Is it just me, or do they seem evil as shit? Is there a simple canon
source that depicts them as something other than scheming and
corrupt bourgeois types?
>>45837690
thats what they are supposed to be
>>45837690
>Is there a simple canon source that depicts them as something other than scheming and corrupt bourgeois types?
Anon, you're talking about politicians here.
>>45837690
>Is it just me, or do they seem evil as shit?
The same question could be asked of every faction in Warhammer 40k, and the answer would be the same for all of them.
"No, they actually are evil as shit"
absolute power corrupts absolutely
The current high lords are doing pretty well in my opinion.
1. They convinced GW to give cadia back to them.
2. They are endlessly fighting on hundreds and fronts and winning.
3. Third sphere expansion is over. Tau space pope dead.
4. CSM models are endlessly over costed making them useless in battles against loyalists.
5. Wraith knights are suddenly less fielded by the Eldar since they are LoW and by definition rarely fielded now.
6. Sisters are literally made from metal making them harder to kill in battle.
7. The best chapter masters have been elevated to LoW status making them super good and stuff.
8. Orks are terrible.
Large galactic governments are probably impossible because of their intolerable complexity, hierarchies, and time spans. Especially one that has no use for computers and AI.
A supervisor can only oversee so many people. 100 people per subordinate in a galaxy with millions or even billions of planets each one with billions of people would create from 21 to 11 hierarchy levels, each one overseeing billions of subjects. The higher-ups would never have contact with anyone but other inter-stellar governors. Planetary governors would be a kind to being a "peasant" in their eyes.
Then we have "control loss". If orders must change hands 10 times losing or changing say, 5% of the contenent each time, by the time this orders reach the lower levels, it would have degraded into noise. Less than one-fifth of the orders would ever reach fruition.
>>45839284
Didn't think about that.
Maybe they are why we have an ungodly number of Imperial factions that are totally OP.
I can't wait for dozens more with crazy shit like Primarch clones riding Titan Ordanitus hybrids or something.
>>45839510
>crazy shit like Primarch-clones riding Titan-Ordinatus hybrids
Fixed.
>>45839469
>no use for computers and AI
Well, the Imperium cheats a lot. Ultra-complex cogitators and pseudo-AI aren't unheard of. You just jam a bit of brain in there to get around the "no abominable intelligence" problem.
Also, they can and do make use of cybernetics that massively enhance intelligence, and drugs that expand their lifespan.
Finally, bureaucracy *does* have some purpose, so pleas and requests that reach the high lords usually do receive some kind of response. It just takes decades or centuries to return to the people who asked.
>>45837690
Anon, the Imperium is evil. It's an Empire created by a superhuman bigot who whole-heartedly believed that the ends-justify-the-fuck-you-I'm-smart-do-what-I-say.
Even the nicest Space Marines have "genocide" on their to-do list. So, yeah. The High Lords are evil, corrupt pieces of crap who ruthlessly gamble with the lives of trillions out of a combination of pettiness, narcissism, and an ingrained belief that the most brutal response is the best.
>>45839284
They are acting like Rome during its last days. Every single one of these victories have been a Phyrric one. They weaken the Empire as whole.
I think it is canon that the Imperium at large is un-gobernable to the point of being de facto decentralized despite the presence of massive bureaucracy.
A typical solution to tall organization is parallel hierarchies and other organization structure. But this tends to encourage intrigues, conspiracies, and instability.
Well, either way, that sounds like the Imperium of Man after millenias of decay.
>>45839602
>Anon, the Imperium is evil. It's an Empire created by a superhuman bigot who whole-heartedly believed that the ends-justify-the-fuck-you-I'm-smart-do-what-I-say.
Well for one, he did actually know what he was doing, just didn't work well enough on the execution. But you try running an expanding galactic empire by yourself, powering a psychic beacon that's constantly draining you of your power, and doing miracle science in your basement.
The only reason the he made the Imperium super hateful towards xenos, was that during the old night, all of humanities xenos "allies" abandoned them in their time of need, or took advantage of the situation.
