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.

I'm reminded of Karl's quote from 'Starship Troopers', when Johnny calls him and his department out for essentially using the Mobile Infantry as bait.

"We're in this for the species, people".

The Imperium of Man simply cannot fit into our common perception of morality, because it's simply too vast.

Millions of planets, untold trillions of men, women and children. All of them at risk in some way or another every minute of every day.

Most of the threats can, with sufficient brutality, be nipped in the bud. And those left to fester and grow become all the more threatening.

Cults spread, Waaaaaghs! get stronger, Tyranids breed in ever greater numbers.

The Imperium simply cannot afford to Play Nice. Because it's not a choice between The Bad Thing and The Good Thing, as one between The Least Awful Things, all of which have drawbacks.

The Imperium will willingly sacrifice tens of millions of lives, because far more often than not, the alternative is to lose billions of lives. Especially when you consider it's overall structure.

If a Hive World falls, that harms the entire sector. If an Agri-World falls, starvation will follow for many other planets. That's made all the worse if they fall, and the enemy continues it's rampage.

Sometimes, you got to cut off the limb to save the body - and the safest way to do that can include cutting away healthy tissue as well as the rotten.

More like removing a patch of cancerous skin.
Losing a single world is nothing like removing a limb for the Imperium. That would be more like losing several sectors.

T'au are morally inferior because they are Xenos. I wonder how someone can't see this obvious thing.

Humans = good
Xenos = bad

smh

Now seriously, this sums it up completely.

Sterling191 wrote:
"MY FASCISM IS BETTER THAN YOUR FASCISM"

"NO, MY FASCISM IS BETTER THAN YOUR FASCISM!"

Although to be a bit more specific, it would be "MY TOTALITARIAN THEOCRATIC OLIGARCHY IS BETTER THAN YOUR TOTALITARIAN THEOCRATIC OLIGARCHY!"

 Darian Aarush wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
I've never understood how people can seriously argue this point. Like I know Mind Control and Sterilization but like have you never met the Inquisition or the Ecclearchy? Yeah sure the Tau control almost every aspect of your life but at least in the Tau your life has value. Your not gonna see any Tau Fire warriors just shoot you for gaks and giggles and your definitely never gonna see any Tau Fleet blow up a bunch of LOYAL Tau planets for the sole sin of having the audacity to be in the general direction a Tyranid Hive Fleet was heading in. (fething Kryptman.) Both empires are incredibly totalitarian and you have litterally no rights or freedoms on either an yeah sure you might have a TINY itty bitty bit more freedom on SOME imperial worlds but is that tiny amount of maybe extra freedom IF ypur lucky enough to be born on the right planet out weight the massive cost in value to your government and massive increase in disposability? I don't think it is. And please for Terras sake don't just reply by screaming Heresy. Im trying to have a actual conversation here.

The Imperium of Man has learned it needs to be absolutely ruthless over thousands of years of utter carnage and enemies on all fronts.

The Tau just haven't learned that lesson yet.

Also, in the 40K universe, the God-Emperor is an actual thing (i.e. he's very real). This means loyalty and service to the Emperor has its own moral facets.

Also, the Tau have a caste system which is not exactly egalitarian.

This subject is not as easy as it looks superficially.

Yeah sure being brutal to alot of aliens is the right choice but there are undeniably tons of species of alien out there that can be reasoned with and could bring great boons to the Imperium if allowed to join even as second class citizens or even merely protectorates. The Tau have learned that lesson well. There alliances with the Kroot, Niccasar, Vespids etc have payed off dividends well exceeding there cost. Not every new xeno HAS to be met with a the barrel og a Lasgun. Even in a universe as fethed up as 40k every once in awhile extending a hand in friendship is the objectively better option.

Every side of 40k is morally grey. Every side has the dark of evil yet also the light of good in some ways.

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Yeah but the Imperium doesn't HAVE to do what it does. A happy content population is less likely to fall to choas then a beaten and oppressed one. I mean the Eldar had a standard og living surpassing even the Tau and if they had a shorter lifespan theyd still be the dominant species to this day. Even the emperor knew that. You think the emperor dreamt of a despotic imperium that blows up loyal planets for just mearly being in the path of an enemy. The thing that killed the Eldar wasnt some great folley or flaw in there system of goverment. It was pure and simple biology. The fact that the damn knife ears practically live forever is what doomed there species. Cause it meant that eventually theyd get bored and just start murderfucking to get any enjoyment out of there lives. Litterally the ONLY thing that would have been needed to prevent the fall of the Eldar indefinitely would been a finite lifespan. Thats it. There is no rule of the universe that says that you must have 99.99 percent of your population live short miserable meaningless lives. The Eldar even with there inevitable doom pre written into there very DNA maintained a successful galactic empire for far far longer then humanity has even existed with a standard of living that makes even the richest of imperial nobles loom like a poor hive worlder. You can have a galatic empire without beint a dick. The imperium arnt hard men doing what they have to. There just people being dicks when there is no need to be dicks.

Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

They need to keep their population ignorant, because knowledge of chaos is corrupting in and of itself. They have to be brutal and ruthless because otherwise they could never keep the corruption in check. Yes, it creates new problems. That is the tragedy of the Imperium. They must be a harsh and oppressive and cruel regime because it is the only way to keep humanity from becoming extinct. This is why even Inquisitors almost inevitably get corrupted and fall. They either die heroes or live long enough to become corrupted villains.

You forget that the Emperor wasn't exactly a nice guy himself. He was the worst kind of dictator imaginable while he ruled the Imperium directly. He committed mass genocides, wiped out people for thinking differently than he did, etc... He did it all because he had the goal of keeping humanity from becoming extinct. He didn't care if he had to kill a lot of humans, and a lot more xeno, to make that possible.

Really the only difference between pre-heresy and post-heresy Imperium is the deification of the Emperor. Both versions were just as cruel and tyrannical, because they had to be. The only way to survive in a cruel uncaring universe is to be even more ruthless and uncaring. It is tragic and regrettable, but it needs to be done.

The Eldar are not helping prove your point. The Eldar empire was not roses and sunshine like you imply. The old Eldar Empire was basically the same as the current period Dark Eldar. Craftworld Eldar were the rare individuals who realized what their society would create and managed to escape. Dark Eldar are the survivors of the calamity, and because Slannesh is slowly draining their souls they need to keep up with their old depraved ways and even go beyond to stay alive.

The Eldar Empire was an empire where all the planets were basically Commorragh.

In truth, Dark Eldar is a misleading term. It implies that the base state for the Eldar is the regular Craftworld Eldar while there are just some evil versions called Dark Eldar. The truth is its the opposite. The Craftworld Eldar are the exceptions. The Dark Eldar are the closest to their original baseline. Eldar as a general rule are cruel and depraved, it is the rare individuals who can rise above that nature.

Yeah, the Craftworld Eldar are the exceptions, not the rules. Dark Eldar are closer to how the Eldar were before the fall.

Not that the Craftworld Eldar are nice, mind you; they may be more disciplined and less depraved than the Dark Eldar, but they are still arrogant, racist pricks who consider every not Eldar to be expendable. If their farseers forsee that burning 100 human worlds would save the life of a single Eldar, they would do it, because humans don't matter to them. Like, at all.

Oh sure, they'll work with humans...but only because it ultimately serves their purposes, not for humanity's sake.

TBH during the great crusade the Imperium destroyed a couple of human or human and xeno civilization that were doing just fine for millenia without being like the imperium.

Well yeah, that's the Emperor being a dick there.
The Interex could have been left alone, but I guess they threatened the Emperor's New World Order.
Then again, considering how apparently the Interex's military wasn't that great, they probably would have fallen to Orks, Nids or Necrons at some point.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I think you are misconstruing the goals of the Imperium. Or indeed any dictatorial regime. Their goal is not the comfort of their citizens. The difference between the Imperium and other regimes is that the Imperium doesn't lie and pretend they care about individual citizens.

40k in general is a setting that is beyond any of our 21st century morals. The suffering of your citizens is only a concern insofar as it effects your ability to control them. And since the threats the Imperium has to deal with, xeno, heretics, rebels, and chaos, are so insidious they have to use extreme measures. Yes, this leads to what we would view as evil acts. But in a setting where the only good is survival and the only evil is extinction then it doesn't matter if you cause suffering, as long as it furthers the goal of survival.

Yes, there are people in 40k who would view suffering as bad, but it is something they have to live with. A regrettable truth in a harsh universe. Nothing more.

There is also variance in the Imperium's level of harshness based on the local situation. Not every world has the same circumstances, so different approaches are needed in different places. As harsher areas "better off"? Well, depends on your definition. Do you mean "Better of" as it pertains to individual citizens? Do you mean from the perspective of the authorities? Its all relative. And because the Imperium is quite pragmatic, whichever approach is the best is what they use.

Thats why some planets are relatively tolerable, even by our 21st century standards. And others still are intolerable hellholes. Its whatever works for the given situation without being constrained by petty notions like "thats not nice!"

