Who is the Goodest in the Universe?

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**Dakka Wolf**

Lance845 wrote:
Dakka Wolf wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Definitely the Dark Angels. They (we) are so upset that a couple of Dark Angels went evil 10,000 years ago that they (we) only feel good when they get those Fallen to apologize.

Seems goodest to me!

They killed a whole company of black Templar to protect their secrets. They are one of the more evil space marine chapters.

That's not fair, the Black Templar are religious nutters who hate and want to destroy everybody because of psychic ability or any percieved flaw, admittedly the DA don't have much unusual by way of psychic ability and their geneseed is nearly perfect so they'd probably get along well with the Black Templar under normal circumstances but that's like saying you'd normally get along well with the Nazi party's leaders because you have blonde hair and blue eyes...

They didnt kill the black templars because their crazy though. They were fine with the BT being crazy zealots. They killed them because they dont care what it costs to hide their secret. There is no length the DA would not go to, no cost, no amount of lives they would not sacrifice on the alter of their secrecy.

Dark Angles have probably commited more atrocities either through direct action or by inaction to pursue their own agenda then any other sm chapter. The fact that they have to hide and cover up all these things is evidence enough for how bad it is.

Don't the Grey Knights count? I bet they've killed more to cover up Chaos, I bet they're way ahead on innocent blood too.

**Lance845**

Dakka Wolf wrote:
Lance845 wrote:
Dakka Wolf wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Definitely the Dark Angels. They (we) are so upset that a couple of Dark Angels went evil 10,000 years ago that they (we) only feel good when they get those Fallen to apologize.

Seems goodest to me!

They killed a whole company of black Templar to protect their secrets. They are one of the more evil space marine chapters.

That's not fair, the Black Templar are religious nutters who hate and want to destroy everybody because of psychic ability or any percieved flaw, admittedly the DA don't have much unusual by way of psychic ability and their geneseed is nearly perfect so they'd probably get along well with the Black Templar under normal circumstances but that's like saying you'd normally get along well with the Nazi party's leaders because you have blonde hair and blue eyes...

They didnt kill the black templars because their crazy though. They were fine with the BT being crazy zealots. They killed them because they dont care what it costs to hide their secret. There is no length the DA would not go to, no cost, no amount of lives they would not sacrifice on the alter of their secrecy.

Dark Angles have probably commited more atrocities either through direct action or by inaction to pursue their own agenda then any other sm chapter. The fact that they have to hide and cover up all these things is evidence enough for how bad it is.

Don't the Grey Knights count? I bet they've killed more to cover up Chaos, I bet they're way ahead on innocent blood too.

Eh... Grey knights do it because they actually believe that they are stopping chaos from getting a foot hold. Their wrong. But to them any knowledge of deamons or deamon hunters (which in turn proves deamons) opens the door to let the deamons in. Its fethed but they do it for a percieved greater good.

The dark angles do it just so nobody finds out that 10k years ago some of them went bad and then they spent the next 10k years adding skeletons to their closests in the rock to make sure nobody found out. DA arn't trying to save anyone but themselves.

**Wyzilla**

Dakka Wolf wrote:
Lance845 wrote:
Dakka Wolf wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Definitely the Dark Angels. They (we) are so upset that a couple of Dark Angels went evil 10,000 years ago that they (we) only feel good when they get those Fallen to apologize.

Seems goodest to me!

They killed a whole company of black Templar to protect their secrets. They are one of the more evil space marine chapters.

That's not fair, the Black Templar are religious nutters who hate and want to destroy everybody because of psychic ability or any percieved flaw, admittedly the DA don't have much unusual by way of psychic ability and their geneseed is nearly perfect so they'd probably get along well with the Black Templar under normal circumstances but that's like saying you'd normally get along well with the Nazi party's leaders because you have blonde hair and blue eyes...

They didnt kill the black templars because their crazy though. They were fine with the BT being crazy zealots. They killed them because they dont care what it costs to hide their secret. There is no length the DA would not go to, no cost, no amount of lives they would not sacrifice on the alter of their secrecy.

