Thread 64507410

>alive
>reasonably intact
>gets to see her home and family again
>not screeching insanely and peeling off her own mutating skin as the sweet whispers of Chaos crush whatever is left of her soul, without ever granting her the sweet release that is death

She basically won the lottery

>>64507410 (OP)
>>64507419
Is this from something I should recognize

>>64507462
It's some twitter artist who makes lust provoking tall lanky girls and also ryona
Don't look up what that is if you aren't already aware

>>64507410 (OP)
>>what was it like on the front big sister?
>theemperorprotectstheemperorprotectstheemperorprotectstheemperorprotectstheemperorprotectstheemperorprotectstheemperorprotects

>>64507467
I see.
Unfortunately aware, and also not particularly fond of the latter at all.
Might check out for the former, however.

>>64507462
It's Warhammer 40,000

>>64507480
I'm not too well versed in 40k lore but I don't remember it having bat people

>>64507499
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Abhuman

>>64507499
40k has pretty much everything, there is a shapeshifting abhuman as well for all your girlcock needs. But the bat abhumans are called 'nightsiders'. There are also mermaid-like abhumans called Pelagers.

>>64507499
they even have half humans half russians called Valhallans

>>64507513
>Russians
>Valhallans
shouldn't that name be for Space Vikings?

>>64507499
40k is full of retarded bullshit like science orangutans and space homosexuals who will kill you with an electric guitar yet bat people are somehow a bridge too far?
GW does such an ass job of promoting their own setting to the general public it's unreal

>>64507503
>>64507511
Fair enough, cool designs
>>64507535
>somehow a bridge too far
I didn't say that, I just didn't know about it
Also I'm nta who originally asked

>>64507410 (OP)
Why are you posting this through multiple boards?

>>64507499
There's tons of mutated humans in 40k and a bunch of "stable" sub-species because of genetic meddling by chaos or even colonists back in the dark age of technology

from this >>64507580
to this >>64507410 (OP)
what happened?

>>64507467
nice
also ratgirls are underrated cute

>>64507535
The issue with abhumans is that the moment you start talking about not looking like a weird human and like a humanoid most people would consider that a mutant, since even being a mutant allows you to look 100% human but have something else going on. If you wanna have "cat people" with catlike features like cat eyes and some other minor things that's more believable as an Imperium approved abhuman race than whatever is in the OP. If I can't tell within half a second that its supposed to be a human its definitely a mutant or alien if we're going by what is canon in 40k lore and also what GW themselves have shown us.

>>64507601
>what happened?
Combat.

>>64507535
>GW does such an ass job of promoting their own setting to the general public it's unreal
Because GeeDubs feels the need to give Space Marines a significant portion of any spotlight it shines on anything else in the setting. Kill Team could eventually have the odd release, but it probably wouldn't include the environmentally specialized and thus more apparently extreme abhumans.

Honestly, we're going to see more Culture War bullshit for the holy grail "modern audience" before niche setting details because it's the only other thing GW has been as stubborn about as the Space Marine saturation in the recent releases.

>>64507718
But GW's own lore shows the Imperium to be quite hypocritical in what it considers a mutant, so having weird looking people still maintain the "human" label is on-brand. Pretty much the only yardstick the Ecclesiarchy and its various subdivisions tend to loosely adhere to is mutation variance. It's why beastmen got the shit-covered end of the stick: in addition to vaguely resembling Khornate demons, there's also a very high variation in mutation characteristics, leading to the unfortunate conclusion that they're not a stable phenotype.

>>64507718
>>64507824
Most of the approved ones are either required for the Imperium to function (pykers) or were engineered pre Imperium (Pelagers, felinids Ogryns, Nightsiders, ect) so the Emperor said they were OK and that was that. Beastmen, Skavies and the like are either unstable, pollution or outright chaos influenced. There are also things that they just accept or ignore without real explanation like Jokaro, Manhounds or Squats/Kin.

Another thing is they don't even know what counts as a normal human, 40k humans can have all sorts of traits that they are completely unaware aren't natural (weird eye or hair colors) but are due to some sort of generic meddling in the far past. A great example being that it is common for Cadians to have violet or even bright purple eyes and everyone thinks it is a normal eye color.

>>64507478
>>64507712
greatest artist of our time

>>64507824
The Imperium kills people who have 6 fingers. There's hundreds of millions of mutants slated for death on Terra. The Imperium is inconsistent only because of how big it is. Like >>64507878 said the really weird looking abhumans basically got an Imperial sanction from The Emperor.

>>64507519
Vikings, or rather viking larpers are already covered by the replace every noun with wolf marines. They are a on an eternal wolfquest, given by their wolf fathers, to take the title of most Mary Sue space marine chapter away from the Ultramarines.

>>64507419
Not to mention she seems to live on a fairly tolerant imperial planet whose population doesn't scream CHAOS when seeing her and then burn her and her family on the stake.

Nightsiders are just blind humans with better olfactory senses. This batsona thing is the artist's own creation. Even felinids look closer to a Witcher than an actual cat anthro. Lore accurate abhumans are human looking.

>>64507882
He's really good.

>>64507894
Most of them were just engineered for specific reasons/environments and anything stable that fits in the range of qualities of those types is usually ok as long as the reason isn't chaos related, there is one novel where the ruling family are sanctioned mutants who have red eyes that can see infrared. There are also a huge number of some types, Pelagers (who are just humans with gills for the most part) have several hundred worlds.

>>64507924
>>64507419
>fairly tolerant imperial planet
Her people are probably the majority of the population, she presumably NEVER takes off those Purity Seals and that Hero of the Imperium award while traveling. There are multiple planets that are actually ruled by abhumans; there are Ratlings, Pelagers, random minor strains and even Ogryns (Nork Deaddog) who are planetary governors.

It is important to understand that they see all sorts of things as normal that we would freak out over. Almost any modern human would have a mental breakdown if we had to spend any amount of time near Servitors, just knowing they existed would be massively traumatizing.

>>64507940
Some Nightsiders are specifically mentioned as being batlike or even not having eyes, the description makes it clear that it is a broad category that encompasses several separate abhuman types. Arguably Nostromans are borderline Nightsiders.

>>64507940
Additionally the point of abhumans is that they're genetically stable. Having wide amounts of variation in an abhuman race isn't really heard of because the whole point of not killing them off is that they're reliable.

>>64507952
Features like bigger than normal human ears sure, but there's no lore to support total anthro designs. I think more of bat boy or Nosferatu.

>>64507894
>>64507878
it 's basically frozen speciation
they are offshoot humans, modern hominid descendants of baseline humanity that stopped evolving (often because they where engineered). They one assumes can still interbreed with humans but I don't see that haping often or the offspring living long. They with the exception of the beast men aren't more mutation prone than baseline humans.
by the same logic if you brought back the Neanderthals or other ancient hominids they'd also be fine with them.
that being said humanity in 40k are probably not quite homo sapiens anymore with the pyker gene and all that.
>>64507924
well the whole population of her home world is probably abhumans
GW is very into "there is only one climate or other thing on any one planet"

>>64507963
My main complaint is with the presentation and artistic interpretation. Lore accurate abhumans are recognizable as humans and Im tired of this trope that alien looking humanoid are widely accepted in any capacity when blanks and psykers in the same society get lynched.

>>64507981
It depends on the adhuman and depends on where they are in the Galaxy. Most abhumans in the Guard get a pass because they're in the Guard.

>>64507989
Things get really messy for identifying humans when you have dozens of phenotype exceptions. Most abhumans look like humans but with one or two things that are off.

>>64507580
What's with the branding on that goat woman

>>64507952
>>64507963
>>64507981
It's so much easier when you remember GW is a shitty company run by shitty people that don't care about the setting, they only care about selling GW branded shit.

>>64508003
Beastmen are treated horribly in the Imperium. It's why a lot of them fall to Chaos.

>>64508007
Yes Im bailing water out of a sinking ship on fire, I know GW is a dogshit company.

>>64507940
>Even felinids look closer to a Witcher than an actual cat anthro
Besides the Codex the only canon description we have is that they look just like normal humans but with foot long claws. Of course the person describing them is a Kroot so he probably can barely tell Space marines and Ratlings apart.

>>64507958
Pretty much, you would see bat ears or no eyes but probably not both like in OP image.

>>64507963
>can still interbreed with humans but I don't see that haping often or the offspring living long
That would be dependent on the specific abhuman, we know for instance mostly normal (Nostroman) humans can interbreed with Navigators and the offspring is stable enough to be implanted with (probably) uncorrupted geneseed to become an Space Marine.

>Neanderthals
Actually done, they exist as abhumans in 40k.

>"there is only one climate or other thing on any one planet"
The vast majority are terraformed so yeah, not to mention if in the Dark Age of Humanity some colonists ended up landing on a all Ocean planet then they very well might have said 'Hey STC, looks like it's time for gills bro'

>>64507981
Everyone hates Blanks because they don't have a choice about hating them and unsanctioned Psykers are a legitimate threat to everyone. Looking weird isn't a problem when you have Tech Priests and work at the factory with your mouthy Cousin who got turned into a Servitor.

As long as they are stable and locally common everyone is used to it for the most part. Even then shit happens like when a Imperial Fist wasted a bunch of longshanks even though they are just really tall and skinny.

>>64508003
Beastmen in the Guard get treated like utter shit since so many of them fall to Chaos, mostly because everyone treats them like shit. Their mutation is very unstable.

>>64507478
she's got a big gun

>>64507478
>>64507580
>Tall woman is a pilot
Is that exactly the type of person who should not be subjected to high G's?

>>64507410 (OP)
The 40k spammer ain't even trying to make this one /k/ relevant

>>64508027
that's a voidsman uniform, she's exposed to less g-forces because she's in space.

>>64508027
Bongs heard about the lack of gravity in space and thinks that means space living humans would be taller.

>>64508027
Longshanks aren't pilots, they are low gravity adopted so they typically are ships crew. Pretty sure they have hollow bird bones as well. Not sure how that last part combines with using a punt gun as a sidearm although it might just be a huge laslock from the cartridges.

>>64508044
They are from low G planets, being used as crew came later. See it makes sense because......Naw, Bongs are just dumb.

>>64507513
>half humans half russians
weird I thought that one called skavens

>>64507462
Warhammer 40K mixed with All Tommorows
For people who both want to be hfy space racist but also with freakshit OC

>>64508410
The freakshit being turned up to 11 and using a lot of creative license. Furry abhumans is peak tourist slop.

>>64508138
Nah, Skaven plans succeed as often as they fail.

>>64508003
She's a slut and writes it herself

>>64507410 (OP)
That artist is very talented. Too bad its wasted on ugly furshit.

>>64508689
I get why The Church was big on giving artists commissions because otherwise they just draw porn

>>64507580
So kind of the Imperium to allow Blacks to continue existing.

>>64507410 (OP)
>>64507419
>>64507462
>>64507467

Where are the weapons? You can post this cringy twittershit furfaggotry anywhere else.

>There are weapons in the artist's work

Not good enough. It's considered rude to waste threads on irrelevant furrtard shit that most people don't give a fuck about.

Btw nobody of any importance gives a single fuck about 40k either. It's the most retarded fandom imaginable and is probably the reason the entire generation has problems getting laid. Get this fucking trash off of the board.

>>64508738
You really think Putin and Kim Jong Un haven't played at least one round of tabletop?

>>64508707
>I get why The Church was big on giving artists commissions because otherwise they just draw porn
Find a decent mangaka that didn't start in ero doujinshi and as for furry commissions...

>>64507952
>Almost any modern human would have a mental breakdown if we had to spend any amount of time near Servitors, just knowing they existed would be massively traumatizing.
That has less to do with tolerance and more to do with modern humans finding the idea of lobotomizing someone and forcing their still-living body to become a meat-puppet slave to be pretty horrifying.

>>64508788
Servitor conversion is typically reserved for those who's crimes are considered to be so heinous that not even execution will repay their debt to the imperium. Typically tech priest genetors keep a supply of vat grown braindead clones on hand for servitor construction and maintenance.

TL;DR you ain't getting servitored unless you did some shit even Jesus couldn't forgive.

>>64508966
Its also reserved for cases where you're supposed to mass execute loyal soldiers because they saw something they shouldn't

>>64508980
That's usually reserved for chaos shit, in which case that's the Grey Knights and inquisition erring on the side of caution.

>>64508966
>for those who's crimes are considered to be so heinous that not even execution will repay their debt to the imperium
Which includes
>Insulting the nobility
>Stealing a loaf of bread
>Jaywalking

>>64507882
>>64507945
truth

>>64507410 (OP)
>Family is so varied they don't look related
Those are mutants

>>64507410 (OP)
The father also has a Meritorious Service award, no? Lesser than a Hero of the Imperium one (on his daughter), but still notable.

>>64508966
>>64509005
It is sometimes seen as a REWARD for loyal duty in some Imperial/AdMech cultures.

>>64507410 (OP)
Interesting to note there has never been mention of any prohibition on human/abhuman relationships.

The only time it has been really mentioned was a human/Navigator relationship and in that case a freaking Nightlords Sorcerer of all people thought it was weird because he had assumed they would repulse each other. Really screwed up part about that, not only are they genetically compatible enough to have a kid the kid is human enough to turn into a Space Marine. Talos's pre-Heresy Nightlords gene seed that was slowly rejecting him no less.

>>64509083
Nice catch, if the kid wasn't a abhuman and dad had died in service she would have been sent to the Schola.

>>64509104
Is the Schola Progenia restricted to Terran-phenome humans only?

>>64509104
>Human/abhuman relations
Abhumans are relatively uncommon and freakshit enjoyers are getting one shot by Slaanesh. Its like suns colliding in a galaxy merge levels of low.

>>64509104
>It is sometimes seen as a REWARD for loyal duty in some Imperial/AdMech cultures.
It should be noted that they don't ask the victims they're servitorizing whether THEY feel like it's a reward. The reward is inflicted on you, whether you like it or not.

>>64509115
Very good question. Since abhumans can be members of the Adeptus Terra logically their kids can join the Schola.

There are probably restrictions for the likes of SB and Commissars but the Adeptus needs people other than Battle Sisters, Scions and Commisars, i can't imagine why a Ratling can't be a Munitorum clerk. There is at least one example of abhumans who are part of the Adeptus Terra that had to go through the Schola: Ogryns can be Arbiters.

