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.

@da Boss: I unterstand your point and respect your stance toward the setting. I just think you made one small leap there: I outlined the differences to real world fascist propaganda and the imperium of man in 40k. That does not automatically mean that the imperium is justified in what they are doing (the interex are a very interesting reminder of that). There might have been a myriad better ways to handle the ridiculously hostile universe in 40k.
It just poses the equally uncomfortable and interesting question on whether, if faced with an existential threat like in 40k, we would also turn to seemingly strong leaders and fall back into a fascistic society. It serves as a warning.

Edit: it's the same with frank Herbert's Dune, which massively influenced 40k: in the first book you root for Paul Atredeis and his quest, but the message is to not blindly follow charismatic leaders.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, when I started working on my "own version" of the universe for Stargrave and Stars Without Number the first thing I did was make the Imperium the biggest human faction but not the only one. I had the Eastern Fringe contain a bunch of human societies and small empires that were not Imperial in nature. In an RPG, my expectation would be that my players would come from this area, and the Imperium would be just another antagonist faction.

I think there's actually plenty of space for that within 40K. That was the background for my brother's army back in the 90s - a group of Imperial Guard that had killed their commissars and commanding officers to prevent a genocide and gone on the run with the humans from the world they were supposed to conquer. You could have all of the stories of 40K still happen while still having independent human systems and empires.

That was the neat thing about Warhammer Fantasy - It wasn't JUST the Empire representing humans. You also had Bretonnia, Kislev, Cathay, the Border Princes, Estalia and Tilea.
The latter few were barely expanded upon, mind you, but at least they existed and gave you a sense that it wasn't just the Empire and that there were other human civilizations.
40k lacks that. Even though humanity isn't mono-cultural because the Imperial worlds do show a variety of cultures, it's still all Imperial, and I think that's a pity.
It would have been interesting to see what the Interex would have evolved into, for example. I wouldn't make it a utopia though, that goes against the ethos of 40k.

From a game design point of view, it's better that there are no good guys. It allows everyone to play whatever faction they want without worrying about who has the moral high ground, because there's just no such thing. Every faction does truly horrible things. You could make your own character whose motivation is the end of all life in the universe and that'd be okay because this universe is so screwed up it doesn't deserve any better.

And in the end, it seems that no one really has any chance of succeeding anyway, so nothing they do matters. There is only war for war's sake. Which is convenient when you're selling a wargame.

Nah see the Orks always succeed. If they win a fight then it was a good fight but its time to find another one. If they lose then it was a really good fight.

Tiberias wrote:
@da Boss: I unterstand your point and respect your stance toward the setting. I just think you made one small leap there: I outlined the differences to real world fascist propaganda and the imperium of man in 40k. That does not automatically mean that the imperium is justified in what they are doing (the interex are a very interesting reminder of that). There might have been a myriad better ways to handle the ridiculously hostile universe in 40k.
It just poses the equally uncomfortable and interesting question on whether, if faced with an existential threat like in 40k, we would also turn to seemingly strong leaders and fall back into a fascistic society. It serves as a warning.

Edit: it's the same with frank Herbert's Dune, which massively influenced 40k: in the first book you root for Paul Atredeis and his quest, but the message is to not blindly follow charismatic leaders.

I agree you can interpret it that way. Unfortunately in many discussions online I find people do not put that much thought into it and generally see it as the Imperium being justified in what they are doing because of what they are up against.

The Dune influence on 40K is one of the things that makes is awesome. I really should go re-read Dune.

Tiberias wrote:

Imo the only interesting real life question you can pull from 40k is this: if we were faced with an existential threat like in 40k, that can't be argued or negotiated with, would we also search for a strong leader and fall back to a fascistic, theocratic society and abandon our humanity?


Edit: I also have to say that your comparison to real life fascist propaganda and 40k is wrong just one small detail, but this detail is crucially important:
Real life fascist propaganda, by definition, paints a group of people (political enemies, minorities, whole foreign countries etc.) as a threat to the fascistic society for political gain to further cement the parties or leaders power. These "threats" are always either grossly exaggerated or straight up lies, as our history has shown in many terrible examples of whole ethnicities being dehumanized this way.
In 40k the imperium does the same thing, BUT crucially many of the threats are actually existential threats to humanity that can't be argued or negotiated with.

