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.

 Argive wrote:
As long as the imperial tithe is paid and the black ships keep being supplied i font think iom cares at all about how a planet is run. Apart from maybe if the population has some tentacles growing out of rheir elbow...

There are some other lines.
Heavy xenos trade or ideas, religious leanings that aren't toward the Emperor, strong independence streaks, and that kind of thing.
Some small level of mutation in the bottom rung of society is actually more likely to be overlooked.

Voss wrote:

Some small level of mutation in the bottom rung of society is actually more likely to be overlooked.

It's only "overlooked" because mutants know to hide or else they'll be genocided. Mutants that are useful to the Imperium's war machine (like psykers, beastmen, etc) are sometimes kept around, but if you're born intersex or with a sixth finger or something? Genocided. And if your parents try to protect you, they'll be killed too, probably tortured to death to serve as an example. Recent fluff materials say that about half of mutants hide their mutation, but out of the ones that are caught, only 1 in 1000 is kept alive, the others are just killed. So the Imperium kills 99.9% of people with physical deformities, at birth if possible. That's incredibly monstrous and shouldn't be understated.

 Grimskul wrote:
I don't think you actually seem to know the 40k lore very well if you assume that the Imperium is the alt right and Tau are leftists in any way. Both are authoritarian oligarchal empires that have a "my way or the highway" approach to expansionism, but the Tau are anything but communist when they have a literal caste system that prevents any social mobility. Similarly, it's incredibly reductionist to the Imperium to the alt right when they're so decentralized that governance is really about paying taxes and lip service to the Emperor than anything else, that's why you can range from feral worlds with borderline cavemen to fully fledged democracies that exist on worlds in the Imperium.

The Imperium is right wing to the point that it would make Hitler blush, but the point is that the alt-right types *perceive* the Tau as communists/leftists, and thus despise them. Craftworld Eldar are the closest thing to a communist state in 40k; the Tau are following the philosopher-king ideal, IMO, with the Ethereals taking the place of the philosopher-king caste.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
The Imperium has spent Nearly ELEVEN GODS-DAMNED-MILLENIA being beset on all sides by vile Xenos and Chaos. Humanity learned during the Age of Strife what happens when you take half measures, or treat with Xenos. You get, well, The Age of Strife. It was the Eldar, after all, that caused Golden Age Humanity to crumble into the shell that the Emperor had to begin his Great Crusade to restore. It was Chaos who sliced the Imperium in twain, and it was the Orks who very nearly finished the job.

The Imperium's in a rough spot, so are the Tau. But the difference is the Imperium is the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." They're not pragmatic. They're needlessly genocidal and tyrannical. And because of how the Immaterium works, they're strengthening Chaos with their corrupt, hateful, genocidal tendencies. They're not choosing the path of survival; they're in fact choosing a path that increases the chance they will be wiped out, because they're so maniacal and bloody-minded on the issue.

Again, if you want the faction that has to do horrible things to survive, that's the Tau.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
And let's not forget, DAOT Humanity were even more aggressive, but had the tech to back up their bluster. When the Eldar look at humanity, wiping out entire Solar Systems because a fraction of their population turned to Chaos and they judged that the ones who didn't stop them before the Astartes had to get involved (Iron Hands, woo!) were not worthy of mercy, they think "Well at least the Mon-keigh have calmed down a little and are back to using just normal weapons rather than GUNS THAT SHOOT BLACK HOLES BACK IN TIME TO DESTROY AN ENEMY BEFORE IT WAS EVEN AN ENEMY."

DAOT humanity wasn't a degenerate, corrupt bunch of religious maniacs, though. They weren't feeding Chaos with their toxic psyches (like the Eldar were at that time).

 BaconCatBug wrote:
The Imperium of Man is making the hard choices to survive, and even then it's not working. After 11,000 years of this I am surprised the Imperium isn't MORE cruel. It's just like the Eldar, if you can sacrifice a billion lives to potentially save a trillion later on, it's worth whatever "nastiness" that comes with it. The only difference is the scale, since the Eldar would happily sacrifice a trillion Mon-keigh lives for a bakers dozen of Eldar.

Nope. It's the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." Cruelty is not about expedience; it's about taking pleasure from suffering. And at least the Dark Eldar, another group of well-known sadists, have pragmatic reasons for the pain they inflict on others (extending their lifespans etc). The Imperium doesn't gain anything from it. They're just heartless, worthless excuses for human life who want to see everyone else suffer.

Also, the Imperium is worse than the example you give about the Eldar - the Imperium would sacrifice 2 humans for every Eldar to exterminate their entire race, because they're gakky like that. They'll chop off their arm if someone else has to lose a hand.