 Grey Templar wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Yeah but the Imperium doesn't HAVE to do what it does. A happy content population is less likely to fall to choas then a beaten and oppressed one. I mean the Eldar had a standard og living surpassing even the Tau and if they had a shorter lifespan theyd still be the dominant species to this day. Even the emperor knew that. You think the emperor dreamt of a despotic imperium that blows up loyal planets for just mearly being in the path of an enemy. The thing that killed the Eldar wasnt some great folley or flaw in there system of goverment. It was pure and simple biology. The fact that the damn knife ears practically live forever is what doomed there species. Cause it meant that eventually theyd get bored and just start murderfucking to get any enjoyment out of there lives. Litterally the ONLY thing that would have been needed to prevent the fall of the Eldar indefinitely would been a finite lifespan. Thats it. There is no rule of the universe that says that you must have 99.99 percent of your population live short miserable meaningless lives. The Eldar even with there inevitable doom pre written into there very DNA maintained a successful galactic empire for far far longer then humanity has even existed with a standard of living that makes even the richest of imperial nobles loom like a poor hive worlder. You can have a galatic empire without beint a dick. The imperium arnt hard men doing what they have to. There just people being dicks when there is no need to be dicks.

Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

They need to keep their population ignorant, because knowledge of chaos is corrupting in and of itself. They have to be brutal and ruthless because otherwise they could never keep the corruption in check. Yes, it creates new problems. That is the tragedy of the Imperium. They must be a harsh and oppressive and cruel regime because it is the only way to keep humanity from becoming extinct. This is why even Inquisitors almost inevitably get corrupted and fall. They either die heroes or live long enough to become corrupted villains.

You forget that the Emperor wasn't exactly a nice guy himself. He was the worst kind of dictator imaginable while he ruled the Imperium directly. He committed mass genocides, wiped out people for thinking differently than he did, etc... He did it all because he had the goal of keeping humanity from becoming extinct. He didn't care if he had to kill a lot of humans, and a lot more xeno, to make that possible.

Really the only difference between pre-heresy and post-heresy Imperium is the deification of the Emperor. Both versions were just as cruel and tyrannical, because they had to be. The only way to survive in a cruel uncaring universe is to be even more ruthless and uncaring. It is tragic and regrettable, but it needs to be done.

The Eldar are not helping prove your point. The Eldar empire was not roses and sunshine like you imply. The old Eldar Empire was basically the same as the current period Dark Eldar. Craftworld Eldar were the rare individuals who realized what their society would create and managed to escape. Dark Eldar are the survivors of the calamity, and because Slannesh is slowly draining their souls they need to keep up with their old depraved ways and even go beyond to stay alive.

The Eldar Empire was an empire where all the planets were basically Commorragh.

In truth, Dark Eldar is a misleading term. It implies that the base state for the Eldar is the regular Craftworld Eldar while there are just some evil versions called Dark Eldar. The truth is its the opposite. The Craftworld Eldar are the exceptions. The Dark Eldar are the closest to their original baseline. Eldar as a general rule are cruel and depraved, it is the rare individuals who can rise above that nature.

You paint the Eldar with too broad and inaccurate of a brush.

The Eldar Empire went through stages.

In the beginning, the Eldar Empire was more like the Craftworld Eldar. How do we know this? The ancient Eldar artifacts and Webway gates bear more resemblance to the Craftworld Eldar. The Eldar gods, myths, and the images associated with them are what the Craftworld Eldar carry on. The Craftworld Eldar are a specific attempt to return to the glory days of the past, Neo-Classicism if you will, when the Eldar held true to their original gods and values. The Exodites are an attempt to go even further back to a more primitive state of development.

As the Empire declined, it became more decadent and became more like the Dark Eldar. The Dark Eldar are a snapshot of the Empire in its final stages when the old ideals and values had fallen away.

All of the current Eldar are representative of the ancient Eldar, at different stages of development, so it is inaccurate to say all Eldar are cruel and depraved as a base state.

The Eldar Empire is like Atlantis, or Tolkien's Numenor. Noble and dazzling at its height, then falling into decadence and cruelty as it declined.

Iracundus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Yeah but the Imperium doesn't HAVE to do what it does. A happy content population is less likely to fall to choas then a beaten and oppressed one. I mean the Eldar had a standard og living surpassing even the Tau and if they had a shorter lifespan theyd still be the dominant species to this day. Even the emperor knew that. You think the emperor dreamt of a despotic imperium that blows up loyal planets for just mearly being in the path of an enemy. The thing that killed the Eldar wasnt some great folley or flaw in there system of goverment. It was pure and simple biology. The fact that the damn knife ears practically live forever is what doomed there species. Cause it meant that eventually theyd get bored and just start murderfucking to get any enjoyment out of there lives. Litterally the ONLY thing that would have been needed to prevent the fall of the Eldar indefinitely would been a finite lifespan. Thats it. There is no rule of the universe that says that you must have 99.99 percent of your population live short miserable meaningless lives. The Eldar even with there inevitable doom pre written into there very DNA maintained a successful galactic empire for far far longer then humanity has even existed with a standard of living that makes even the richest of imperial nobles loom like a poor hive worlder. You can have a galatic empire without beint a dick. The imperium arnt hard men doing what they have to. There just people being dicks when there is no need to be dicks.

Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

They need to keep their population ignorant, because knowledge of chaos is corrupting in and of itself. They have to be brutal and ruthless because otherwise they could never keep the corruption in check. Yes, it creates new problems. That is the tragedy of the Imperium. They must be a harsh and oppressive and cruel regime because it is the only way to keep humanity from becoming extinct. This is why even Inquisitors almost inevitably get corrupted and fall. They either die heroes or live long enough to become corrupted villains.

You forget that the Emperor wasn't exactly a nice guy himself. He was the worst kind of dictator imaginable while he ruled the Imperium directly. He committed mass genocides, wiped out people for thinking differently than he did, etc... He did it all because he had the goal of keeping humanity from becoming extinct. He didn't care if he had to kill a lot of humans, and a lot more xeno, to make that possible.

Really the only difference between pre-heresy and post-heresy Imperium is the deification of the Emperor. Both versions were just as cruel and tyrannical, because they had to be. The only way to survive in a cruel uncaring universe is to be even more ruthless and uncaring. It is tragic and regrettable, but it needs to be done.

The Eldar are not helping prove your point. The Eldar empire was not roses and sunshine like you imply. The old Eldar Empire was basically the same as the current period Dark Eldar. Craftworld Eldar were the rare individuals who realized what their society would create and managed to escape. Dark Eldar are the survivors of the calamity, and because Slannesh is slowly draining their souls they need to keep up with their old depraved ways and even go beyond to stay alive.

The Eldar Empire was an empire where all the planets were basically Commorragh.

In truth, Dark Eldar is a misleading term. It implies that the base state for the Eldar is the regular Craftworld Eldar while there are just some evil versions called Dark Eldar. The truth is its the opposite. The Craftworld Eldar are the exceptions. The Dark Eldar are the closest to their original baseline. Eldar as a general rule are cruel and depraved, it is the rare individuals who can rise above that nature.

You paint the Eldar with too broad a brush.

The Eldar Empire went through stages.

In the beginning, the Eldar Empire was more like the Craftworld Eldar. How do we know this? The ancient Eldar artifacts and Webway gates bear more resemblance to the Craftworld Eldar. The Craftworld Eldar are a specific attempt to return to the glory days of the past, Neo-Classicism if you will, when the Eldar held true to their original gods and values. The Exodites are an attempt to go even further back to a more primitive state of development.

As the Empire declined, it became more decadent and became more like the Dark Eldar. The Dark Eldar are a snapshot of the Empire in its final stages when the old ideals and values had fallen away.

All of the current Eldar are representative of the ancient Eldar, at different stages of development, so it is inaccurate to say all Eldar are cruel and depraved.

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

Quote and cite your claim of where you read this, and also be sure to note there is a difference between individual views and the views of the faction as a whole.

Now mind you, the Eldar have always been condescending towards other races but that is NOT the same as saying they are cruel and depraved.

The Eldar only view other Eldar as people. They may be kind to other races, but that is the kindness of an animal activist. Just as most people today might regret animals dying, they might accept that if the alternative is people dying. Certainly few would object if the animals in question are causing damage or harm to people. Is that necessarily active cruelty? Not so. All the races in 40K look out for their own first above all, but the Eldar (and the Tau) of all the major factions certainly seem to minimize the amount of cruelty to their own kind. The Craftworld quality of life seems to be the best out of all the races out there, without the internecine fighting of Dark Eldar society.

A key factor that influences how Eldar view other races is the difference in natural lifespan. Eldar live over a thousand years. A human without the benefits of treatment cannot even make 100. This limits to what extent an Eldar can form an emotional or personal connection to a human, in much the same way as many people would have trouble forming a serious relationship of equals to a mouse (lifespan 1-2 years in the wild). Go off and do a few things for a short time (compared to your lifespan) and come back to find the other party has died of old age.

Iracundus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

Quote and cite your claim of where you read this.

Now mind you, the Eldar have always been condescending towards other races but that is NOT the same as saying they are cruel and depraved.

The Eldar only view other Eldar as people. They may be kind to other races, but that is the kindness of an animal activist. Just as most people today might regret animals dying, they might accept that if the alternative is people dying. Is that necessarily active cruelty? Not so. All the races in 40K look out for their own first above all, but the Eldar (and the Tau) of all the major factions certainly seem to minimize the amount of cruelty to their own kind.

A key factor that influences how Eldar view other races is the difference in natural lifespan. Eldar live over a thousand years. A human without the benefits of treatment cannot even make 100. This limits to what extent an Eldar can form an emotional or personal connection to a human, in much the same way as many people would have trouble forming a serious relationship of equals to a mouse (lifespan 1-2 years in the wild). Go off and do a few things for a short time (compared to your lifespan) and come back to find the other party has died of old age.

