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I agree with you, FaceTurnedAway. IRL, if there were sentient aliens, we should start with the assumption that they have rights to live and to have a fair standard of living.

Unless we meet Tau. They can all die in a fire.

DORIAN GRAY: So, I'd like everybody to vote in this poll I ....

DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA

SISTER KORIANDER: What was all that about?
SISTER RAVEN: Some guy was asking people to "vote." Killed him on the spot for heresy.
SISTER KORIANDER: Oh. Vote for what?
SISTER RAVEN: Dunno, didn't listen that long. Does it matter?
SISTER KORIANDER: No, not really. Let's burn his corpse and go for coffee.
SISTER RAVEN: Coffee, awesome.

FWOOOSH

You can't use IRL examples of historical genocides because they were against fellow humans. Xenos are aliens they don't have the same feelings, emotions, and thinking that we do. They are "the other".

If Humanity has the power to travel space, conquer, and enslave lesser races for our benefit we should. There is no question of morality because morality only applies to other humans. Humanitarianism is a beautiful thing.

And No, this is NOT because the Imperium is an inherent Fascist repressive brutal aggressive religious totalitarian society it is what god (I guess the Emperor is god 2.0) intended it for it to be. It is humanity's destiny to live in the milky way galaxy over all others because god intended it to be so.

In many ways it would be racist to deny the Orks an honest good fight.

FaceTurnedAway I'm pretty sure that most people were answering the poll in character given the amount of sarcastic comments and where referring to the primary xenos races that you said to ignore.

The comments about human growth and species competition are worrying though.

How is this thread not locked yet?
I hope everyone who didn't vote for the first option gets banned.

DorianGray wrote:
You can't use IRL examples of historical genocides because they were against fellow humans. Xenos are aliens they don't have the same feelings, emotions, and thinking that we do. They are "the other".

If Humanity has the power to travel space, conquer, and enslave lesser races for our benefit we should. There is no question of morality because morality only applies to other humans. Humanitarianism is a beautiful thing.

And No, this is NOT because the Imperium is an inherent Fascist repressive brutal aggressive religious totalitarian society it is what god (I guess the Emperor is god 2.0) intended it for it to be. It is humanity's destiny to live in the milky way galaxy over all others because god intended it to be so.

This is in character right? Because the fluff has been pretty clear that 'God 2.0' was a massive self obssesed idiot who really had no idea what was best for humanity. The xenophobic attitude of the Imperium has doomed it to never achieve peace and from a xenophobic viewpoint has doomed it to not be able to focus on fighting one major threat at a time and seriously limited the number of allies it has (which it desperately needs).

I think it's funny that 40K's "good guys" are clearly partly modeled after the Nazis.

If anything Tau are one's most similar to the Nazis with all the advanced technology, nationalist socialism, aggresive expansion despite peace treaties and (cannon or not) sterilisation camps.

Space marines are like the Waffen SS and Nazi superhuman projects.

Nazis exterminated sub-humans and lesser races as a point of duty like Poles, Jews, gypsies etc. I don't think Tau do that since they use a host of other Xenos like Vespids Kroot Humans in their armies.

DorianGray wrote:
Space marines are like the Waffen SS and Nazi superhuman projects.

Nazis exterminated sub-humans and lesser races as a point of duty like Poles, Jews, gypsies etc. I don't think Tau do that since they use a host of other Xenos like Vespids Kroot Humans in their armies.

The Waffen SS was not the elite fighting branch of the Wehrmacht like many think. They were, or at least were supposed to be, the most Nazi-fied branch though with the amount of foreign volunteers this wasn't always true. There were elite W-SS divisions like 1st LSSAH or 2nd Das Reich but the W-SS as whole weren't more elite than their Heer counterparts. I would say the closest analogue to W-SS in the Imperium would be the Imperial Guard. Highly indoctrinated, variably skilled and equipped.

Also, the Nazis exterminated certain groups out of twisted political and cultural ideologies. The Imperium exterminates Xenos species out of necessity. Xenos have proven to be hostile, evil beings all throughout the galaxy. The peaceful ones interested in coexisting with the Imperium are few and far inbetween. The Xenophobic attitude that most Imperial citizens have has it's origins in centuries of alien oppression, extermination and even consumption of humans.