Hecaton wrote:

Nope. It's the "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." Cruelty is not about expedience; it's about taking pleasure from suffering. And at least the Dark Eldar, another group of well-known sadists, have pragmatic reasons for the pain they inflict on others (extending their lifespans etc). The Imperium doesn't gain anything from it. They're just heartless, worthless excuses for human life who want to see everyone else suffer.

Also, the Imperium is worse than the example you give about the Eldar - the Imperium would sacrifice 2 humans for every Eldar to exterminate their entire race, because they're gakky like that.

I would too because that's a really good trade. Every time a state power sends its armies to fight it accepts some trade in life. Do you think Mankind loses 2 guardsmen/civilians for every 1 Eldar casualty? It must be so much higher than that. Here's the math, say you have about a billion Eldar. You can either allow them to burn, loot, murder, rape, pillage etc for another few millenia until they finally die out: killing hundreds, maybe thousands of billions of humans in the process, disrupting the war effort against Chaos, the battle for the survival of the galaxy.

Or you can lose 2 billion people now.

There are hives much bigger than that on Necromunda that Hive Primus doesn't even know about. You could get 2 billion volunteer heroes, make their surviving families royalty, scribe their names and deeds on a planet sized middle finger to the Eldar made from shattered craftworlds. You could conscript 2 billion prisoners sentenced to death for murder, rape, jaywalking. You could amass 2 billion political prisoners who jeopardised the stability of the Imperium by advocating peace with xenos or wealth redistribution and throw them out of space helicopters until the Eldar were dead.

Its not a nice decision to have to make, but the correct decision is obvious. 40k is a universe that forces such grim equations on you. The cruelty is almost always necessary.

They'll chop off their arm if someone else has to lose a hand.

What price would you refuse to pay for survival?

The Imperium is so obviously needlessly cruel it's actively hilarious.

There's no "survival" related reason to posthumously sentence an entire regiment to death for not showing up to their muster because they were wiped out. That's just spitting on the graves of those Guardsmen out of spite.

There's no "survival" related reason not to use automatic loaders on your starship cannons instead of hundreds of thousands of slaves. It is literally cheaper, better in combat, and easier. Pointless cruelty.

The Imperium is a wreck. I play an Inquisitor with some of my armies and she is a Recongegator, because holy feth. Sometimes you read lore and it's just "WHY?" and the answer is "grimderp". Which, in-setting, is just pointless cruelty.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.

The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.

Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.

Anything else is the Enemy.

The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.

I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.

What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.

How are they "powered" by cruelty and hate?

Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind.

Yes, but to the...let's say minority of people who think the imperium is "good guys" and you know, used to have wet dreams about "god emperor Cheeto", it's real easy to make the mental jump of "well we have no actual aliens, but...man those Eldar sure are coded queer, and the Tau have been inspired by the Yellow Peril" and project their IRL feelings on 40k and vice versa.

It's not uniquely 40k problem, fantasy as a whole have sometimes been...not exactly subtle about using non-humans as stand in for things (sci-fi too, if you have any character with autistic traits, you can bet it'll be an android or "logical" alien race), but 40k is the one which has the "kill the xenos, purge the unclean" vibe going that idiots take at face value.

BrianDavion wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.

How are they "powered" by cruelty and hate?

Not to be crass, but the entire church, the Inquisition, the Sisters of Battle, and the GK/BTs are literally driven by hatred, their "faith" is just Hatred of the "unclean". It's not even an allegory at this point. Also, you know that the Navy routinely gets up to a planet and literally abducts humans for slave labor on their ships, most of which don't survive the first years, and are "recycled". The entire Commissariat has long operated that fear and cruelty is the only way to "inspire" the troops. Need me to go on? I could go into what literally happens to the humans deemed to being made into Servitors?

Cronch wrote:

Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind.

Yes, but to the...let's say minority of people who think the imperium is "good guys" and you know, used to have wet dreams about "god emperor Cheeto", it's real easy to make the mental jump of "well we have no actual aliens, but...man those Eldar sure are coded queer, and the Tau have been inspired by the Yellow Peril" and project their IRL feelings on 40k and vice versa.

It's not uniquely 40k problem, fantasy as a whole have sometimes been...not exactly subtle about using non-humans as stand in for things (sci-fi too, if you have any character with autistic traits, you can bet it'll be an android or "logical" alien race), but 40k is the one which has the "kill the xenos, purge the unclean" vibe going that idiots take at face value.

Well thats fair - indeed the Orks used to call the Eldar - "Pansy Elves" - The Tau are also to capture Manga /Animae fans

On a positive note - I did notice more gay background characters recently - and ones they did not make a fuss about but simply there - its anoying when show/ etc make a super big deal of stuff. Yeah the Autistic thing is often badly done - the recent Predator film distorting what Autism is and then trying to make a "desired trait" was.....not great.