He didn't have any problem with xenos that would pose no threat to humanity, or that would submit to imperium rule. That message didn't get across well to his legions however.
>>45839899
>That message didn't get across well to his legions however.
Horus mentioned that any peaceful attempt with xenos ended badly.
>>45839931
Well xenos are dicks, but that's their prerogative.
You have stuck up dicks, like the eldar, humanity enslaving dicks, like those weird mind controlling things in the luna wolves book, and then you have the "Too different to establish any dialogue" dicks, like the ones on murder.
>>45839978
>and then you have the "Too different to establish any dialogue" dicks, like the ones on murder.
The Megaarchinds could have degenerated into that state.
>>45840037
Could be, but that's how they were when they were found, and there's nothing to do but put them down.
>>45840113
Yeah we don't want any of the Hive Mind's rogue children reuniting with their parent. Spare them from living on the planet with the worst name in 40k.
Some aliens were too hostile to work with humans even during the Dark Age of Technology and were put under their vigilance. Others were ready to work alongside humanity just fine and their friendship remained well into the Great Crusade where they meet their subjugation or extinction.
Look at these people. They are out-of-their-deep. They run a galactic empire made of trillions of humans with the ideas, administrative structures and thinking of a little kingdom from the Middle-Ages. Don't confuse malice with incompetence.
>>45839704
its so decentralized with so many different organizations running it the only thing that could possibly a crippling blow is taking out cadia mars or terra in increasing order of importance
>>45840544
having better communication and travel technology would probably help a lot
>>45839931
There are a couple exceptions. Jokero, for example.
>>45840544
>whynotboth.jpg
>>45840751
But they don't, really. If it takes your ship a decade to plow through the Warp and reach the next segmentum over, you're no better off than when it took a decade for your traders to make the trip back from China.
>>45840857
I sometimes wonder what the imperium would be like if warp still allowed fast travel and communication.
It would still dangerous Gellar field drops everyone dies.
But you can still move talk between worlds efficiently.
>>45841166
I still like the very brief fanon idea /tg/ (by which I mean me) had where the Emperor died but his death becalmed the warp and destroyed the big 4 chaos gods, resulting in a flourishing of new entities and completely changing the setting
>>45841166
It would probably be worse, because everyone would realize how culturally different they are and fight about it. The lack of communication lets the differences in the imperium remain unimportant.
>>45839605
how so?
>>45841202
they're united religiously and depend on the government to protect them because the threats are that big.
And doesn't that already happen.
>>45839978
>>45840037
>>45840113
>>45840148
The Megarachnids were banished there after losing a war to the Interex. Gotta love those guys and their logic.
>these beings nearly destroyed our entire civilization, and exist only to maim, kill, and consume anything that is not a megarachnid. They are a threat to all sentient species.
>enjoy your new home, we'll make sure that no one bothers you.
How did these guys make it through Long Night?
>>45840148
I try to convince myself that every time something has a stupid name in 40k, it's because the actual word has intrinsic meaning in 40k language that can't directly translate to 2k English.
>>45837690
...is there any source that depicts them as even doing anything?
>>45841665
Wasn't this the policy of mankind's during the Dark Age of Technology? Don't genocide aliens, imprison them in their own planets. Even for species too hostile and dangerous to live?
>>45841789
Which kinda makes sense. Exterminatus is hella difficult.
>>45839602
>The Emperor is a bigot
>The Emperor is the only thing preventing daemons from eating and raping all of humanity for all of eternity
>Wah but he so mean to aliens tho
Why not just kill yourself right now? I mean you have to eat meat to survive, don't you understand that by letting yourself live you're causing death and suffering to those poor animals?
>>45840148
I don't think the name is particularly bad. After all, it came after a transmission from a Blood Angels captain that went, IIRC, "This planet is murder!".
And all the other expeditionary fleets just rolled with it.
>>45839931
I don't really buy it. Why are the Tau able to establish a relatively successful and amiable client relationship with a variety of species, but the Imperium at its height couldn't?
I'm not really into whitewashing the big E's character. Dude was pretty down with a lot of really, really bad things. That is, after all, what makes the setting interesting: the viewpoint characters are undeniably horrible people, who may be the only hope of humankind's survival.
