Can Good and Evil exist in grim darkness of the far future?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**dusara217**

Grey Templar wrote:
A hero is not someone who always does good, it is someone who always does what is necessary.

Actually, that's a pragmatist. You want to see a good representation of what a "hero" is? Play Mount and Blade: Warband on Viking Conquest. You must never lose a battle, always have good grace, never flee from a battle, never harm the innocent, always help the weak, always serve your God. Should you fail to do any of these things, you lose honor/renown/reputation. A pragmatist sees that he's outnumbered 1.5:1, and decides to retreat to preserve his forces, and the rest of the world calls him a coward for it. A pragmatist will hire bandits so that he has the strength necessary to protect his people, but then his people call him a bastard for it; even if it saved their lives and livelihoods. Of course, modern people have a differing view of a "hero" - that is, anyone who endangers his life for others (which is a terrible way of thinking about it, but, its the way things are done).

**Redseer**

I like to believe in good and evil in 40k personally, but no faction really has clean hands. I've always seen the Eldar as the closest thing to the Good guys, and from the books I've read there are good people in several factions even if the factions are willing to commit atrocities in order to keep themselves safe.

**Hawky**

There is no Good without Evil...

**Nerak**

Would you describe the Emperor as "good"?

**LethalShade**

Nerak wrote:
Would you describe the Emperor as "good"?

He is. In a pragmatic way.

**GKTiberius**

LethalShade wrote:
Nerak wrote:
Would you describe the Emperor as "good"?

He is. In a pragmatic way.

On the grand scale, can we say xenophobia and aggressive conquest to be good traits? Or does the reasoning behind it, the survival and success of humanity, justify those?

I think in the 40k universe, if there is a "good" or "Evil" on a societal level, it would have to be relative and based on perspective. If it aligns with humanities goals it is defined as good, and if it contradicts them then it is evil. Objective measures of morality taking the entire galaxy as a whole into account are impossible on this scale IMO.

**Psienesis**

I think in the 40k universe, if there is a "good" or "Evil" on a societal level, it would have to be relative and based on perspective. If it aligns with humanities goals it is defined as good, and if it contradicts them then it is evil. Objective measures of morality taking the entire galaxy as a whole into account are impossible on this scale IMO.

Exactly this. Good and Evil are matters of perspective. What is "good" for Humans to do is "evil" for Xenos, because it ultimately ends with more humans trying to wipe out said Xenos... or, if the Human is trying to be "good" to the Xenos, it means more Xenos trying to wipe out Humanity.