Dark Angles have probably commited more atrocities either through direct action or by inaction to pursue their own agenda then any other sm chapter. The fact that they have to hide and cover up all these things is evidence enough for how bad it is.

Don't the Grey Knights count? I bet they've killed more to cover up Chaos, I bet they're way ahead on innocent blood too.

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus Imperator qui sunt eius.

**nareik**

Happyjew wrote:
Grandpa Nurgle. All he wants is for everyone to love everyone.

I think I may repeal my suggestion of imperial ogryns...

Is there any fluff on Papa Nurgle Ogryns? Are they giant puppys of love and sharing kindness?

Yea, maybe Nurgle Ogryns are the most gentle, loving, kindest of 40k's denizens!

**TangoTwoBravo**

The Dark Angels are merely trying to ensure that good triumphs and evil is destroyed. Some would try to forget past evils, but the Dark Angels are so good that they cannot rest until that ancient stain is erased.

**Torga_DW**

Good and evil are subjective. Before we try to decide who is 'good', we need to define what good is.

Alignment systems are messy. Look at D&D: is the paladin good? Sacrificing his life to save the innocent villager even though this means his mission will fail and the kingdom will fall? Is the cleric good? Refusing to shed blood in the name of their god so they bludgeon their enemies with a frickin warhammer? Ironically in the modern paradigm, the true neutral druid seems good - accepting that bad things will happen but trying to maintain the balance.

**Happyjew**

nareik wrote:
Happyjew wrote:
Grandpa Nurgle. All he wants is for everyone to love everyone.
I think I may repeal my suggestion of imperial ogryns...

Is there any fluff on Papa Nurgle Ogryns? Are they giant puppys of love and sharing kindness?

Yea, maybe Nurgle Ogryns are the most gentle, loving, kindest of 40k's denizens!

There is actually. I forget which one, but one of the Imperial Armour books (Siege of Vraks) featured plague ogryns.

**Dakka Wolf**

Wyzilla wrote:
Dakka Wolf wrote:
Lance845 wrote:
Dakka Wolf wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Definitely the Dark Angels. They (we) are so upset that a couple of Dark Angels went evil 10,000 years ago that they (we) only feel good when they get those Fallen to apologize.

Seems goodest to me!

They killed a whole company of black Templar to protect their secrets. They are one of the more evil space marine chapters.

That's not fair, the Black Templar are religious nutters who hate and want to destroy everybody because of psychic ability or any percieved flaw, admittedly the DA don't have much unusual by way of psychic ability and their geneseed is nearly perfect so they'd probably get along well with the Black Templar under normal circumstances but that's like saying you'd normally get along well with the Nazi party's leaders because you have blonde hair and blue eyes...

They didnt kill the black templars because their crazy though. They were fine with the BT being crazy zealots. They killed them because they dont care what it costs to hide their secret. There is no length the DA would not go to, no cost, no amount of lives they would not sacrifice on the alter of their secrecy.

Dark Angles have probably commited more atrocities either through direct action or by inaction to pursue their own agenda then any other sm chapter. The fact that they have to hide and cover up all these things is evidence enough for how bad it is.

Don't the Grey Knights count? I bet they've killed more to cover up Chaos, I bet they're way ahead on innocent blood too.

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus Imperator qui sunt eius.

I'm not female, using a language of love is not going to gain my sympathy for pious mass murderers.

**gnome_idea_what**

Happyjew wrote:
nareik wrote:
Happyjew wrote:
Grandpa Nurgle. All he wants is for everyone to love everyone.
I think I may repeal my suggestion of imperial ogryns...

Is there any fluff on Papa Nurgle Ogryns? Are they giant puppys of love and sharing kindness?

Yea, maybe Nurgle Ogryns are the most gentle, loving, kindest of 40k's denizens!

There is actually. I forget which one, but one of the Imperial Armour books (Siege of Vraks) featured plague ogryns.

Actually, Chaos Ogryn tend to be pretty scary IIRC, if only because Ogryn pretty much never turn to Chaos on their own, and nd any cult that manages to get any on their side will try to make the most of them by making them as violent as possible.