Right Wing is not just a white thing either - racism and hatred for "others" seems to be a fairly unversal thing across all cultures - for example the Japanese in WWII or the Budihists in Myanmar or some many others in so many places.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.

How are they "powered" by cruelty and hate?

Not to be crass, but the entire church, the Inquisition, the Sisters of Battle, and the GK/BTs are literally driven by hatred, their "faith" is just Hatred of the "unclean". It's not even an allegory at this point. Also, you know that the Navy routinely gets up to a planet and literally abducts humans for slave labor on their ships, most of which don't survive the first years, and are "recycled". The entire Commissariat has long operated that fear and cruelty is the only way to "inspire" the troops. Need me to go on? I could go into what literally happens to the humans deemed to being made into Servitors?

Yep fairly accurate description - although many of the Faithful do also believe in a merciful protector - the Same god but that "good" side is reserved for the pure and faithful humans - pretty standard religion really ?

Amberley Vail and Ciaphas Cain are, by Imperial standards fairly easy going, liberal even - but .....

Amberely remebers fondly as child her books showing burning heretics orgrinding them beneath the wheels of a Land Raider and Cain has try hard to control himself and not attack a Tau allied human (and she is even young and pretty and he is....Cain) but he wants to kill her so great is his disgust at human traitors living with the Tau - he feels much more disgust and anger at them than the actual Xenos.

Guys, nobody with a modern western viewpoint could survive in the imperium. Period. Eventually he'd be killed or kill himself to avoid maybe being turned into a servitor or arco flagellant.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
What I find hilarious is that parts of the Imperium are literally powered by cruelness/hate. As if that's somehow a legit resource.

How are they "powered" by cruelty and hate?

Not to be crass, but the entire church, the Inquisition, the Sisters of Battle, and the GK/BTs are literally driven by hatred, their "faith" is just Hatred of the "unclean". It's not even an allegory at this point. Also, you know that the Navy routinely gets up to a planet and literally abducts humans for slave labor on their ships, most of which don't survive the first years, and are "recycled". The entire Commissariat has long operated that fear and cruelty is the only way to "inspire" the troops. Need me to go on? I could go into what literally happens to the humans deemed to being made into Servitors?

I literally wish people would use the word "literally" more literally.

Because the Imperium "literally" being powered by cruelty/hate means they somehow siphon it, fill it in canisters, and use it as fuel/power source/ammunition/whatever.
To use an actual example from the setting, kinda like the Dark Eldar do with pain - they are indeed literally feeding on it.

So while the Imperium is both cruel and hateful, they aren't literally powered by it.

 Mr Morden wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.

The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.

Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.

Anything else is the Enemy.

The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.

I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.

With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.

In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.

Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.

Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.

To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.

So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.

Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.

Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.

Well there are some hints that "maybe" the Tau have had help from the Eldar - but I am not aware of anything more than that. However nothing seems to be protecting them from the Imperium, the Dark Eldar (who see them as great fun) or the Necrons looking to purge.

Yes the whole point of them is that offer a better world than the Imperium - that also may or may not have a darker side. However it should be something that very very few ever hear about given the remoteness of the very very small empire.

They are also moving towards a possible civil war and of course their AI's leave them vulnerable to a new Iron men issue and/or posession of the IA's by Chaos. PLus they are beginnig to realise quite how bad Chaos can be and some veterans at least are going down the route of "kill all non tau" in PA - or at least kill all humans.

As I said like the Tau - always have done but just donlt like some of the look of their tech

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.

The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.

Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.

Anything else is the Enemy.

The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.

I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.

With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.

In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.

Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.

Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.

To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.

So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.

Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.

Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.

I disagree with the degree that you give Tau as an existential threat to the Imperium. For one, just because humans have defected to the Tau regime means very little compared to the degree to which Chaos has subverted imperial forces. Think about it, through the Horus Heresy, Chaos had half the Legions and a significant chunk of the Imperial Army AND the Mechanicus side with Horus, shattering the Emperor's dream of lifting humanity into its final evolutionary form with the protection of the webway. The Imperium is still consistently warring from without thanks to traitors from the Eye of Terror and cults from within that do the same thing with offering "alternative" forms of rule than that of the Imperial yoke. Again, Chaos is the one that has split the Imperium in two.

Meanwhile, the Tau have captured fringe worlds and only recently had more luck with the Startide Nexus, which has now backfired with the attention of the Death Guard waltzing over to it. It says something that there is fluff where the Tau have admitted that it is better to just kill marines than attempt to subvert them, since the attempts of one of their psychic client races resulted in too many of them being overloaded/dying to be worth committing to overwriting the hypno indoctrination they have. So when Chaos has an easier time subverting Marines than Tau do, on top of how the Imperials have always been stopped from finishing the Tau due to Tyranid or Ork threats, I'm pretty sure the Tau isn't as large a problem to the Imperial Creed as think it would be.

