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I think orks are more than capable of cruel actions, just look at how they treat gitz let alone how they treat other races. An ork 100% can be mean, cruel, spiteful, nasty and all. Even whilst still being part of Ork Culture they can still be both nicer and nastier than standard.

Part of that is certainly understanding how fragile other races are and how one can be cruel to them. Orks might not care, so within their own morality its likely not an issue. However by our judgement of morality it is an issue.

Orks could choose to be more like klingons - honour, nobility and such whilst still embracing their warlike social elements to their fullest.

However Orks aren't. Even when they are being nice its often with ulterior motives. Eg Bale-Eye - Yarrik - was only saved because the Ork in charge of the Waaargh could see how valuable Yarrik was alive as an opponent. Any smart warboss realises that maintaining control over vast numbers of orks means giving them good fights and that means having good opponents to create those fights. Otherwise your boyz will get bored and at best drift away and at worst fight each other and you and suddenly your whole waargh falls apart

I think it’s more nuanced.

Due to Oddboyz and their impact, most Orks likely have little to no idea about biology. They know enough that if you’ve lost a leg, you can grab it and hop over to a Doc, or just hop over to a Doc and get a (hopefully sweet) bionik replacement.

There’s a simplicity to the standard Boy’s life and outlook, fully reinforced by their wider society, which prevents them think “hey, maybe there’s an actual difference between us and them”, instead focussing them purely on “well, if you can’t survive someone cutting your head off for a laugh, you’re just not ‘ard enough”.

Hence I strongly argue Orks are not actively malevolent as we might consider it. Because their entire society is utterly alien to our minds.

That for me is where 40K really gets its narrative licks in. Creating truly alien mindsets for us to try and wrap our idiot heads around.


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Also? On the galactic scale when it comes to a game of “Find The Bunghole”, you need to look at it in the altogether.

Because nobody is truly innocent. At all. Even the Tau have taken worlds by force of arms, causing directly or indirectly death and/or suffering to untold innocent individuals.

But if we zoom into individual lives? Is a member of a PDF picking up their Lasgun to defend home and hearth guilty of the wider crimes The Imperium has committed? Even if the attackers they’re hoping to help repulse are fully justified in their own actions?

Then consider every species is heavily subject to its own form of propaganda. Except Nids. And maybe Orks. Orks only kinda.

Gosh, it’s almost as if the wider picture is surprisingly nuanced!

Hecaton wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I disagree.

If the Imperium fell? That’s likely doom for the Craftworlders, as they’ve nothing like the numbers to fend off Orks, Tyranids, Necrons and a surge in open chaos worship as formerly Imperial worlds devolve into utter anarchy.

Nah. The Imperium is not a net benefit to the CWE. There'd be a new set of problems, sure, but overall not having the Imperium wanting to kill you would help. Also, there's probably be a lot *less* Chaos worship as you wouldn't have the Imperium driving people towards it.

It smacks too much of "Everyone else should be *grateful* the Imperium is around, and owes them a debt." Which isn't true lol.



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Lord Zarkov wrote:


It’s quite explicitly both those things. It’s based on a term for a race they did in fact wipe out in the past, and it’s got explicit overtones of ‘needing to be exterminated’. The sources are very clear on these.

I'm sure you've got a citation on that, rather than just wishful thinking? The 3e Eldar codex was the source I used.

Lord Zarkov wrote:

And no, they’re not just about wishing humans weren’t short sighted (and not just humans). There’s some pretty explicit passages about them wishing they could wipe out humans and other races they see as pests. They were especially prevalent in 3rd Ed (when GW was worried people were seeing Eldar as ‘good guys’) but still occur more recently as well.

For specific Eldar, sure. Not for CWE as a whole. I'm guessing you're imagining things to try to find ways to justify the Imperium's psychotic genocidal mannerisms.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
Some Eldar factions did try and help the Imperium to destroy itself during the Heresy, but that did not go brilliantly well.

Let's clarify that that's after the Imperium showed them a genocidal amount of danger. And they know the emperor's a murderous prick and he's running that show.

Regardless, though, the Imperium is not the same thing as humanity - the Eldar don't want to exterminate humanity, they just want the Imperium to go away and stop trying to murder them, but are dealing with the reality of the situation.

Let’s take some quotes from 3rd Ed Codex Eldar shall we since you cited it?

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:It can be surmised that the word mon-keigh refers to any non-Eldar species the Eldar seem inferior, in need of extermination.

Emphasis mine.