So, no. In the GrimDark future Xenos should be used if useful and exterminated when they are not. They can and would do the same to mankind if they were given the chance.

The Nazis worked longside many other nations such as Italy and Japan, as well as originally wanting to ally with Britain and Russia. They only went after Poles, Jews and Gypsies because they were minorities and easy targets.

The Tau are described as treating many of the races they take in, including humans, as second class citizens. While the death camps and sterilisation camps are non-cannon in the DOW games, it isn't too far a stretch to assume that they force humans and other races into Ghettos like the Nazis did.

FaceTurnedAway wrote:
This is the most depressing poll I've ever seen on this site.

I respect your conscientious response, but you might be taking this a little too seriously. We are talking about comically violent aliens in a comically violent future. Most of these responses are in character.

Fear not, fellow wargamer, basic empathy is not dead for all dakka users

Fun thought experiment though - what cost is 'too high' for the survival of humanity?

The above really just sounds like butt-hurt Imperial fanboys annoyed at how people always say IoM is genocidal Nazi Germany / Stalinist Russia and try to use non-cannon fluff out of a video game to try and paint the Tau as worse than the Imperium in an attempt to justify their support for the Imperium.

When the new Tau Codex comes out and the fluff talks about how the Tau governs not-so-brutally and works/governs with other Xenos for their common purpose these fanboys will have their asses handed to them.

They just can't get over how there are better good guys then the humans in the 40k universe.

 Hanskrampf wrote:
How is this thread not locked yet?
I hope everyone who didn't vote for the first option gets banned.

Really?

Overreaction much?

On a related note, sentient aliens cause the same problem as sentient robots, but with weaker brains. Food for thought.

DorianGray wrote:

When the new Tau Codex comes out and the fluff talks about how the Tau governs not-so-brutally and works/governs with other Xenos for their common purpose these fanboys will have their asses handed to them.

Don't kid yourself - the IoM is not good by any stretch, but the Tau still arrive and demand, "join us or die."

Regardless of how they rule, they are aggressors.

 Signet-Powers wrote:
If anything Tau are one's most similar to the Nazis with all the advanced technology, nationalist socialism, aggresive expansion despite peace treaties and (cannon or not) sterilisation camps.

The Imperials are the one with the specifically genocidal policy, The Tau are more like 19th-century Britain,

They're obviously partly patterned on the Nazis. It's part of the dystopian elements. There's also a lot of Stalin. The Imperium is supposed to be evil, though this has been toned down over the years as GW goes for a more child-friendly atmosphere. In fact it is the "cruelest regime imaginable."

GW threw the Nazis, Stalin-era Soviets, the Dark Ages and a bunch of other elements into a blender.

DorianGray wrote:
The above really just sounds like butt-hurt Imperial fanboys annoyed at how people always say IoM is genocidal Nazi Germany / Stalinist Russia and try to use non-cannon fluff out of a video game to try and paint the Tau as worse than the Imperium in an attempt to justify their support for the Imperium.

When the new Tau Codex comes out and the fluff talks about how the Tau governs not-so-brutally and works/governs with other Xenos for their common purpose these fanboys will have their asses handed to them.

They just can't get over how there are better good guys then the humans in the 40k universe.

I was pointing out that Tau are closer to the Nazis, I never said that the IOM are better. They aren't. Humanity in 40K is far worse than Tau and anything bad the Tau has done doesn't compare to the amount of times the Imperium has done the same thing butfar worse.

The Imperium is similar to the Nazis in that the Imperium commits genocide and has heavy Furher/Emperor worship propaganda, but that's about it. Many other nations in History were closer to the Imperium than the Nazis such as the Stalinist Soviet Union, British Empire, Christianity during the Crusades, etc...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alcibiades wrote:

 Signet-Powers wrote:
If anything Tau are one's most similar to the Nazis with all the advanced technology, nationalist socialism, aggresive expansion despite peace treaties and (cannon or not) sterilisation camps.

The Imperials are the one with the specifically genocidal policy, The Tau are more like 19th-century Britain,

They're obviously partly patterned on the Nazis. It's part of the dystopian elements. There's also a lot of Stalin. The Imperium is supposed to be evil, though this has been toned down over the years as GW goes for a more child-friendly atmosphere. In fact it is the "cruelest regime imaginable."

GW threw the Nazis, Stalin-era Soviets, the Dark Ages and a bunch of other elements into a blender.

