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We know that the Imperium hates xenos civilizations (for the most part), but what is its stance on non-threatening and non-sentient alien lifeforms?

Either in 30k or 40k, has there been any precedent set for the way the Imperium treats xeno animals?

What about xeno flora? Would the Imperium burn down the entire ecosystem of a newly discovered world and re-seed it with Terran lifeforms?

Lol nice title. I was expecting something along the line's of the Imperium finally deciding to crush the Tau and turn the area into a mass production of the finest quality bovine products in the galaxy.

OK so flora. If it's fungus from orks then the planet needs a good proper exterminatus because otherwise orks will be a permanent part of the planet until evetally controlling it. Other flora I'm not so sure about. For example the Catachan jungles exhibit some pretty aggressive and deadly flora and they never bothered to clear it out. It's more grimdark having regiments of soldiers born and raised in such environments plus the rule of cool.

Let me introduce you to the not so secret ingredient of the loved grox burger.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grox

When you already have the best-tasting animal for mass-production, inferior alien cows are only to be quickly exploited and replaced with their superior.

If it can't think thoughts about hurting the Imperium like "intelligent" xenos. Its left alone or exploited.

The beasts all over Catachan are just that, beasts. They are not intelligent to go out and kill humanity, they are just ramped up to 11 deadly because of their environment.

Burning an entire ecosystem and rebuilding it from the ground up would take ages and the imperium, though able to wait a long time, doesn't have the time. Most likely it would be like during colonial days. You would start with a single small colony and change the area around it to make settling there easier and as the population increases and expands they would figure out what is useful and what is dangerous and change accordingly. Eventually if it grows into say a hive or forge world the local lifeforms would have to adapt to it or go extinct.

 KingGarland wrote:
Burning an entire ecosystem and rebuilding it from the ground up would take ages and the imperium, though able to wait a long time, doesn't have the time. Most likely it would be like during colonial days. You would start with a single small colony and change the area around it to make settling there easier and as the population increases and expands they would figure out what is useful and what is dangerous and change accordingly. Eventually if it grows into say a hive or forge world the local lifeforms would have to adapt to it or go extinct.

Yes, this. i mean, the imperium is enormously, mind numbingly stupid in a lot of ways, but if they tried to destroy literally every alien lifeform on every planet, down to the plants, then there wouldn't even be an imperium.

Ask Lukas the Trickster what a grox is.

Everything is a resource in the eyes of the imperium.

A suitably gothic answer would be:

The purpose of all life is to be exploited by mankind. If it cannot be exploited then it must be destroyed.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
The purpose of all life is to be exploited by mankind. If it cannot be exploited then it must be destroyed.

That's a good way of describing it. The IoM doesn't care if an edible plant or animal is descended from Terra or not, as long as it's edible (or otherwise useful). The human form is holy and not to be tampered with (too much), something like plants and animals are just resources to be used. There's better things to use resources on than eradicating something totally harmless.

It's actually quite similar to some religious groups that see mankind as masters of the world (by God's command) with the right to exploit everything we want with no regards for the consequences. If God didn't want the Tasty Tastybeast to go extinct he wouldn't have made it so tasty, would he?

 Mr Nobody wrote:
A suitably gothic answer would be:

The purpose of all life is to be exploited by mankind. If it cannot be exploited then it must be destroyed.

Exalted.

I'd like to point out however that most of the galaxy was colonized 20.000years ago ish by humans. After the dark age of machines and the age of strife the great crusade set out to re-unify the lost colonies of man. They didn't go out with the quest of colonization but rather unification, hence all the flora and fauna has by now been integrated into the Imperiums culture. Hunting dangerous (non intelligent) Xenos as well as maze running through artificial recreations of dangerous planets fauna are both fairly common spectacle Sports in the Imperium. Theese sports apear in the Shria Calpurcia Enforcer series as well as in codex Catachans 3.5ed.

