Most Evil 40K Army?

[Spear_of_ulthuan]

I did say worst bits, I wasnt claiming said empires were Inherently "evil".

[Herbiie]

It's ok haha

[Captain Corrigan]

Just to play a little bit of devil's advocate here (because I too believe the Imperium fundamentally evil in its present state) you criticise the Imperium for its brutality and xenophobia; to be fair it is brutal by necessity. The cruelty and callousness inherently present in the Imperium and its administratum is purely the byproduct of a need to survive in an age where anything less than total control would encourage the spread of Chaos. Likewise, the xenophobia stems from a distinct shortage of alien cultures which act with anything less than outright hostility. The eldar will claim to be on your side one moment and then will discard your lives without a second thought to spare themselves losses, the orks are incapable of diplomacy in that way and the Tau are too new to have had an effect on the Imperial ideology when it was laid down, and are also unwilling to accept humanity as anything more than a vassal. So without a physical leader of the brilliance of the Emperor at the helm the Imperium had no way forward and so was forced to evolve into a harsher society. The stagnation which followed is a direct result of both the lack of technological understanding and of fear that any new ideas would encourage free thinking amongst the population as a whole and thus lead entire segments of the population to Chaos, a power they understand far less than we as observers do. So when viewed like that... the Imperium is as it is because it needs to survive, which has been cited as a reason for the C'tan, Daemons and Tyranids not being evil, so....

-Corrigan

[pilot00]

C'tan, Daemons and Tyranids not being evil, so....

-Corrigan

I would exempt the C'tan from that list for one reason: It is a conscious (or rather was with the new fluff) choice. They do what they do because the want to. If they wanted to play nice they could find a faraway lifeless system and have a buffet with its star.Rinse and repeat.

As for the imperium, well yes they had bad contact with most alien species and it is religious dogma to hate the alien and all that blah,blah,blah....
So...When they expanded under the big e's rule they werent exactly friendly or establishing embassies with other species right? And the crusade was not a defense it was meant to be the ultimate offense,purge anything that has more than one head, two eyes,two ears,two nostrils,two arms,two legs and more than five digits in each thumb.So yeah...They have every bit of a reason to be called evil.

[Captain Corrigan]

I would exempt the C'tan from that list for one reason: It is a conscious (or rather was with the new fluff) choice. They do what they do because the want to. If they wanted to play nice they could find a faraway lifeless system and have a buffet with its star.Rinse and repeat.

As for the imperium, well yes they had bad contact with most alien species and it is religious dogma to hate the alien and all that blah,blah,blah....
So...When they expanded under the big e's rule they werent exactly friendly or establishing embassies with other species right? And the crusade was not a defense it was meant to be the ultimate offense,purge anything that has more than one head, two eyes,two ears,two nostrils,two arms,two legs and more than five digits in each thumb.So yeah...They have every bit of a reason to be called evil.

Aye, but we know from Horus Rising that the contact with the interex was the first time any aliens had been encountered who were amenable to permanent alliance with humans in the form of the kinebrach, and Horus was willing to consider revising the imperial stance on the matter when that happened, so again its a case that the crusade was a product of its times: ALL aliens that had been encountered were opposed to humanity, and humanity had been badly mistreated by many. So its entirely understandable that the doctrine that evolved from that was drastic, since it was motivated by a desire that it must never happen again, and with so many powerful spacefaring alien races extermination would be seen as the only option by a vengeful humanity. The rules were blanket rules and so ended up covering xenos that weren't a threat, but that is an entirely different matter. So the great crusade is defensible, and consequently my arguments about the Imperium being as it is by necessity rather than choice are still valid.

-Corrigan

[pilot00]

So you advocate that since there is bad blood between species/peoples, the logical outcome is to choose to carve a path of destruction and extinction and thus it is fully justifiable because 'they started it' thus, outlining a perceived necessity of survival? And to force said justification on innocents as well (its not another matter since we discuss the ethics of each faction here).

Understandable can be one thing,ethical is another. However understandable it might be you cant define the imperium as good. They are a sapient/self aware/intelligent/emotionally awakened species, thereby their every single action is a conscious one. Mass genocide based on a 10000 year old grudge or even perceived threat cant be justified. Especially when you corner your enemy and hold all the tramp cards they had the choice to let them be deprived of space faring technology for example. I think the interex took that aproach on an arachnid race.

To me the interex was a rather poetic (unintentional) touch of what the imperium could have become if it could come to terms with the most civil races of the galaxy (eldar and tau for example) and the emperor was not flawed of character,but thats another discussion altogether.

[Captain Corrigan]

I never said the Imperium were good guys, only that they weren't evil per se. I think it is more accurate to describe it as human: flawed, but it never set out with the intention of being oppressive, nor was its xenophobia unjustifiable; it just happened. The comment about vengeance on xenos was less of an excuse than a point that tolerance of xenos would not have been accepted by the ordinary people of the Imperium, and so its radical attitude towards dealing with aliens was at least partially the result of mass pressure to act decisively, rather than the Emperor sitting down and saying to himself "you know what, I'm going to kill every last alien I see because I reckon it's a good idea." This may not make it right, but when you look at the alternatives (get overthrown or send in the Astartes to kill troublemakers) it would seem the least evil option to an Emperor who, for all his brilliance, exists to benefit humanity alone and therefore is incapable of valuing alien lives more than human ones. Humanity was deluded and dangerous, but not necessarily evil.

-Corrigan

[pridgener]

Military people are fluffy as they eat everything and are made to slave everything, which comes in their way. This is done so that they dare to take challenges. Most of the video games are based on this concept only.

[jboweruk]

I never said the Imperium were good guys, only that they weren't evil per se. I think it is more accurate to describe it as human: flawed, but it never set out with the intention of being oppressive, nor was its xenophobia unjustifiable; it just happened. The comment about vengeance on xenos was less of an excuse than a point that tolerance of xenos would not have been accepted by the ordinary people of the Imperium, and so its radical attitude towards dealing with aliens was at least partially the result of mass pressure to act decisively, rather than the Emperor sitting down and saying to himself "you know what, I'm going to kill every last alien I see because I reckon it's a good idea." This may not make it right, but when you look at the alternatives (get overthrown or send in the Astartes to kill troublemakers) it would seem the least evil option to an Emperor who, for all his brilliance, exists to benefit humanity alone and therefore is incapable of valuing alien lives more than human ones. Humanity was deluded and dangerous, but not necessarily evil.

-Corrigan

Ah but you could apply that to Chaos Spaz Mehrens (didn't begin with evil intent but sure as hell are now), Tau (commies with all the worst side of communism), Eldar (come on an enlightened race should not let billions die to save one life), Really the only race that isn't pure evil are the nids, everyone else is evil period.
I can prove humanity is... They adopt the same doctrine as the Catholic Church during the Inquisition period, the Stalinist Regime and that of Adolf Hitler, all evil beyond belief. That makes the Imperium pretty damned evil. The nids are like locusts, permanently hungry and strip a world bare, yet we don't consider locusts to be evil, just a pest. Okay the nids are theoretically a dangerous pest, (about as dangerous in 6th ed as a paper bag) but a pest nonetheless.

[Nagato]

Most evil 40k army ? Of course and without doubt the Dark Eldar, but the biggest threat for the Galaxy is the Tyranids.