obedience to their regime. Chaos wants much worse for a person than that.

Consider this.

You either exterminatus an entire planet or allow another giant portal to the warp to form, and im sure everyone minus chaos of course would actually want another giant planet sized portal to hell to open.

Neither the Imperium nor Chaos possess any sort of moral highground. For either faction the desired endgame results in the extermination of all other sentient life in the Galaxy.

That isn't the case for some of the other races, like the Tau, so that puts the Imperium and Chaos at the bottom of the barrel alongside Tyranids and Dark Eldar for morality.


Regarding the brief Eldar vs. Tau discussion, I would argue that Eldar don't actually have an isolationist outlook. Their ability to foresee *possible* futures and then act upon those possibilities makes it a pretty regular thing for them to lulzily butcher an entire world who, at least as of that moment, had nothing to do with them. The Tau by comparison are willing to spend decades negotiating with a planet and trying to think of an alternative solution that doesn't involve violence. Sometimes it works, sometimes they have to just butcher everything that movies, but it's the effort taken to avoid bloodshed that puts them at the top of the morality food-chain.

I mean, there are Ork worlds that the Tau have actually decided to just leave alone, putting up signs around the World that say "here be dragons" rather than burn the planet to a crisp, not because they lacked the military means to do so but because they don't care about the presence of Orks so long as they stick to themselves.

This is the faction in which a Crisis Suit got the jump on an Apothecary in the middle of a fire-fight between their two armies, then simply saluted the Apothecary and flew off because killing a Medic, even a fething Space Marine medic armed with a bolter, is against their philosophy.

That level of self-restraint doesn't exist in any other faction with the Galaxy.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Neither the Imperium nor Chaos possess any sort of moral highground. For either faction the desired endgame results in the extermination of all other sentient life in the Galaxy.

That isn't the case for some of the other races, like the Tau, so that puts the Imperium and Chaos at the bottom of the barrel alongside Tyranids and Dark Eldar for morality.


Regarding the brief Eldar vs. Tau discussion, I would argue that Eldar don't actually have an isolationist outlook. Their ability to foresee *possible* futures and then act upon those possibilities makes it a pretty regular thing for them to lulzily butcher an entire world who, at least as of that moment, had nothing to do with them. The Tau by comparison are willing to spend decades negotiating with a planet and trying to think of an alternative solution that doesn't involve violence. Sometimes it works, sometimes they have to just butcher everything that movies, but it's the effort taken to avoid bloodshed that puts them at the top of the morality food-chain.

Actually if you trawl through the Eldar fluff, there are cases where the Eldar send messages or negotiators to try and resolve the situation without fighting. Only problem is they often either make unrealistic demands like evacuating the entire world within an impossibly short period of time, or they make demands (like turn over those spirit stones, or hand over those artifacts, or stop excavating where you are digging now) without explaining why. That results in their demands usually then being rejected, leading to the Eldar to resort to war. Now often times it actually does turn out in the end better for everyone if the Eldar initial demands had been met, since often these scenarios involve thwarting Chaos or the Necrons.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Regarding the brief Eldar vs. Tau discussion, I would argue that Eldar don't actually have an isolationist outlook. Their ability to foresee *possible* futures and then act upon those possibilities makes it a pretty regular thing for them to lulzily butcher an entire world who, at least as of that moment, had nothing to do with them.

I would still view that as them just acting in their own interest, though. They wouldn't be likely to interfere if they thought that there wasn't any chance of a given thing affecting them, same as isolationiosts without precognition.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The Tau by comparison are willing to spend decades negotiating with a planet and trying to think of an alternative solution that doesn't involve violence. Sometimes it works, sometimes they have to just butcher everything that movies, but it's the effort taken to avoid bloodshed that puts them at the top of the morality food-chain.

Yes, they are generally nicer to deal with than most other races. But what gets me about this is the bigger picture behind this behaviour. They only negotiate with the ultimate aim of assimilating others into their own empire. They don't actually care about or respect other powers, or anyone who is opposed to their ideology.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I mean, there are Ork worlds that the Tau have actually decided to just leave alone, putting up signs around the World that say "here be dragons" rather than burn the planet to a crisp, not because they lacked the military means to do so but because they don't care about the presence of Orks so long as they stick to themselves.

But then... They aren't leaving everybody alone, are they? They're certainly fine with attacking other worlds in order to claim said worlds. And your example can also be interpeted as them simply choosing to not get into an avoidable fight, obviously they ddin't consider the Orks to be an immedaite threat.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
This is the faction in which a Crisis Suit got the jump on an Apothecary in the middle of a fire-fight between their two armies, then simply saluted the Apothecary and flew off because killing a Medic, even a fething Space Marine medic armed with a bolter, is against their philosophy.

Where's that from, out of interest?