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:Once more you upstart mon-keigh (subject spits) shall kneel before our power! This time we shall not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!
You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth

Emphasis mine again.

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:”There can be no peace while alien feet still tread on Ath-Ethon!” Response to the surrender of the Fourth Imperial Garrison, Rigal IV

The designer’s notes when that book came out were also pretty explicit that ‘yes, the Eldar are also the bad guys’ with a bit of a chastisement for people who think they’re not.

The Imperium is abhorrent and unjustifiable. ‘Most brutal regime imaginable’ and all... But ‘less awful than the Imperium’ is such an incredibly low bar to clear that there’s plenty of space for genocidally abhorrent regimes above it.

Frankly ’they oppose the Imperium so they must be justified’ is just as false and dangerous as ‘the Imperium is necessary’, and equally misses the joke of the setting…

Hecaton wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:


MDG has it right. It’s a risk balance case. On all sides.

Nope. The Imperium is not rational; it makes bad decisions constantly because they worship ignorance. The Imperium *has* made efforts to go hunting down Craftworlds, some successful, some unsuccessful.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
But where the Eldar have been too much of a problem compared to other threats the Imperium has and does focus more attention on crushing them. They have destroyed weaker Craftworlds and wiped out particularly problematic Corsair havens and they have caused significant damage to some major Craftworlds.

They've also genocided Exodites who weren't hurting anyone just because they could. The Imperium is a mad dog, not a rational actor.

I’ve cut this bit out of sequence to address it separately.

‘The Imperium’ is not one monolothic decision making body. Certainly not since the Heresy, and realistically not since the start of the Great Crusade when fleets went off not under the Emperor’s personal oversight.

That’s actually part of its problem. It’s made up of a multitude of people, making greedy, selfish decisions with minimal coordination with others. And people of course indoctrinated into on of many variants of a truly awful ideology.

But the individual people who manage to thrive in such a brutal environment are generally not stupid (sometimes yes, but not generally). Awful, callous and ignorant yes, but not stupid.

So they’re generally going to make decisions that they think will work out to their benefit (note, *not* necessarily (or at all) to *the Imperium’s* benefit). It’s overall leaders can at best set a direction of travel. Not poking the nearby bear that generally keeps to itself but would love to maul you if it could is a good way of minimising risk to yourself. Though if it’s rabid and attacking you anyway you’re absolutely going to try to kill it if you can. And slaughtering some seemingly abandoned cubs so you can move into their cave and start mining it seems positively beneficial.

Similarly local leaders and commanders are generally going to avoid taking on Craftworld unless really annoyed by it because it’s a really risky thing to do. But they will happily slaughter exodites to settle or asset strip their planet if they’re not obviously protected since it’s seemingly easy for great personal benefit.

There’s no greater plan, just personal selfishness and (abhorrent) politics.

Lord Zarkov wrote:


Let’s take some quotes from 3rd Ed Codex Eldar shall we since you cited it?

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:It can be surmised that the word mon-keigh refers to any non-Eldar species the Eldar seem inferior, in need of extermination.

Emphasis mine.

In-universe quote from a human report on the Eldar; that's their opinion. It's not objective truth.

Lord Zarkov wrote:

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:Once more you upstart mon-keigh (subject spits) shall kneel before our power! This time we shall not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!
You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth

Emphasis mine again.

Right, because a captive Eldar who's being tortured is going to have such good things to say about the humans... XD

Lord Zarkov wrote:

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:”There can be no peace while alien feet still tread on Ath-Ethon!” Response to the surrender of the Fourth Imperial Garrison, Rigal IV

They're telling them to get the feth off their planet. Which is not exactly a sign of what you think it is.

Lord Zarkov wrote:


The designer’s notes when that book came out were also pretty explicit that ‘yes, the Eldar are also the bad guys’ with a bit of a chastisement for people who think they’re not.

Citation on that? You're 0/3 for what you've been claiming so far.

Lord Zarkov wrote:


The Imperium is abhorrent and unjustifiable. ‘Most brutal regime imaginable’ and all... But ‘less awful than the Imperium’ is such an incredibly low bar to clear that there’s plenty of space for genocidally abhorrent regimes above it.

Frankly ’they oppose the Imperium so they must be justified’ is just as false and dangerous as ‘the Imperium is necessary’, and equally misses the joke of the setting…

Never said anything like that, just said they weren't as horrible as the Imperium. Frankly, if you're a random human on an unaligned world, the Tau and CWE are more benign towards you than the Imperium is.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
I’ve cut this bit out of sequence to address it separately.