This is a very tenuous set thoughts. One, propagandists talking about the real world also are describing “actual existential threats.” They don’t admit that they’re exaggerating,

More importantly propaganda is also often fiction. People need to get themselves hyped up. It sounds like you’re saying no, we don’t understand, in the fictional world, the lecherous dwarves really DID want to steal the blond maidens’ gold. Right? that’s propaganda, it’s fiction that used by real people to flatter and indulge their campaign of murder.

You yourself said it. The only real world use of it would be asking ourselves what we’d do if semi-literate [orks] who can’t be reasoned with and armed with crude weapons wanted to invade and murder us. Would we let a dictator take charge and push them back to where they came from?

bro what’s the real world use for that question? the real world use for engaging in that hypothetical is assuming that we might decide it’s come true. You yourself described this as the real world use for it, you described it as being propaganda.


So speaking of whether propagandists say their propaganda is true, this is an article in a mainstream British newspaper by a mainstream politician. I’ve changed some words so you don’t have to read outright genocidal libel:



You say that in the fiction of 40k, the existential threats are “actual”ly real. Well a lot of what the statements “actual” politician uses are truths, and then he weaves them into an absolutely unforgivable

In an RPG, my expectation would be that my players would come from this area, and the Imperium would be just another antagonist faction.

That was the background for my brother's army back in the 90s - a group of Imperial Guard that had killed their commissars and commanding officers to prevent a genocide and gone on the run with the humans from the world they were supposed to conquer.

It’s interesting that there is such a huge difference between these. In the first one the player characters are from good guy factions and the imperium is inherently bad guys. In your brother’s, the player army starts out as the bad guys and has to make a huge commitment to not being the bad guys. Imo the former is kind of propaganda itself, since like we see in that above article the historical good guys believe and do the same thing as the bad guys.

Curvaceous wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

Imo the only interesting real life question you can pull from 40k is this: if we were faced with an existential threat like in 40k, that can't be argued or negotiated with, would we also search for a strong leader and fall back to a fascistic, theocratic society and abandon our humanity?


Edit: I also have to say that your comparison to real life fascist propaganda and 40k is wrong just one small detail, but this detail is crucially important:
Real life fascist propaganda, by definition, paints a group of people (political enemies, minorities, whole foreign countries etc.) as a threat to the fascistic society for political gain to further cement the parties or leaders power. These "threats" are always either grossly exaggerated or straight up lies, as our history has shown in many terrible examples of whole ethnicities being dehumanized this way.
In 40k the imperium does the same thing, BUT crucially many of the threats are actually existential threats to humanity that can't be argued or negotiated with.

This is a very tenuous set thoughts. One, propagandists talking about the real world also are describing “actual existential threats.” They don’t admit that they’re exaggerating,

More importantly propaganda is also often fiction. People need to get themselves hyped up. It sounds like you’re saying no, we don’t understand, in the fictional world, the lecherous dwarves really DID want to steal the blond maidens’ gold. Right? that’s propaganda, it’s fiction that used by real people to flatter and indulge their campaign of murder.

You yourself said it. The only real world use of it would be asking ourselves what we’d do if semi-literate [orks] who can’t be reasoned with and armed with crude weapons wanted to invade and murder us. Would we let a dictator take charge and push them back to where they came from?

bro what’s the real world use for that question? the real world use for engaging in that hypothetical is assuming that we might decide it’s come true. You yourself described this as the real world use for it, you described it as being propaganda.


So speaking of whether propagandists say their propaganda is true, this is an article in a mainstream British newspaper by a mainstream politician. I’ve changed some words so you don’t have to read outright genocidal libel:

Spoiler:

In violent opposition to all this sphere of [bearish] effort rise the schemes of the International [Bears]. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where [Bears] are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the [Bears] is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.

You say that in the fiction of 40k, the existential threats are “actual”ly real. Well a lot of what the statements “actual” politician uses are truths, and then he weaves them into an absolutely unforgivable

In an RPG, my expectation would be that my players would come from this area, and the Imperium would be just another antagonist faction.