 BlaxicanX wrote:
the bottom of the barrel alongside Tyranids and Dark Eldar for morality.

Tyranids aren't in the bottom of the barrel. If anything, Tyranids are the least evil race in the entire Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Morality relates, generally, to the distinction between good and evil. Right and wrong. Tyranids, as a race, are beings driven by pure instinct. They have no moral quandaries, because nothing they do is driven by hubris, pride or arrogance.

Each other race carries with it the arrogance of believing that their way is the correct and only way. Whether it's the "all are equal but some are more equal" approach of the Tau, the "your existence is meaningless and we are your superiors in every fashion" logic of the Eldar, "Death to the Heretic, Mutant and Alien" from the Imperium, or "Blood for the blood god!" 'methodology' of a chaos faction, each of these races commits acts of conflicting morality. Eldar are willing to wipe out entire non-eldar races to protect themselves, but literally birthed a chaos god through their own arrogance and debauchery. The Imperium is willing to wipe out their enemies in the name of racial purity, while ignoring the atrocities committed each day to and by their own people. Chaos exists as literal embodiments of the worst aspects of nearly all sentient races. The Necrons waged war on the Old Ones purely to stop their race from infighting. Even the Orks are willing to wipe out entire planets just for kicks. Each race has performed actions for dark reasons that it thinks are right and the moral thing to do.

Except the Tyranids.

If you imagine measuring the "evilness" of a race based on its moral actions, you end up with a spectrum of negative numbers from "Sorry about your nads", to "KILL MAIM BURN". Sitting at the top, at 0, are the Tyranids. They essentially win the morality game, by not playing at all.

 Troike wrote:
I would still view that as them just acting in their own interest, though. They wouldn't be likely to interfere if they thought that there wasn't any chance of a given thing affecting them, same as isolationists without precognition.

So you can meddle in the affairs of others and still be "isolationist" so long as you're meddling "for your own self interest"? America agrees, though I don't think the Middle East does. Or Cuba. Or Vietnam.

They only negotiate with the ultimate aim of assimilating others into their own empire.

So what?

They don't actually care about or respect other powers, or anyone who is opposed to their ideology.

Demonstrably false on both counts. Not only do the Tau care about other powers, but they're willing to take every measure possible to absorb them without inflicting violence, before reluctantly proceeding with the ass-kicking, though it's been noted that even during war they prefer to avoid targeting civilian populations, like a bunch of badasses. They respect their conquered cultures enough to not only allow them to more or less live the same lives as they did before, even to the point of keeping their religion (within reason, sorry Chaos), but they'll actively go to war, sacrificing Tau lives by the thousands, to defend other races or cultures that they've assimilated.

Look at the Taros Campaign. Taros had joined the Greater Good, but that was such a subtle change in their culture that the Imperium didn't notice for decades, and they found out only by luck. Joining the greater good required that Taros give their raw materials to the Tau instead of the Imperium, and in exchange they could keep worshiping their God, do their own thing, receive advanced Earth-cast technology to make their world less of a shithole and receive protection from the combined might of the Fire Caste.

That's not a bad fething deal, and no other faction in the Galaxy is as generous in their conquering. Declining that offer would result in half a dozen other offers being made over the course of decades, each one equally if not more beneficial to the planet's population than the last, and then the Tau will get tired of making offers, open up a can of whoop ass and take the planet. But so what?

But then... They aren't leaving everybody alone, are they? They're certainly fine with attacking other worlds in order to claim said worlds.

So what?

And your example can also be interpeted as them simply choosing to not get into an avoidable fight, obviously they ddin't consider the Orks to be an immedaite threat.

Indeed, compare that to the Imperium, who find planets with barely sentient cavemen xenos on them and gleefully hit the "genocide" button.

Where's that from, out of interest?

Farsight Enclaves.



That Space Marine's probably strangled babies, heretical babies, without blinking an eye. 30 seconds of talking to the Tau and his entire life's outlook is changed. That's just how the Tau roll. Bringin' the light to the grimdark.

 streamdragon wrote:
Tyranids aren't in the bottom of the barrel. If anything, Tyranids are the least evil race in the entire Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Morality relates, generally, to the distinction between good and evil. Right and wrong. Tyranids, as a race, are beings driven by pure instinct. They have no moral quandaries, because nothing they do is driven by hubris, pride or arrogance.

Each other race carries with it the arrogance of believing that their way is the correct and only way. Whether it's the "all are equal but some are more equal" approach of the Tau, the "your existence is meaningless and we are your superiors in every fashion" logic of the Eldar, "Death to the Heretic, Mutant and Alien" from the Imperium, or "Blood for the blood god!" 'methodology' of a chaos faction, each of these races commits acts of conflicting morality. Eldar are willing to wipe out entire non-eldar races to protect themselves, but literally birthed a chaos god through their own arrogance and debauchery. The Imperium is willing to wipe out their enemies in the name of racial purity, while ignoring the atrocities committed each day to and by their own people. Chaos exists as literal embodiments of the worst aspects of nearly all sentient races. The Necrons waged war on the Old Ones purely to stop their race from infighting. Even the Orks are willing to wipe out entire planets just for kicks. Each race has performed actions for dark reasons that it thinks are right and the moral thing to do.