**Wyzilla**

Dakka Wolf wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:
Dakka Wolf wrote:
Lance845 wrote:
Dakka Wolf wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Definitely the Dark Angels. They (we) are so upset that a couple of Dark Angels went evil 10,000 years ago that they (we) only feel good when they get those Fallen to apologize.

Seems goodest to me!

They killed a whole company of black Templar to protect their secrets. They are one of the more evil space marine chapters.

That's not fair, the Black Templar are religious nutters who hate and want to destroy everybody because of psychic ability or any percieved flaw, admittedly the DA don't have much unusual by way of psychic ability and their geneseed is nearly perfect so they'd probably get along well with the Black Templar under normal circumstances but that's like saying you'd normally get along well with the Nazi party's leaders because you have blonde hair and blue eyes...

They didnt kill the black templars because their crazy though. They were fine with the BT being crazy zealots. They killed them because they dont care what it costs to hide their secret. There is no length the DA would not go to, no cost, no amount of lives they would not sacrifice on the alter of their secrecy.

Dark Angles have probably commited more atrocities either through direct action or by inaction to pursue their own agenda then any other sm chapter. The fact that they have to hide and cover up all these things is evidence enough for how bad it is.

Don't the Grey Knights count? I bet they've killed more to cover up Chaos, I bet they're way ahead on innocent blood too.

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus Imperator qui sunt eius.

I'm not female, using a language of love is not going to gain my sympathy for pious mass murderers.

..It was Almaric's response to the ethical conundrum that the Grey Knights face prior to the sack of Béziers, with a rather hilarious conclusion. "Kill them all, let god sort them out".

**Xenomancers**

Greyknights don't kill to coverup like the dark angels - they kill to stop the corruption. Still pretty evil.

Really the whole imperium is very evil. Much more evil than the galactic empire in starwars. The least Evil group in 40k I believe is the Ulthwe - Eldrad to me at least seems to have the best interest of the galaxy at heart.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Evil by who's standard though?

The Grey Knights can't be everywhere at once. Better to excise all tissue at risk of Cancer and hope the body can survive, than risk it spreading beyond all control when the body will almost certainly die.

Then of course there's the question of what happens to those killed by Daemons. I'd rather meet my end via cyclonic torpedoes than become the plaything of Chaos.

**Voss**

John Prins wrote:
Well, define what good means in a universe full of other races, all competing for resources.

Meh. In a very real sense, no one is competing for resources at all. Maybe Tau with a tiny corner of the Imperium, but almost no one else cares about 'resources'. Except the Tyranids, who eat everybody.

**Xenomancers**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Evil by who's standard though?

The Grey Knights can't be everywhere at once. Better to excise all tissue at risk of Cancer and hope the body can survive, than risk it spreading beyond all control when the body will almost certainly die.

Then of course there's the question of what happens to those killed by Daemons. I'd rather meet my end via cyclonic torpedoes than become the plaything of Chaos.

killing everyone because there is a chance that 10% of them might be corrupted is pretty evil. Though ultimately they will all succumb. What a truely good people would do would be to try to isolate and treat the corrupted. To kill the guilty at the expense of the innocent is a not a good trait. The imperil sacrifices what...2000 psykers a day to a pile of bones? That gak is evil bro.

**Wyzilla**

Xenomancers wrote:
Greyknights don't kill to coverup like the dark angels - they kill to stop the corruption. Still pretty evil.

Really the whole imperium is very evil. Much more evil than the galactic empire in starwars. The least Evil group in 40k I believe is the Ulthwe - Eldrad to me at least seems to have the best interest of the galaxy at heart.

The killing the Grey Knights, Inquisition, and Imperium doesn't isn't evil, it's completely justified. In order to support the greater good of preserving the human species, it is necessary that billions die so that quadrillions of humans may live. Their actions are justified and just as they are necessitated by the nature of the universe they have the misfortune of living in.

**Happyjew**

Wasn't there a point in GK history where they would kill Sisters of Battle and use their blood to anoint their armour?

**Luciferian**

Happyjew wrote:
Wasn't there a point in GK history where they would kill Sisters of Battle and use their blood to anoint their armour?