‘The Imperium’ is not one monolothic decision making body. Certainly not since the Heresy, and realistically not since the start of the Great Crusade when fleets went off not under the Emperor’s personal oversight.

That’s actually part of its problem. It’s made up of a multitude of people, making greedy, selfish decisions with minimal coordination with others. And people of course indoctrinated into on of many variants of a truly awful ideology.

But the individual people who manage to thrive in such a brutal environment are generally not stupid (sometimes yes, but not generally). Awful, callous and ignorant yes, but not stupid.

No, they're often stupid. Read about Goge Vandire.

Lord Zarkov wrote:

Similarly local leaders and commanders are generally going to avoid taking on Craftworld unless really annoyed by it because it’s a really risky thing to do. But they will happily slaughter exodites to settle or asset strip their planet if they’re not obviously protected since it’s seemingly easy for great personal benefit.

No, oftentimes they'll attack Eldar because they think the Emperor is talking to them or whatever. Not rational actors.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
There’s no greater plan, just personal selfishness and (abhorrent) politics.

The corruption and dysfunction isn't a bug, it's an inevitable feature of a society as debased as the Imperium.

Hecaton wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:


Let’s take some quotes from 3rd Ed Codex Eldar shall we since you cited it?

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:It can be surmised that the word mon-keigh refers to any non-Eldar species the Eldar seem inferior, in need of extermination.

Emphasis mine.

In-universe quote from a human report on the Eldar; that's their opinion. It's not objective truth.

Lord Zarkov wrote:

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:Once more you upstart mon-keigh (subject spits) shall kneel before our power! This time we shall not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!
You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth

Emphasis mine again.

Right, because a captive Eldar who's being tortured is going to have such good things to say about the humans... XD

They’re not IRL historical sources, they’re fiction pieces produced by the creator of the IP to portray the flavour of the race described.

As I’m sure you’re aware, 3rd Ed codicies were very light on lore, pretty much all of which was portrayed from in universe sources.

GW had a very small amount of space to portray what the Eldar’s perspective on humanity was and they consistently went for ‘they totally wish they could wipe it out’…

Hecaton wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

“3rd Ed Codex Eldar” wrote:”There can be no peace while alien feet still tread on Ath-Ethon!” Response to the surrender of the Fourth Imperial Garrison, Rigal IV

They're telling them to get the feth off their planet. Which is not exactly a sign of what you think it is.

They’re telling them they’re at best going to be ethnically cleansed (which is still genocide) with a heavy implication of them all being slaughtered.

Hecaton wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:


The Imperium is abhorrent and unjustifiable. ‘Most brutal regime imaginable’ and all... But ‘less awful than the Imperium’ is such an incredibly low bar to clear that there’s plenty of space for genocidally abhorrent regimes above it.

Frankly ’they oppose the Imperium so they must be justified’ is just as false and dangerous as ‘the Imperium is necessary’, and equally misses the joke of the setting…

Never said anything like that, just said they weren't as horrible as the Imperium. Frankly, if you're a random human on an unaligned world, the Tau and CWE are more benign towards you than the Imperium is.

As the quote above exemplifies - if you’re on an unaligned world the Eldar has decided is theirs (and a lot of maiden worlds are unoccupied) then you’re going to get ethnically cleansed…

Hecaton wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:
I’ve cut this bit out of sequence to address it separately.

‘The Imperium’ is not one monolothic decision making body. Certainly not since the Heresy, and realistically not since the start of the Great Crusade when fleets went off not under the Emperor’s personal oversight.

That’s actually part of its problem. It’s made up of a multitude of people, making greedy, selfish decisions with minimal coordination with others. And people of course indoctrinated into on of many variants of a truly awful ideology.

But the individual people who manage to thrive in such a brutal environment are generally not stupid (sometimes yes, but not generally). Awful, callous and ignorant yes, but not stupid.

No, they're often stupid. Read about Goge Vandire.

Gone Vandire was evil and destructive to the Imperium, but not really stupid.

After all he managed to scheme himself in charge of the whole edifice and his famous stunt with the sisters of battle was pretty clever.

Hecaton wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

Similarly local leaders and commanders are generally going to avoid taking on Craftworld unless really annoyed by it because it’s a really risky thing to do. But they will happily slaughter exodites to settle or asset strip their planet if they’re not obviously protected since it’s seemingly easy for great personal benefit.

No, oftentimes they'll attack Eldar because they think the Emperor is talking to them or whatever. Not rational actors.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
There’s no greater plan, just personal selfishness and (abhorrent) politics.