>>64509153
Some Marine serfs look forward to it, they even mention how proud they are when their Dad clanks by.

>>64509135
As mentioned the only time it came up was a Navigator/Human pairing and nothing bad happened, the kid grew up to be a perfectly normal and well adjusted Nightlord.

>>64508774
>Find a decent mangaka
Eh

>>64509162
>the kid grew up to be a perfectly normal and well adjusted Nightlord.
I lol'd IRL

>>64507958
Wulfen are right there and part of the arguably No.2 poster child for Space Marines.

>>64509005
Combat servitorization has also been mentioned as being carried out on PTSD debilitated Guardsmen.

>>64509172
You need to read the Nightlords trilogy, it is really funny sometimes. The warband in the books is well adjusted by 40k standards, you would much rather serve them than Imperial Chapters like the Iron Hands or Marines Malevolent. Even their berserker is a pretty cool guy. They are also total wimps and losers.

There is a sort of running gag where the serfs just ignore them half the time, up to and including the ships tzeench possessed Captain. There are a few incidents where the Nightlords give them the opportunity to escape or outright free them but they stick around and save their pathetic asses.

>>64509135
Assuming you're looking at the setting as a whole, sure. But given the population of the IoM, you're orders of magnitude more likely to come across a human/abhuman relationship than a member of any tabletop faction not named Imperial Guard or AdMech.

>>64509187
Wulfen info is suppressed because of the optics.
>>64509221
Statistically speaking 99.9999% of humanity in 40k is marrying someone born within 500 kilometers of them based on how society is set up, the more common ones like navigators prefer their own kind and you don't often have the oppurtinity in 40k to do decades of exploring to find some cute abhuman girl.

>>64509239
Wulfen had models as of a few years ago and are still mentioned in BL works.

And if you Hive city has abhumans there are probably going to be a bunch of human/abhuman pairings.

>>64509258
I mean in lore wulfen info is suppressed because its bad optics. Also yes Hive Cities are full of mutants, they're not human as far as the Imperium is concerned. Most of that would be mutants making mutants.

>>64509135
>>64509221
Entirely depends on the abhuman. A ratling is just a shortsack while others might just be a odd color, have gills or be really hairy. Batgirl from OP is basically a Goth chick with weird ears and big eyes. It is Canon that there is an entire subset of human women who lust after Spacemarines, body plugs and all.

>Freakshit
Banging Miss 10 feet tall but weighs 100lbs isn't that weird. No one thought it particularly unusual that Cain hooked up with a Tech Priestess whose only organic bits were her face and torso, you bet your ass Amberly would have mentioned it in a footnote if there was anything notable about that.
>500 kilometers
In a Hab or ship that is probably more like 500 meters.

>>64509269
A tech priestess is a human still.

>>64507410 (OP)
>Warzigger
What blew up this time?

>>64509249
This is why we join the Greater Good and get Tau pussy

>>64509297
The Tau are one errant campaign from any other faction away from being wiped out.

>>64509309
Every other faction has already tried and failed. Twice, in the Imperium's case.

>>64509282
Physically less human than a abhuman. Her legs up to the hips, arms, shoulders, spine and back of her head were mechanical and she had multiple mechdendrites including one that was a tail.

Compared to that short, tall, blue or anime eyes isn't that big of a deal.

>>64509135
>freakshit enjoyers are getting one shot by Slaanesh
Imagine the feast if he got her claws on 4chan.

>>64509316
The world of WH40k is full of worthless xenos species like the Tau, wiped out and forgotten by history.
It's only a matter of time that some party decides the Tau are a nuisance and wipes them out.
They have no method of survival.

>>64509334
I see where you're going with this. In 40k, susceptibility to Chaos and usefulness to the Imperium are the biggest factors. A tech priestess is not the same as a bat person.

>>64509258
Are wulfen no longer playable? That was one of the coolest things about space wolves.

>>64509356
>They have no method of survival.
Au contraire, they have the best method of survival
SUPERIOR FIREPOWER

>>64509334
It's the genes that matter, not whatever you tack on.
The tech priest is a modified human.
The abhuman was never human.

>>64509386
>SUPERIOR FIREPOWER

>>64509395
Four problems with that solution:
1) Since the Imperium is basically always on the defensive they're blowing up their own planets doing that
2) You have to actually get over the planet and have enough security to get the exterminatus off without it being intercepted or your ship being destroyed
3) It doesn't always work, some planets have defenses against it
4) It doesn't actually stop most factions either, just slows them down, they can usually just recolonize the planet and use it again afterwards

>>64509406
The Damocles Crusade would have been resolved via exterminatus. The only reason it wasn't is because the authors wank the Tau so much it's lead to them being the single most hated faction.

>>64509411
>The Damocles Crusade would have been resolved via exterminatus
Unlikely. They got stopped hard at the first Tau sept they encountered. The tyranid invasion pretty much saved the lives of all the Imperium invaders by giving them an excuse to GTFO out of there before they were wiped out by the reinforcing Tau.

>>64509411
>The Damocles Crusade would have been resolved via exterminatus
The Imperium doesn't even exterminatus every world falling to the tyranids, what are you on about? They don't have the capability to exterminatus every world that falls
> authors wank the Tau so much it's lead to them being the single most hated faction.
No, it's because fags can never accept that a human faction in a setting can be morally worse, in part or whole, than an alien one.

>>64509411
>The Damocles Crusade would have been resolved via exterminatus. The only reason it wasn't is because the authors wank the Tau so much
Absolute cope lol.

If xenos are gonna gas themselves up, may I remind you that the Tau are literally right next to the Ultramarines and Sautekh Dynasty. They may not be wiped out but they will be jobbers.

>>64509438
>No, it's because fags can never accept that a human faction in a setting can be morally worse, in part or whole, than an alien one.
No. It's this retarded moralistic attitude that's the problem. The tau are only "moral" because the writers' bias is keeping them alive in a world where they should have died.
The reason why all the other factions are completely cutthroat, authoritarian and awful is because that's what you need to be to survive in a world of callous, hateful conflict and unending warfare. It's the only way to keep your species alive when enemies range from seemingly unending biomass-devouring intergalactic hivemind monster hordes to hellish creatures created by your very own mind to turn real life into a representation of the infinite suffering and ruin they represent. It's the only way you survive when enemies are everywhere, on the inside and on the outside, in the warp and the real world, inside your very own mind. You either despise the heretic and destroy the xeno, or you get taken down by them. The people who tried to be "moral" all got wiped out and destroyed by the vastly more competitive assholes whose attitudes were built for survival in the world. That's why the assholes are the ones who are left.

But because tau wank is the name of the game, that dogshit species gets to survive in the setting despite them having none of the prerequisites for actually doing so. They're basically just alive because the writers see them as the "good guys," despite the fact they're not even worthy of a footnote in the history of the setting.

>>64509365
>>64509355

It must be added the man in question resisted a daemonette on multiple occasions, she was a reoccurring stalker of his and his purity was was never in question. It better have not been, besides being the jealous type his actual GF was an Inquisitor.

>>64509391
I don't buy it. Humans interbred IRL with things that in 40k are abhumans, Neanderthals exist in 40k.

Human women lust after Marines (and in at least a few cases actually have had children with) who are far more genetically deviant than some abhumans whose modifications are minor. They don't realize it but Cadians are genetically altered mutants. A ratling is actually LESS of a freak than a dwarf or midget since they have more proportionate heads, they are just smol.

And that chick is just......Just...Ok that is a humanoid goat, i'll give you that one. Probably the Felinind as well if only because of cat tongue. Too scared to even consider snu snu.

>>64509466
>he reason why all the other factions are completely cutthroat, authoritarian and awful is because that's what you need to be to survive in a world of callous, hateful conflict and unending warfare
But here's the thing: You don't.

This is the same retarded logic that the Russians have. "Our lives need to be miserable and shitty because it makes us TOUGH and STRONG MEN WIN WARS!" And then they get blown up by some drone because it turns out that economics and logistics and technology and planning wins wars.

>>64509470
The Imperium is based on old colonies that survived thousands of years in isolation. The Imperium values genetic stability. Abhumans are the Imperium saying "close enough" when they find stable humans with mutations. You put Ogryns on a world and in 200 years you'll still have Ogryns. You put mutants on a world and in 200 years it's fallen to Chaos invasions.

>>64509479
>economics and logistics and technology and planning wins wars
The Imperium has the edge in those regards because its so huge and also old.

>>64509479
>But here's the thing: You don't.
Yes, you do.
Heresy will literally take over entire planets in no time if you let it fester and don't kill those responsible. Then it will move onto entire systems, then further on, and then destroy the entire Imperium. The Horus Heresy is the key incident of the entire modern Imperium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNqUyf0op0
>This is the same retarded logic that the Russians have
Not at all and not even comparable on any level.
Show me where the Russians are stuck dealing with the warp and Ruinous Powers, where simple thoughts and feelings create hell. Show me where NATO represents an existential threat to Russia, willing to nuke them at any chance given.
Your entire argument in itself is pro-Russian, because you're claiming that the West is reminiscent in some way of the threats the Imperium of Man is facing. That type of attitude where NATO BAD is used as justification for Russian imperialistic expansion is a key part of their propaganda.

>>64509488
Big but rotting. The Russia comparisons hold up. Yes they have the manpower advantage but they don’t use it efficiently. Yes they have a handful of supperweapons but what the common soldier gets is pretty shitty.

>>64509479
>because it turns out that economics and logistics and technology and planning wins wars.
Morale and the strategic level comes first. Look at the Vietnam war, or Afghanistan.
The logistics, tech and economy become relevant only if the prerequisites for their use exists in the first place.

>>64509497
If you want to make The Imperium into Russia, the Tau are like a single Baltic state with no outside support.

>>64509495
Every “threat” that the Imperihm faces it is largely responsible for creating. It invades friendly xenos, or wakes up tombs worlds, or brings the tyranids to the galaxy, and then it bitches about how it’s “surrounded by enemies” it created

>>64508138
Don't you dare bully the Skaven like that.

>>64509505
No, no, no. The Imperium is what is left of humanity after aliens and demons raped them.

>>64509507
No. Most xenos were friendly until the Imperium tried to kill them, and the Imperium is the only reason Chaos is as strong as it is, they gifted Chaos basically its entire military

>>64509505
It's not the Imperium's fault the Astronomican is the mythical LÄMP for an interdimensional devourer.

>>64509511
No. That's absolutely incorrect.

>>64509466
>No. It's this retarded moralistic attitude that's the problem.
The Imperium shitting all over anyone who could be an ally but scribbles over a minor point or committed the crime of being born an alien, or a abhuman or whatever is not and never has been a positive trait of theres. It's retarded and gets them into constant wars that they never needed to be in.
>You either despise the heretic and destroy the xeno, or you get taken down by them.
Or, as frequently, you get killed by the Imperium for the thoughtcrime of not following the Codex Whatever to the letter. The Tau are perfectly willing to use cutthroat, totalitarian, brutal measures, they just weigh it against the benefits of a softer (which doesn't mean nicer) approach. But because they aren't dentbrain retards howling their lungs out about how everyone who doesn't fit perfectly into their worldview must be purged in fire, somehow they 'aren't grimdark enough'. Ignore that they instead use soft power backed by force to MAKE them fit their worldview instead. The Eldar ally with other species consistantly too.

The Imperium, as per the opening scraw of all 40k media, is the failstate of humanity. It is not somehow the 'optimal' or 'necessary' government. It sometimes performs necessary functions, but that isn't because getting into bloodfeuds with non-sapiant xenofauna is the optimal path for a civilization. Even the 30k Imperium was a mess, just one with a potential future. The 40k Imperium is fundamentally broken on every level. It isn't 'surviving', it is a stumbling, rotten corpse that only exists because a demigod of paperwork rose from the dead, and even then he only barely is keeping anything together.

>But because tau wank is the name of the game,
And how many ultramarine lieutenants have we gotten this year?

>>64509505
>Every “threat” that the Imperihm faces it is largely responsible for creating
Show me where the Imperium created Chaos.
Chaos is the fundamental threat the Imperium is facing, and is what destroyed the Emperor's plans in the first place.
The Horus Heresy is the founding event of the modern Imperium.
>It invades friendly xenos, or wakes up tombs worlds, or brings the tyranids to the galaxy, and then it bitches about how it’s “surrounded by enemies” it created
The Imperium did not create Chaos, did not create the Tyranids, did not create the Orks, did not create the Necrons, did not create the Tau or the Eldar.

>>64509511
>Most xenos were friendly
The Eldar were at best polite towards the Old Empire, and the Orks were always aggressive (as they are towards everything).

>>64509511
Most is a stretch. Many were, many were not. Many just want to do their own thing.

>>64509518
>Show me where the Imperium created Chaos.
It gave Chaos the 9 Chaos Legions, which is what was needed for Chaos to be able to invade anything outside of the Immaterium

>>64509518
>did not create the Tyranids
It DID bring them to the galaxy though

>did not create the Necrons
It DID wake them up though

>did not create the Tau
It DID push most of their auxillaries into their arms though

>>64509517
>The Imperium shitting all over anyone who could be an ally but scribbles over a minor point or committed the crime of being born an alien, or a abhuman or whatever is not and never has been a positive trait of theres.
It is the simple result of competitive pressures placed on living beings in a universe like ours or WH40k.
The xenos species thought they could be allies and were wiped out for it. Hence, it's entirely logical and rational for the Imperium to take a hostile attitude and destroy any other species, before they can do the same to mankind.
This is the simply reality we live in, whether you like it or not.
> It's retarded and gets them into constant wars that they never needed to be in.
Those wars are inconsequential when humanity's survival is at risk.
>Or, as frequently, you get killed by the Imperium for the thoughtcrime of not following the Codex Whatever to the letter.
GOOD.
Heresy is an ever present threat that will corrupt the very souls of entire planets' populations if given the chance. Your singular life has no meaning or weight when compared to the rest of mankind, and it is a lunacy and narcissism to ask for humanity to put itself at risk for the sake of your own survival.
> The Tau are perfectly willing to use cutthroat, totalitarian, brutal measures, they just weigh it against the benefits of a softer (which doesn't mean nicer) approach.
Again, because of complete tau wank by the writers. The only road they will be taking is complete destruction of their species. It's ridiculous that they somehow survive.
>It is not somehow the 'optimal' or 'necessary' government.
It IS necessary. Whether the writers are smart enough to understand that or not does not matter. The Imperium is the evolutionary product of the world they live in. It is exactly what was needed to survive, that's why it survived in the first place.

