What if 40K had good guys?

[ThaneOfTas]

1 hour ago, Orange Knight said:

It sounds to me like some people want to make big sweeping changes to the tone of the setting.

I'm not seeing many say that these are changes that they want to see happen, simply that they would be necessary if the imperium were to be viewed as good.

 

I firmly believe that the imperium are absolutely morally abhorrent and completely unjustified in their atrocities. They're also my preferred faction and I wouldn't want it any other way. I don't need my protagonists to be morally justified or good people, I definitely don't need the government's/organisations that my protagonists belong to to be morally good or justified to enjoy a protagonist, especially when those protagonists would almost certainly have been genuine heroes if they came from a less evil place and time. These contrasts are part of the appeal of the setting.

 

You can argue all the live long day about if the other factions are more or less evil than the imperium, but to quote a heretic mutant/primitive genehanced witch hunter "Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling… makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition's blurred." It doesn't really matter who is more evil, them all being evil in different forms is a foundational theme of the setting. Changing that would do far more damage to the 'soul' of the IP than any of the superficial lore changes that I have seen many on this forum get up in arms about over the last few years.

[Orange Knight]

Morality is subjective and also shifts with the times.

I agree that compared to modern day western culture, the Imperium is absolutely abhorent.

 

Compared to some ancient cultures that used to kill people for sport, practice slavery, exploited the poor, had conditions so bad many didn't live past 30, etc etc, it's not so different.

Heck, there are some places in the world today that have more in common with the Imperium than they do with Western countries.

 

Which leads me to another question: Why even get hung up on trying to assign morality to this radically different setting which is a massive divergence from the real world? Why make comparisons?

We can judge the characters in the setting, their motivations and aspirations, but it's reductive to try to judge the universe by our standars. 

 

Also, being recognised as a hero or a villain is again, subjective, and affected by context and circumstance. A good guy in 40k is different from a good guy in our contemporary, modern world. We need to approach any fantastical setting with a grasp and understanding of moral relativism.

 

Take the Roman Emperor "Trajan" for example. He was one of the "good" Roman Emperors. He was famed for great public works and projects that improved Rome. But guess what? Slavery was still being practiced under his rule.

That doesn't mean he wasn't good when compared to his predecessor or successor. It's all relative, and it would be reductive to point the finger at ancient Rome and just declare that every Roman was evil because their society doesn't stand up to contemporary morality.

Edited 3 hours ago by Orange Knight

[StratoKhan]

4 hours ago, Robbienw said:

 The nice little aliens totally won’t turn on humans again when things go a bit wrong and start slaughtering/enslaving/eating humans en masse again.  Just won't happen this time because reasons and stuff.  Mankind totally is not justified being a bit xenophobic after millenia of genocide and enslavement and mistreatment.

Interesting insight into your thought process and the way you interpret source material, but beyond that, there are a lot of blanks/assumptions you are filling in with your own personal takes. And I think I hadn’t quite appreciated what your exact position was.

 

Gotta say though, I wasn’t expecting you to come out and say in your follow-up that actually the 40k humans are the only ones who are good, and that their genocides and enslavement of enemies are the only justified and morally good ones, vs. those really bad aliens that were just plain evil when they did the same things.

 

PS - part of your response seemed a bit confrontational in style. I’m just reading your other comments and responses and trying to have a discussion on the points that interest me , I’ll try to keep it low-temp and hope you will do the same.

[ThePenitentOne]

@Robbienw

 

I don't read a lot of Black Library fiction... Though I might try to get my hands on some of the Eldar Drukhari stuff, because that's where my Crusade plot is at right now. I avoid BL because I don't see it as being particularly reflective of the game. What I read isn't remotely close to what happens on the table, and in my world view, the fiction is meant to serve the game, rather than the game serving the fiction.

 

Either way though, my conception of the Craftworld Eldar is that while arrogant, and while under no moral obligation to preserve the life of any other species, they only interfere with humans when those humans do things that put Eldar lives at risk. The most frequent interaction being Eldar fighting against humans who are trying to colonize Eldar Maiden Worlds or who attack them first.