So it sayeth in the Book of Ward, our Spiritual Liege. Amen.

**Wyzilla**

Xenomancers wrote:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Evil by who's standard though?

The Grey Knights can't be everywhere at once. Better to excise all tissue at risk of Cancer and hope the body can survive, than risk it spreading beyond all control when the body will almost certainly die.

Then of course there's the question of what happens to those killed by Daemons. I'd rather meet my end via cyclonic torpedoes than become the plaything of Chaos.
killing everyone because there is a chance that 10% of them might be corrupted is pretty evil. Though ultimately they will all succumb. What a truely good people would do would be to try to isolate and treat the corrupted. To kill the guilty at the expense of the innocent is a not a good trait. The imperil sacrifices what...2000 psykers a day to a pile of bones? That gak is evil bro.

lolwut. You don't treat Chaos Corruption. Chaos Corruption is memetic and spreads ridiculously fast and can lead swiftly to a fullblown demonic outbreak, killing billions and possibly hundreds of billions of people if the taint lives long enough to break open a portal to the warp and unleash a full blown demonic invasion. There can be no leniency, no mercy, and even association is justly condemn-able because the survival of the species demands it. The psykers sacrificed to sustain and feed the God Emperor are also a necessity to sustain the species against Chaos.

**ProwlerPC**

Lol that over the top fluff is purposely meant to be insane, shocking and grimdark. With the the fluff calling the Imperium the bloodiest totalitarian regime in human history. I don't think having some of us go 'hmm , this behaviour seems perfectly logical and acceptable to me' was high up on the authors' list in what they were trying to portray.

I don't know of anything in 40k that can be defined as good by civilized human standards. Immorality is artificially dialed up to eleven as the meat and potatoes of the setting. That being said I would have to chose the orks. Without being mindless or animals they have evolved a race wide society that is angst free. As a race whose dna is engineered for fighting, whose reproduction a's well as individual growth is tied to fighting, it appears the orks , true to their nature, have led themselves into a golden age.

I still wouldn't want to meet them.

**Wyzilla**

ProwlerPC wrote:
Lol that over the top fluff is purposely meant to be insane, shocking and grimdark. With the the fluff calling the Imperium the bloodiest totalitarian regime in human history. I don't think having some of us go 'hmm , this behaviour seems perfectly logical and acceptable to me' was high up on the authors' list in what they were trying to portray.

I don't know of anything in 40k that can be defined as good by civilized human standards. Immorality is artificially dialed up to eleven as the meat and potatoes of the setting. That being said I would have to chose the orks. Without being mindless or animals they have evolved a race wide society that is angst free. As a race whose dna is engineered for fighting, whose reproduction a's well as individual growth is tied to fighting, it appears the orks , true to their nature, have led themselves into a golden age.

I still wouldn't want to meet them.

The Imperium is only evil under deontological ethics, which deontological ethics themselves are silly anyway and most people hold a moral system fusing consequentialism and deontology together (often obeying consequentialism when suddenly moral absolutes don't benefit them anymore, see the dying child scenario). However the Imperium is definitely justified considering its purpose is the most important cause of all (from a human perspective), which is the continuation of the human race. Secondly as I have posted many times before on many other forums before, the idea that the Imperium is proportionally the bloodiest and most horrible regime imaginable falls flat because of GW being completely ignorant of the horrors of history, and failing to portray the Imperium in a manner that makes them compare at all to the worst nightmares of history. Plus it was actually revealed recently in the Beast series that that flavor text is biased and from the perspective of a moody Vulkan who wrote the "intro" to 40k.

However on the Imperium it is important to remember that our modern moral beliefs are a luxury, not an absolute. The idea of a right to life and fair trials is something born out of an era wanting for existential threats. We don't live in times where one aresehole could doom the entire population of a city by leaving a small gate open to an invader, or when genocidal maniacs prowled the land and would butcher the entire population of nations for refusing surrender. The context sets the moral standards, not the morals. When the survival of the species is threatened, any means to prevent extinction become acceptable when the threat is legitimate (such as having four literal incarnations of evil seeking to bring about the end of the entire universe via infiltration and corruption).