 =Angel= wrote:
I would too because that's a really good trade. Every time a state power sends its armies to fight it accepts some trade in life. Do you think Mankind loses 2 guardsmen/civilians for every 1 Eldar casualty? It must be so much higher than that. Here's the math, say you have about a billion Eldar. You can either allow them to burn, loot, murder, rape, pillage etc for another few millenia until they finally die out: killing hundreds, maybe thousands of billions of humans in the process, disrupting the war effort against Chaos, the battle for the survival of the galaxy.

Or you can lose 2 billion people now.

The point is that even if there was an alien race that was friendly and would actually help the Imperium against Chaos, the Imperium would still sacrifice a whole mess of its own citizens to exterminate them, because it hates non-humans and wants them to suffer. Also, remember, by being such a warmongering, genocidal society, the Imperium is feeding Chaos (Khorne in this case) and just hastening their own demise. The extremes the Imperium is willing to go to are actually counterproductive; it's not that their extreme methods are insufficient, they're actually creating their own doom by being such genocidal extremists.

 =Angel= wrote:
Its not a nice decision to have to make, but the correct decision is obvious. 40k is a universe that forces such grim equations on you. The cruelty is almost always necessary.

Nope. With the way the Immaterium/Warp works, thinking you have the decision "forced on you" is just resigning to defeat; responding to harsh circumstances with hatred and negative emotions just makes the galaxy worse.

 =Angel= wrote:

What price would you refuse to pay for survival?

There are causes worth dying for.

Tau are the ones who promise a "better tomorrow" while the Imperium promises that you will die, horribly, but it will often be quick, so that's nice. The reason the IOM fears the Tau is that they can see the writing on the wall when entire planets willingly go over to the Tau just to escape the cruel existence of imperial rule.

Granted the truth might be far from the promise, but there is a reason the Tau are feared. They often don't even have to fight to take a world.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Tau are the ones who promise a "better tomorrow" while the Imperium promises that you will die, horribly, but it will often be quick, so that's nice. The reason the IOM fears the Tau is that they can see the writing on the wall when entire planets willingly go over to the Tau just to escape the cruel existence of imperial rule.

Granted the truth might be far from the promise, but there is a reason the Tau are feared. They often don't even have to fight to take a world.

The IoM keeps an eye on them - but there are more danagerous immediate threats and some are more insidious or available to a imperial citizen

Also Chaos promises even more - immortatity, power, indulgance, far more than anything that the Tau can provide - and you just need to give up your soul .....why not - your life is nothing anyway.....

Genestealer Cults across the galaxy provide for their "family", they love them, nuturue them, protect them - until the Hive fleet is called.

The Tau have limited FTL, limited reach and limited ability to even inform imperials - yeah a few minor planets have gone over to them......but compare that to those that have fallen to Chaos or the GSCults. People on a tiny amount of frontier worlds might have heard of them, a few imperial nobles and Rogue Traders ma have their cool shiny tech and thats a threat - but its a small one (or should be) - let it grow and it will become powerful.

BUt the Tau have to survive Chaos, the Necrons, Orks, the Dark Eldar, their own growing internal tensions, their AI - their accension is by no means assured - no more than their very survivial - otherwise it would not be 40k

They have now grown enough to be noticed - they should be afraid.....

 Grimskul wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.

The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.

Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.

Anything else is the Enemy.

The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.

I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.

With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.

In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.

Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.

Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.

To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.

So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.

Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.

Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.

I disagree with the degree that you give Tau as an existential threat to the Imperium. For one, just because humans have defected to the Tau regime means very little compared to the degree to which Chaos has subverted imperial forces. Think about it, through the Horus Heresy, Chaos had half the Legions and a significant chunk of the Imperial Army AND the Mechanicus side with Horus, shattering the Emperor's dream of lifting humanity into its final evolutionary form with the protection of the webway. The Imperium is still consistently warring from without thanks to traitors from the Eye of Terror and cults from within that do the same thing with offering "alternative" forms of rule than that of the Imperial yoke. Again, Chaos is the one that has split the Imperium in two.

Meanwhile, the Tau have captured fringe worlds and only recently had more luck with the Startide Nexus, which has now backfired with the attention of the Death Guard waltzing over to it. It says something that there is fluff where the Tau have admitted that it is better to just kill marines than attempt to subvert them, since the attempts of one of their psychic client races resulted in too many of them being overloaded/dying to be worth committing to overwriting the hypno indoctrination they have. So when Chaos has an easier time subverting Marines than Tau do, on top of how the Imperials have always been stopped from finishing the Tau due to Tyranid or Ork threats, I'm pretty sure the Tau isn't as large a problem to the Imperial Creed as think it would be.