>>45845239
>I don't really buy it. Why are the Tau able to establish a relatively successful and amiable client relationship with a variety of species, but the Imperium at its height couldn't?
The Imperium didn't use brainwashing helmets.
>>45845310
Sure, Tau aren't saints. But they didn't brainwash the Kroot, Nicassar, or Demiurge did they?
>>45840148
>Spare them from living on the planet with the worst name in 40k.
Not planet Birmingham?
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Birmingham
>>45841256
They're not really united religiously. There are thousands of different sects and cults that all worship the emperor in some form but by no means is it unified. Being able to realize that the guys two sectors away think the emperor manifests as the sun would be disastrous. The highest order of the imperium with the most consistent communications fights constant shadow wars against each other for different interpretations of the texts and portents. Space marine chapters go to war against each other for perceived heresies and genetic degeneration. Gotta remember that the humans in warhammer are basically the worst at all times. The entire theme of the setting is deeply fanatical, ignorant, selfish and violent humans in a chaotic and intolerant universe. Being able to make collect calls isn't going to help.
>>45845310
If the Tau have mind-controlling helmets, why don't use them them on Orks, or other vicious and virulent species?
>>45845239
As I see it (I don't know much pre-m41 lore), it's because humanity tried to see aliens as allies, whereas the Tau see them as subjects.
>>45845788
Orks could just smash them off, and it's not like they have much of a brain in them anyways.
Plus they'd still give off spores, which would make un-brainwashed orks and grots. There's around a thousand grots for each ork, isn't there?
>>45845425
The kroot benefit from the alliance. They had almost no tech before the tau came along.
It's pretty hard to mind-control psykers, and if they tried it it'd pretty much be evangelion for them.
And demiurge live in giant spaceships. Figure that one out for yourself.
>>45837690
>corrupt bourgeois types
they are running a galaxy-spanning empire, they're not supposed not can be nice.
>>45845239
Gunboat diplomacy and less xenophobia from something like the long night that makes genocide look favorable.
>>45847878
>There's around a thousand grots for each ork, isn't there?
Not nearly that lopsided but maybe a half dozen
>>45840544
These guys kind of remind me of pic related; monstrously evil and kept alive long, long past their time through malefic arcane power
>>45848748
This. Every taufag forgets that the Tau Empire (if it can be callled that) is puny compared to the Imperium.
Give the Tau a millennium or two and a about a billion more miles to watch over, and everything wrong with the Tau currently (Orwellian control, extermination of those who don't buy their "greater good" bs) will be magnified hundred-fold, and all their good sides (diplomacy first, shoot far later, assimilation of other species) will be dust in the wind.
>>45849143
except ones are ruthless in their drive to ensure survival of the species, whereas second is just.. oh wait, you almost got me. While I mostly agree with /pol/, I'm afraid this thread is now destined to boil down to Trump vs Hillary shitstorm.
Hope you're proud of yourself, anon.
>>45849308
>Give the Tau a millennium or two and a about a billion more miles to watch ove
>give tau
Exterminatus is the only gift I can offer
>>45849333
The God Emperor is pleased with both your conviction and those sweet trips
>>45849143
guys more of a combination of a rogue trader who follows tzench and slannesh
>The Inquisition merely performs the duty of its office. To fear them, redundant. To hate them, heretical.
>Those more sensible will place responsibility on those who forced the Inquisition's hand.
Replace "Inquisition" with "High Lord of Terra" and you have your answer.
Far too many players are turned off by the Imperium because of its perceived "evil." But one must remember the the Galaxy is a dangerous place, and the only way to last a long time in it is to be more dangerous, more clever, and more enduring than what the Galaxy throws at you. And the Imperium is very old indeed.
Do not blame the Inquisitor for calling for exterminatus, or the Space Marine for performing a pre-emptive strike on an unknown species, or the Adeptus Administratum for being late on its deliveries.
Blame the Warp and Horus for disrupting the God Emperor's plan for a human Webway. Blame the Eldar for birthing Slaanesh and throwing Mankind into a Dark Age. Blame the hostile Xenos, who either attack outright, or plot behind our backs and lead us to die for their benefit.