**Voss**

The context is the Imperium is over-the-top satire, not to be taken as seriously as you're taking it. Its an awful place filled with awful people to have an excuse to have fake battles.

**Wyzilla**

Voss wrote:
The context is the Imperium is over-the-top satire, not to be taken as seriously as you're taking it. Its an awful place filled with awful people to have an excuse to have fake battles.

40K stopped being comedic satire a long, long time ago.

**RedCommander**

techsoldaten wrote:
I hate this question. It comes up every few years and the debate doesn't reveal anything new.

"Who are the good guys?" or "Who is the goodest?" - these questions imply good is some universal truth, or that it would be answered the same way by different species. But what's good for an Ork is not what's good for a Space Marine - one thinks red vehicles are good because they go faster, one thinks the Emperor is good because He is the Truth and Hail Imperium.

But then there's the question of whether any Imperial citizen would even agree with what a Space Marine thinks is good. Let's say, for a moment, an Imperial citizen treats religion from a secular viewpoint, and is really more interested in the day-to-day of his life. He may find himself at odds with the Imperial creed in many ways, especially if it means he is consigned to a life of poverty and constant warfare. He may come to resent the Imperium itself, and good - for this Imperial citizen - might be defined as "Whoever buys my stuff," which could include Tau, Eldar, etc.

There is one character who brought the most good into the universe, defined relative to each faction in the game.

It's Horus Lupercal.

- The Chaos Space Marines got opportunity to worship their dark Gods and pursue power thanks to Horus. They would not have existed were it not for him.

- The Space Marines / IG got the Imperial Cult as a result of the Heresy. The IC officially is "good" and defines concepts of right and wrong for them. It would not exist without Horus.

- Orks got constant, endless war as a result of Horus's actions, which is their "good." Were it not for him, the Imperium would have remained a scientific powerhouse and 10,000 years of mpire building / scientific advancement surely would have meant their end.

- The Eldar / Dark Eldar got safety in their webway gates as a result of Horus' actions, which can be considered one the greatest "good" for them. Fluff has it the Emperor was working on his own webway gates at the start of the Heresy, which would have meant the opportunity for conquest from within their own cities. It could be argued Horus saved them from that fate.

- The Tau got the opportunity to expand into Imperial territories as a result of Horus. A united Imperium would not have tolerated them at all. It was only because he was able to keep the Imperium on the defensive for centuries that they have been overlooked.

- Tyranids got nothing. They are a hive mind and concepts of "good" are meaningless. It's about what can and cannot be consumed, and nothing Horus or the Imperium could do affects that one way or the other.

So much "good" came about as the result of the actions of one Primarch. No one else has had this kind of impact on concepts of good and evil within the 40k universe, not even the Emperor or the Dark Gods themselves.

F*****g Horus was a selfish douchebag.

If any primarch was morally good, it was Sanguinius. The man was selfless, even though he was mighty.

Wyzilla wrote:
Voss wrote:
The context is the Imperium is over-the-top satire, not to be taken as seriously as you're taking it. Its an awful place filled with awful people to have an excuse to have fake battles.

40K stopped being comedic satire a long, long time ago.

If you can't see the humor in this setting, there's something wrong with you.

**Wyzilla**

RedCommander wrote:
techsoldaten wrote:
I hate this question. It comes up every few years and the debate doesn't reveal anything new.

"Who are the good guys?" or "Who is the goodest?" - these questions imply good is some universal truth, or that it would be answered the same way by different species. But what's good for an Ork is not what's good for a Space Marine - one thinks red vehicles are good because they go faster, one thinks the Emperor is good because He is the Truth and Hail Imperium.

But then there's the question of whether any Imperial citizen would even agree with what a Space Marine thinks is good. Let's say, for a moment, an Imperial citizen treats religion from a secular viewpoint, and is really more interested in the day-to-day of his life. He may find himself at odds with the Imperial creed in many ways, especially if it means he is consigned to a life of poverty and constant warfare. He may come to resent the Imperium itself, and good - for this Imperial citizen - might be defined as "Whoever buys my stuff," which could include Tau, Eldar, etc.