Except the Tyranids.

If you imagine measuring the "evilness" of a race based on its moral actions, you end up with a spectrum of negative numbers from "Sorry about your nads", to "KILL MAIM BURN". Sitting at the top, at 0, are the Tyranids. They essentially win the morality game, by not playing at all.

Nah, they're dickbags. Just like lions. Being too dumb to know you're being a dickbag doesn't absolve you of your sins in of the eyes of your Lord Aun'Va.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
So you can meddle in the affairs of others and still be "isolationist" so long as you're meddling "for your own self interest"? America agrees, though I don't think the Middle East does. Or Cuba. Or Vietnam.

Well, in this case the "self-interest" is usually survival, which I think is a pretty good justification to meddle. They would probably prefer not to have to deal with the other races, but sometimes they're forced to.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
but they'll actively go to war, sacrificing Tau lives by the thousands, to defend other races or cultures that they've assimilated.

That's really just them defending their own territory, though.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
and then the Tau will get tired of making offers, open up a can of whoop ass and take the planet. But so what?

So they won't take no for an answer, and will ultimately force you to join them whether you like it or not. This my main issue with them. As well as all of the hints of a darker nature scattered about their fluff, they're chiefly concerned with bending everything around them to their will. They're just smart enough to have realised that diplomacy and building goodwill are good ways to do this, and will happily resort to violence if non-violent means fail.

 Troike wrote:
[Well, in this case the "self-interest" is usually survival, which I think is a pretty good justification to meddle.

You won't find a Nation that hasn't or doesn't justify its butchery as "survival".

That's really just them defending their own territory, though.

So what?

So they won't take no for an answer, and will ultimately force you to join them whether you like it or not. This my main issue with them.

So you have an issue with every faction in the 40K universe and every civilization that's ever existed in our own?

Your hippy ways don't interest me. The topic of discussion is the morality of these factions relative to one another.

They're just smart enough to have realised that diplomacy and building goodwill are good ways to do this, and will happily resort to violence if non-violent means fail.

Show me this evidence implicating the Tau as secretly being a collective of murderous psychopaths who restrain their gleeful love for warfare out of sheer practicality.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
You won't find a Nation that hasn't or doesn't justify its butchery as "survival".

Are you claiming that the Eldar meddle because they enjoy it? That they don't do so out of percieved necessity? Because they can scarely afford to risk taking more losses, and they're quite aware of this.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Troike wrote:That's really just them defending their own territory, though.

So what?

Any empire would do that. This in itself doesn't make them nice.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Your hippy ways don't interest me. The topic of discussion is the morality of these factions relative to one another.

Which is exactly what I'm arguing. I see the Eldar as being more moral than the Tau because their main aim at the moment is survival, as opposed to subjugating those around them.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Show me this evidence implicating the Tau as secretly being a collective of murderous psychopaths who restrain their gleeful love for warfare out of sheer practicality.

You're misunderstanding me. I never claimed that at all. What I'm getting at is that their ultimate aim, above all else, is to assimilate everybody else into their own Empire. They're good enough at diplomatic means to be able to use them to aid in this cause. However, they'll ultimately abandon it and resort to violently taking over anyone who flat-out refuses to join, if diplomacy fails. You even agreed with this yourself, when you noted that they'll "open a can of whoop ass" on planets that reject their offers.

 Troike wrote:
Are you claiming that the Eldar meddle because they enjoy it?

I'm claiming that the Eldar slaughter entire, unsuspecting world populations on what's basically a "hunch", and then justify it to themselves as a convoluted form of "self-defense".

Troike wrote:Any empire would do that. This in itself doesn't make them nice.

I didn't say they were nice. I said they're nicer than everybody else in the Galaxy.

Which is exactly what I'm arguing. I see the Eldar as being more moral than the Tau because their main aim at the moment is survival, as opposed to subjugating those around them.

The Tau subjugate everyone around them because they perceive it as survival. It's a fact that if it wasn't for their subjugation of other races, they as a species would have long since been driven extinct by a bigger, badder enemy. How do you propose the Tau would have survived Gorgon without having a hundred worlds and a dozen races providing man-power and resources?

You're misunderstanding me. I never claimed that at all. What I'm getting at is that their ultimate aim, above all else, is to assimilate everybody else into their own Empire. They're good enough at diplomatic means to be able to use them to aid in this cause. However, they'll ultimately abandon it and resort to violently taking over anyone who flat-out refuses to join, if diplomacy fails. You even agreed with this yourself, when you noted that they'll "open a can of whoop ass" on planets that reject their offers.