The Nazis didn't have a genocidal policy, just a segregation policy. The Nazis toldbeveryone that rhe Ghetties gave Jews better lives and was for their own good, when actually they were starving them and worse. They commited Genocide in secret, nobody knew about the death camps until the end of the war.

The Imperium on the other hand is shameless and goes into battle shouting from loudspeakers about how they're going to murder their enemies because they can. This is closer to what Russia did. They went on mass purgings of Religious people, used human wave tactics and had Commissars.

Except most of the bad things humanity has done in 40K is in the name of protecting humanity, which makes it "good". The Tau aren't human, and so are therefore automatically "bad".

Anyone who tries to apply real-world socio-political beliefs to comments centered around a game that coined the phrase "Grimdark", where everyone is a hate-fueled murder-machine all the time is... really missing the point of fiction, and might be having difficulty separating reality from fantasy.

That said... purge the Xeno, the Emperor commands it.

 Psienesis wrote:
Except most of the bad things humanity has done in 40K is in the name of protecting humanity, which makes it "good". The Tau aren't human, and so are therefore automatically "bad".

Anyone who tries to apply real-world socio-political beliefs to comments centered around a game that coined the phrase "Grimdark", where everyone is a hate-fueled murder-machine all the time is... really missing the point of fiction, and might be having difficulty separating reality from fantasy.

That said... purge the Xeno, the Emperor commands it.

Except there are constantly repeated similarities between that fictional faction and the real life faction it's based on, speciffically the evil actions committed by both. Saying that "most of the bad things that humanity has done in 40k is in the name of protecting humanity" is itself a socio-political judgement. 40k fluff is filled with moral judgements and justifications, all fiction is filled with politics and social jugments.

Unless you only watch Tellytubbies, avoiding real life socio-political beliefs in fiction is impossible.

 Signet-Powers wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
You can't use IRL examples of historical genocides because they were against fellow humans. Xenos are aliens they don't have the same feelings, emotions, and thinking that we do. They are "the other".

If Humanity has the power to travel space, conquer, and enslave lesser races for our benefit we should. There is no question of morality because morality only applies to other humans. Humanitarianism is a beautiful thing.

And No, this is NOT because the Imperium is an inherent Fascist repressive brutal aggressive religious totalitarian society it is what god (I guess the Emperor is god 2.0) intended it for it to be. It is humanity's destiny to live in the milky way galaxy over all others because god intended it to be so.

This is in character right? Because the fluff has been pretty clear that 'God 2.0' was a massive self obssesed idiot who really had no idea what was best for humanity. The xenophobic attitude of the Imperium has doomed it to never achieve peace and from a xenophobic viewpoint has doomed it to not be able to focus on fighting one major threat at a time and seriously limited the number of allies it has (which it desperately needs).

How dare you disrespect the Allfather?? I'll have you skinned and give you to a novice as a loincloth.

 Selym wrote:
I agree with you, FaceTurnedAway. IRL, if there were sentient aliens, we should start with the assumption that they have rights to live and to have a fair standard of living.

Unless we meet Tau. They can all die in a fire.

There is no such thing as a right to life.

 Signet-Powers wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Except most of the bad things humanity has done in 40K is in the name of protecting humanity, which makes it "good". The Tau aren't human, and so are therefore automatically "bad".

Anyone who tries to apply real-world socio-political beliefs to comments centered around a game that coined the phrase "Grimdark", where everyone is a hate-fueled murder-machine all the time is... really missing the point of fiction, and might be having difficulty separating reality from fantasy.

That said... purge the Xeno, the Emperor commands it.

Except there are constantly repeated similarities between that fictional faction and the real life faction it's based on, speciffically the evil actions committed by both. Saying that "most of the bad things that humanity has done in 40k is in the name of protecting humanity" is itself a socio-political judgement. 40k fluff is filled with moral judgements and justifications, all fiction is filled with politics and social jugments.

Unless you only watch Tellytubbies, avoiding real life socio-political beliefs in fiction is impossible.