There is one character who brought the most good into the universe, defined relative to each faction in the game.

It's Horus Lupercal.

- The Chaos Space Marines got opportunity to worship their dark Gods and pursue power thanks to Horus. They would not have existed were it not for him.

- The Space Marines / IG got the Imperial Cult as a result of the Heresy. The IC officially is "good" and defines concepts of right and wrong for them. It would not exist without Horus.

- Orks got constant, endless war as a result of Horus's actions, which is their "good." Were it not for him, the Imperium would have remained a scientific powerhouse and 10,000 years of mpire building / scientific advancement surely would have meant their end.

- The Eldar / Dark Eldar got safety in their webway gates as a result of Horus' actions, which can be considered one the greatest "good" for them. Fluff has it the Emperor was working on his own webway gates at the start of the Heresy, which would have meant the opportunity for conquest from within their own cities. It could be argued Horus saved them from that fate.

- The Tau got the opportunity to expand into Imperial territories as a result of Horus. A united Imperium would not have tolerated them at all. It was only because he was able to keep the Imperium on the defensive for centuries that they have been overlooked.

- Tyranids got nothing. They are a hive mind and concepts of "good" are meaningless. It's about what can and cannot be consumed, and nothing Horus or the Imperium could do affects that one way or the other.

So much "good" came about as the result of the actions of one Primarch. No one else has had this kind of impact on concepts of good and evil within the 40k universe, not even the Emperor or the Dark Gods themselves.

F*****g Horus was a selfish douchebag.

If any primarch was morally good, it was Sanguinius. The man was selfless, even though he was mighty.

Wyzilla wrote:
Voss wrote:
The context is the Imperium is over-the-top satire, not to be taken as seriously as you're taking it. Its an awful place filled with awful people to have an excuse to have fake battles.

40K stopped being comedic satire a long, long time ago.

If you can't see the humor in this setting, there's something wrong with you.

The humor in the setting is mostly dead. It sometimes in paraded around in materials like the weekly Primer blog GW runs, but in regards to the novels they are all dead serious with little to no satire or humor within them- pure action.

**Cream Tea**

Wyzilla wrote:

The humor in the setting is mostly dead. It sometimes in paraded around in materials like the weekly Primer blog GW runs, but in regards to the novels they are all dead serious with little to no satire or humor within them- pure action.

GW have tried to make the setting more appealing to young boys by toning down the humour and satire, and by pushing Space Marines. That doesn't mean the setting isn't silly at its core, it's full of over-the-top illogical things drawn from all over pop culture, sci-fi and fantasy.

I find it hard not to giggle at the setting as a whole, and some aspects of it in particular.

**KTar**

Necrons are definitely the lawful good race. The Silent King left the Milkyway Galaxy to the void and had the necrons placed in hibernation so the galaxy could heal after the War in Heaven. Necrons only woke back up to protect the galaxy from the Tyranids after the Silent King turned back do to finding the tyranids in the void.

Necron fluff has been retconned so much that people assume they are the evil exterminate all army do old fluff no longer cannon. Everything else evil about the necrons can be do to certain individual necrons like Illuminor Szeras and the Flayer Virus.

Now for a vote for the most evil I'd vote for the Tyranids for obvious reasons, but that's also like saying the lion is evil when it attacks the gazelle and those evil 2 faced space elves, eldar. The Old ones created them and messed up since the out of control emotions from the Eldar created their own gods which in turn created the first chaos gods along with ruined the Immaterium creating the warp that let out the Enslavers in the first place...dirty evil space elves.

Plus if the Ynarri is correct then once every Eldar is dead then Slannesh can finally be beaten, but the collateral damage would open up the warp for a massive Enslaver debacle which would cause life to all but be purged like right after the War in Heaven in the first place.

**Cream Tea**

KTar wrote:

Now for a vote for the most evil I'd vote for the Tyranids for obvious reasons, but that's also like saying the lion is evil when it attacks the gazelle

No, it's not. Lions are non-sapient animals. Many individual Tyranids may not themselves be sapient, but the Hive Mind definitely is. If we accept morality outside of humanity as a thing, the Hive Mind is definitely evil. In other words, if Dark Eldar can be evil, the Tyranids can, too.