>And how many ultramarine lieutenants have we gotten this year?
How many actually defend the smurf wank?

>>64509512
Well first off, yes, it objectively is their fault, they created it, but also the Astronomicon isn't what was bringing the Tyranids into the galaxy, that would be the pharos beacon, which the Imperium activated.

>>64509537
>It DID bring them to the galaxy though
Because what attracts them is a necessity for interstellar travel. If the Imperium stopped using it, they'd just get isolated and destroyed by all the other competing parties.
>It DID wake them up though
If you wake up your neighbor by mowing the lawn and he shoots you with a shotgun, are you to blame?
>It DID push most of their auxillaries into their arms though
Because the ignorant masses do not know what they're doing.

>>64509540
"Everyone is an enemy even when they don't have to be" has NEVER been a pragmatic attitude to have. It didn't work for the Germans, it didn't work for the Russians, it's not working for the North Koreans. It's a shitty self-defeating attitude.

>>64509550
>Because what attracts them is a necessity for interstellar travel
Once again, wasn't the astronomicon, it was the pharos beacon that brought them into the galaxy.

>If you wake up your neighbor by mowing the lawn
Mechanicus deliberately going into their tombs to steal shit goes a little beyond just mowing the lawn.

>Because the ignorant masses do not know what they're doing.
And neither does the Imperium, 'kill all the xenos, even the friendly ones' is Imperium basic doctrine.

>>64509104
Baseline and navigator relationships, while not by any means common, have happened enough that it is known that any children resulting from such, do not inherit the navigator gene, they just have a higher than average chance of being psykers.

>>64507535
I love the funny monkeys :D

>>64509559
>pharos beacon
Which was equally important, as it saved the Imperium during the Heresy. Also, blaming them for an unknown side effect of technology is silly.
>Mechanicus deliberately going into their tombs to steal shit goes a little beyond just mowing the lawn.
And they know exactly what's going to happen?
>And neither does the Imperium, 'kill all the xenos, even the friendly ones' is Imperium basic doctrine.
And it makes perfect sense. The friendly xenos had the doctrine of friendliness and they died for it. The Imperium has a doctrine of loathe the xeno, and they survive. Simple logic.

>>64509540
>Heresy is an ever present threat that will corrupt the very souls of entire planets' populations if given the chance. Your singular life has no meaning or weight when compared to the rest of mankind, and it is a lunacy and narcissism to ask for humanity to put itself at risk for the sake of your own survival.
The Imperium is the least capable of all the modelled factions of fighting off chaos, because being a dystopia means people no longer care about that shit. Guilliman said this, I don't know why anyone still parrots the 'the Imperium is the best bulwark against chaos' shit.
>>64509550
>Because the ignorant masses do not know what they're doing.
They know exactly what they're doing. They know the Imperium doesn't care about them, or even pretends to. They know they get treated like shit all day every day for things they'll never see, and many of them figure out that it all ends up going to nothing by feeding some nobles ball.

When they go to Chaos, or to the Tau, or desert, or rebel, it's because of the Imperium failing to prove why they shouldn't.
>waah waah smurfs
You said that GW is wanking the tau above all, when in reality they wank the space marines and imperium (in that order) far and above literally anything else. The Eldars entire new plotline got shitcanned in like three fucking novels. Grow up.

>>64509566
>Which was equally important, as it saved the Imperium during the Heresy
A heresy which the Imperium was responsible for creating.

>And they know exactly what's going to happen?
The Imperium shouldn't be fucking around with technologies it doesn't understand

>the friendly xenos had the doctrine of friendliness and they died for it
And now the ones that didn't die are banding together and hate the Imperium. Congratulations you just gave yourself a new enemy for absolutely no reason.

>>64509557
>"Everyone is an enemy even when they don't have to be" has NEVER been a pragmatic attitude to have
It is the most rational game theoretical approach to interspecies engagements which gets spouted by all relevant talking heads on the subject whenever it's brought up, and for a good reason.
If you have to wager an alien species being friendly against your own species' survival, it is entirely rational to simply destroy the other species, rather than risk them destroying you at some point.

>It's a shitty self-defeating attitude.
It's a superior choice to assuming the other side is friendly, when they are in fact not.
The attitude you espouse is what the EU has been directing towards Russia all long.
Try to play nice with them, while they're actually a hostile imperialistic shithole. See how well that worked out?

Your attitude only works if the other side is (confirmedly) friendly and wants to seek a better future together, which is something that can not reasonably be proven and should never be assumed.

>>64509575
stop stealing my typing style and arguments fag

>>64509575
No one tell this guy the Heresy happened because Space Marines found Chaos worshipping aliens.

>>64509550
Think Warhammer is gay but like this art, is it a series?

>>64509579
>If you have to wager an alien species being friendly against your own species' survival
Until acting like a psycho lunatic marks you for destruction by all the other aliens who are now friends with each other and realize you're a threat to the universe.

>The attitude you espouse is what the EU has been directing towards Russia all long.
So your solution would be that...the EU countries should all go to war with each other. Poland should invade Ukraine because...Ukraine might destroy them in the future.

Anon your idea is retarded.

>>64509568
>They know exactly what they're doing. They know the Imperium doesn't care about them, or even pretends to. They know they get treated like shit all day every day for things they'll never see, and many of them figure out that it all ends up going to nothing by feeding some nobles ball.
>When they go to Chaos, or to the Tau, or desert, or rebel, it's because of the Imperium failing to prove why they shouldn't.
And as such they are selfish creatures placing their own immediate survival over the survival of mankind and their own descendants. That's the price of species survival.
>You said that GW is wanking the tau above all, when in reality they wank the space marines and imperium (in that order) far and above literally anything else. The Eldars entire new plotline got shitcanned in like three fucking novels. Grow up.
The Imperium has a reason for existing. Its existence is justified and shown to have extremely heavy costs in terms of totalitarianism and human suffering. You yourself are talking in your post about how the people are stomped under the boot of the Imperium to sustain the system at large.
The Tau have no such justification for their existence. It's wank because they don't have the necessary downsides to surviving in the world, and they're basically a mary sue species.

>>64509596
>Until acting like a psycho lunatic marks you for destruction by all the other aliens who are now friends with each other and realize you're a threat to the universe.
Again, this is irrational. If you are facing an empirically proven-to-exist alien species right in front of you, it's not rational to build your doctrine and expectations on a fanciful unproven idea.
This is like saying we shouldn't wage war on Earth, because what if there's aliens in space looking at us and deciding whether to kill us all or not? It's just nonsense detached from empirical reality.
>So your solution would be that...the EU countries should all go to war with each other. Poland should invade Ukraine because...Ukraine might destroy them in the future.
No. Members of our own alliances are not comparable to unknown alien species or blatantly hostile states.

>>64509598
>placing their own immediate survival over the survival of mankind and their own descendants.
Except the Imperium is failing to protect humanity. Switching sides to the Tau is just the logical move to protect humanity's future.

>>64509481
>You put mutants on a world and in 200 years it's fallen to Chaos invasions

Wrong, at least in some cases.

I made a mistake, Cadians are not mutants due to genetic engineering, it is straight up warp exposure and it took them 10,000+ years. In the HH books they introduce the world that will become Cadia and they already have unnatural hail color as well as bright violet and purple eyes from looking at the eye of terror. No one in 40k (or even 30k) thinks much of it since the IoM has all sorts of phenotypes that don't exist IRL like planets of albinos, unusual amounts of platinum blond chicks, florescent hair colors and things like that but Cadians specifically are due to warp exposure.

Almost no one in the IoM would be considered a 'baseline' human, there are whole cities under the Imperial Palace that are hinted at being a preserve for 'normal' people as well as other places like Fenris.

>>64509522
>>64509515
>>64509511
Orks were always hostile, many aliens were hostile but not all. The Eldar and others allied with us against the Men of Iron while the Men of Stone (Squats) just left. Dark Age humans would have probably been best bros with the Tau. They really need a novel where a Tau diplomatic mission cuts a deal with Big G against their common foes like he did with the Eldar, he is smart enough to realize that compared to the IoM they aren't all that bad.

>>64509561
It was a major plot point in the Nightlords books, especially as it was already Canon that they have unusually pure and successful gene seed that works on people with minor mutations like genetic defects that make you born without a hand. It is implied that theirs is the best you can get besides the *minor* flaw of who the Primarch was. They of course implant him with Talos's gene seed to make the kid into a double abhuman because if there is a bad decision to be made the Nightlord will make it.

>>64509512
Sotha (Necrons) attracted them first but now it's the astronomicon.

>>64509609
>Members of our own alliances
By your own logic, you should NEVER form alliances, because you never know when alliances might betray you! So by your own logic, every country in the EU should immediately turn on each other and wage war on each other instead of focusing on Russia.

That's not pragmatic. That's retarded.

>>64509610
>Except the Imperium is failing to protect humanity.
Humanity lives on. That is what matters. Individuals do not.

>>64509615
>Humanity lives on.
The Imperium is slowly losing. They're losing more planets than they're gaining.

>>64509614
>By your own logic, you should NEVER form alliances, because you never know when alliances might betray you!
Nope.
You are again being irrational.
An already existing alliance is not comparable to an unknown threat.
Most European countries did in fact wage war on each other for centuries before the status quo, and they survived and grew by doing so, moving on to conquer the entire world.
Please do not refer to logic when you are so clearly incapable of using it

>>64509627
>An already existing alliance
Except that alliance, according to you, shouldn't exist! Because it doesn't matter how friendly someone is, you should NEVER form an alliance with them because they might turn on you later!

Sorry anon, your logic is retarded and unpragmatic.

>>64509612
In 40k a mutant is considered someone we'd say has incredibly high mutational load, like generational inbreeding at Chernobyl levels of bad. The reality is that yes there's a lot of bad mutational load in humanity in 40k, humans on a planet that only has had humans on it have mutant uprisings all the time. At the end of the day, its about stability. Cadians are highly stable humans, all things considered. Their eye color changing and that being about it speaks volumes to the genetic robustness of Cadians. The Imperium wants that over everything else, humans that have adapted to Chaos, as those humans are going to be more stable long term and have less likelihoods of breeding millions of deformed chaos worshippers.

>>64509634
>you should NEVER form an alliance with them because they might turn on you later!
Please, try to form a logical argument to support this claim from my posts. Go ahead, do your best.

Unknown uncertain threats (alien species) are not at all the same as a known neighbor (the country next to you with people you know) who you've lived with for millennia.

>>64507882
>>64507945
>>64509017

Just some weird fetishes here and there

>>64509615
>Humanity lives on. That is what matters. Individuals do not.
So if the Tau were better at protecting the existence of humanity, you'd support them? After all, caring about having your government run by humans is a individual concern, not a species one.
>>64509635
>Their eye color changing and that being about it speaks volumes to the genetic robustness of Cadians.
Cadians do have higher-than-average warp resistance, but didn't they still have heretic uprisings and inquisitors doing sweeps? It could also be contributed easily to the children prone to high mutation being more likely to mutate earlier, given their closeness to the Eye.

>>64509466
>something like 70% of 40k is dedicated to Marines
>entire subline dedicated exclusively to Marine versus Marine
>most prosperous and safe part of the IoM is the mini empire ruled directly by the Ultramarines
>Space Wolves are superpowered space marines who can beat up anyone and don't have to follow the rules and get super special magic powers that no one else has
This is fine.

>Tau
>exist in setting
MARY SUE ASS BULLSHIT!!!

>>64509641
>Unknown uncertain threats (alien species)
They weren't unknown threats, humanity had formed alliainces that had lasted several THOUSAND years. The Imperium, upon meeting them, killed them, despite them having honored those alliances and kept humanity safe through the age of strife.

>>64509648
What makes Cadians special is there levels of uprising and mutation in spite of everything. The Imperium has tried to keep the Cadian genes alive in one way or another for that reason.

>>64509661
>. The Imperium has tried to keep the Cadian genes alive in one way or another for that reason.
Since when have they explicitly done that? I recall it just being the natural consequence of them sending Cadians into every fucking warzone in the galaxy and then them fucking.

>>64509648
>So if the Tau were better at protecting the existence of humanity, you'd support them?
Sure, why not.
If the Tau were capable of actual survival, prospering and dominance in the world of WH40k, and they enabled the prosperous nature of humanity from a meta perspective (we as readers know they don't intend to betray mankind) and if they somehow had a way to deal with chaos, the Orks, the Nids, the Necrons, the Eldar and all the other threats, I could very much see them as the better option.
But as long as they just take advantage of humans as auxiliaries and have no way to sustain their own existence in the long term, they're just a roadblock to be wiped out.

>>64509649
>This is fine.
A setting written for humans has a focus on humans? Say it isn't so!

>>64509670
>But as long as they just take advantage of humans as auxiliaries and have no way to sustain their own existence in the long term, they're just a roadblock to be wiped out.
But these auxilaries are still alive, are they not? The species lives on. Why does them being 'taken advantage of' matter? That's an individualistic concern.

>>64509670
>But as long as they just take advantage of humans as auxiliaries
>Get better food
>Better shelter
>Better protection
>A better job
>"Taken advantage of"
Do you expect them to just let the humans be NEETs and sit around all day?

>>64509669
Its from their natural abilities to resist chaos that makes them good fighters that makes them valuable. The Imperium may not understand it, but they know something is special about Cadians.

>>64509683
It is not an individualistic concern on a higher level. The moment the Tau see no more need for human auxiliaries, they have no reason to keep them alive anymore.
Besides, the Tau sterilize their humans. Your argument is entirely fallacious just based on this simple factor. On a species level, they do not intend humanity to continue, but only to take advantage of the individuals until they die.
Your entire notion of survival only exists on the individual level.

>>64509701
>Besides, the Tau sterilize their humans
Oh so you're applying your personal head-canon to it.

But quite the contrary, humans have prospered under the Tau, human populations actually have a tendency to explode in Tau worlds because of the better living conditions and healthcare and food.