You're right, in cold numerical terms that tau aren't as big a threat as the imperium sees them, but you forget that the imperium is ran by raving paranoid fanatical maniacs who possibly see the tau as a greater threat than the are. Sometimes military strategies aren't dictated by rational, sane, reasonable facts and realities. Take WW2 for an example: Hitler wanted to take Stalingrad as a personal slap at uncle Joe. He committed vastly more forces to the city then was rational to. The russians defended it so good ol' dolfy sent more and more forces into it, while his generals were begging him to just bypass the damn city and go for moscow.

Even Paulus, the general hitler assigned to take stalingrad after firing the last generals who said it was a disaster, said it could not be done, he begged hitler for permission to retreat, But Nnnnooooooooo! Hitler wanted stalingrad for personal reasons and to hell with sound strategy!

Stalingrad is now remembered as the graveyard of the third reich. Because one maniac decided to take it despite every sane, rational reason not to keep trying and wasted vast resources and men trying.

I'm sure there are a lot of high ranking people in the imperium who are just as insane and fanatical as old 'dolf was, and they likely see the tau empire as a much more important target than it really is.



HAHAHAHAHAHA! I literally, just this minute, had the funniest thought about the origin of the tau. What if tzeentch created them to be a boogeyman for the imperium to waste vast resources on crushing because it feared them far more than they deserved, leaving other parts of it ripe for chaos conquest? Ghawd that would just be ssssoooooooo Tzeentchian!

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.

The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.

Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.

Anything else is the Enemy.

The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.

I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.

With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.

In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.

Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.

Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.

To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.

So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.

Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.

Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.

I disagree with the degree that you give Tau as an existential threat to the Imperium. For one, just because humans have defected to the Tau regime means very little compared to the degree to which Chaos has subverted imperial forces. Think about it, through the Horus Heresy, Chaos had half the Legions and a significant chunk of the Imperial Army AND the Mechanicus side with Horus, shattering the Emperor's dream of lifting humanity into its final evolutionary form with the protection of the webway. The Imperium is still consistently warring from without thanks to traitors from the Eye of Terror and cults from within that do the same thing with offering "alternative" forms of rule than that of the Imperial yoke. Again, Chaos is the one that has split the Imperium in two.

Meanwhile, the Tau have captured fringe worlds and only recently had more luck with the Startide Nexus, which has now backfired with the attention of the Death Guard waltzing over to it. It says something that there is fluff where the Tau have admitted that it is better to just kill marines than attempt to subvert them, since the attempts of one of their psychic client races resulted in too many of them being overloaded/dying to be worth committing to overwriting the hypno indoctrination they have. So when Chaos has an easier time subverting Marines than Tau do, on top of how the Imperials have always been stopped from finishing the Tau due to Tyranid or Ork threats, I'm pretty sure the Tau isn't as large a problem to the Imperial Creed as think it would be.

You're right, in cold numerical terms that tau aren't as big a threat as the imperium sees them, but you forget that the imperium is ran by raving paranoid fanatical maniacs who possibly see the tau as a greater threat than the are. Sometimes military strategies aren't dictated by rational, sane, reasonable facts and realities. Take WW2 for an example: Hitler wanted to take Stalingrad as a personal slap at uncle Joe. He committed vastly more forces to the city then was rational to. The russians defended it so good ol' dolfy sent more and more forces into it, while his generals were begging him to just bypass the damn city and go for moscow.

Even Paulus, the general hitler assigned to take stalingrad after firing the last generals who said it was a disaster, said it could not be done, he begged hitler for permission to retreat, But Nnnnooooooooo! Hitler wanted stalingrad for personal reasons and to hell with sound strategy!

Stalingrad is now remembered as the graveyard of the third reich. Because one maniac decided to take it despite every sane, rational reason not to keep trying and wasted vast resources and men trying.

I'm sure there are a lot of high ranking people in the imperium who are just as insane and fanatical as old 'dolf was, and they likely see the tau empire as a much more important target than it really is.



HAHAHAHAHAHA! I literally, just this minute, had the funniest thought about the origin of the tau. What if tzeentch created them to be a boogeyman for the imperium to waste vast resources on crushing because it feared them far more than they deserved, leaving other parts of it ripe for chaos conquest? Ghawd that would just be ssssoooooooo Tzeentchian!