That was the background for my brother's army back in the 90s - a group of Imperial Guard that had killed their commissars and commanding officers to prevent a genocide and gone on the run with the humans from the world they were supposed to conquer.

It’s interesting that there is such a huge difference between these. In the first one the player characters are from good guy factions and the imperium is inherently bad guys. In your brother’s, the player army starts out as the bad guys and has to make a huge commitment to not being the bad guys. Imo the former is kind of propaganda itself, since like we see in that above article the historical good guys believe and do the same thing as the bad guys.

What a load of useless drivel. What is the practical real life us of my question you can imo draw from 40k? It's a philosophical question....one that has been asked on different context like if we ever were to meet an alien civilization.

I also literally said, that real life fascist propaganda is either flat out lies of grossly exaggerated to propagate fear for political gains. What's your point?

I swear, every time this topic comes up some one comes along who does not want to comprehensively read my posts.

Curvaceous: The "good guys" and "bad guys" dichotomy is in any case useless and harmful. Good guys and bad guys don't exist and never really have.

I used the word antagonist on purpose. The point of making players come from non-Imperial worlds is a pragmatic one - players in RPGs, especially new players, tend to have their character have values that are close to their real world values. If there is nowhere in 40K for someone with modern values to come from then it's a bit alienating for players, or they will be constantly at odds with their faction. So I try to allow for modern values to make sense in my game worlds to an extent, at least to have somewhere where people like that can come from so that people don't have to worry about it too much.

As to my brother's idea, he liked Imperial Guard as the "normal" humans because he likes underdog factions, but wanted them to not be space nazis because he thought space nazis were bad. So he came up with this background. I was happy to play the villain with my space marines chasing them down.

 Da Boss wrote:
It's just a different kind of terrible. It's also related to how GW have turned Chaos into more and more of a flanderized version of themselves and removed any ambiguity from them. Much like how they made the Tau secretly evil due to the Ethereals or made the Hive Mind spiteful rather than just a huge hungry organism.

The Imperium fails because it is fascist. It's clearly part of the original background that the fascist crap the Imperium does is holding it back from actually succeeding, and that keeping the populace in miserable conditions and engaging in mass murder of dissidents and mutants is sabotaging their society. This is because that is also what happens IRL fascist societies.

The fact that later authors who were...more limited in their perspective came along and invented reasons why we absolutely have to do those things or we will lose so it's absolutely justified REALLY has unfortunately turned the setting from a satire and critique of fascism into something of an apologia for fascism. This makes me pretty sad and uncomfortable.

When I got into the game age 12 with very little political awareness, I was able to understand that the Imperium were the bad guys. The only way we could conceive of a good guy in the setting was someone who was rebelling against the Imperium to protect their people from it. The fact that this was the case made the setting much more interesting to me, and it was familiar to me from growing up reading stuff like Judge Dredd.

Yeah, 100% agree. Couldn't have said it better.

Hecaton wrote:The Imperium genocides peaceful, harmless aliens, as well as humans who display birth defects.

The Imperium are awful, and definitely are the bad guys, but the bolded section is simply not true on an institutional scale.

Tentacle mutations? Giant pincers and crab legs? Sure. A sixth finger? Heterochromia? Doubtful, save for the most completely hard line and purist.
Evidently, there's a difference of standards between the highest spires of a civilised world, and the irradiated wastes of Baal or the slums of Necromunda.

No institutional policy exists where "humans who display birth defects" (wherein birth defects refers to *real world birth defects*) are killed.

Note that this should not be taken as "Imperium sympathising" - just to make that very clear.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:It would be nice if there were other human factions to show that there are alternatives. They should have their own set of flaws, of course, but it could be an interesting thematic tool.