>>64509701
>Your entire notion of survival only exists on the individual level.
Except their are entire planets of human auxilaries that are un-sterilized and producing children that the Tau doesn't care about.
>On a species level, they do not intend humanity to continue, but only to take advantage of the individuals until they die.
Since when? The Tau see integrating all aliens into their society as their highest calling to the point they die for it.

>>64509659
>humanity had formed alliainces
>The Imperium, upon meeting them,
And so according to your own words, they were unkown to the Imperium, as they only met them before exterminating them.
>despite them having honored those alliances and kept humanity safe through the age of strife.
And they died for it. Proving that you should not trust aliens.

>>64509705
No Tau occupied world has been able to maintain a hive city. In fact, Hive Cities are seen as myths amongst the Tau.

>>64509495
Holy shit you are missing the point of the Imperium being its own worst enemy. The average Imperial citizen lives a excruciating, dehumanizing life surrounded on all sides by filth, rot, and decay of better times, whipped into a frenzy of bloodlust against everything and anything different, while being ruled from above by endlessly scheming and plotting nobility who live lives of unimaginable excess to the point of being jaded, burnt out husks to what people would consider normal. Then they point to everyone else and claim that things like "functioning infrastructure," "diplomacy," "healthy living conditions," and "effective government" are what's causing Chaos.

>>64509711
>Proving that you should not trust aliens.
Quite the opposite.

The only thing this proves is that you shouldn't trust the Imperium. Aliens are able to form alliances with each other to fight the Imperium just fine with no ill consequences. It's only the Imperium that can't be trusted.

>>64509712
>No Tau occupied world has been able to maintain a hive city
That's because the Tau have something better than hive cities, they have ecumenopoli. All of the population, none of the pollution. In fact, when the Tau take a hive city, they evacuate the population to elsewhere in their empire, and begin the process of rebuilding the planet to fit their more well-maintained vision of a planet.

>>64509714
Anon, the first humans to fall to Chaos en masse were Space Marines. The suffering of the modern Imperium has nothing to do with the start of this mess.

>>64509705
>Oh so you're applying your personal head-canon to it.
Am I misremembering it then? I'll accept it as wrong if it's not true.
>But quite the contrary, humans have prospered under the Tau, human populations actually have a tendency to explode in Tau worlds because of the better living conditions and healthcare and food.
A temporary population boom to be used as manpower is not true prospering.

>>64509710
>Except their are entire planets of human auxilaries that are un-sterilized and producing children that the Tau doesn't care about.
Manpower, in other terms. To be used for their wars of conquest.
>Since when? The Tau see integrating all aliens into their society as their highest calling to the point they die for it.
"Integrating all aliens into their society," is just a fancy term for using them for their own benefit. It's like Nazi Gleichschaltung, synchronization. Integrate the Jews into society by putting them in labor camps to serve the Greater Good (Third Reich).
Humanity would face the same eventual fate under the Tau.

>>64509720
Are you referencing lore? If so let's see your source. All the Tau lore I've read show that the Tau do not operate on any scale that the Imperium does.

>>64509717
>>The only thing this proves is that you shouldn't trust the Imperium.
And how do you know if the Aliens are like the Imperium? How do you know it before it's too late?
Pro-tip: you don't.

>Aliens are able to form alliances with each other to fight the Imperium just fine with no ill consequences.
And they all die because of it.
They are ALL DEAD, while the Imperium continues its existence.
If your attitudes directly lead to the destruction of your species, your attitudes were clearly faulty.

>>64509727
9th edition codex, Sa'cea Prime is noted as being a Tau world with trillions of people living in massive dome arcologies. The planet itself is something of a death world too used by the fire caste to train, so one can only assume other Tau planets would have just as many people.

>>64509420
>Yeah but what about the deus ex space chink robot guy plot armor huh?
Didn't you get the memo that the prophets or whatever are actually evil and all of tau society is a le grimdark lie? Fully automatic luxury space communism didn't sell enough miniatures and neither did non mech models apparently. You're just a few books away from how ACKtually the Tau are a pet project of kairos fateweaver or something.

>>64509726
>Am I misremembering it then?
It comes from an Imperium narrator speculating on the decline of a human population in a non-canonical ending of the Dark Crusade video game.

>>64509711
>And so according to your own words, they were unkown to the Imperium, as they only met them before exterminating them.

(Not the guy you were arguing with)

By your logic, the Imperium should have killed practically all human they met. Since a human civilization after the Age of Strife is as unknown to the Imperium as an Alien civilization is. Which it didn't. And the Imperium didn't have its shit kicked in because of some unknown element but because of its Primarchs.

Heresy was not some civilizations, hastily introduced rebelling. It was the Imperium's ruling class having a civil war. If human civilization were safe, then alien civilization of the same level unknown would have been safe as well.


Coming back to the real-world, groups that show that level of xenophobia and self-serving attitude tended to collapse very quickly, and if not, ended up in an awful situation for most involved.

>>64509714
>Holy shit you are missing the point of the Imperium being its own worst enemy.
No.
The WORLD is the enemy.
The entire key point in the WH40k universe is that the WORLD is grimdark. It's the WORLD and the pressures it places on the species that forces them into unending warfare and internal oppression. Just the existence of the Warp makes ordinary life entirely untenable, as heresy would immediately spread everywhere.
>The average Imperial citizen lives a excruciating, dehumanizing life surrounded on all sides by filth, rot, and decay of better times, whipped into a frenzy of bloodlust against everything and anything different, while being ruled from above by endlessly scheming and plotting nobility who live lives of unimaginable excess to the point of being jaded, burnt out husks to what people would consider normal.
And you would go about fixing this how exactly?
Any attempts at reconstructing the Imperium would destabilize it and open it up to heresy to a degree where the Imperium could not and would not survive.
The Imperium is the way it is because it must be that way.

>>64509739
>Sa'cea
So the Cadia of the Tau. Its also the most populous world of the Tau in lore, no other planet comes close to it. The lifestyle of those Trillions is described as Spartan too, which may be a step up for humans living on a hive world but it is not the utopia that the Tau try to feed to humans.

>>64509755
>Its also the most populous world of the Tau in lore
Do you have any sources for that?

And yes the Tau live fairly spartan lives but that's a significant step up. Besides, living TOO luxuriously leads to Slaanesh corruption.

>>64507718
>The issue with abhumans is that the moment you start talking about not looking like a weird human and like a humanoid most people would consider that a mutant, since even being a mutant allows you to look 100% human but have something else going on.
Yes, and that's fine. Actually it's been established (in Bloodlines) that even non-Abhumans from one planet, going to non-Abhumans on another planet, can be mistaken for mutants, the example give in that book being a ship's crew getting killed by a lynch mob because their facial structure was just different enough to upset the locals.

40k isn't Star Wars, most people will never leave their homeworld or see someone of another race, let alone an alien, and Guard regiments that fight alongside other Guard regiments from different planets will at least get briefed on who they're working with and have marginally better-educated officers keep them in line.

So you can easily have a planet of bat-people Abhumans, who would be accused of being mutants anywhere else. If they fight alongside a non-bat-person regiment then the officers will brief their troops, and they'll probably generally be kept apart as much as possible.

>>64509701
No, a specific rebellious population was sterilized in a non-canon ending to Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.

>>64508966
>>64508966
this, sometimes they'll just servitor you because they felt like it and make up a bullshit random excuse

>>64509679
>game has multiple factions which people can play and publishes fiction based on those factions
>this is a problem

>>64509748
>By your logic, the Imperium should have killed practically all human they met. Since a human civilization after the Age of Strife is as unknown to the Imperium as an Alien civilization is
Ridiculous claim.
Humans are human. We are the same species with similar attitudes and similar in-group biases and interests. We join up with other humans by nature and act as a social group together with others of our own kind. We can predict our own behavior better than aliens.
The Imperium was also vastly superior to all the humans they annexed - the humans who proved a potential threat were regularly wiped out.

>Heresy was not some civilizations, hastily introduced rebelling.
No, it's an insidious force that collapses entire civilizations from inside, where all of a sudden entire systems and legions turn to worship of the Chaos Gods and start raping people by shoving shards of glass up their urethras (they think it feels good) and summoning literal demons into existence.

>Coming back to the real-world, groups that show that level of xenophobia and self-serving attitude tended to collapse very quickly
All humans have shown that level of xenophobia for the majority of mankind's existence. We are the survivors of the people who did so.
You are foolish to use the modern world as an example of basic game theoretical dynamics, when we haven't represented "unknowns" to each other in centuries, even millennia.

>>64509761
Its described as the most densely populated Tau world in the codexes. Its a fully utilized planet that is the right size for humanoids to thrive on. Physically there can't be any worlds more populated for the Tau than Sa'cea

>>64509767
It's a problem when some of those factions are so poorly written as a whole that they have no reason to even exist.
When it comes to other factions, it's like a 50-70% of poor writing, but the rest of it, the core is often sensible on some vague, acceptable level. Like again, how the Imperium has to oppress its people ridiculously and consume human lives as a resource even during peacetime to maintain itself. It's the cost of survival in that fucked up world after tens of thousands of years of fucked up events. It's pure organizational inertia, where the Imperium has to just maintain itself as it is to stay alive at any cost. Try to reform, and any of the forces opposing them will take that chance to end mankind.

>>64509774
>We are the same species with similar attitudes and similar in-group biases and interests
Not true. Russians are different from Americans are different from Europeans are different from Africans.

>>64509753
>The Imperium is the way it is because it must be that way.
>Please ignore everything that's happened since Girlyman came back

>>64509635
No disagreement there, although they do have lots of cults Cadians are highly resistant as are others like Krieg. I'm just pointing out that from a out universe viewpoint Cadians are mutants. There are many 'abhumans' in 40k whose mutations would be caused by genetic deviance less than those of Cadians. Ratlings and Ogryns are just unusually small or large for example. It is worth pointing out that the latter two are both highly Chaos resistant, corrupted Ogryns are rare, corrupted Ratlings are unheard of.

>>64509598
I know she is a /tg/ creation but Choas-Chan is of Cadian stock.

>>64509648
>>64509670
As a plan B (or more like plan C or D, plan B was the Squats) why not? The Human population of the Tau Empire is so large that a big fear of the Auns is that eventually they will take it over.

>>64509669
The Imperium in 40k doesn't know why they are resistant to Chaos, remember they think having bright purple eyes is a normal thing. The idea that is is due to long term low level exposure to the warp is something they might theorize but it isn't a common idea outside the Inquisition.

>>64509694
Correct, just like they know that Kreig did 'something drastic' but as long as it works they aren't going to complain. I just finished the latest Krieg novel a few hours ago and there is a neat bit where their Commissar explains how their sole real job is to prevent the greater IG from exploiting or wasting them.

>>64509701
As a whole the Tau don't want to hurt anyone unless they have to, they attempt peace first. The morons have tried to negotiate peace with Necrons, Daemons, Tyranids, Dark Eldar and Orks. They knew it would probably fail but they tried then when it failed they did the rational thing and started shooting them on sight.

>>64509762
>Who in the Emperor's name are these freaks? Why are their ears and eyes so small? They must be mutated invaders who are so far from the Emperors Darkness that they serve the accursed Light of Chaos, open fire!

>>64509647
that's putting it mildly

>>64509788
We are all the same species with the same basic functions and tendencies. Plenty of experts in strategic culture recognize and know exactly how the Russians operate, how the Africans operate, but individuals are generally too unwilling to denigrate other populations because it's politically and socially incorrect, or because they're simply too stupid to understand different modes of functioning.

>>64509777
Fair, but still, worlds tends to prosper under the Tau. After Taros was taken, the population exploded and the locals built cities all over the planet since they had the growing resources and population for it.

>>64509791
Yes, I'll ignore the female custodes and the other garbage GW is pushing into the setting in an effort to make it woke or something, I don't know what they're doing.

>>64509798
>We are all the same species with the same basic functions and tendencies
Sounds like some globalist gobbledygook. You can no more trust an Indian than you could any alien.

>>64509794
>that a big fear of the Auns is that eventually they will take it over.
And that's exactly why humanity can't prosper under them.
If they *fear* humanity taking over, then obviously they see humanity as a threat, and so humanity will eventually be destroyed for the sake of their own survival and prosperity.
That's what you get for becoming a slave.

>As a whole the Tau don't want to hurt anyone unless they have to, they attempt peace first. The morons have tried to negotiate peace with Necrons, Daemons, Tyranids, Dark Eldar and Orks. They knew it would probably fail but they tried then when it failed they did the rational thing and started shooting them on sight.
They should have been punished for it severely.
Dark Eldar, Necrons and Daemons would all take advantage of their foolishness to enable their destruction.

>>64509740
The current arc of the Ta’u is that interaction with humanity is allowing our ensouledness rub off on them and Chaos is slowly starting to notice them.

>>64509796
is there a gallery?

>>64509806
>They should have been punished for it severely.
They were on several occasions, with the Tyranids, the Dark Eldar, the Orks.

But here's the thing. It costs you a handful of diplomats to try to make peace. If it doesn't work, you lose a dozen people. If it does work? You save the lives of millions and get billions more without a shot fired.

Attempting diplomacy is the pragmatic, cold, logical choice. That the Imperium refuses to do it shows that they are less concerned with survival than they are with their ideology.

>>64507924
>>64507952
>>64507718
>>64507981
Forty years of writers who don't care what other writers said have done with 40k whatever they found amusing at that moment, and none of them have ever been retconned.

They try sometimes to use the scale of the galaxy as an excuse, "oh these planets use alien mercenaries or "eldar embassies" and have a standard of living higher than America and these planets kill every child with a cleft chin and feed them to their parents and they've never ever met each other and think they're the standard of the imperium" but the problem is the writers can't help but make sweeping statements like "the best planets in the imperium have a life expectancy of 30" and such so you end up with mutually exclusive versions of 40k based on objective external statements not in universe colored accounts.

>>64509774
>All humans have shown that level of xenophobia for the majority of mankind's existence. We are the survivors of the people who did so.

Yes and some level of xenophilia as well. Foreign cultures and peoples are points of interest and study. For centuries, to millenia at this points. Peoples have been taken by wanderlust and visit other peoples. Societies that are successful better integrate the foreign influences and even the peoples.

Humans grow stronger by relying on each others. So do the societies we form. There is nothing to stay we won't prosper by cooperating with aliens.