Well, we have this Eldar calling for complete genocide and admitting to have started the whole Armageddon thing

Eldrad is the greatest among us. He is the sun which eclipses the light of our stars. He is Ulthwé and the fate of our kind rests in his hands. His eyes are the keenest, no detail goes unnoticed. Four thousand runes can he cast, guiding our path through torment and war, death and salvation. He is the pathfinder, the seeker, the true guide. Even your race has trembled before his might, though you may not have known it. It was he who guided us to the Ork known as Ghazghkull, and commanded us to steer his path to your world of Armageddon. Ten thousand Eldar lives would have been lost if he had not done so. What sacrifice is a million humans for such a cause?
He knows your affairs better than you do yourself. He warned that weakling seer you call Emperor of the treachery of Horus and the strife which would engulf us, just as it engulfed the rest of the galaxy, but your arrogance deafened you to his words. Your stupidity almost destroyed the galaxy, yet you never knew how close the forces of light were to our ultimate defeat. He saw the Great Devourer and warned our kin on Iyanden, even before they had neared our galaxy.

To him all futures are laid out, just as your crude implements of torture are laid out on the cold metal of that shelf. You say we are random and capricious, we say you are vulgar and idiotic. Some of you call us your enemies. All races are our enemy in time. Some of you call us your allies. You are not allies, any more than a butcher’s knife is his ally. You are tools, nothing more. To be used and expended to protect our race, that is your fate.

Your kind think you are so magnificent, yet even now, at the nadir of our power, we can manipulate you, turn you to our ends, as easily as you might pull a trigger and fire a gun. Our time will come again, Eldrad has promised us. Once more you upstart Mon-keigh [subject spits] shall kneel before our power! This time we will not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!

You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth.

Much kindness, wow. Totally don't see humans as expendable tools to be cast aside once they've exhausted their usefulness.
I mean, humans are donkey-caves, but Eldar are even bigger donkey-caves.

You do know that people keep mice as pets, right? And that they can still form an emotional connection to them?

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I would also say the existence of rediscovered human worlds and pocket empires dating from before the Imperium shows there are alternative ways to the Imperium. If they can also survive for 10,000 years then their way of life is just as effective.

Iracundus wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I would also say the existence of rediscovered human worlds and pocket empires dating from before the Imperium shows there are alternative ways to the Imperium. If they can also survive for 10,000 years then their way of life is just as effective.

Not really. How big are these Empires compared to the Imperium? Are they being assaulted on all fronts night and day from many multitudes of sources? It’s apples and oranges. Small sector or subsector protected by the warp is not equal to the galaxy spanning Imperium, and its idiotic to compare them so.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

Quote and cite your claim of where you read this.

Now mind you, the Eldar have always been condescending towards other races but that is NOT the same as saying they are cruel and depraved.

The Eldar only view other Eldar as people. They may be kind to other races, but that is the kindness of an animal activist. Just as most people today might regret animals dying, they might accept that if the alternative is people dying. Is that necessarily active cruelty? Not so. All the races in 40K look out for their own first above all, but the Eldar (and the Tau) of all the major factions certainly seem to minimize the amount of cruelty to their own kind.

A key factor that influences how Eldar view other races is the difference in natural lifespan. Eldar live over a thousand years. A human without the benefits of treatment cannot even make 100. This limits to what extent an Eldar can form an emotional or personal connection to a human, in much the same way as many people would have trouble forming a serious relationship of equals to a mouse (lifespan 1-2 years in the wild). Go off and do a few things for a short time (compared to your lifespan) and come back to find the other party has died of old age.

Well, we have this Eldar calling for complete genocide and admitting to have started the whole Armageddon thing

Eldrad is the greatest among us. He is the sun which eclipses the light of our stars. He is Ulthwé and the fate of our kind rests in his hands. His eyes are the keenest, no detail goes unnoticed. Four thousand runes can he cast, guiding our path through torment and war, death and salvation. He is the pathfinder, the seeker, the true guide. Even your race has trembled before his might, though you may not have known it. It was he who guided us to the Ork known as Ghazghkull, and commanded us to steer his path to your world of Armageddon. Ten thousand Eldar lives would have been lost if he had not done so. What sacrifice is a million humans for such a cause?
He knows your affairs better than you do yourself. He warned that weakling seer you call Emperor of the treachery of Horus and the strife which would engulf us, just as it engulfed the rest of the galaxy, but your arrogance deafened you to his words. Your stupidity almost destroyed the galaxy, yet you never knew how close the forces of light were to our ultimate defeat. He saw the Great Devourer and warned our kin on Iyanden, even before they had neared our galaxy.

