>>96012487
To be honest, I'm just more confused as to what you're looking to discuss here. Like, when you say "Galactic civilizations worse than 40k", what do you mean? Like as a whole, or in terms of individual human rights violations? Cause there's an entire series in Japanese children's media that starts with the galaxy conquered by an empire helmed by a literal incarnation of existential suffering and hatred, which eagerly puts children and the elderly to the sword just as easily as it does to any who rebel against it, and whose planetary magistrates are petty dictators who outright abuse the citizens nominally under their rule, forcing them to slave away at machines designed to drain their planets' natural resources until they were nothing but space dust. And they all do this essentially for the mere entertainment and vanity of being able to grind the cosmos into literally nothing with no one to oppose them.

Like, does that make them better or worse than say the Imperium of Mankind? Is it the "maturity level" of a franchise that decides this kind of thing, like whether it's intended for children or adults? Is it the civilization's ultimate goals or methods that should be the focus, or how they individually deliver their cruelties to the common man?

Oh, and more importantly, are we talking about from tabletop game settings, or fiction as a whole?