There are! Or, rather, used to be, in setting. The Interex were a pretty solid example of a human civilisation that existed outside of the Imperium, and arguably, you could say that pre-Imperial Ultramar was successful too, having already established limited extra-system travel, from my understanding. in fact, many of the societies that the Primarchs ended up on were non-Imperial human societies, and many of them were pretty well off without Imperial influence (Inwit, Macragge, Caliban, etc)

Yeah I knew about the Interex and the pre-crusade worlds. I suppose that it's a part of the grimdark setting that all of those worlds were either wiped out or integrated into the mess that is the Imperium, it just would have been interesting to see a surviving human civilization that developed without the Imperium's interference. I would actually argue that it would be more grimdark if there was human rival to the Imperium that also has it's set of serious problems.
Imagine the Tau, except human. Yes, they have their Gue'vesa, but there's barely any fluff on them and besides, humans being led by aliens isn't quite the same as a self-governed human world.

When the Indomitus rift thing happened I was expecting/hoping for there to be a split in the Imperium, much like how the Roman Empire split into East and West halves, which might have resulted in a curious cultural divergence. It didn't happen :/

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah I knew about the Interex and the pre-crusade worlds. I suppose that it's a part of the grimdark setting that all of these worlds were either wiped out or integrated into the mess that is the Imperium, it just would have been interesting to see a surviving human civilization that developed without the Imperium's interference.

At least in the old fluff it definitely was the case that there were non-imperial human world, and actually plenty of them. It was specifically said that even though the Imperium was large, it controlled just a tiny fraction of the galaxy. I think in the current fluff Imperium often comes as monolithic and omnipresent.

I was playing Necromunda a while ago, and it was really refreshing to focus on that level of Imperium; to people who are not part of any Imperial organisation. I'd really like if there was more options for that in 40K too, Rogue Traders, mercenaries, assorted rebel scum etc. I was just browsing the old Rogue Trader rulebook, and I couldn't avoid the thought that despite all the polish decades of work the current 40K is very stale and pompously boring in comparison.

 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah I knew about the Interex and the pre-crusade worlds. I suppose that it's a part of the grimdark setting that all of these worlds were either wiped out or integrated into the mess that is the Imperium, it just would have been interesting to see a surviving human civilization that developed without the Imperium's interference.

At least in the old fluff it definitely was the case that there were non-imperial human world, and actually plenty of them. It was specifically said that even though the Imperium was large, it controlled just a tiny fraction of the galaxy. I think in the current fluff Imperium often comes as monolithic and omnipresent.

I was playing Necromunda a while ago, and it was really refreshing to focus on that level of Imperium; to people who are not part of any Imperial organisation. I'd really like if there was more options for that in 40K too, Rogue Traders, mercenaries, assorted rebel scum etc. I was just browsing the old Rogue Trader rulebook, and I couldn't avoid the thought that despite all the polish decades of work the current 40K is very stale and pompously boring in comparison.

Ah really? Well that's just disappointing

I think something that often gets forgotten when discussing background is that for a thing to exist in any large capacity, it must be present in a game system.
Necromunda can be explored very well since there is a game to be made off said exploration and background.
Non-Imperial human factions might well exist in the background but how are they represented on the tabletop that marks them out as different from the Imperium? What would the difference be between a non-Imperial model line and an Imperial one? Fewer skulls and aquilas?

Tiberias wrote:
I also have to say that your comparison to real life fascist propaganda and 40k is wrong just one small detail, but this detail is crucially important:
Real life fascist propaganda, by definition, paints a group of people (political enemies, minorities, whole foreign countries etc.) as a threat to the fascistic society for political gain to further cement the parties or leaders power. These "threats" are always either grossly exaggerated or straight up lies, as our history has shown in many terrible examples of whole ethnicities being dehumanized this way.
In 40k the imperium does the same thing, BUT crucially many of the threats are actually existential threats to humanity that can't be argued or negotiated with.

Back in the Psychic Awakening era there was a pretty good Thousand Sons short story about desperate people who had suddenly developed psychic powers being driven into the arms of Tzeentch out of fear of what the Imperium would do to them. The Imperium is deeply cruel to anyone that is different in a way that is not immediately useful to its war machine.

 Gert wrote:
I think something that often gets forgotten when discussing background is that for a thing to exist in any large capacity, it must be present in a game system.
Necromunda can be explored very well since there is a game to be made off said exploration and background.
Non-Imperial human factions might well exist in the background but how are they represented on the tabletop that marks them out as different from the Imperium? What would the difference be between a non-Imperial model line and an Imperial one? Fewer skulls and aquilas?