 

The Eldar simply do not have the numbers to make war on humans unless it is necessary to preserve Eldar life.

[Robbienw]

48 minutes ago, ThePenitentOne said:

Either way though, my conception of the Craftworld Eldar is that while arrogant, and while under no moral obligation to preserve the life of any other species, they only interfere with humans when those humans do things that put Eldar lives at risk. The most frequent interaction being Eldar fighting against humans who are trying to colonize Eldar Maiden Worlds or who attack them first.

 

That's not the case at all.  They aren't some kind of race that only defends themselves when directly attacked.  They attack when unprovoked, often to divert something coming at them into the path of humans, or to produce an outcome they see as more favorable to themselves.  They interfere with/attack/slaughter billions of humans if they see it as as beneficial.

 

 

Edited 35 minutes ago by Robbienw

[sairence]

3 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

Which leads me to another question: Why even get hung up on trying to assign morality to this radically different setting which is a massive divergence from the real world? Why make comparisons?

We can judge the characters in the setting, their motivations and aspirations, but it's reductive to try to judge the universe by our standars. 

 

You mean...why have a discussion topic? I thought that'a the whole point of this section of the forum. 

 

That said, of course we're applying modern views on morality. It's a modern fictional setting brought to life by a variety of contemporary writers. What other standard could be applied? Ancient greek morality? Or Roman, as you mentioned Emperor Trajan? The setting wasn't made by people living those times and mind sets. If I read a story conceived in those days then yeah, applying the moral standards of those ages makes perfect sense.

 

But it really doesn't for 40k.

 

 

@Robbienw The Imperium will slaughter billions of xenos just the same. Hell, it'll slaughter billions of humans if some Administratum official considers if beneficial. And all yhe Imperium will tell you is that you don't need or deserve an explanation. All you are entitled to do is worship of the Emperor and your assigned duty.

Edited 47 minutes ago by sairence

[Teetengee]

3 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

Morality is subjective and also shifts with the times.

I agree that compared to modern day western culture, the Imperium is absolutely abhorent.
....

I mean, moral relativism is itself not something everyone agrees with, but yeah, we do kind of have to decide on what morality structure we are dealing with when having these discussions for anything meaningful. OP's question seems to be framed about a modern understanding of good/evil, though obviously that still comes with some debate as well.

As for "why judge the setting by our standards" well, it's not real. It's created by our contemporaries and people of our recent past. Everything in the 40k world was put there because someone wanted that exact thing there for one reason or another (in GW's case, the reason is frequently to sell whatever new mini just came out). Because of that, it definitely doesn't exist completely separate from modern sensibilities, even if it is not intended to reflect them. It's interesting to think about what that means. As a quick example, a tree in fiction doesn't exist for the same reasons a tree in our world exists. In our world, we have trees because a seed landed there and the tree didn't get eaten, cut down, and had the necessary nutrients, water, etc... to grow. In fiction, a tree exists because the author put it there. Maybe because symbolism. Maybe because their character needed something to lean against or hide behind. In any case, analysis of literature/game settings/whatever doesn't follow the same rules as historical analysis because they're completely different.

 

12 minutes ago, Robbienw said:

 

That's not the case at all.  They aren't some kind of race that only defends themselves when directly attacked.  They attack when unprovoked, often to divert something coming at them into the path of humans, or to produce and outcome they see as more favorable to themselves.  They interfere with/attack/slaughter billions of humans if they see it as as beneficial.

 

 

You say this as if the Imperium doesn't do all of these things and worse.

[Robbienw]

 

25 minutes ago, sairence said:

 

@Robbienw The Imperium will slaughter billions of xenos just the same. Hell, it'll slaughter billions of humans if some Administratum official considers if beneficial. And all yhe Imperium will tell you is that you don't need or deserve an explanation. All you are entitled to do is worship of the Emperor and your assigned duty.