Sure, the Imperium is not blameless. Even the Emperor made mistakes. But the Imperium is the best made out of the worst situation.
Ave Imperator.
>>45849826
We of the Ecclesiarchy thank you for your input, however due to your criticism, and heretical comments on the emperors being you are to be lobotomized and put into a servitor, to redeem yourself. The Adeptus Arbites will come to retrieve you in the next few hours, Emperor Bless.
>>45852595
Ave imperator!
I must interject on this heretics sentence, a lobotomy and servitorization is not punishment enough; I move for the pyres to be lit and the heretic to burn in its righteous flames.
May the emperor judge his soul.
>>45839148
I would say that the orks are the least evil
they don't hate anyone. anyone can fight with them, or against them, they don't care as long as there is fighting.
>>45853696
Conflict is inherently evil, by far the least evil would have to be Eldar, Necron, or Tau given they seek to only secure their own domain and are not dependent on conflict for their own continued survival like the Orks,Imperium of Man ,Chaos, and Dark Eldar.
>>45837690
Imagine a council made entirely of Donald Trumps. You have the High Lords of Terra. Corrupt, Incompetent, Ineffective.
>>45854782
Your thinking Meixco's government. Trump cannot be any of those three until he is given the chance to lead, although I agree he will mostly likely be ineffective.
>>45854840
>ineffective
couldnt be less effective than obongo. pretty sure he set a historic low
>>45854898
President Grant sat around in the White house getting drunk with his friends and playing Poker, while Obongo, while ultimately ineffective at least attempted to represent the idiots he was elected to lead.
>>45847878
So that proves my point: Kroot and Tau have a pretty solid alliance. Why did the Big E, a super-genius dude, decide that "All Genocide, All the Time" is the proper response when there are clearly many reasonable species out there like the Kroot? I know it's a harsh galaxy out there, but that's all the more reason to seek reliable allies who could help mankind.
>>45846132
This isn't a terrible way to see things. The Star Trek Federation of the Dark Age fell apart because it turns out Vulcans are complete pieces of shit when the chips are down.
Then again, I also like the interpretation that outside the Ethereals the Tau aren't so bad, but they're heading down the long path of becoming the Imperium in the future. They'll be so jaded and ruthless that they rule solely by dogma and reject flat out the notion that species can work together out of fear that it will lead to betrayal.
>>45837690
40k is a place where everything that could go wrong did. They put the edge in edgy. So yeah of course the High Lords are evil. It would be weird if they weren't.
>>45845239
>the viewpoint characters are undeniably horrible people, who may be the only hope of humankind's survival.
Only in that Horus Heresy fanfiction is the emperor or anyone in charge a view point character.
Believe it or not but Wh40k has a better level of internal consistency and cogency than HH 30k, which tries to nail down specifics but can only ever manage the most unintelligent solutions to literary problems possible.
The Horus Heresy series is like the Imperium of Games Workshop.
Games Workshop is already a clusterfuck and then that shit came along.
About the Tau: as a faction they don't quite gel with the rest of the setting and regardless aren't a very good idea. They're character concept is "what if there was a 40k faction that didn't fit into 40k" and "what if they were sort of perfect and everything always worked out for them" which is dull. Making them interesting in spite of their central concepts.
Most of the framework of 40k that allows for all the weird shit to happen was laid down in the early 90's and Tau are well separated from that.
>>45853696
Same as Chaos. Chaos just acts as per it's nature, therefore it isn't evil. Or a psycho rapist: not actually a bard person, just trying to enjoy themselves.
>>45856050
>So that proves my point: Kroot and Tau have a pretty solid alliance.
If the Tau had some hard times the Kroot would literally eat the Tau. This is what happened to humans.
>>45837690
They're politicians. Read the Beast series, it gives a good look at how they operate.
>>45856494
This as soon as Tau find they are having problems, the kronor will eye up the blueberries as an opportunity to get some new genes, there are probably kroot out there that have and are now hunted; but on the dlow the empire not wanting the knowledge that kroot have consumed Tau to get out to the Tau or other kroot.