I mean the comparison doesn't really work because you're basically comparing the Imperium to Germany, and Tau as Russia. Russia is FAR larger and more capable in both resources and manpower than Germany ever had, which is the complete opposite case of the situation of the Imperium and the Tau Empire. A better comparison would be comparing Germany to Belgium, since that's basically what the Tau are in comparison as a whole. Furthermore, even before Guilliman's return, the Tau have been consistently seen as a lesser threat. The forces sent on crusade against them have been consistently recalled for other fronts that have been deemed more important. As much as the Imperium is cruel, the High Lords are anything but incompetent. You don't get to the highest hiearchy of a brutal regime without some form of ruthless cunning, wit and political maneuvering. Given that the Tau Empire is effectively a backwater xenos upstart that the Imperium has dealt with before, I don't see anyone pulling a Hitler anytime soon given that the Imperium has literally been split in half and one of their most level-headed primarchs, Guilliman, has come back to restore stability during this upheaveal.

Also, you can keep whatever head-canon you want, but it's incredibly unlikely that Tzzentch had much to do with the Tau at all. They have barely any presence in the warp (whereas Tzzentch is typically drawn to psykers, ala Thousand Sons) and if he's already pulled the greatest Tzzentchian plot in bleeding the Imperium for 10 millenia already by getting Magnus to breach the Webway and consign the Emperor to the Golden Throne for 10,000 years. Kinda hard to top that.

 Grimskul wrote:

Spoiler:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Why do we always trot out the trope of "Beset on all sides" ala "They made us do it" when defending utterly indefensible. Last I checked the Imperials have done countless "Crusades" with the sole intent and purpose of wiping out anything either A. Not in keeping with church Doctrine, or B. not human or chaos touched. Everyone was just doing there thing until the Emperor decided it was time to start slaughtering the blue people, or the green people, or the red people, or in another way, ANYTHING THAT WASN'T WHITE. People hate the tau for one very good and obvious reason. 40k is crack for the Alt Right, and the Tau are the Lefties.

The Imperium as an entity is Xenophobic, brutal, stupid and created as a homage to (or theft of) many similar sci-fi regimes but with a ongoing thread of dark humour in a similar way to 2000AD stories like Judge Dredd.

Both do have right wing appeal but for the most part the Imperium is also colour blind. The powers that be really don't care if you are black, white, yellow etc - they do care that you are a "pure Human" but make a grudging exception for "useful" abhumans and Mutants.

Anything else is the Enemy.

The nature of Emperor has changed in tone and theme over the decades and he is now more of a burtal, flawed grand manipulator with a plan rather than a sarcficial Jesus/saviour figure - thats now more Sanguinus.

I donlt like some of the Tau astehtics - mainly the battlesuits but they are an interesting race - however they are IMO far far to prominant in too many stories for a minor xenos empire in a backwater of the galaxy.

With respect, you underestimate the tau and how much the imperium fears them.

In some ways some in the imperium see the tau as a greater threat to the imperium than orks, eldar or even tyranids.

Generally you don't see humans on worlds taken over by any of them doing videos extolling the virtues of their new situation. There are cases where humans on tau occupied worlds have done videos saying that the tau aren't bad, their lives are actually better as citizens of the greater good, the tau way of life is better for most humans than the imperium, etc.

Also humans work to spread the word of how living under the tau is better for most people, the cold traders who peddle tau luxury goods are just one example.

To some of the real zealots in the imperium, especially in the big this makes the tau far more dangerous than orks, edlar or even tyranids. The tau do worse than enslave, murder and eat citizens of the imperium, they entice them, they seduce them with the offer of a better life.

So yes, the tau are taken very seriously by the imperium, to a degree far greater than their actual, in hard numbers, size and military power would deem appropriate.

Plus most people know there is an incredibly major power behind the tau. Something that could create huge and long lasting warpstorms to protect them from the imperium early on, while the ethereals just dropped in out of nowhere and organized them, their technology grew at an exponential rate, they conveniently found a derelict spacecraft at the edge of their solar system that had a FTL engine they could copy and use.

Any power that can create and maintain impenetrable warpstorms for millennia is a serious threat, and it's apparently backing the tau.

I disagree with the degree that you give Tau as an existential threat to the Imperium. For one, just because humans have defected to the Tau regime means very little compared to the degree to which Chaos has subverted imperial forces. Think about it, through the Horus Heresy, Chaos had half the Legions and a significant chunk of the Imperial Army AND the Mechanicus side with Horus, shattering the Emperor's dream of lifting humanity into its final evolutionary form with the protection of the webway. The Imperium is still consistently warring from without thanks to traitors from the Eye of Terror and cults from within that do the same thing with offering "alternative" forms of rule than that of the Imperial yoke. Again, Chaos is the one that has split the Imperium in two.