Heh, considering that the various flavours of transhumans in power armour make up 17 supported factions, I'm not sure you need to be THAT different to the imperium to justify your own book.

 Da Boss wrote:

Heh, considering that the various flavours of transhumans in power armour make up 17 supported factions, I'm not sure you need to be THAT different to the imperium to justify your own book.

Space Marines all share the same base design/datasheets/rules though, don't they? They are a blank slate that is then added to with things like Space Wolves or Grey Knights. A SM army will still use Intercessors or Rhinos or Dreadnoughts.
What difference would there be functionally or aesthetically between an Astra Militarum army and a non-Imperial human one?
It doesn't matter if Independent Human Empire Z is democratic and atheist because that isn't something you can represent on the tabletop, at least not in a meaningful way.

 Gert wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

Heh, considering that the various flavours of transhumans in power armour make up 17 supported factions, I'm not sure you need to be THAT different to the imperium to justify your own book.

Space Marines all share the same base design/datasheets/rules though, don't they? They are a blank slate that is then added to with things like Space Wolves or Grey Knights. A SM army will still use Intercessors or Rhinos or Dreadnoughts.
What difference would there be functionally or aesthetically between an Astra Militarum army and a non-Imperial human one?
It doesn't matter if Independent Human Empire Z is democratic and atheist because that isn't something you can represent on the tabletop, at least not in a meaningful way.

They certainly wouldn't have the same equipment as their Imperial counterparts. That should grant some level of variation in terms of aesthetics and function.
Though in practice, such a faction might come into conflict more with Tau than Imperials in terms of design.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They certainly wouldn't have the same equipment as their Imperial counterparts. That should grant some level of variation in terms of aesthetics and function.
Though in practice, such a faction might come into conflict more with Tau than Imperials in terms of design.

And that would be the difficulty IMO. There isn't really an option to go lower tech because the Imperium reaches the bare minimum for an FTL Empire and going more SciFi then they end up looking like T'au.
Where is the cut-off point? When does the human faction just become another Militarum Regiment?
When you have a setting like 40k where the human factions can and do take inspiration from literally anywhere it's then super difficult to make an opposing human faction unique.

The Horus Heresy is full of weird and wonderful human civilisations. The Interex, those weird dudes that put their faces on holographic displays, a whole bunch of different ones.

I mean, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Custodes and Blood Angels are all just variations of transhuman in power armour but they get a lot out of that, right?

 Da Boss wrote:
The Horus Heresy is full of weird and wonderful human civilisations. The Interex, those weird dudes that put their faces on holographic displays, a whole bunch of different ones.

I mean, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Custodes and Blood Angels are all just variations of transhuman in power armour but they get a lot out of that, right?

Yes but Astra Militarum also have that similar kind of milage for a human faction with customisation, it's not as great as SM due to the lack of unique units and characters but modelling wise there's no reason a Regiment designed like the French Musketeers wouldn't be seen fighting alongside some hi-tech future dudes.
The only real way I can see to include a non-Imperial human faction would be some kind of human-Xenos alliance which is basically what Gue'vesa are anyway.
I'd love more freedom for human factions but it's pretty much restricted to homebrew armies.

 Gert wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They certainly wouldn't have the same equipment as their Imperial counterparts. That should grant some level of variation in terms of aesthetics and function.
Though in practice, such a faction might come into conflict more with Tau than Imperials in terms of design.

And that would be the difficulty IMO. There isn't really an option to go lower tech because the Imperium reaches the bare minimum for an FTL Empire and going more SciFi then they end up looking like T'au.
Where is the cut-off point? When does the human faction just become another Militarum Regiment?
When you have a setting like 40k where the human factions can and do take inspiration from literally anywhere it's then super difficult to make an opposing human faction unique.

It would be harder to fit it in the fluff, imo. One will have to make a human civilization that different to the Imperium and yet flawed in its own horrible set of ways. Otherwise you're just making human T'au.