**Wyzilla**

Cream Tea wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:

The humor in the setting is mostly dead. It sometimes in paraded around in materials like the weekly Primer blog GW runs, but in regards to the novels they are all dead serious with little to no satire or humor within them- pure action.

GW have tried to make the setting more appealing to young boys by toning down the humour and satire, and by pushing Space Marines. That doesn't mean the setting isn't silly at its core, it's full of over-the-top illogical things drawn from all over pop culture, sci-fi and fantasy.

I find it hard not to giggle at the setting as a whole, and some aspects of it in particular.

All fantasy is silly and absurd by its very nature. That does make it comedic or satire by nature, and does not preclude it from serious observation.

**RedCommander**

There actually exists something worthwhile from YouTube-comment section:

"Being funny isn't a matter of being clever, or a recitation of wordplay. "Funny" is a way of viewing reality itself. Something is funny when it is unexpected, when you look into the mirror of the world just so and perceive a distorted reflection of what you meant to see. People look at the 41st Millennium, the grimdark, the endless war, and don't think they see anything funny. Their faces set in the mask of a frown. They cannot perceive that it needs no punchline, because it serves by existing as its own punchline, the same as any other form of humor. They cannot see. But Cegorach does see. He looks at their frowning masks from the other direction, and this reality becomes something...funny." - About Cegorach's Theme - "Prime Clown"

Cegorach is the only non-Imperium entity that has a point. Of course, we must still destroy him but I'd prefer that he was the last one we destroy. He's... funny.

Wyzilla wrote:
ProwlerPC wrote:
Lol that over the top fluff is purposely meant to be insane, shocking and grimdark. With the the fluff calling the Imperium the bloodiest totalitarian regime in human history. I don't think having some of us go 'hmm , this behaviour seems perfectly logical and acceptable to me' was high up on the authors' list in what they were trying to portray.

I don't know of anything in 40k that can be defined as good by civilized human standards. Immorality is artificially dialed up to eleven as the meat and potatoes of the setting. That being said I would have to chose the orks. Without being mindless or animals they have evolved a race wide society that is angst free. As a race whose dna is engineered for fighting, whose reproduction a's well as individual growth is tied to fighting, it appears the orks , true to their nature, have led themselves into a golden age.

I still wouldn't want to meet them.

The Imperium is only evil under deontological ethics, which deontological ethics themselves are silly anyway and most people hold a moral system fusing consequentialism and deontology together (often obeying consequentialism when suddenly moral absolutes don't benefit them anymore, see the dying child scenario). However the Imperium is definitely justified considering its purpose is the most important cause of all (from a human perspective), which is the continuation of the human race. Secondly as I have posted many times before on many other forums before, the idea that the Imperium is proportionally the bloodiest and most horrible regime imaginable falls flat because of GW being completely ignorant of the horrors of history, and failing to portray the Imperium in a manner that makes them compare at all to the worst nightmares of history. Plus it was actually revealed recently in the Beast series that that flavor text is biased and from the perspective of a moody Vulkan who wrote the "intro" to 40k.

The funny thing about 40k is that the "most good" faction, ie. the Imperium, is absolutely ruthless and totalitarian. But what is the alternative for normal human beings? Eaten by Tyranids? Killed by Necrons? Killed and/or corrupted by chaos? Conquered by Tau? Beaten to death by Orks? Tortured to death by Dark Eldar/regular Eldar? Unlike all the other factions, Imperium wants peace and order and they'll do anything it takes to achieve this very thing. So, the difference is that the other factions only want destructive ends and the Imperium wants destructive *and* constructive ends. By default, Imperium is the "goodest" of the setting.

**EvilDjinni**

Depends on how you define good

For the sake of argument, lets say good involves empathy and caring not jusr for oneself but for other species too.

By this definition, nobody is good in 40k.
But some factions have good subfactions

SM salamanders.
Guard have some caring commisars or passionate governors.
Tau do have some good members

Tyranids become animals without the influence of the hive mind.
The rest? Unredeemable.