To him all futures are laid out, just as your crude implements of torture are laid out on the cold metal of that shelf. You say we are random and capricious, we say you are vulgar and idiotic. Some of you call us your enemies. All races are our enemy in time. Some of you call us your allies. You are not allies, any more than a butcher’s knife is his ally. You are tools, nothing more. To be used and expended to protect our race, that is your fate.

Your kind think you are so magnificent, yet even now, at the nadir of our power, we can manipulate you, turn you to our ends, as easily as you might pull a trigger and fire a gun. Our time will come again, Eldrad has promised us. Once more you upstart Mon-keigh [subject spits] shall kneel before our power! This time we will not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!

You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth.

Much kindness, wow. Totally don't see humans as expendable tools to be cast aside once they've exhausted their usefulness.

Considering the individual in question is a prisoner being tortured and is presumably due for death, a hostile viewpoint towards his captors is hardly unexpected.

As I made mention in the previous post, the individual's views have to be taken into account.

As a counterpoint:

Yet sometimes an Eldar Corsair may display the greatest compassion to their defeated enemies if it pleases them to do so. The so-called Duke of Asteri Reach, Avele Swifteye, commands a cOrsair fleet out of Biel-Tan craftworld, and has continued Biel-Tan's pledge to protect the Maiden worlds from settlement by lesser races. On the world of Yrthal (a Maiden world), Avele destroyed half a dozen Human settlements before the fledgling Imperial colony surrendered. He took the surviving forty thousand colonists to a nearby habitable moon, keeping them in stasis aboard his ships while they shuttled back and forth in short warp jumps, and romised that no further hostilities would be taken against them if they did not stray back to Yrthal.

-p. 53, 4th edition Eldar Codex

So we have a Corsair from the most xenophobic Craftworld, who accepts a surrender from humans and then takes the time and risk of doing warp jumps to carry them all to a habitable moon. Remember doing warp jumps is a far bigger deal for Eldar due to the risk of the bright Eldar souls attracting daemons. You'd be hard pressed to find an equivalent example of mercy and personal risk for the sake of aliens by an Imperial.

 Apple Peel wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I would also say the existence of rediscovered human worlds and pocket empires dating from before the Imperium shows there are alternative ways to the Imperium. If they can also survive for 10,000 years then their way of life is just as effective.

Not really. How big are these Empires compared to the Imperium? Are they being assaulted on all fronts night and day from many multitudes of sources? It’s apples and oranges. Small sector or subsector protected by the warp is not equal to the galaxy spanning Imperium, and its idiotic to compare them so.

Yeah, how do we know the Interex weren't constantly under Ork attack? I'd say no, because apparently the Interex's military wasn't that well developed as the Imperium's, despite their relatively superior tech, and you'd want a developed military when fighting against the Orks.

 Apple Peel wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I would also say the existence of rediscovered human worlds and pocket empires dating from before the Imperium shows there are alternative ways to the Imperium. If they can also survive for 10,000 years then their way of life is just as effective.

Not really. How big are these Empires compared to the Imperium? Are they being assaulted on all fronts night and day from many multitudes of sources? It’s apples and oranges. Small sector or subsector protected by the warp is not equal to the galaxy spanning Imperium, and its idiotic to compare them so.

Can it on the ad hominem. Just because a view is different from yours does not make it "idiotic."

If they survive for 10,000 years in a hostile galaxy, whether by stealth, arms, or whatever other means, then their way of life is as effective as the Imperium, and punctures the oft trotted excuse of the Imperium's brutality being necessary for survival. The metric that gets trotted out is survival. If they survived, then they have succeeded just as much.

Trying to then add "but they were not all powerful in the galaxy" is shifting the goalposts beyond survival to being on top. Then that's an issue more of pride.

Iracundus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

Quote and cite your claim of where you read this.

Now mind you, the Eldar have always been condescending towards other races but that is NOT the same as saying they are cruel and depraved.

The Eldar only view other Eldar as people. They may be kind to other races, but that is the kindness of an animal activist. Just as most people today might regret animals dying, they might accept that if the alternative is people dying. Is that necessarily active cruelty? Not so. All the races in 40K look out for their own first above all, but the Eldar (and the Tau) of all the major factions certainly seem to minimize the amount of cruelty to their own kind.

A key factor that influences how Eldar view other races is the difference in natural lifespan. Eldar live over a thousand years. A human without the benefits of treatment cannot even make 100. This limits to what extent an Eldar can form an emotional or personal connection to a human, in much the same way as many people would have trouble forming a serious relationship of equals to a mouse (lifespan 1-2 years in the wild). Go off and do a few things for a short time (compared to your lifespan) and come back to find the other party has died of old age.