EDIT: where sentient life is concerned we do know that the Jokkaero and Hrud do unofficial trading with the Imperium and are more or less left alone (after the attempted Hrud extermination that is). There's also a few minor sentient Xenos races left alone by the Imperium, because they don't pose a threat, don't have Space faring technology and/or are exploitable by the Imperium. Examples of theese are those bug people in one of the DH 1ed shrine worlds, (don't have the book on hand though). Of course the offocial policy is to burn all the filthy xenos.

 Nerak wrote:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
A suitably gothic answer would be:

The purpose of all life is to be exploited by mankind. If it cannot be exploited then it must be destroyed.

Exalted.

I'd like to point out however that most of the galaxy was colonized 20.000years ago ish by humans. After the dark age of machines and the age of strife the great crusade set out to re-unify the lost colonies of man. They didn't go out with the quest of colonization but rather unification, hence all the flora and fauna has by now been integrated into the Imperiums culture. Hunting dangerous (non intelligent) Xenos as well as maze running through artificial recreations of dangerous planets fauna are both fairly common spectacle Sports in the Imperium. Theese sports apear in the Shria Calpurcia Enforcer series as well as in codex Catachans 3.5ed.

EDIT: where sentient life is concerned we do know that the Jokkaero and Hrud do unofficial trading with the Imperium and are more or less left alone (after the attempted Hrud extermination that is). There's also a few minor sentient Xenos races left alone by the Imperium, because they don't pose a threat, don't have Space faring technology and/or are exploitable by the Imperium. Examples of theese are those bug people in one of the DH 1ed shrine worlds, (don't have the book on hand though). Of course the offocial policy is to burn all the filthy xenos.

Well planets like catchan.
So is hostile as hell.
Are they sentiant. .. No.
Are they space faring .. No.
Are they necron, chaos or such extreme level threat .. No
Are they a threat worth diverting time and effert to purge. No. (if you answer yes you get purged)

So. With the shear level of threats. Some planets ate not worth the time to purge, or cost.

Plus catchan is the ultimate grim dark jungle warfae school.

So... No purge.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
A suitably gothic answer would be:

The purpose of all life is to be exploited by mankind. If it cannot be exploited then it must be destroyed.

This is the best answer, because it parallels what we already know about how the Imperium treats sentient Xenos - if they are sufficiently exploitable by the Imperium and are under sufficiently Imperial control, a sentient xenos can be Sanctioned for the glorious use of humanity.

While the process is individualized for sentient xenos (due to their ability to think, and the consequent potential for rebellion/heresy), there's less necessity to individualize the process for non-sentient xenos, whose usefulness to the Imperium can be gauged as a whole.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Let me introduce you to the not so secret ingredient of the loved grox burger.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grox

Jeez, don't let PETA know about that one. We will never hear the end of it!

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
Let me introduce you to the not so secret ingredient of the loved grox burger.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grox

Jeez, don't let PETA know about that one. We will never hear the end of it!

It's OK, it doesn't have any fur, so it's not part of the PETA hot topic of the day

I'd expect Grox burgers to be a delicacy, with the burgers in most Hive cities made of things that are much smaller and hairer. Go watch Sly in Demolition Man if you're not sure what I'm on about

I definitely remember that the first Tau codex said the explorers found 'none of the native life forms worthy of life'. So I would guess that they'd try to replace as much local fauna and flora as they could with Imperial standard stuff, but as has been mentioned,it would probably be a gradual thing, the same way colonialism has worked in our world with the hunting to extinction and gradual supplanting of local species.

Incidentally has anything ever mentioned what kind of crop plants the Imperium uses?

I wonder where Fen Wolves fit into that equation...?

as others have said, at the end of the day, humanity, in it's holy form (as defined by the emperor, beloved by all) has a divine right to the galaxy and all within it, thus decreed by the divine god-emperor of mankind, beloved by all. humanity thus has a right and a obligation to use the galaxy as it sees fit, and does not have any responsability to share, nay they have the DUTY to use the galaxy. thus compeition, other sapient races, must be removed. however things humanity can use, they are more then allowed to use, so long as there is no risk of the corruption of man's holy form (if that burger makes you grow a third arm, it must be destroyed, ohh and you with it since your tainted)