>>64509411
the imperium didn't come with nearly enough resources to take on the tau in the Damocles crusade because they underestimated them due to the limited contact they'd had with them
as such they where starting to bog down and given how there's always an other war to fight those resources ware better spent elsewhere
that's the lore reason for the tau still being around, they are on the to do list but there's always other shit popping up that get put at the top
that means to the imperium the tau aren't worth the time and effort because they don't pose an existential threat to the imperium
they are a species that can't use the warp, have very limited means and are on the far fringes of of the eastern rim
they couldn't be further from Terra if they tried
they aren't failbadon going for the Cadian gate, they aren't orcs going after a linchpin hive world, they aren't necrons awaking in a system with a forgeworld ect.

and keep in mind that while the crusade forces where pissed off at getting bogged down the tau where freaking out because they realized just how much more powerful the imperium really is. they where on the back hoof the whole time barely clinging on by their bovine dentures.
the imperium was bitching that this was going to take months for every sept the tau where shitting their pants because reinforcements would take years to get there.

>>64509818
>If it doesn't work, you lose a dozen people.
You lose entire systems* at the very least. The forces at hand would not just kill your diplomats. They would pretend to be friendly, build a pseudo-alliance and strike at the moment of your weakness, when you turn your back.
Just imagine what Tzeentch-aligned chaos forces would do if the Tau wanted to form a friendly alliance with them.
>Attempting diplomacy is the pragmatic, cold, logical choice. That the Imperium refuses to do it shows that they are less concerned with survival than they are with their ideology.
It's not a pragmatic choice when a single munition can wipe out your entire planet, when a couple heretics in a basement can open portals to hell and when robot-skeletons can place a teleportation beacon anywhere on a planet, summon in entire armies and just start blasting.

>>64509787
We're specifically talking about the viability of the Tau within the setting. Which is perfectly viable. They're at the fringes of the IoM's territory where it's difficult for Navigators to see the Astronomican, their territory is densely populated and tightly organized compared to the IoM's sprawling feudal structure, it has reliable space travel, it fully understands how its tech works, constantly innovates, has an efficient industrial sector, keeps its population happy enough to not suffer constant internal instability, and uses diplomacy to bolster its numbers and territory. The Tau exist to be the antithesis of the Imperium in function. A small, growing, dynamic civilization that is a burgeoning galactic power.

>>64509840
>They would pretend to be friendly, build a pseudo-alliance and strike at the moment of your weakness, when you turn your back
The Imperium doesn't do that and they're inherently hostile so your assertion is already wrong on the face of it.

>>64509835
>There is nothing to stay we won't prosper by cooperating with aliens.
Except for the very real risk that they decide to just kill us the moment they see us. All it would take is one large meteor aimed at our planet and goodbye mankind.
Again, this is the exact reason all these Xenos species got wiped out. They wanted to cooperate, the aliens (Imperium) didn't, and they all died for it.
Do you want to take that chance for the sake of some nebulous future cooperation? Do you really?

>>64509774
>Humans band together
Humans that survive are the ones that would take a dog or an alligator over an enemy blood-group of humans.
There never will be this koombaya for humans racism for aliens bullshit science fiction writers like to wax about endlessly. No one is picking a nigger over an alien as an ally.

>>64509846
The Imperium is open, honest and rigorous in its xenophobia. They don't pretend to like you to stab you in the back.
They're religiously driven to openly destroy and denounce their enemies. Chaos doesn't suffer from this weakness.

>>64509591
Mossacannabalis or somesuch is the artist

>>64509848
If you act like a rabid dog, you'll get put down like one. All it takes is a handful of aliens who are friendly with each other to form an alliance. You throw a rock at their planet, the ones still alive throw a rock at you. Strength in numbers and mutually assured destruction.

>>64507410 (OP)
Please explain how this is related to weapons.

>>64509591
Mossacannibalis as non said. Has a bunch of WH40K pictures.

>>64509855
>Chaos doesn't suffer from this weakness.
Incidentally Chaos is empowered by suffering which the Imperium provides in abundance. Even Guilliman acknowledged that the reason the Imperium is constantly dealing with Chaos uprising is because life is so utterly dogshit in the Imperium that a deal with megasatan actually looks good for a lot of people.

>>64509866
Inquisition-Smurf civil war when?

>>64509870
Probably soon, a lot of the Imperium is pissed at Guilliman for doing such heretical things as allowing innovation and making alliances with xenos

>>64509872
The smurfs are pretty heretical at this point, after all. The newest traitor legion in the making, 100%.

>>64509882
That, plus you have the whole Star Child/Dark King thing going on, where you have the embodiment of ruin sitting on the golden throne ready to ascend into a Chaos God, and the tiniest fraction of his soul that represents actual hope and faith and compassion floating out there somewhere in the warp ready to get gunned down by most of the Imperium if they ever show their face.

>>64509627
>pic
Abbadon, that's not how "connecting people" works.

>>64509858
>All it takes
Is a massive understatement.
It takes ridiculous amounts of luck and self-destructive attitudes to enable such a situation to happen.
And it still doesn't remove the possibility that the alliance just decides to kill your outsider species as a dog, because they don't want you around potentially threatening them in the future. They already have their happy alliance, so why would they risk you and suffer your presence? Better to just wipe you out now before you can grow to become a threat or competition to their own alliance. You can look at how the West, despite being so friendly and allied, wipes out people like Saddam and Gaddafi. Upstart outsiders trying to get into the game and destabilize Western systems die.

>>64509891
I'd worship the Dark king.
Not much worth keeping in the WH40k universe.

>>64509898
comparing your chosen system to saddle and gaddafi, two people who actively started the shit that got them killed, is a bit counterproductive anon

>>64509898
>And it still doesn't remove the possibility that the alliance just decides to kill your outsider species as a dog, because they don't want you around potentially threatening them in the future. They already have their happy alliance, so why would they risk you and suffer your presence?
Because any alien species that had the mindset and culture to be capable of forming such an alliance in the first place isn't going to suddenly decide that they need to turn into the Imperium and kill everyone they meet.

You're running into the same problem as before. Your logic is self-defeating. If alliances with new people are inherently bad, then by that same logic the alliance you ALREADY HAVE was bad to create as well. You're shooting yourself in the foot, not for any pragmatic reason, but to force an ideology which is ill-suited for survival.

>>64509914
>two people who actively started the shit that got them killed,
This is what's happened throughout the entirety of human history. People fuck around and then find out.
If the survival of your species is predicated on some alien species not fucking around at all, then are you seriously going to take that risk?

>>64509914
and what do you guys think 40k Kuwait would be?

>>64509898
>Saddam and Gaddafi
You mean people who decided to fuck around and find out instead of getting with the existing program?

>>64509920
You'll note that the majority of Gulf states don't fuck around and we're quite happy to keep them on our side. You assume belligerence as a default response to newcomers, but your examples are of newcomers who are openly belligerent. Try to use logic and not thirdie-isms.

>>64509796
>>64507580

IG Bat-Girl is best girl.

>Hero of the Imperium, several Purity Seals
>Dad was a Imperial Hero
>She was a Auspex specialist trooper, highly skilled
>Arm, leg and half her face gone, i'm guessing Melta blast
>Commissar and probably a Inquisitor reviewed her service and found it worthy
>Gets cybernetic replacements, awards, gets to go home
>Kids want to join, they know the IoM is a harsh place but love the Emperor because he hides them from the corrupting light of Chaos
>Smaller than the Ratling if you look at the perspective
>Pocket Goth

I'm 9001%+ team Nightside GF.

>>64509917
>Because any alien species that had the mindset and culture to be capable of forming such an alliance in the first place isn't going to suddenly decide that they need to turn into the Imperium and kill everyone they meet.
But how do you know that? They live under the same competitive pressures as we do.

>Your logic is self-defeating. If alliances with new people are inherently bad, then by that same logic the alliance you ALREADY HAVE was bad to create as well.
Our alliances were NOT created with new people. That is the failure point of your logic.
Our alliances were made with people we've known for centuries and millennia. We originally DID TRY to kill them. A dozen times over, in many wars and attempts at conquest.
Hell, plenty of peoples were wiped out because of just that. Human history is full of genocides where entire peoples of strangers were wiped out, or if they were lucky, enslaved. The surviving peoples are the ones who killed the other ones. We are the descendants of those who killed the losers.

>You're shooting yourself in the foot, not for any pragmatic reason, but to force an ideology which is ill-suited for survival.
It is entirely pragmatic to not risk extinction under the vague assumption that a competitive alien species (they have to be competitive or else they wouldn't have survived this far) would not see us as a risk the same way we see them.
Our planets are very easy to destroy and ruin for human habitation. All it takes is one space rock and Earth is no longer capable of sustaining advanced life.
Why take the chance?

>>64509931
>You assume belligerence as a default response to newcomers
No. I assume it to be uncertain, and not worth the risk to make assumptions either way because our entire species is at risk.
It's safer to just wipe them out than assume they're friendly for some nonsensical reason.
If they made it as far as we did, they're as big of a bastard species as we are.

>>64509941
>They live under the same competitive pressures as we do.
Precisely.

The Imperium, in the long-run, is basically self-selecting for extinction. Its mindset is making it lose.

>>64509910
Her eyes are purple and violet not red.

>>64509945
Its mindset is making it survive as long as possible.
The world is what is making it lose.

Without the mindset, the Imperium would already have been destroyed a long time ago.

>>64509956
>The world is what is making it lose.
It created the world it lives in. Without the Imperium's actions, the Horus Heresy never would have happened, Chaos wouldn't have its legions, the Tyranids wouldn't be invading, the Necrons wouldn't be awaking, and the Tau wouldn't be expanding.

The Imperium made its world, and now it has to lie in it.

>>64509956
eldar managed to survive for 60+ million years without that mindset while the imperium can't handle even 10000

>>64509941
>It's safer to just wipe them out than assume they're friendly for some nonsensical reason.
The only tiny minority situation in which it makes sense to launch an unprovoked first strike is if they're just powerful enough to wipe us out but not quite so powerful that they can do so in a second strike. That is very, very unlikely, so taking that action is braindead retarded thirdie shit.

If they're strong enough to kill us in a second strike then attacking them only guarantees our death.
And if they're not strong enough to kill us in a second strike, they probably weren't strong enough to be a threat anyways.

Bonus: if any other civilizations observe us attacking unprovoked, we've now registered ourselves as a guaranteed threat and ensured that everyone else wants us dead ASAP out of self-preservation.

>>64509964
>It created the world it lives in.
No, it did not.
The nature of competition, competitive pressures being inherent to existence to a level where if you do not compete you simply do not exist at all, is not their own doing.
The Imperium is the way it is because anyone who wasn't that way was wiped out.
Remember, the Imperium is the evolutionary product of tens of millennia of competition and genocidal warfare, where all other human groups of note were wiped out. The Imperium is what is left after everyone else is filtered out by the nature and demands of the world. You are either like the Imperium, or you simply aren't.

If they die in the future due to what they are like now, it wasn't their fault as such. It was the competition and evolutionary process that forced them into their current state to begin with. Anyone who was different enough to potentially have survived the future died long in the past, so it's completely meaningless to consider them.

>>64509990
>The only tiny minority situation in which it makes sense to launch an unprovoked first strike is if they're just powerful enough to wipe us out but not quite so powerful that they can do so in a second strike. That is very, very unlikely, so taking that action is braindead retarded thirdie shit.
No.
It's also entirely reasonable if:
>you can do it stealthily with surprise
>they are a potential future threat
>you have a means of survival even if they strike back at you
etc.
There is no need to risk their survival and being a future threat if wiping them out now is fine. You're just trying to rationalize your own emotions here.

>Bonus: if any other civilizations observe us attacking unprovoked, we've now registered ourselves as a guaranteed threat and ensured that everyone else wants us dead ASAP out of self-preservation.
You are assuming there are a bunch of happy-go-lucky civilizations in space for no reason.

>>64509470
>I don't buy it. Humans interbred IRL with things that in 40k are abhumans, Neanderthals exist in 40k.
They adapted to the planet they were on when Old Night happened

I just think the Tau are pretty fuckin' neato.

>>64509993
>The Imperium is the way it is because anyone who wasn't that way was wiped out.
By the Imperium

There was like no pressure for the Imperium to be that well. Hell if you extrapolate the numbers there were likely 100,000 or so friendly xenos in humanity's territories based on the large number of friendly xenos the Tau have found so far in their small amount of territory.

The Imperium was just the paranoid schizo of the galaxy screaming about how they HAVE to shoot up the school because the school children might grow up to become a murderer one day.

>>64510008
>you can do it stealthily with surprise
You don't know if you can or not, so you have to assume that you can't. Surprise doesn't matter due to something I already mentioned that you were apparently too stupid to understand which is called SECOND STRIKE capability, it means that if an enemy wipes your civilization out, you still have enough remote/concealed weapon platforms to wipe theirs out in retaliation.

For example, Chang, let's say you glass the continental US. They perform SECOND STRIKE retaliation on you which means their nuclear submarines, which you were not able to glass, glass YOUR cities in turn. That is why being a belligerent retard doesn't work.

>they are a potential future threat
So are any countries around today yet oddly enough international diplomacy doesn't involve committing genocide against everyone you can get your hands on.

>you have a means of survival even if they strike back at you
No, having your homeworld destroyed is not worth starting a war for no reason beyond belligerent retardation.

>You are assuming there are a bunch of happy-go-lucky civilizations in space for no reason.
No, I'm assuming they're smart enough to understand game theory and the reason for that is if they make it to space, they're not retards like you who don't understand game theory and are incapable of abstract thought.

>>64510020
>There was like no pressure for the Imperium to be that well.
Yes there was.
The Imperium exists.
The others don't.
Hence its obvious that selective pressures preferred the Imperium, as else it wouldn't have survived and be the dominant force currently.

>The Imperium was just the paranoid schizo of the galaxy screaming about how they HAVE to shoot up the school because the school children might grow up to become a murderer one day.
Except the schizo doesn't survive. The Imperium does.
It doesn't matter how "insane" your ideas are, if it means you survive while others don't. That competitive reality is a base aspect of our existence.
You are simply removed from existence if you don't do what you need to, to survive and continue existence. Your behaviors are proven correct on an existential level by your continued survival.

Only the Imperium did and could do what it takes to survive, the others didn't, hence they no longer exist.