Well, we have this Eldar calling for complete genocide and admitting to have started the whole Armageddon thing

Eldrad is the greatest among us. He is the sun which eclipses the light of our stars. He is Ulthwé and the fate of our kind rests in his hands. His eyes are the keenest, no detail goes unnoticed. Four thousand runes can he cast, guiding our path through torment and war, death and salvation. He is the pathfinder, the seeker, the true guide. Even your race has trembled before his might, though you may not have known it. It was he who guided us to the Ork known as Ghazghkull, and commanded us to steer his path to your world of Armageddon. Ten thousand Eldar lives would have been lost if he had not done so. What sacrifice is a million humans for such a cause?
He knows your affairs better than you do yourself. He warned that weakling seer you call Emperor of the treachery of Horus and the strife which would engulf us, just as it engulfed the rest of the galaxy, but your arrogance deafened you to his words. Your stupidity almost destroyed the galaxy, yet you never knew how close the forces of light were to our ultimate defeat. He saw the Great Devourer and warned our kin on Iyanden, even before they had neared our galaxy.

To him all futures are laid out, just as your crude implements of torture are laid out on the cold metal of that shelf. You say we are random and capricious, we say you are vulgar and idiotic. Some of you call us your enemies. All races are our enemy in time. Some of you call us your allies. You are not allies, any more than a butcher’s knife is his ally. You are tools, nothing more. To be used and expended to protect our race, that is your fate.

Your kind think you are so magnificent, yet even now, at the nadir of our power, we can manipulate you, turn you to our ends, as easily as you might pull a trigger and fire a gun. Our time will come again, Eldrad has promised us. Once more you upstart Mon-keigh [subject spits] shall kneel before our power! This time we will not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!

You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth.

Much kindness, wow. Totally don't see humans as expendable tools to be cast aside once they've exhausted their usefulness.

Considering the individual in question is a prisoner being tortured and is presumably due for death, a hostile viewpoint towards his captors is hardly unexpected.

As I made mention in the previous post, the individual's views have to be taken into account.

As a counterpoint:

Yet sometimes an Eldar Corsair may display the greatest compassion to their defeated enemies if it pleases them to do so. The so-called Duke of Asteri Reach, Avele Swifteye, commands a cOrsair fleet out of Biel-Tan craftworld, and has continued Biel-Tan's pledge to protect the Maiden worlds from settlement by lesser races. On the world of Yrthal (a Maiden world), Avele destroyed half a dozen Human settlements before the fledgling Imperial colony surrendered. He took the surviving forty thousand colonists to a nearby habitable moon, keeping them in stasis aboard his ships while they shuttled back and forth in short warp jumps, and romised that no further hostilities would be taken against them if they did not stray back to Yrthal.

-p. 53, 4th edition Eldar Codex

So we have a Corsair from the most xenophobic Craftworld, who accepts a surrender from humans and then takes the time and risk of doing warp jumps to carry them all to a habitable moon. Remember doing warp jumps is a far bigger deal for Eldar due to the risk of the bright Eldar souls attracting daemons. You'd be hard pressed to find an equivalent example of mercy and personal risk for the sake of aliens by an Imperial.

Alright fair enough. So they aren't all donkey-caves then. Just most of them

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Well yeah, that's the Emperor being a dick there.
The Interex could have been left alone, but I guess they threatened the Emperor's New World Order.
Then again, considering how apparently the Interex's military wasn't that great, they probably would have fallen to Orks, Nids or Necrons at some point.

I always see this argument made "Well, they were destroyed by the imperium, so they would end up destroyed anyway".
But in reality, the Imperium during the great crusade conquered the Galaxy, they were unstopable. Even the biggest empire the Orks have ever built was destroyed by a fraction of the Great Crusade army. And even in modern times, the rotten carcass of that empire can face ALL treats at once and survive.
So no, those civilizations could have survived just fine, just like they did for millenia. Is dishonest to say that the imperium faces ALL ENEMIES ALL THE TIME because in reality most systems only face one enemy, and with many years between attacks. How does Ultramar cares abou what happens in Baal? Does their survival have less merit? Those pocket civilizatoons should be compared with a sector or a couple of sistems, in relation to the threads they face, not the whole imperium.
Also, just because the Roman Empire felt, it doesnt make it irrelevant.

if your sole contribution to the debate is to insult other posters it's better you do not post at all.

Sterling191 wrote:
And its a lie.

I feel like if people could accept that at least half of the fluff is lies and/or propaganda they'd start to understand the joke of the setting and have a far more difficult time taking it seriously.

Even now, it's still a parody, as no one in their right mind could look at this universe and embrace it straight on. It's horrifying, so, poke fun at it.