Meanwhile, the Tau have captured fringe worlds and only recently had more luck with the Startide Nexus, which has now backfired with the attention of the Death Guard waltzing over to it. It says something that there is fluff where the Tau have admitted that it is better to just kill marines than attempt to subvert them, since the attempts of one of their psychic client races resulted in too many of them being overloaded/dying to be worth committing to overwriting the hypno indoctrination they have. So when Chaos has an easier time subverting Marines than Tau do, on top of how the Imperials have always been stopped from finishing the Tau due to Tyranid or Ork threats, I'm pretty sure the Tau isn't as large a problem to the Imperial Creed as think it would be.

You're right, in cold numerical terms that tau aren't as big a threat as the imperium sees them, but you forget that the imperium is ran by raving paranoid fanatical maniacs who possibly see the tau as a greater threat than the are. Sometimes military strategies aren't dictated by rational, sane, reasonable facts and realities. Take WW2 for an example: Hitler wanted to take Stalingrad as a personal slap at uncle Joe. He committed vastly more forces to the city then was rational to. The russians defended it so good ol' dolfy sent more and more forces into it, while his generals were begging him to just bypass the damn city and go for moscow.

Even Paulus, the general hitler assigned to take stalingrad after firing the last generals who said it was a disaster, said it could not be done, he begged hitler for permission to retreat, But Nnnnooooooooo! Hitler wanted stalingrad for personal reasons and to hell with sound strategy!

Stalingrad is now remembered as the graveyard of the third reich. Because one maniac decided to take it despite every sane, rational reason not to keep trying and wasted vast resources and men trying.

I'm sure there are a lot of high ranking people in the imperium who are just as insane and fanatical as old 'dolf was, and they likely see the tau empire as a much more important target than it really is.



HAHAHAHAHAHA! I literally, just this minute, had the funniest thought about the origin of the tau. What if tzeentch created them to be a boogeyman for the imperium to waste vast resources on crushing because it feared them far more than they deserved, leaving other parts of it ripe for chaos conquest? Ghawd that would just be ssssoooooooo Tzeentchian!

I mean the comparison doesn't really work because you're basically comparing the Imperium to Germany, and Tau as Russia. Russia is FAR larger and more capable in both resources and manpower than Germany ever had, which is the complete opposite case of the situation of the Imperium and the Tau Empire. A better comparison would be comparing Germany to Belgium, since that's basically what the Tau are in comparison as a whole. Furthermore, even before Guilliman's return, the Tau have been consistently seen as a lesser threat. The forces sent on crusade against them have been consistently recalled for other fronts that have been deemed more important. As much as the Imperium is cruel, the High Lords are anything but incompetent. You don't get to the highest hiearchy of a brutal regime without some form of ruthless cunning, wit and political maneuvering. Given that the Tau Empire is effectively a backwater xenos upstart that the Imperium has dealt with before, I don't see anyone pulling a Hitler anytime soon given that the Imperium has literally been split in half and one of their most level-headed primarchs, Guilliman, has come back to restore stability during this upheaveal.

Also, you can keep whatever head-canon you want, but it's incredibly unlikely that Tzzentch had much to do with the Tau at all. They have barely any presence in the warp (whereas Tzzentch is typically drawn to psykers, ala Thousand Sons) and if he's already pulled the greatest Tzzentchian plot in bleeding the Imperium for 10 millenia already by getting Magnus to breach the Webway and consign the Emperor to the Golden Throne for 10,000 years. Kinda hard to top that.

I agree but in reality the Tau in 40k are more comparable in size and power to say a single airfield in England during the War

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There's no "survival" related reason not to use automatic loaders on your starship cannons instead of hundreds of thousands of slaves. It is literally cheaper, better in combat, and easier. Pointless cruelty.

Would you rather have your guns loaded by thousands of slaves, or have to rely on tech support from the mechanicum and everything that comes with it ?

A.T. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There's no "survival" related reason not to use automatic loaders on your starship cannons instead of hundreds of thousands of slaves. It is literally cheaper, better in combat, and easier. Pointless cruelty.

Would you rather have your guns loaded by thousands of slaves, or have to rely on tech support from the mechanicum and everything that comes with it ?

You already depend on the mechanicum to maintain your plasma reactors, your high energy weapon systems, your local communications, your 'cogitator banks' (Computers) and so on.

The idea of mass slave labor on imperium ships is just power tripping and cruelty for it's own sake, like in 1984.

The good thing about 40k is the fact that everyone is awful, it was written under a regime of misery and projects that into the future. To be honest, given the way things are at the minute I see more of a likelihood of 40k in our future than star trek!

40k is a mixture of subtlety and in your face generic tropes. To me that is what makes it so appealing.