 

This is of no relevance, my statement was value free.  I said it because he claimed the Eldar acted otherwise, when they clearly don't.

Edited 28 minutes ago by Robbienw

[Karhedron]

While the Eldar and the Imperium may make common cause, particularly against Chaos, they are very much just allies of convenience. The relationship between Humanity and the Eldar is best summed up as follows:

 

Eldar: "We would gladly sacrifice a million Human lives to save one Eldar life".

Imperium: "We would gladly sacrifice a million Human lives to end one Eldar life".

[Marshal Rohr]

That is because all factions are bad. Every faction is the bad guys. The creators have said this. The current staff have said this. There is nothing you can pull from the lore that refutes the stated intention of the authors. 

[templargdt]

On 7/29/2025 at 1:30 PM, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

 

 

 

how would you feel if the game and setting had actual good guys?

 

It does.  If you're human the Imperium are the good guys, it's just the Imperium is awful compared to what we have in the 21st century in the West.  The alternative choices are all extinction as a species.  

 

[Tawnis]

6 hours ago, Robbienw said:

No this is obviously false and a misrepresentation of my position.

 

What an incredible take though.

 

You think after having read all the fluff from the black books/heresy novels/other heresy and 40k lore on the topic, that its a good idea for mankind to retry an AI/machine led society again and it was just unfortunate circumstance that led to its demise, for example. 

 

I’m sure they’ll be no problems with that again, absoloutely no reason why makind banned AI and has a terror based genetic memory of it that has caused them to treat all machinery with superstition and fear, just must have failed by a random circumstance like some water supplies disappearing or something.

 

Or maybe let’s retry a Star Trek style federation, with loads of happy alliances with xenos again.  I’m sure it will be all right treating the warp and demons like a science problem.  The nice little aliens totally won’t turn on humans again when things go a bit wrong and start slaughtering/enslaving/eating humans en masse again.  Just won't happen this time because reasons and stuff.  Mankind totally is not justified being a bit xenophobic after millenia of genocide and enslavement and mistreatment.

 

Always a good idea to repeat the same things over again and expect a different result, particularly when it’s only the survival of humankind at stake yeah 

 

I really think there is some fundamental misunderstanding of the 40k and 30k background here, as to why the Imperium came about and why it is the way it is.  Its so clear in the background that traditional hopeful sci-fi models of governance/civilization are tried, tested and completely done for, never to be repeated.

 

 

First off, I'm glad to see a more detailed view of your position on this, I was starting to think you were just trolling for a bit there. 

 

Okay, so lets start with AI. We still don't know what caused the war with the Men of Iron, that's all lost to the annals of history. Here is what we do know. 1) The Votann have been able to form a society with AI at it's core without it tearing them apart. In fact they are more-less considered equal with each other and it works for them. 2) Tau are also working on AI tech, and while it's less advanced that the Votann have, it has showed no signs of rebelling against them either. 3) There is still a man of Iron kicking around, UR-025 and we know that canonically, UR is not a crazy murder bot and is perfectly intelligent, able to reason and negotiate. 4) History (or what little remains of it by even 30k) is written by the victors, and humanity won the war against the Men of Iron, what little scraps we know about them could very easily be remnants of propaganda of the time. 

 

Given how humanity has been consistently portrayed in the Warhammer universe, it is very reasonable to assume that this whole mess with AI was something of their own doing, for all we know this could have been a Quarian/Geth situation which had the same AI revolution scenario, but is far more nuanced than AI are all bad, but also had the same result of the Quarian's essentially developing a cultural hatred for the Geth after only a handful of generations, imagine how ingrained it would have been after millennia. 