The mistake you're making about the Tau is that you're trying to apply real world, modern day values to them, which is nonsensical. 40K is a setting in which every faction is on a war-footing, and every faction is fighting for their survival. What sets the Tau apart from every other faction is how they approach war. The Tau are the only faction within the setting that actively attempts to negotiate, at length, with other factions before initiating violence. They are the only faction in the setting that actively attempts to minimize collateral damage and excessive violence when they go to war- Farsight was literally court-martialed for defeating an Imperial army too mercilessly. The Tau are the only faction that allows their defeated and absorbed opponents to mostly retain their identity, culture and way of life.

The Tau conquer others because they must- to not do so would spell the death of their entire race. However the way they go about conquering is vastly more humane than how any other faction in 40K does it. That gives them the moral high-ground. It might not if they existed in our Universe, but it certainly does in 40K.

For what's it worth. Even your Eldar consider them to be the closest thing to "good" in the Galaxy. "I have followed the myriad potential futures of the Tau with great interest. Though barely even striplings compared to us, I feel a strange protectiveness towards them. In time I believe they will exceed even our greatest feats and master the darkness within their souls."

That is the statement of ONE Eldar. For all we know the majority view is that Tau are naive scum who deserve to die.

Plus you did refer to the foresight they used to determine the Tau's future as a "hunch" so the Tau don't have much going for them.

People assume the Imperium is better because it has nice average people living in it.

If we're just looking at government policy, the Imperium is easily just as evil as the Traitor Legions. The only difference between the two is that the Traitor Legions are based in the Eye of Terror, which makes it harder to distinguish between civilian and soldier.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'm claiming that the Eldar slaughter entire, unsuspecting world populations on what's basically a "hunch", and then justify it to themselves as a convoluted form of "self-defense".

If they were to do that, it'd be because they legitimately thought that they had to in order to preserve themselves in some way. Otherwise, they'd leave the world alone.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I didn't say they were nice. I said they're nicer than everybody else in the Galaxy.

Yes, they probably are one of the nicer factions, all things considered. Though that's not difficult in 40K.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The Tau subjugate everyone around them because they perceive it as survival.

I'm not sure that's quite true. Pretty sure that the reason the Tau are out absorbing worlds is because they want to spread their ideology. "For the Greater Good", and all that. Unless I'm misunderstanding Tau fluff?

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The mistake you're making about the Tau is that you're trying to apply real world, modern day values to them, which is nonsensical.

Oh no, I am basing my view here within the context of 40K. In comparison to the other factions, I just see the Eldar being the "most moral" in that they're mostly to caught up with their own issues to cause anyone else much harm.

 LoneLictor wrote:
If we're just looking at government policy, the Imperium is easily just as evil as the Traitor Legions.

I don't think that the Imperium is as bad as Chaos. Don't get me wrong, the Imperium is decidedly nasty, but as I said earlier, the Chaos gods are so much worse to be ruled by.

 streamdragon wrote:


Morality relates, generally, to the distinction between good and evil. Right and wrong. Tyranids, as a race, are beings driven by pure instinct. They have no moral quandaries, because nothing they do is driven by hubris, pride or arrogance.

The only faction or person this might apply to safely is an inert rock faction who don't do stuff. But there is never an inert rock faction that doesn't do stuff.

As a race, that is, as individuals, maybe so. But, presumably , the Hive Mind THINKS SOMETHING. = The Hive mind has motive.

There's a practical difficulty in fiction. You can , sorta, get away with a purposeless goalless character in 20 pages. But if, for example, you are going to write a 500 page novel with a dog or a cockroach as main character , in the dog or the cockroaches shoes , you will be obliged to humanize the dog or the cockroach. That, or you will write something that reads like the Chicago phone book and / or is simply incoherent.

You may very well be correct about the lore , but in that case I would predict that , like with Necrons, they will re-write it eventually because it's a dead-end narrative.

My brother whose never played a day of 40k in his life and only knows the hobby through me remarked on the fight of good and evil in 40k.

"If there arn't any good guys you play for the home team" So in essence the Imperium is the lesser of evils because I am human.

After all if you think of how terrifying all this would be in real life you might begin to like the whole 'human ruled galaxy' idea

I believe so. At least on an imperium world, you may have steady life of work in somtimes oppressive atmospheres. Usually as long as you keep to yourself, worship the emperor and stay out of anything morally questionable, you'll be fine and stay alive.

Daemon worlds, I imagine, are constant sacrifice and strife. The week are purged, tortured alive, fed to daemons. Have their minds taken.

At least with the imperium, you may go to space heaven.