You can make the background work any way you want. A hyper capitalist cyberpunk dystopian space empire would have high tech stuff but a very different look and feel to the Tau. There's endless stuff you can do.

 Da Boss wrote:
You can make the background work any way you want.

That would be the issue. You could make any type of human empire you wanted but then I could just say "but that could just be a world/system/sector in the Imperium). With a setting as large as 40k anything that could be justified outside of a faction can also be justified within it (mostly, Slaaneshi Aeldari would be a stretch). It leaves loads of room for creativity while at the same time stifling it at certain points.

A hyper capitalist cyberpunk dystopian space empire would have high tech stuff but a very different look and feel to the Tau.

But how would they? If they need to be different to T'au then that erases options for things like Battlesuits or Drones. But if there's too much infantry or armour then the faction just becomes the Astra Militarum. Super Soldier troops and hover vehicles makes them Space Marines. Do you see what I'm trying to get at here?

There's endless stuff you can do.

Which is a double-edged sword as I have explained above.

Isn't there already a fair bit of overlap of archetypes though? Ad Mech and GSC are similar to guard, aren't they?
But yeah, that's the tricky part of the fluff. You also have to write in such a way that one just can't say "there's an Imperial world like that."

I just don't see how having minor variations on GEQ expanded out to full factions is so much harder than minor variations on MEQ. There's an entire game about different types of space marines and it doesn't seem to cause any of the issues you are describing.

And I mean, Iron Hands are tough space marines, but so are plague marines. So both can't exist. Ultramarines are all rounders but so are Black Legion, so we've got to scrap one. Word Bearers are fanatics but so are Black Templars, which one will we keep? Flesh Tearers are berserkers who fight in melee, so we can get rid of World Eaters.

Raven Guard and Night Lords both like stealth, are they the same faction?

I would also say that a certain kind of "high tech" does not fit in the Imperium. It's very much a weird clunky retro future only in the Imperium due to them not really understanding their tech. Though that conceit has been rendered moot in more modern background material :(

I would actually like to see more S3 T3 3+sv models. That's a statline that is barely touched upon and is only found on Sisters and some Aspect Warriors.

Chief, I've been in the Heresy game since before Betrayal, and trust me the biggest complaint people have about it is that the only factions that people care about are the Legions. It's a game where the entire premise is a civil war caused by the Legions and people complain there's too much focus on the Legions.


That's a very silly way to take on what I have said. Iron Hands and Death Guard are indeed both tough factions but are still very different factions both aesthetically and functionally. Iron Hand's toughness tends to focus on Dreadnoughts and Vehicles whereas the toughness of the Death Guard is hard-baked into every single unit that can then be increased while at the same time also using Plagues which have in-game effects. Black Legion are not "all-rounders" they are designed for constant spearhead advances, Word Bearers are fanatics in a different way and heavily used Daemonic units, Night Lords use their stealth for terror tactics. The only ones that are similar are Flesh Tearers and World Eaters yet both are significantly different in aesthetics so the argument still falls apart.
Your point is nitpicky beyond reason and completely fails to address the points I made in my own post. By your logic, we should scrap all bar one of the Xenos factions because they're all Xenos why do we need more than one?


Must have missed the Laser weapons, the colossal megacities, the esoteric reactors that allow them to sail through Hell or armour that links to the wearer's nervous system to enhance their combat abilities.
The Imperium is absolutely a high-tech empire, in fact, it's more high-tech than the T'au but because of the gothic aesthetic, it just doesn't seem like it. The T'au use a lot of weapons that are pretty simple, Railguns, drones, guided missiles, these are all things we can do now.

Yeah, the Imperium is really technologically advanced. It's just aesthetically their tech looks really crude and industrial.

As opposed to Tau which do look high tech but their tech is technically inferior in several aspects.

What about a human faction that makes heavy use of bio-engineering? Like the Yuuzhong Vong from star wars or the Bene Tleilax from Dune? That should give a unique aesthetic.
Not sure what they would be like culturally though. Extreme Environmentalists I guess?

Honestly, I think the best course of action would be to establish the existence of non-Chaos/Imperial human empires scattered around the galaxy. That way if people want to play their own human empire, there's precedent for it.