The corruption and dysfunction isn't a bug, it's an inevitable feature of a society as debased as the Imperium.

I mean obviously? That’s exactly the point of my final sentence. The Imperium is a self perpetuating monster that will only make itself increasingly worse. But it’s got no ‘plan’ that isn’t working. Just a lot of selfish people making independently selfish decisions that work cross purpose as an inevitable consequence of the way it is set up.

Thing is in these last pieces Sarkov used the lore to prove his point.

You can't say it's not true when that's quoted verbatim, or else you acknowledge the lore is a matter of interpretation and then everyone else is free to have theirs.

You can't decide that in one instance quoting lore works and in another it doesn't. You can't say that it is interpretation once and then forbid anyone to have their understanding of things. Otherwise this is called bad faith and makes for uninteresting arguments of my dad is better than yours instead of hobby chat.

If you interpret differently, that's fine, no one will hunt you down because of it. But then simply state this is how you view the lore because X and Y, not that you have the Revealed Truth of 40k's fictionnal setting.

You really need to relax about this, it's a game.

Lord Zarkov wrote:


They’re not IRL historical sources, they’re fiction pieces produced by the creator of the IP to portray the flavour of the race described.

As I’m sure you’re aware, 3rd Ed codicies were very light on lore, pretty much all of which was portrayed from in universe sources.

GW had a very small amount of space to portray what the Eldar’s perspective on humanity was and they consistently went for ‘they totally wish they could wipe it out’…

Or, they totally went for the "Humans treat the Eldar like subhuman trash," which is what I got out of that. GW has definitely had unreliable narrators speaking in-character before. The third person omniscient text doesn't back up what you're saying, notably.

Lord Zarkov wrote:


They’re telling them they’re at best going to be ethnically cleansed (which is still genocide) with a heavy implication of them all being slaughtered.

Doesn't count as ethnic cleansing if they showed up on an Eldar world to colonize it and the Eldar responded with "Get the feth *out of here*!"

Lord Zarkov wrote:


As the quote above exemplifies - if you’re on an unaligned world the Eldar has decided is theirs (and a lot of maiden worlds are unoccupied) then you’re going to get ethnically cleansed…

Doesn't count as ethnic cleansing, like I said.

Lord Zarkov wrote:



Gone Vandire was evil and destructive to the Imperium, but not really stupid.

After all he managed to scheme himself in charge of the whole edifice and his famous stunt with the sisters of battle was pretty clever.

And then he ran the Imperium right into the ground until he was stopped.

Lord Zarkov wrote:


I mean obviously? That’s exactly the point of my final sentence. The Imperium is a self perpetuating monster that will only make itself increasingly worse. But it’s got no ‘plan’ that isn’t working. Just a lot of selfish people making independently selfish decisions that work cross purpose as an inevitable consequence of the way it is set up.

The "plan" is its core values which are monstrous and debased. People doing evil things in the name of the Imperium are not miscreants or criminals - they're oftentimes the truest exemplars of its society. The Imperium is the problem, not bad actors within it.


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 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Thing is in these last pieces Sarkov used the lore to prove his point.

You can't say it's not true when that's quoted verbatim, or else you acknowledge the lore is a matter of interpretation and then everyone else is free to have theirs.

No, there are right and wrong interpretations.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
You really need to relax about this, it's a game.

You need to relax about this, it's a forum discussion.

The imperium being a faction it is essentially made of characters within it and then what we can see the imperium does is the sum of the characters within it (hopefully from a logic's stance) making up a storywise consistant faction.
Just as you can't tell the story of an actual nation and say its inhabitants or rulers have got nothing to do with how it faired, you can't describe a faction without taking into account the sum of the characters making it up. This is not logical.

What's more, you once again make a defferentiated approach to factions, as you do cut the Eldar craftworlders into groups but not the imperium, which for all intents and purposes are at least even more byzantine and divergence-ridden as characters and sub factions within it have their conflicting stories.

Although we'll still all agree that while these sub factions are often in conflict they mostly compete to stab one another in the back and win the title of worst moron.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
What's more, you once again make a defferentiated approach to factions, as you do cut the Eldar craftworlders into groups but not the imperium, which for all intents and purposes are at least even more byzantine and divergence-ridden as characters and sub factions within it have their conflicting stories.

The Aeldari don't have a unifying philosophy which says that all non-Eldar should be genocided. The Imperium *does* have a unifying philosophy that says that all non-humans should be genocided.