And then remember at the end of the day, this is the kind of universe that would be required for someone who says their way is the only way to even have the chance of being right, and even in this universe, we're not really sure of that.


That said, the little blue bastards have a horrible wake up call in their future, there is no one who is morally superior in this universe.

The Tau are not Good Guys.

The Eldar are not good guys.

I think the argument is, or should be more about governance. The means by which labour and resources are collected and used. I'd say the IoM is a medieval feudal style government, with a tacked on theocratic element. The Tau appear to be a communist collective with a caste system. I'm not sure what the poli sci term is for their social structures effect on their government. The Eldar are...communist with some tribal leadership elements.

In terms of "goodness " I'd go with the Eldar. However their government interacts with humanity is more of a genocidal pogrom attempting to annihilate the human race. At best the eldar trying to reduce the human race to a pack of primates at a iron age level of sophistication, as if locked in a permanent zoo exhibit. The tau would treat humanity as a conquered vassal state akin to ancient Romes hegemony. As long as they pay their taxes and venerate the Etherals they'd allow humans to live relatively peacefully. The IoM would allow humans to thrive. The means by which they would accomplish that IS objectionable. However the galaxy IS a VERY BAD place.

Because they have to rationalize their affinity with space-fascists, however frantically they can.

The Tau are not Communist. In the slightest.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Because they have to rationalize their affinity with space-fascists, however frantically they can.

The Tau are not Communist. In the slightest.

What is their basic financial unit? Dollars? Something more convoluted? Are Tau allowed to own property as individuals? Are Tau assigned work based on their preferences or skill set? As I understand the tau don't get to choose their vocation, it's based on their caste. I assume their compensation is equally based on their communal society's prerogatives.

The IoM is not Facist. They do not have a single leader. Facist is just a word misused by people who presume a totalitarian state is automatically facist.

I don't know what a facist is.

Presuming you meant fascist, yes it is and yes it does. ALmost every regime in 40K is totalitarian, I only make the fascist allegation about the IoM, because it's the only one that holds.

The things you flag about the Tau have zero impact on whether they are Communist or not. Personal property vs. private property, old bean. Meritocracy does not disappear under Communism. The CCCP went from a feudal, agrarian society to putting a man in space inside fifty years - while also defeating the Nazis. Because they were unmotivated and innovation died, I guess?

They're much closer to fascist than they are Communist, when you consider the totality of their top-down, Imperialist, expansionist circumstances. You could maybe argue that the Tau are Stalinists/Maoists, but there's a reason nobody takes tankies seriously, even on my side of the aisle.

They definitely are not Marxist-Leninists, or Trots.

EDIT - For avoidance of doubt, nothing I have said here is meant to give the impression that the IoM is therefore morally inferior to the Tau. Objective morality is a myth and I take no position as to what is 'moral'.

If they survive for 10,000 years in a hostile galaxy, whether by stealth, arms, or whatever other means, then their way of life is as effective as the Imperium, and punctures the oft trotted excuse of the Imperium's brutality being necessary for survival. The metric that gets trotted out is survival. If they survived, then they have succeeded just as much

Agreed with a caveat - if a culture has survived by stealth in some active manner - it's 'hiding' or been 'hidden', fine. But if there are out-of-context extinction-level forces out there that it's just not encountered yet, then that culture is basically sat on a time bomb with an unreasonably long fuse - however viable it might be internally that's not the same as survivable on a long-term galactic scale, it's the Mesoamerican cultures looking out to sea and saying "what wired looking boats. I do hope they don't have any interesting new diseases..."

Thing is, there are extinction-level forces out there - things like big hive fleets or the Beast's Waaaggh! which can only be stopped by another force operating at a galactic scale.

locarno24 wrote:

If they survive for 10,000 years in a hostile galaxy, whether by stealth, arms, or whatever other means, then their way of life is as effective as the Imperium, and punctures the oft trotted excuse of the Imperium's brutality being necessary for survival. The metric that gets trotted out is survival. If they survived, then they have succeeded just as much

Agreed with a caveat - if a culture has survived by stealth in some active manner - it's 'hiding' or been 'hidden', fine. But if there are out-of-context extinction-level forces out there that it's just not encountered yet, then that culture is basically sat on a time bomb with an unreasonably long fuse - however viable it might be internally that's not the same as survivable on a long-term galactic scale, it's the Mesoamerican cultures looking out to sea and saying "what wired looking boats. I do hope they don't have any interesting new diseases..."

Thing is, there are extinction-level forces out there - things like big hive fleets or the Beast's Waaaggh! which can only be stopped by another force operating at a galactic scale.

TBH the same will happen to the Imperium. Is doomed to fail. They just haven't failed yet. Be it by Chaos, or Tyranids, or other mega thread. That doesn't make their 10.000 and counting years of history less worth.