In that regard the Tau are feared in the same way as the cold war soviets. As others have said, the fact that whole planets will happily join to escape the imperial boot is enough to worry. Don't want average citizens to find out there's something slightly better out there.

You can argue all day long about who is more or less of a society of bastards but at the end of the day as we all know; in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

 Matt Swain wrote:
You already depend on the mechanicum to maintain your plasma reactors, your high energy weapon systems, your local communications, your 'cogitator banks' (Computers) and so on.

Lack of choice in the matter.

Armsman - "Sir, the autoloader has failed"
Officer - (sigh) "Request the mechanicum"
(three months later)
Mechanicum - "Prepare the five thousand verses of tightening, bring forth ten thousand quarts of the holy oil, as it is written so it shall be done"

(the admech are jerks)

Applying logic to 40k is silly. Why are their mufflers on the backs of Dreads in a universe where plasma packs exist? Why are their still fossil fuels in a world where infinite energy exists in weapons? Why do we still use free thinking human Soldiers in the guard when literal servitors cost less to feed, train, maintain, and wont run in combat (Main weakness of guard) Why do LASER GUNS have recoil in this universe? Arguing over why slaves exist is a moot point. Almost nothing about 40k makes complete sense.

A.T. wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
You already depend on the mechanicum to maintain your plasma reactors, your high energy weapon systems, your local communications, your 'cogitator banks' (Computers) and so on.

Lack of choice in the matter.

Armsman - "Sir, the autoloader has failed"
Officer - (sigh) "Request the mechanicum"
(three months later)
Mechanicum - "Prepare the five thousand verses of tightening, bring forth ten thousand quarts of the holy oil, as it is written so it shall be done"

(the admech are jerks)

I mean, your entire starship is basically this. It's why you have the admech on board. By this logic it's better to have slaves on treadmills generate power (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your reactor, after all!) and have slaves doing math and coming up with firing solutions (Since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your cogitator after all!). The gellar field should just be slaves inside a double hull - they'll be possessed first, protecting the rest of the ship (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your gellar field, after all!). The void shields could just be slaves in voidsuits holding onto each other in a big web surrounding the ship to prematurely detonate enemy ordnance (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your shield generator, after all!). Pointless.

Deciding it's acceptable to wait for the admech for literally everything on a starship except the autoloader, and THAT'S why you use slaves instead, is even worse than it just being because of pointless cruelty.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I mean, your entire starship is basically this. It's why you have the admech on board. By this logic it's better to have slaves on treadmills generate power (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your reactor, after all!) and have slaves doing math and coming up with firing solutions (Since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your cogitator after all!). The gellar field should just be slaves inside a double hull - they'll be possessed first, protecting the rest of the ship (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your gellar field, after all!). The void shields could just be slaves in voidsuits holding onto each other in a big web surrounding the ship to prematurely detonate enemy ordnance (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your shield generator, after all!). Pointless.

Deciding it's acceptable to wait for the admech for literally everything on a starship except the autoloader, and THAT'S why you use slaves instead, is even worse than it just being because of pointless cruelty.

I doubt it's a matter of them deciding; planning out a new ship design is anathema to the backwards humans of the 41st millenium. They probably just lost the schematics for the auto loader.

Hecaton wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I mean, your entire starship is basically this. It's why you have the admech on board. By this logic it's better to have slaves on treadmills generate power (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your reactor, after all!) and have slaves doing math and coming up with firing solutions (Since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your cogitator after all!). The gellar field should just be slaves inside a double hull - they'll be possessed first, protecting the rest of the ship (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your gellar field, after all!). The void shields could just be slaves in voidsuits holding onto each other in a big web surrounding the ship to prematurely detonate enemy ordnance (since you'd have to wait for the admech to repair your shield generator, after all!). Pointless.

Deciding it's acceptable to wait for the admech for literally everything on a starship except the autoloader, and THAT'S why you use slaves instead, is even worse than it just being because of pointless cruelty.

I doubt it's a matter of them deciding; planning out a new ship design is anathema to the backwards humans of the 41st millenium. They probably just lost the schematics for the auto loader.

Except other ships (even other Imperial ships) have autoloaders.

The slavery thing is just pointless cruelty. A lot of "we do it FOR DA SURVIVULZ" is really just thinly veiled pointless cruelty. That used to be the POINT of the setting, but people love their imperium so...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Except other ships (even other Imperial ships) have autoloaders.

The slavery thing is just pointless cruelty. A lot of "we do it FOR DA SURVIVULZ" is really just thinly veiled pointless cruelty. That used to be the POINT of the setting, but people love their imperium so...

Servitors cost more than a human being in 40k, that's simply the reality of the universe.