The thing is with the 40k universe is that it is so far removed from our own reality it is difficult to project our own sense of morality on it and not miss the realities of the situation. The Imperium is not an ignorant, xenophobic state because the High Lords command it. It is that way because to do otherwise would damn mankind to a certain death. Alien life in the 40k galaxy is extremely hostile and often savage in nature. To know things beyond the Emperor and your own station could doom your world to a daemonic invasion. To tinker with technology in an attempt to rediscover lost knowledge would end disastrously. To allow the toiling citizens in the manufactorums respite from their constant work would mean that the Imperial Guard would not get the necessary supplies to fight their battles and thus leading to the entire populace of a besieged world to die a horrible death.

In this way, our sense of morality is incompatible with the Imperium's current state of affairs.

^ This in fact, is true. (Wyzilla's post, about nothing having a right to live.)

Slaughter all the xenos, starting with the jokaero.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Selym wrote:
I agree with you, FaceTurnedAway. IRL, if there were sentient aliens, we should start with the assumption that they have rights to live and to have a fair standard of living.

Unless we meet Tau. They can all die in a fire.

There is no such thing as a right to life.

It exists as a human concept, and starting with it will cause fewer human-related problems than not.

There be a reason I say "start with".
Wait for the aliens to have popular opinion turn against them, and then go on as usual. Once you have a precedent, there will be few complaints about killing aliens.

I think Demosthenes' Hierarchy of Foreignness (Enders Game series) puts it best. It is a means of classifying how "alien" an individual is relative to a subject. It is organised in five tiers:

Utlanning
Utlanning are individuals who are of the same species as the subject, and are from a different region, city, or country. Culture is similar, communication between subject and Utlanning is generally easy.

Framling
Framlings are individuals who are recognised as being of the same species as the subject, but who are from another planet. Culture and manners between Framlings may be different, but they are still similar.

Raman
A raman is an individual recognised as a sentient being who is of another species, but with whom communication is possible. In Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, the Piggies and the Buggers are identified as true raman although in the original bugger wars they were considered as Varelse by humans.

Varelse
The varelse are true aliens: they are sentient beings, but are so foreign that no meaningful communication is possible with the subject. Only war with Varelse is justified.

Djur
Djur are non-sapient beings. They are capable of independent thought and action, but their mode of communication cannot relay any meaningful information to the subject because the djur itself lacks the capacity for rational thought and self-awareness.

So for someone who lives on Terra:
Utlanning: A person who lives on Terra, but in a different location (for example North America and Eurasia).
Framling: Someone from Catachan or Cadia.
Raman: Eldar or Tau. We can communicate with them, and if we tried could co-exist with them.
Varelse: Tyranids. While one could claim that individual Tyranids may not be sentient, the Hive Mind itself is. It also utterly alien and there is no way to have peace.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Signet-Powers wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Except most of the bad things humanity has done in 40K is in the name of protecting humanity, which makes it "good". The Tau aren't human, and so are therefore automatically "bad".

Anyone who tries to apply real-world socio-political beliefs to comments centered around a game that coined the phrase "Grimdark", where everyone is a hate-fueled murder-machine all the time is... really missing the point of fiction, and might be having difficulty separating reality from fantasy.

That said... purge the Xeno, the Emperor commands it.

Except there are constantly repeated similarities between that fictional faction and the real life faction it's based on, speciffically the evil actions committed by both. Saying that "most of the bad things that humanity has done in 40k is in the name of protecting humanity" is itself a socio-political judgement. 40k fluff is filled with moral judgements and justifications, all fiction is filled with politics and social jugments.

Unless you only watch Tellytubbies, avoiding real life socio-political beliefs in fiction is impossible.

The thing is with the 40k universe is that it is so far removed from our own reality it is difficult to project our own sense of morality on it and not miss the realities of the situation. The Imperium is not an ignorant, xenophobic state because the High Lords command it. It is that way because to do otherwise would damn mankind to a certain death. Alien life in the 40k galaxy is extremely hostile and often savage in nature. To know things beyond the Emperor and your own station could doom your world to a daemonic invasion. To tinker with technology in an attempt to rediscover lost knowledge would end disastrously. To allow the toiling citizens in the manufactorums respite from their constant work would mean that the Imperial Guard would not get the necessary supplies to fight their battles and thus leading to the entire populace of a besieged world to die a horrible death.

In this way, our sense of morality is incompatible with the Imperium's current state of affairs.