>>64510040
>The Imperium exists.
And now it's slowly ceasing to exist. Because of all the enemies it created. Enemies that didn't need to exist.

The Imperium experiment failed.

>>64510044
As long as there's a Primarch around, the Imperium will survive.

So did everyone forget that the Imperium being the way it is was exactly the kind of thing the big E himself was trying to avoid? You can't really say it's good for humanity when the almighty chief himself was like "Yeah nah, let's not do that" which is arguably, the entire point of the setting. It's just one big hilarious tragedy for the human race that they're all part of a system that's destined to collapse on itself one day.

>>64510049
The Primarch isn't adhering to the Imperium's survival strategy though. They're making alliances with xenos.

>>64510039
>You don't know if you can or not, so you have to assume that you can't
This has no logical basis. There is no logical argument that holds water that can support this claim once seriously considered.
>Surprise doesn't matter due to something I already mentioned that you were apparently too stupid to understand which is called SECOND STRIKE capability, it means that if an enemy wipes your civilization out, you still have enough remote/concealed weapon platforms to wipe theirs out in retaliation.
Having a second strike capability does not necessitate a second strike capability in all theoretical situations. Not unless you want to simply do a
>nu-uh, we get to second strike you cuz I say so!
argument, at which point we might as well just stop this. Just because we can nuke another country after suffering an initial nuclear strike doesn't mean we can react to having a meteorite slammed into our planet.

Why are you dragging interspecies dynamics onto Earth nuclear warfare anyway?

>So are any countries around today yet oddly enough international diplomacy doesn't involve committing genocide against everyone you can get your hands on.
Because we aren't capable of it. Many would if they could.

>No, having your homeworld destroyed is not worth starting a war for no reason beyond belligerent retardation.
You have no assurance that your homeworld will not be destroyed regardless, which is the key issue at hand.
You have no way of ensuring that an alien species will consider such a notion and choose not to destroy you as a threat.
Hell, you can't even assure that they're a species to begin with. They might as well be some rogue AI, who just wipe out any organics they run into. You don't know, which is the entire problem.

>No, I'm assuming they're smart enough to understand game theory and the reason for that is if they make it to space, they're not retards like you who don't understand game theory and are incapable of abstract thought.
Dark Forest theory, read it

>>64510054
This was brought up before yeah

>>64509956
All of the people that Commissar is addressing would be ok with it and probably be looking forward to having a great time. The only one who would have psychological issues would be the Ogryn and only if one of his friends was hurt then he'd get really pissed off which is also just fine.

>>64509968
When your species exists just because the Necrons took a nap it isn't something to brag about.

>>64509990
Mostly a correct opinion. There are some Xenos that could have been integrated into humanity (or it's diplomatic relations) like the Eldar or those like the Tau who are mostly harmless as long you leave them alone. The Eldar are mostly at fault for their Fall and not telling the Emperor about Necrons .

The Eldar are not at fault about the Men of Iron, that was all on Humanity.

>>64509993
That image is highly funny to me. Modern Black Templars can cooperate with abhumans or Eldar (Yannari or even Dark Eldar like Lilith!) without killing them sometimes, the Goat Girls are kinda fucked as beastgirls are disposable but Catgirls are forever.

>Carlos McConnell the IV meets G man, Rob just points them at a enemy of the Imperium and washes his hands of the results
>Rob supports them with a Imperial Guard battle Group and assigns a Inquisitor to watch over them
>Commissar Caiaphas Cain fucks a Cat Girl

Total Imperial Victory.

>>64510044
>The Imperium experiment failed.
No, it did not, because it still exists.
None of the other ones exist.
So factually, it was a success and superior to everything else.
This is all that matters.

>>64510054
Big E was apparently an idiot.

>>64510075
>When your species exists just because the Necrons took a nap
The Necrons took a nap BECAUSE of the Eldar. The Eldar were on the verge of destroying them so the Necrons hid in their tomb worlds to survive. The nap was literally them hiding from the Eldar

>>64510077
He was both an idiot and is disgusted with the current imperium. Two things can be true at one time - for instance, the sky can be blue and can also have clouds. Is that easy enough for you understand?

>>64510077
>None of the other ones exist.
Eldar and Necrons still exist.

>>64510049
They better explain what Corax is doing because he is effectively a Daemon Prince.

>>64510096
He's not, Big E could only make the Primarch's with help from Chaos. He reneged on the deal and that's why Chaos scattered them across the galaxy. All Primarch's have warp juice in them. Corvus was the only loyalist to figure what Chaos was on his own and figured Big E had his reasons for no telling them about it.

>>64509517
>The Imperium shitting all over anyone who could be an ally
They tried that once then the age of strife and long night happened and those trusted alien allies decided to go around conquering and enslaving isolated human worlds. I'm not gonna read the rest of your post since you obviously don't know about setting. You should try actually engaging with the source material instead of regurgitating meme lore.

>>64510087
>Atheist creates society doomed to failure held up temporarily only because he has infinite superman powers
>He engineers the exact scenario where he'll be locked in a hell of his own making and everyone will die
>Only crudely aping after medieval Christianity keeps his failure from being complete
>He seethes impotently that everyone's "doing it wrong" forever while learning exactly no lessons from his mistakes ("my only mistake was I wasn't randomly belligerent ENOUGH to my sons AAAAAAHHH I WISH I COULD NEEDLESSLY INSULT THEM JUST ONE LAST TIME AAAAAHHH")

Looks like he lost the argument *again*.

>>64510113
>and those trusted alien allies decided to go around conquering and enslaving isolated human worlds.
Except that's not at all what happened.

In fact, many of those aliens protected humans during the age of strife. But the Imperium, upon encountering them, decided to exterminate both the aliens and the humans they had aided, because that went against their narrative of 'all xenos bad'.

>>64510113
Are you inbred? I didn't say all aliens were allyable, but that the Imperium could not accept the ones that were. We have several instances of this being totally wrong (The joint human-alien mobile fleet that got destroyed by, what was it again, the iron hands?) We the have more modern lore - like the tau, or the 'corruptors' from Rogue Trader. Rogue Trader actually has a number of instances of non-hatrful aliens, like the Stryxis or whatever its spelled, who are amoral space traders. There's also the Eldar, who ally or try to ally with the Imperium to fight bigger threats, the anti-nid coalition in I think 6th ed imperial agents, maybe 8. Some of the Dante novels/books with Dante in them also have these - there was a peacible spider-like race that the Imperium fucked over to the point they're starting to become xenophobic themselves. There's also (either a Dante book or one with Blood Angels) a multi-speciws pirate band led by an elder that includes humans.

There's tons of examples of non-hostile aliens races, but it requires looking beyond in-uniervse propaganda, so i can see how that'd be hard for someone with an IQ below room temp

>>64510113
Eldar Exodites were protecting isolated human worlds during Old Night

>>64510138
NTA but it goes even further than that. The Tau, despite only controlling about 300 worlds or so, have encountered and integrated 30 different friendly aliens auxiliaries. That's 1 friendly alien species for every 10 planets they've absorbed.

>>64510084
Wrong wrong wrong.

The Ctan killed almost everyone while defeating the Old Ones then the Silent King focused the Necrons on destroying the Ctan and breaking them up into the Ctan shards. One of them ended up on earth and a few (many) million years later the Emperor imprisoned one then moved it to Mars.

The chaos that the Necrons created by breaking open the Old Ones Webway let in daemons and the Enslaver Plague, the Eldar and Krork were left to pick up the pieces. Eventually the Eldar settled everything down and beat back the Krork. This took 60 million years because Eldar are lazy and casualty adverse. Then they thought they had won and started a orgy that made slannesh happen.

Meanwhile on Terra, The Emperor wanted to kill all of the the xenos and create a prefect future for humanity, some disagreed with him. He murdered them all and raised a army of monsters to enforce his vision on the Galaxy.

Many people think that there is a obvious Emperor=Sigmar comparison, they are wrong. It is obvious are the two lost primarchs are Sigmar and Nagash. In 40K Nagash won.


>He's not, Big E could only make the Primarch's with help from Chaos. He reneged on the deal and that's why Chaos scattered them across the galaxy. All Primarch's have warp juice in them. Corvus was the only loyalist to figure what Chaos was on his own and figured Big E had his reasons for no telling them about it

Yes we know that Lorgar, gonna stop running from Corax and come out of your tent so Corvus can kick your ass anytime soon?

>>64510144
It should be noted that the dominant survival strategy here is NOT to destroy aliens but rather to do nothing.

>>64510174
That is the exact opposite of what it shows.

>>64510185
You are ignoring the existence of C3.

>>64510144
>>64510185
>>64510190
>>64510174

Flaw in the logic:

Logically if there are two civilizations there is probably a third. If the first two find themselves in any way compatible or capable of mutual destruction then they should ally and look to use their combined forces to take out and subjugate the third force.

And then the 4th, 5th and 6th ect.

>>64510173
>It is obvious are the two lost primarchs are Sigmar and Nagash.

>>64507535
Do the...funky monkey

>>64510194
And therein lies the key. Hiding is better than destruction, because destruction gives away your position to the other civilizations. Subjugation is better than destruction, because annexation adds their strength to your own and makes you a tougher target.

>>64510190
Third partying is very common in battle royale games.
It's in C3's favor to destroy whichever party remains of C1 and C2 revealed itself by destroying the other one. Thus C3 gains double the resources.

>>64510194
The entire argument here is that there is no way to figure out whether you are capable of mutual destruction or compatible without opening yourself up for immediate destruction.
To open yourself up for discussion like that is the "broadcast" option visible there, which only opens you up to being destroyed, because it is most in the other party's favor to destroy you.

Destroying you: Nets them resources > 0
Doing nothing: Gets them nothing = 0
Them getting destroyed: Infinitely negative, out of the game entirely

Destroying you immediately is simply the game theoretically correct option.

>>64510205
Subjugation limits the amount of resources you can claim from them and opens you up to destruction either by them or a third party who they might contact.
Destroying is always the best option.

>>64510194
Once you get to the 4th or 5th you get to the point of exponential expansion, everyone must join you or be obliterated.

>>64510201
Read some oldhammer books kid, Nagash knows about 40k space ships and the Skaven have a radio that they took from the Slann that lets them spy on the the Eldar.

>>64510209
>It's in C3's favor to destroy whichever party remains of C1 and C2 revealed itself by destroying the other one.
But you're ignoring the existence of C4.

>>64510209
>Subjugation limits the amount of resources you can claim from them
On the contrary, there are unique resources that can only be gained from the induction of a new species. Destroy them, and you lose access to these resources forever.

This conversation starts with the fact that Earth would be a Chaos planet if 40k ever happened.
I mean, take a look around, on the internet or outside.

>>64510144
>>64510174
Chinks are fucking retarded.

Space exploration and colonization are locked behind hyperactive pattern recognition, culturally and genetically. The culture that bases it's interactions with other cultures on abstracts like these and not the pattern of previous interactions with that culture never MAKES it to space.

There is NO SPACE for China-types.

Total war of extinction naturally destroys more resources than a limited, surgical campaign of subjugation, which the Space Marines would actually excell at - they could come in, blow up stuff, and make the point that resistance is impossible. IG occupational forces would be far less strained and take less casulties than an equivilant outright extermination mission.

You can even genocide them all later, or put them in the way of the Tyranids, or something, if you really want to, and it'd be much easier because you're integrated directly into their infrastructure.

>shit the Ynari plot so fucking badly
Fucking damnit GW you retards. First interesting thing about the Eldar in years and you still managed to fuck it up

>>64510217
There are no such things.

>>64510214
And so the cycle of enforced destruction goes on and on and on until there is no longer a Cn, and Cn-1 gets to take the entire cake.
At some point that will happen, and that force is likely to then be the dominant force.
This is how our world operates to a great degree.

>>64510226
Your emotional reactions bear no weight when compared against mathematical certainty.

>>64510209
Your dumb game theory thing is predicated entirely on everyone being able to wipe out another faction quickly and cheaply with no chance of retaliation, which very obviously does not apply to 40k

>>64510229
The Tyranids are actually a great example of the Dark Forest.
The moment the Imperium broadcast their position, the nids come to eat them up.

>>64510231
>There are no such things.
There is in Warhammer 40k.

>>64507467
Source?

>>64510245
Mossacannabalis

>>64510233
It applied to all the species that were wiped out. Millions of them. The survivors are just the ones who destroyed everyone else, until they finally ran into enemies they couldn't wipe out immediately, thus bringing forth protracted conflicts and a situation of increased stakes. They still tried to destroy their enemies at first sight.
See >>64510234 again, for an example. The dynamic simply rose from an interspecies level to a galactic one. It's no longer about destroying single species, but about wiping out galaxies and galactic-level threats.

>>64510242
Heresy.

>>64509870
The Space Wolves already fought a war with the Inquisition, and won. The Inquisition even brought Gray Knights and a bunch of their other rare and valuable stuff to that fight.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the Black Library writers are skilled enough to realize that this history would make the Inqusition trying to sanction the Ulramarines either an unserious threat or another way to fuck up the continuity (are the Wolves more powerful than the Ultramarines despite having their Primarch present? Or was the Inqusition playing softball with the Space Wolves?), but it would be far better if the Imperial Status Quo enforcers that come down on the Ultramarines were the Sisters of Battle and the Echlesiarchy. Have preachers cause planetary rebellions in the Ultramar segmentum and have the SOB stomp on wherever Bobby G is (Macragge, most likely) once most of the forces are dispersed dealing with the uprisings.

>>64510231
>mathematical certainty
It is mathematically certain that people who think like you do not achieve, you wallow. There's no space empire that could possibly exist for people like you, so your decision making process could not possibly matter in regards to one.
Pattern recognition beats theory infinity/10 times, sorry nigger faggot.

>>64510234
>The moment the Imperium broadcast their position, the nids come to eat them up.
you don't need to 'broadcast your position' if you are the active expansor. the burden of discovery of your assets is on them - you are initiating contact, so they don't actually know where your shit is, or how important it is if they do find it.

a tribute species in Ultramar doesn't even need to know where terra is. most humans don't.

and if anything, the tyranids prove otherwise. the tyranids CANNOT be destroyed with a resounding first strike, which DF relies on (the chink books even have basically dimensional-warping technomagic used to handwave that). in fact, the most efficient counter to tyranids would be a galatic alliance that shares information on genestealer cults, fleet emergences, etc., because then the tyranids would be much less of a suprise when they show up.