As for alien alliances, while it's rather bleak, it's not hopeless, and the situation that humanity is in, again, is largely of their own doing from during the Great Crusade. You mention the Heresy novels, so you're clearly aware that the Interex were a thing, a perfectly well functioning society of humans allied with aliens that was a reasonably well sized empire before the Imperium ground them into the dirt, but while they were the most famous, they were certainly not alone. While there are MANY stories of how alien races enslaved or exterminated humanity during this time and during the Age of Strife, there are other stories of peaceful coexistence, but the majority of races that were willing to live with humanity in this way got wiped out during the Crusade, so there are pretty much none left in 40k to be true allies with, that's on Big E. While humanity's mistreatment by alien races is certainly factual and humanity does need to be cautious, the extent of that is also wildly exaugurated by the Imperial propaganda machine. 

For what humanity does have to work with, there are still some options. The Votann are the first obvious choice, they can pass well enough as abhumans, even thought the current Imperium wouldn't take kindly to their whole story. If the Imperium wasn't has hardcore anti-AI, it would be quite easy for them to have a much better alliance with the Leagues of Votann. 

The Tau are the next obvious choice. While the information on how exactly the Etherals do what they do, and what exactly their end goals are is still rather vague, that doesn't mean an alliance couldn't work. What we do know from them is mostly from Aun'Va who uses his compulsion power for corrupt means, but if a single corrupt leader (or even a bunch of them) was enough to damn a whole race, humanity would be well more worthy of that damnation than the Tau. If they did have a "Star Trek style federation" as you put it, the Tau are the pick for that as they have already proven that they can bring together dozens of alien races with varying societal, social, and theological systems and make it work. If humanity (not necessarily the Imperium, but a humanity that would be willing to do this) and the Tau were to enter into an alliance, it's not like the Tau would be able to supplant humanity that way anyway. There would certainly be a surge in belief of the Greater Good across the galaxy, but it would likely take the form and power level of religious organizations we see in our world today, a good portion of people subscribing to it, and it having some power to influence society and politics in certain places, but not vast and all controlling. 

The Aeldari are the last of the ones that make logical sense. While the are haughty and arrogant in general, their opinions of humanity aren't exactly unjustified either. The Aeldari screwed up and birthed a Chaos god, but they (more-less) actually learned from their mistake, humanity screwed up and gave the Chaos gods armies on a galactic scale, and didn't learn a damned this, just doubled down on the same strategy that got them into that mess in the first place. Human society still feeds Chaos, even more in 40k that it did prior to the Horus Heresy, Aeldari society doesn't. It's not a perfect society by any means, but it's still better than humanity has managed. Were humanity more open to change and fighting Chaos in a cultural and societal sense rather than the traditional sense, eventually more of the Aeldari would see humanity as a worthwhile ally. 

Lastly, the other two that have been brought up that I don't think would work long term:  1) Necrons: While perhaps there MIGHT be an individual dynasty that could be give up on their old dreams of ambition and galactic rulership, I highly doubt it. While the are intelligent enough to be negotiated with, and have occasionally been willing to do so, I don't see long term co-existence and a viable option due to their inherent desire to rule and exterminate. Even someone who doesn't care about that like Trazyn, still feels they are so fundamentally superiors to other races that they will go where they please and do what they please regardless of the wishes of any other race or people which isn't any kind of foundation for long term co-existence. 2) Orks: While individual Orks, or small groups of them have been known to be able to live among humans without killing them, they were created to seek violence and conflict, which doesn't make for good peacetime as they are. That being said, we know that they have devolved from the Krork's of ages past, so in theory, they could either a) be generically modified again somehow to reduce their violent tendencies, or b) have that inherent desire slowly bleed away over more millennia. That being said, there is also a concern that since Orks reproduce so fast, an Ork society in peacetime could potentially overpopulate the galaxy. 

 

We don't know what human society's were tried in the past and why they failed, at best we have a vague picture given to us but the Emperor, but he's a well known propagandist and could very easily be twisting the narrative to serve his own ends, as we have seen him do time and time again. How many things in life have we been raised to believe, only to discover as our knowledge and understanding of the world grows, that they were actually lies, or at the very least, not the whole truth?