That's a political judgement. Even with a modern day sense of reailty, you can judge that humanity needs to do what it does or that it doesn't need to do what it does. In the 40k the environment changes but the human morals stay the same. 'Do what we need to do to survive.' 'sacrifice one life to save many' 'don't murder those who don't need to be murderd' etc...

As an example, it isn't impossible for us to judge that an Imperial Commander who has his men run, human wave style, at a heavily defended fortification because he doesn't want to wait for the tank regiment to turn up and share the glory is a very bad person. Alternatively if he had them charge the fortification because he had no choice, we can judge that it was the right thing to do.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Signet-Powers wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Except most of the bad things humanity has done in 40K is in the name of protecting humanity, which makes it "good". The Tau aren't human, and so are therefore automatically "bad".

Anyone who tries to apply real-world socio-political beliefs to comments centered around a game that coined the phrase "Grimdark", where everyone is a hate-fueled murder-machine all the time is... really missing the point of fiction, and might be having difficulty separating reality from fantasy.

That said... purge the Xeno, the Emperor commands it.

Except there are constantly repeated similarities between that fictional faction and the real life faction it's based on, speciffically the evil actions committed by both. Saying that "most of the bad things that humanity has done in 40k is in the name of protecting humanity" is itself a socio-political judgement. 40k fluff is filled with moral judgements and justifications, all fiction is filled with politics and social jugments.

Unless you only watch Tellytubbies, avoiding real life socio-political beliefs in fiction is impossible.

The thing is with the 40k universe is that it is so far removed from our own reality it is difficult to project our own sense of morality on it and not miss the realities of the situation. The Imperium is not an ignorant, xenophobic state because the High Lords command it. It is that way because to do otherwise would damn mankind to a certain death. Alien life in the 40k galaxy is extremely hostile and often savage in nature. To know things beyond the Emperor and your own station could doom your world to a daemonic invasion. To tinker with technology in an attempt to rediscover lost knowledge would end disastrously. To allow the toiling citizens in the manufactorums respite from their constant work would mean that the Imperial Guard would not get the necessary supplies to fight their battles and thus leading to the entire populace of a besieged world to die a horrible death.

In this way, our sense of morality is incompatible with the Imperium's current state of affairs.

Couldn't current governments use this argument today to pretty much justify anything?

Imagine the US uses the threat of ultra-nationalist Putin controlled Russia, Communist-controlled billion+ man China, and fanatical muslim terrorists to say we must pursue uncontrolled merciless war against people all the time. We MUST kill X or Y WILL happen. Let's nuclear bomb North Korea including all their civilians because otherwise they will nuke us, same with Russia, let's put all Chinese-Americans in camps because they are secretly loyal to Beijing and spying in our universities. Anyone who is not with us is against us.

You can use any artificially constructed reality you want to justify pretty much anything in the name of self-preservation.

Hence the Imperium must commit genocide often and frequently or we will collapse and humanity is doomed -- when in reality the Imperium is making things worse by losing any allies it could have (because automatically all and any Xenos are born automatically hostile wanting to murder humans written in their DNAs... right...) and pursuing a human supremacist ideology. Sure if you shoot any Xenos on sight even if they merely wanted to trade with you (aka. Demurig ships) then yes people will hate you.

40k is made up of real-world fluff, it is a massive cop-out to say "oh 40k is so far from reality, their actions are justified" We must commit genocide every time or we're toast. O_o

Last time we trusted a Xenos they tried to assassinate Lion El'Johnson and snuck a fething nuclear device on his starship. I bet having his son's life (and countless of his grandchildren's lives) threatened by a lying, scummy Xeno put a dent in Empy's confidence that they could trade.

It's kinda like a mother bear and her cubs. You mess with them, and she'll kill every human she faces from that day on. Ain't nobody got time to check if you're hostile or not. By the time negotiations and stuff are set up, a Tzeentch cultist hidden among the Xenos could blow it all up, and now you have to explain to your superior (or Emperor forbid, a SM Captain) why you let good men die instead of letting bad Xenos die.

 urbanknight4 wrote:
Last time we trusted a Xenos they tried to assassinate Lion El'Johnson and snuck a fething nuclear device on his starship. I bet having his son's life (and countless of his grandchildren's lives) threatened by a lying, scummy Xeno put a dent in Empy's confidence that they could trade.

And yet, the Dark Angels not only trust Xenos with some of their chapter relics, they also trust the same Xenos with the life of their Primarch.