>>64510257
>Heresy.
Well, ideology over pragmatism is not a good strategy.

>>64510257
>couldn't wipe out immediately
If that's even possible then dark forest doesn't apply. It only works in a very contrived scenario where everyone can quickly and cheaply wipe out anyone else without broadcasting their location.

>>64510259
Your emotions are not pattern recognition. They are delusional attempts at rationalizing your own feelings and to protect your own fragile ego.

>>64510205
That is not a unviable strategy, just hiding and ignoring everything is a perfectly valid choice. However since 40k is a war game hiding isn't a fun or profit making strategy for GW, otherwise we would have 'Codex Hurd' where if you can't kill every Hurd model by turn two before they run off or just disappear they win.

>>64510209
>The entire argument here is that there is no way to figure out whether you are capable of mutual destruction or compatible without opening yourself up for immediate destruction.
To open yourself up for discussion like that is the "broadcast" option visible there, which only opens you up to being destroyed, because it is most in the other party's favor to destroy you.

Hence 'hide' or 'unlimited expansion' being the only option for selfish players.

>>64510233
He isn't entirely wrong, stop being rude please.

>>64510209
>Subjugation limits the amount of resources you can claim from them and opens you up to destruction either by them or a third party who they might contact.

Unless that third party is on your side, which it should be.

>Destroying is always the best option.

Even (sane) Necrons will use available local resources, to not do so is to be a servant of Chaos and entropy.

>>64510263
and, again, the dark forest scenario relies on swift and clean destruction of the enemy target without them realizing or anyone else realizing. the imperium only has extremely limited deathwatch assets capable of doing this, and typically they simply send grunts and fleets to do so manually. this means the civilization in question can muster a response, send out refugee fleets, contact any allies, broadcast what's going on, etc., and anyone watching is clearly informed of your genocidal intent, and therefore - according to Dark Forest itself - would attempt to either destroy you in turn or prepare themselves for your attempt at destruction, both of which are a fail-state to be in according to DF.

>>64510144
What I loath about the dark forest and similar theories is the hubris of assuming every advanced interstellar civilization behaves the same way we do, and that they behave the same way we did +75-100 years ago. Hawkings makes a comparison of aliens meeting us = the spanish meeting the Aztecs. As if Aliens will be gold-snatching religion-converting fiefdom carvers.

If an alien race can travel the stars easily then terraforming is easy, then they don't have to seek out preciously rare habitable planets (let alone that our planet would be habitable for them - all life we know of requires water, that's it. Not oxygen, not the temperatures we live at. Just water.) and can turn any odd rock into it. India is a filthy, overpopulated shithole - yet they aren't going to seize and colonize the Sentinelese despite their being much more primitive. The United States is much more advanced than most countries but to solve our housing crises we aren't going and colonizing weaker, more primitive countries. Yet apparently every Alien species must behave like a bunch of fucking zigger apes.

It reminds me a little of how Calvinistic types attribute God's omnipotence and then assume God is enslaved to that omnipotence, must always express that omnipotence and must always run around roughshod like a giant among ants. As opposed to when you have immense power maybe you aren't behaving like a yapping rat-dog. The Spanish, to continue the hawkings metaphor, were a small vulnerable country terrified by the French sword of damocles above their head, the moorish spikes beneath them, and a rising wave of Ottomans to the East. They were eager for gold and converts to help gain greater security. So either an alien species is doing the same (in which case we're joining an interstellar shit-show) or an alien species is mindless cancer-growth 'number must go up' types in which case we'd have seen their sprawl by now.

>>64510284
yes, its extremely retarded, because we already see astoundingly large gaps in actions not even just between separated cultures but within cultures themselves over the years - go back in time 700 years, and see how much your ancestors agree with you. go back 2000 and they might as well be aliens themselves.

>>64510266
>If that's even possible then dark forest doesn't apply.
It applies entirely until that point. The theory is about pre-contact decisions specifically. Whether to choose to hide, broadcast, or destroy. The same dynamics remain even if you fail to destroy the enemy.
>Do nothing = 0
>Try to destroy the enemy > 0
>Get destroyed = -infinite
Where trying to destroy the enemy has a payoff, even if it's just gaining the initiative, while doing nothing has no payoff and opens you up to being destroyed later on. >0 is greater than 0 is greater than -infinity
Trying to destroy is just always the mathematically superior option.

>It only works in a very contrived scenario where everyone can quickly and cheaply wipe out anyone else without broadcasting their location.
It's not at all contrived to send a bunch of meteors at relative speeds hurtling towards a planet that revealed its (bio)signature.

>>64510291
that doesn't guarentee extinction, even at near lightspeed it will take years or decades to arrive (assuming you're close-by). even if we assume they can't see it coming (massive if), by the time it gets there they could already be spacefaring themselves, and they will know what direction your rock came from, and know you are hostile.

>>64510291
Destroying the enemy is itself a form of broadcast. You are telling the enemy where you are, and that you are inherently hostile. Any destruction of a planet can be traced to where the destruction came from so if you decide to attack an enemy that doesn't know you're there you inherently leave yourselves vulnerable to literally everyone else in the galaxy who now knows that you are there, and that you're an enemy.

And this is assuming the attack even works. If you attack a sufficiently advanced alien civilization the attack might not even wipe them out AND you'll have established yourself as a psychotic nutjob species to them.

>>64510284
>What I loath about the dark forest and similar theories is the hubris of assuming every advanced interstellar civilization behaves the same way we do, and that they behave the same way we did +75-100 years ago
It is not at all hubris to assume that a competitive species (they have to be competitive or they would not have survived and made it to their status) would act competitively. It's a tautology.
This universe of ours does not allow non-competitive beings or things to exist. To be competitive is to be capable of existence. Hence, if something survived onto an interstellar level, they must be competitive.
If they are competitive, it's reasonable to expect them to function competitively, as per the dark forest theorem, as destruction is the most competitive option.

>yet they aren't going to seize and colonize the Sentinelese despite their being much more primitive.
Indians are part of an international community on Earth, not a dark and quiet galaxy with no apparent signs of other life.

>So either an alien species is doing the same (in which case we're joining an interstellar shit-show)
This is an entirely reasonable presumption.

>>64510291
Nope, you didn't understand how the math changes when destroy is fallible and visible. It becomes

>Do nothing = 0
>Try to destroy the enemy and succeed = finite increase in safety
>Try to destroy the enemy, fail and get rekt by the retaliation = -infinite
>Try to destroy the enemy, succeed and then get rekt by a third party who saw you do it = -infinite

For dark forest to work, you'd need superweapons a lot better than fast rocks because those can fail and/or get detected by a third party.

>>64510298
Which changes nothing, because regardless of your own actions, it was entirely in their benefit to destroy you already.

>>64510299
>Destroying the enemy is itself a form of broadcast. You are telling the enemy where you are, and that you are inherently hostile.
Which is better than doing nothing (0) or broadcast (0).
>You are telling the enemy where you are, and that you are inherently hostile. Any destruction of a planet can be traced to where the destruction came from so if you decide to attack an enemy that doesn't know you're there you inherently leave yourselves vulnerable to literally everyone else in the galaxy who now knows that you are there, and that you're an enemy.
This was ALWAYS the case. They ALWAYS had a benefit to destroy you immediately. It was always, regardless of your own actions, preferable for them to destroy you.

>>64510284
Samefag, I am not versed enough in radio science to speak to this but I'd assume that there's reasonable reasons for why we wouldn't be getting SIGINT. Either the galaxy is far bigger than our search permits right now (google says 99% of the galaxy has not been searched yet), or our times are not matching up to their radio output, or maybe there's some phenomena that causes radio waves on a human projection level (as opposed to interstellar objects like planets and suns) to get snuffed out or turned into background noise.

>>64510288
Precisely. It's fun to write "Space is just the wild west/age of colonialism" because it's a more epic scale for something familiar for us and cowboys and colonizing is cool as fuck, but jesus christ think about how absurd it is for us to be applying that to interstellar species. Imagine taking the interpersonal court politics of fucking Alexander the Great's court or some HeyaHoya Chieftain's powwow and applying it in an understanding of how the US government functions. There are certain common threads you can deduce, sure - jealous possession of institutions (fiefdoms), personal biases. But differences of opinion in those were resolved with murder or war. Now they're resolved with filibusters and legal proceedings.

>>64510307
You're conflating competition with mindless rapacious conquest, though. Competition has consistently transformed as civilization and systems become complex, and it is only atavistic savage primitive states which engage in "Ooga booga I smash you you gib me land" anymore. And we can see how poorly those states are at achieving their goals.

Have another point for another post.

>>64507519
Well remember they are old, 2nd edition metal figures so they were conceived of like a year after the actual fall of the soviet union. Back then GW was far less concerned with realism (remember the praetorians just being 19th century british colonial troops with lasguns?). And the wiki sums up the valhallan ice warriors as a mix between russian and ww2 era finnish infantry so I guess it's more of a winter war vibe rather than general soviet ditto

>>64510310
The other party gets a turn too.
There is no way to ensure that they do not recognize you, spot you and then choose to destroy you regardless of your choice.
If you do nothing, you remove the possibility of finite increase in safety for yours, and are left with

>Do nothing = 0
>Get destroyed = -infinite

In which case you no longer even have the possibility of reaching that improvement in your status. It's clearly preferable to try to destroy the other party when you have the chance, because that way you can at least potentially gain something from it, instead of being stuck with either 0 or -infinity

>>64510299
>Destroying the enemy is itself a form of broadcast. You are telling the enemy where you are, and that you are inherently hostile. Any destruction of a planet can be traced to where the destruction came from so if you decide to attack an enemy that doesn't know you're there you inherently leave yourselves vulnerable to literally everyone else in the galaxy who now knows that you are there, and that you're an enemy.


The DPRK did something like this in the First Korean War. They would target minor allies of the UN/USA like the UK or Turkey then smash them. The idea was that they would warn off anyone who wanted to fight them, it had mixed results. Sometimes it worked, some times it did not.

>>64510316
>Which changes nothing, because regardless of your own actions, it was entirely in their benefit to destroy you already.
Except attempting to destroy you and failing or telegraphing their own position opens themselves up to risk and response. therefore, the wisest move is not to attack, because if anyone discovers your attack, you will surely be destroyed, and you must infinitely engage in perpetual attacks until all other life is destroyed, and the chance of you being discovered doing this or a species surviving/detecting and launching their own retalitory strike - wheras if you do nothing, your only risk comes from someone else deciding to attempt to destroy you, which can be easily circumvented by simply spreading out your species.

And at current there's no way (practical or theroretical) to launch an attack against another advanced species and not be detected, and the Imperium is not capable of doing this, either.

The Dark Forest theory is essentially "you must destroy all other countries because they may one day attempt to destroy you", ignoring the extraordinary cost in failing to destroy another country - them destroying YOU.

The Soviet Union didn't try to nuke the USA, and this is the same.

>>64510326
>You're conflating competition with mindless rapacious conquest, though.
>Competition has consistently transformed as civilization and systems become complex, and it is only atavistic savage primitive states which engage in "Ooga booga I smash you you gib me land" anymore. And we can see how poorly those states are at achieving their goals.
Competition has transformed as we reached prodigious energy storages underneath the ground which provided us with enough free energy to compete in consumption instead of conquest.
Once our resources run dry, we will no longer be capable of consumptive competition and will in return be required to compete through conquest.

When oil gets too expensive, our civilization collapses and we get a new dark ages with feudalism and warlords.

>>64509808
no, I only really know of his pornographic works second-hand. I've searched for archives of his stuff so I could find all of his drawings relating to Mesoamerica, but the best I could get were incomplete collections on various boorus. Damn shame too, he really does his research when he makes this stuff.

>>64510331
Yes, but their calculus on attacking also changes too when it's possible for their destruction attempts to fail and/or broadcast their location, so they're better off not shooting unprovoked either. Dark forest is a contrived scenario that only works with infallible, invisible superweapons.

>>64510316
It is literally worse than doing nothing because there’s no risk of being destroyed to doing nothing but there is to attacking

The first and last thing a civilization should do when it reaches ayy lmao levels of technology is to build a Dyson sphere around a long-lived star (probably a red dwarf), upload their entire collective consciousness into it, and hightail it out of dodge into the infinite (even by cosmic scales) void between galactic clusters.

By the time, if ever, any other civilization notices a star suddenly went dark earlier than expected, they're long gone (and, depending on the cosmological constant, literally can't be caught anymore). Fuck your Dark Forest, peace out.

For added peace of mind, press the Turbo Button on the Dyson Matrix so that 1 second in real life = 1 year in the simulation.

>>64510326
But it is assuming, from a retrograde look at our own history, of a singleminded "All Xenos vs all others". We've seen how that kind of uniform solidarity on a wider international scale has really never happened. The absolute certainty of divide and conquer over identity solidarity is such that I am almost ready to say it's a 100% rule, not a 99.5% with some exceptions rule:

>Outside threat starts to get involved in a far-off affair.
>Fellow members of the outside threat's identity group position to challenge the outside threat.
Turks invade Europe and Safavids/Mamluks start to cozy to Europe.
Catholics arrive to Japan and Protestants try and compete with them.

It's not just that the locals divide on eachother - we allow for the possibility that humans will be quislings to aliens. We never allow for the Aliens to be divided among themselves. At best it'll be some hippie ass progressive "Empire is bad :(" aliens, rather than another political body of the same alien species going "Fuck those Glygxlups we're going to help the apes fuck em up".

>"But this is species to species, the rules of solidarity are different".
If the rules are different (favoring all-in-species-solidarity) then the rules'll be different when it comes to zero-sum competition.

>>64510346
And when we decline to that state will we not be able to be an interstellar civilization. Just as the same would be for an alien species. People want their grimdark "the future is the past with aesthetic changes" and that's just not going to happen, not in the way they want.