>>45847878
>Orks could just smash them off, and it's not like they have much of a brain in them anyways.
That doesn't make sense. The Necrons enslaved Orks in the War in Heaven and used them to build temples.
>>45856494
>If the Tau had some hard times the Kroot would literally eat the Tau.
Nah, there are cases where the Tau gave up their lives to save Kroot and vice versa.
>>45856050
>clearly many reasonable species out there
>Kroot
>Tau
>Maybe Vespid
Vs
>Eldar (Five flavours) - Craftworld, Dark, Exodite, Corsair, Harlequin
>Orks
>Necron
>Tyranid
>Umbra
>Hrud
>Cryptos
>Those mind control ponies from the Great Crusade
>Human abominations like the Quietide, the Blind Judges etc.
>Q'ori
>Rak'gol
>Tarellian
>Enslavers
Exceptions defy the norm, not define it.
The Tau are fucked in the long run. Their expansion can only continue for so long until they attract the attention of a dozen Space Marine chapters. I've noticed that a lot more Space Marines are being described as having won crushing victories over the Tau. Just wait until twenty battle barges and ten thousand Marines come knocking.
40k wouldn't be anywhere near as bad if the Imperium actually confronted its enemies. Gather together half of the Imperial Navy and launch the Great Crusade Part II. Entomb Chaos in the Eye, and wipe out the Orks, the Eldar, and the Tau for good.
>>45841789
I'm trying to not be retarded, but this thread is obviously full of lorefags who know more than I do.
Where would I start reading about the Long Night, Dark Age of Technology, or anything that happened prior to the current zombie on the throne with everything scattered to shit?
>>45840857
>If it takes your ship a decade to plow through the Warp and reach the next segmentum over
Where does it ever say that it usually takes a decade to travel to the next segmentum over?
And even if that was the case, that doesn't affect the imperiums communication ability, which is actually quite fast, at least relatively, as their communications, barring interference from things like warp storms, take at most a few weeks to get from even places near the edge of the imperium-controled space back to Terra
>>45837690
>borugeois
This they should not be. They are, generally, feudal ultra-aristocracy, not middle-class capitalists.
(The Inquisitorial Representative, the Fabricator-General of Mars, the Grand Master of Assassins and the Speaker for the Chartist Captains being exceptions from this general rule, though only the Speaker would be bourgeoisie, the other three being a ruthless meritocratic pragmatist, a techno-theocrat and a murder abbot respectively)
>>45860770
>if the Imperium actually confronted its enemies
But it does, anon, that's virtually all it does. Sure, there's glaring inefficiencies here and there but the point is the Imperium doesn't have the forces to focus on one or two threats, lest the others take advantage of the weaknesses and drive further into their foe. Humanity is fighting a losing battle, but it's holding on.
>>45839602
>genocide
>aliens
Anon you can't genocide something that has no rights. There honestly is nothing wrong with killing life- it's objectively good for humans as it frees up more space for us to live and spread.
>>45854920
Wouldn't that mean grant was the most effective though since he didn't have the chance to do anything?
>>45856050
>Kroot
>Reasonable
Dude Kroot are as far as you can fucking get from that. They're opportunists who will cannibalize Tau space as pirates the second the Tau Empire shows signs of falling. They're Privateers, nothing more.
>>45864033
The kroot worlds are likely protectorates with the kroot being hired as mercenaries by the tau
>>45864033
This is the truth; the kroot are hired, they aren't part of the empire they are mercs.
Taunplayers need to realize that kroot don't give two fuck about tau and foods food.
>>45860770
Man, it is confronting its enemies. It's also dying. It doesn't have the power to wipe out its enemies, that's the point.
>>45863505
Why are all those fleets sitting around in Segmenta doing nothing then? Whenever an Imperial world is attacked, a fleet is dispatched to relive it. Those forces have to be coming from somewhere. Considering those worlds already had defence forces, it would be more efficient if these fleets were used to destroy the enemy before they can attack Imperial worlds, rather than wait until they do and then launch a counter-attack.