>>64510338
>Except attempting to destroy you and failing or telegraphing their own position opens themselves up to risk and response
On the other hand, if you do nothing, you remove the possibility of gaining something at all, and are left with two possible options based on what the other party decides to do:

>Do nothing = 0
>Get destroyed = -infinite

Because the other party gets a choice too.
If you don't choose Destroy on your own turn, you no longer even have the possibility of gaining anything at all. You can only get nothing or lose.
It's clearly preferable to try to destroy the other party when you have the chance, because that way you can at least potentially gain something from it, instead of being stuck with either 0 or -infinity

>and you must infinitely engage in perpetual attacks until all other life is destroyed
YES. This is exactly how our world works. You have to compete at whatever cost, or you get destroyed and outcompeted by whoever that chooses to do so. You have no choice. You either do or you disappear.
This is the driving force of our existence that applies to everything from single genelines to national economics. It's competition.

>The Dark Forest theory is essentially "you must destroy all other countries because they may one day attempt to destroy you", ignoring the extraordinary cost in failing to destroy another country - them destroying YOU.
No. The Dark Forest Theory is predicated on the fact that you lack the information and knowledge to make better choices. We already know the Soviets, so we don't have to risk destruction. We can talk to them, communicate with them and know just about what they're going to do or not.
We have no way of knowing any of this when it comes to aliens without risking us being destroyed.

>>64510354
It's always better to Destroy, because it gives a positive outcome, while Do Nothing only provides 0 or -infinity.

>>64510359
Only for now, but later on you might be found.

>an actual discussion about allies and enemies and how to treat 3rd parties that doesn't devolve into shit flinging contests
Rare

>adhere to dark forest theory
>attack alien civilization
>it’s the Xelee
>have your entire civilization folded into another dimension and nearly wiped out by aliens that never posed a threat to you in the first place if you hadn’t attacked them

>>64510338
>The Dark Forest theory is essentially "you must destroy all other countries because they may one day attempt to destroy you", ignoring the extraordinary cost in failing to destroy another country - them destroying YOU.


I reject this idea. The DPRK and USA have both proven that war is not always the answer. Co-existence is possible even with very oppositional ideas of national rulership.

>>64510362
Not all Xenos are potential foes, just most of them.

>DJ mode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg2IooEFTp8&list=RDYg2IooEFTp8&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg2IooEFTp8&list=RDYg2IooEFTp8&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nVSM1oAruI&list=RD7nVSM1oAruI&start_radio=1

>>64510368
>It's always better to Destroy, because it gives a positive outcome, while Do Nothing only provides 0 or -infinity.
Wrong. Destroy provides a negative outcome when retaliation and third party detection are possible. For that matter -infinity is also wrong. Thermodynamics ensures that your future survival was finite all along.

You can talk big about mathematical certainty, but if you use the wrong equations and the wrong numbers then math can only produce bullshit.

>>64510368
>On the other hand, if you do nothing, you remove the possibility of gaining something at all, and are left with two possible options based on what the other party decides to do:

Gain what? Even just in Sol there's an astounding amount of resources. Going to some shitty red dwarf would also have incredible amounts of resources - more than we could even think of consuming in centuries. The only gain is in potential security, which is only valid if you watch them destroy another species (though it is possible they themselves are destroying a destroyer, which could get messy).

And if you are seen destroying another, and that party isn't aware you're destroying a destroyer, according to DF they will attempt to destroy you themselves. So the potential gain in an unprovoked attack is far outweighed by the threat inherent.

If they don't know you are a destroyer, they may hesitate to destroy you themselves, out of fear of retaliation if nothing else. Therefore, the most logical position is to only respond to threats, to enforce an environment where becoming a threat is non-viable.

>>64510400
>If they don't know you are a destroyer, they may hesitate to destroy you themselves, out of fear of retaliation if nothing else. Therefore, the most logical position is to only respond to threats, to enforce an environment where becoming a threat is non-viable.
Whereas if they know or assume you destroyed another civilization unprovoked, they will naturally believe you will do the same to them, and thus them attempting to destroy you is inevitable.

>>64510395
>Wrong. Destroy provides a negative outcome when retaliation and third party detection are possible.
That is only an IF.
Destroy is still the superior option because it poses the possibility of something else than 0 or -inf, and it gives you the initiative, where you do not have to blindly trust an unknown alien species.
>For that matter -infinity is also wrong.
It's -infinity because you're kicked out of the game and so there is no possible way for the gains to improve your state.

>>64510400
>Gain what?
Security is entirely valid, because they might very well discover you soon enough, or might actually already have discovered you and you simply do not know it.
>The only gain is in potential security, which is only valid if you watch them destroy another species
That is simply not true. The only way for them to gain anything is by Destroying you. If they don't Destroy, they leave themselves open to attack and gain nothing. 0 and potential -inf.

>And if you are seen destroying another, and that party isn't aware you're destroying a destroyer, according to DF they will attempt to destroy you themselves.
No, according to DF they will attempt to destroy you regardless, because it's the only option that can potentially give a positive benefit. All other options are either 0 or -inf, often leaving the choice to the other player as well, where the other player can choose to get >0, at the cost of you getting -inf. It is the winning move to Destroy.

>Therefore, the most logical position is to only respond to threats, to enforce an environment where becoming a threat is non-viable.
The existence of an unknown alien species is a threat, as they benefit from your destruction and gain nothing from choosing not to destroy you.

>>64510395
Destruction is a waste of resources when the foe could supply you with more resources if you take them intact. You waste resources destroying them and spend your own with no profit.

It isn't cost effective.

>>64510400
A thousand pin pricks of wastefulness still amounts to waste.

>>64510404
You guys know the irony of me trying to convince you not to be MAD psychopaths and just trying to get you to get along right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e29AIP5FnYk&list=RDYg2IooEFTp8&index=4

Okay let's do the math. Let's assume there are 5 aliens civilizations, plus your civilization. They are:
>Primitive alien friendly civilizations
>Primitive aliens neutral civilizations
>Primitive alien hostile civilizations
>Advanced alien friendly civilizations
>Advanced alien neutral civilizations

Friendly civilizations will broadcast to find allies. Neutral civilizations will not broadcast nor will they attack unless first attacked. Hostile civilizations will always attack.

Primitive civilizations will be taken out by a first strike. Advanced civilizations will not, and they already know you exist regardless of whether you broadcast or not.

For this reason there are no advanced hostile alien civilizations as if they existed you would already be dead, and they likely died in the primitive stage.

Thus, we have the following logic:
>If you attack the friendly broadcasting civilization, which is the only type of civilization that does broadcast, you either hit the primitive friendly civilization or the advanced friendly civilization
>If you hit the primitive friendly civilization, you die, then the hostile civilization finds out where you are from your actions and kills you in turun

>If you hit the advanced friendly civilization, it doesn't kill them, and then they attack you in turn, or the hostile primitives then attack you (depending on whether you did any damage or not)

And that's it. You can literally ONLY attack friendly civilizations and you can literally ONLY make things worse for yourself by attacking.

>>64510441
>let's assume
>friendly, neutral, hostile
You have moved out of the Dark Forest scenario and built a system of axioms that predicate you being right. You constructed a tautology for yourself and claimed you won the argument.

>>64510443
>You constructed a tautology for yourself and claimed you won the argument.
That's all dark forest ever was.

>>64510443
The Dark Forest scenario is literally all about acting like a psychotic nutjob by using math to justify your logic about how killing everyone is actually the right thing to do. Don't complain when that logic gets turned around on you.

>>64510020
>Tau's (((friendly xeno auxiliaries)))
Slave soldiers?

>>64510419
>No, according to DF they will attempt to destroy you regardless, because it's the only option that can potentially give a positive benefit.
The problem is that (since we're assuming loosely human thoughttrains here), positive is not the only factor of descionmaking. Negatives also exist, and if the negative outweighs the positive, then the positive is unlikely to be chosen.

In this instance, the negatives are:

1. A failure of total destruction, resulting in a retaliatory strike.
2. A detection before strike, resulting in a retaliatory strike.
3. A detection of your strike by a third party, resulting in a pre-emptive strike.

In this instance, destroying a civilization not known to be dangerous is, in and of itself, dangerous, as they may destroy you in turn, or your attempt will be noticed and you will be destroyed by another, third party, as destroying a destroyer is the only rational move according to this calcuation.

> All other options are either 0 or -inf
But destruction is also infinite, as you must rely on your strike being undetected (due to the transmission of light, this may be observed even millenia in the future, so it is perpetually a factor to consider, thus the potential detection radius is equal only to the farthest location in the galaxy that can observe the strike, which would take so long that it's functionally infinite) and that destruction is complete and total (survivors may launch a retaliatory strike at any point in the future, and thus this threat is potentially infinite at well).

There is no 'finality' in this scenario unless you manage to devestate all other life in the galaxy before being devestated yourself, which is a tall order.

>>64510453
No more slave soldiers than anyone living in the West today.

So I did more research into "Nightsiders" and apparently its just a subgroup of abhumans. As far as I know this is the closest image we have to a canonical nightsider, and many of them are just weird humans who glow in the dark, which reminds me of a particular person's musings.

>>64510454
> Negatives also exist, and if the negative outweighs the positive, then the positive is unlikely to be chosen.
If the only way to gain a positive is to risk negatives, it is still the only positive option.
If your options are:
>a potential for a positive with a potential for a negative.
>zero with a chance of infinite negative
>infinite negative
Then the potential for a positive is still the only valid play you can make, because of the fact that in the next turn, when the other player gets a choice, he gets the same choices that you did.
But now that he is making the choice, you no longer have a potentially positive option. The only things left for you, depending on what he chooses are:
>zero with a chance of infinite negative (he doesn't destroy you right now, but might in the future)
>infinite negative (he destroys you)
Hence making it clear that only by taking the potentially positive option on your own turn, can you actually gain something. It is the ONLY play that allows you to even potentially gain something positive, no matter what.
It is the optimal choice for the game, regardless of any fluff you throw onto the scenario.

>>64510267
>If I just say you're emotional I win because everyone knows history is written by abstract barely conscious insects
Hahahaha post your gun with timestamp or GTFO you stupid nigger.

>>64510480
It's not a positive option at all outside of the extremely contrived scenario where everyone has invisible, infallible superweapons. In any realistic scenario attempted extermination reduces your security by using up your weapons, opening yourself up to retaliation and demonstrating your extreme hostility to third parties.

In realistic scenarios you can increase your security by forming alliances with equals, extorting weaker civilizations and even by becoming a vassal of a stronger one.

Behold, the Dark Forest Theory as enacted in real life.

>>64510542
Actually wtf that picture looks weird

where'smossa posting his new art? he dropped the main twitter and privated his alt acc

>>64510542
Didn't people come onto the island and introduce disease/ fuck over people?

>>64510507
>opening yourself up to retaliation
You were always open to destruction if you were seen. It's entirely up to the other party to destroy you if they want to, for whatever reason. And they have a reason to kill you, because if they don't, they open themselves up to destruction in return.
That's why the winning move is to not be seen by anyone and destroy anyone who might be able to see you. There is no other move in the game that can gain you anything through your own actions. All other gains are dependent entirely on the other player choosing to put themselves at risk of destruction just for your sake. Why would they?

>In realistic scenarios you can increase your security by forming alliances with equals, extorting weaker civilizations and even by becoming a vassal of a stronger one.
You can not get into those scenarios before going through the Dark Forest scenario. It's what happens before any of that can potentially happen.

>>64510549
https://x.com/mossacannibali3/ is where he posts them, but that's probably the locked alt account.
They get posted onto danbooru though

>>64510552
There was some hostile interactions in the past, but that's the point innit? If you allow a bad interaction or two in the past to justify permanent hostility to all other cultures you'll end up an irrelevant mud-squatting tribe waiting for natural forces to wipe your tribe off the map.

>>64510558
>You were always open to destruction if you were seen. It's entirely up to the other party to destroy you if they want to, for whatever reason.
Only if everyone has the magic weapons, which they don't.

>>64510558
>You can not get into those scenarios before going through the Dark Forest scenario
You absolutely have to go through those scenarios before going through the Dark Forest scenario, because the Dark Forest presupposes a universe where everyone is on equal footing, which is incredibly unlikely to be true.

All this dark forest destroy this destroy that talk. Why not speak softly but carry a big stick? You should never end up doing nothing. Your military should always be getting bolstered with the goal of being the prickliest porcupine this side of the galactic core. Be friendly but be such a nasty bunch to fight against that it just simply isn't worth the time when you could always go find some other civ to stomp. If they're going to come at you anyways be ready to make them pay for it to the best of your ability. Even if you're likely to be horrifically outmatched at least you did what you could and might give them a bloody nose for it.

Preparation is the missing option that allows more outcomes than destroy or don't.

>>64510753
That's a sensible approach for real life an 99% of science fiction or fantasy scenarios, but dark forest is a theoretical scenario where everyone can magically finger snap anyone they see out of existence. You can't defend against that, so all you can do is strike first.

Take out the magic superweapon and it no longer applies.

>>64510441
>Primitive alien friendly civilizations
>Primitive aliens neutral civilizations
>Primitive alien hostile civilizations
>Advanced alien friendly civilizations
>Advanced alien neutral civilizations


Treat all with respect while adopting them to your ideology via military force if needed. Act like La Malinche when she was plotting the Aztec's Doom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Malinche

The instant you run into Oks or even Eldar? Stab them in the face until they stop bothering you.

>>64510822
>>64510753

>All this dark forest talk

Would both of you shut the fuck up and just tell us what book you want us to buy?

>>64510890
>tell us what book
40k books unless that wasn't obvious given my previous rantings. I've read them all.

I just find the whole concept of Dark Forest fundamentally flawed as it requires reality to operate under the rules of someone with a poor understanding of history and how civilizations interact. You need everyone to
>have the means to completely exterminate another civilization but setup to get exterminated in one go by the other civilization
>is incredibly paranoid and will attack anything it sees
>is advanced enough to travel across stars but somehow has to stop off for a bit of conquest/extermination at every contact
>somehow is incapable of just ignoring the existence of another civilization and just going about their merry interstellar way
If ayys passed us by they'd probably think nothing of it, maybe they might send us a message along the lines of "This is God, I'm disappointed" just to fuck with us. Dark Forest ayys have to operate on the same mentality of a person who pulls over their car for every fire ant hill and wasp nest he sees on a drive

>>64510923
What would you suggest in terms of reading?

>>64510930
Generation Kill, read that recently and it was really good

>>64507882
Big admirer of his variety, colors and nipple armor.

>>64510973
I like the funny ones

>>64510890
Another Ultramarines book, of course.