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A Watsonian Discussion into the factions of Warhammer 40K

Which faction in 40K do you find interesting (characters included)

  • Imperium of Man

    Votes: 26 41.3%

  • Craftworld/ Maiden world / Non-Dark Eldar

    Votes: 20 31.7%

  • Tau

    Votes: 39 61.9%

  • Orks

    Votes: 20 31.7%

  • Tyranids

    Votes: 9 14.3%

  • Necrons

    Votes: 21 33.3%

  • Chaos

    Votes: 9 14.3%

  • Dark Eldar

    Votes: 7 11.1%
  • Total voters
    63
Hykal94 said:
They're India's caste system with a hint of Plato's Republic, with the usual human diplomacy of the likes of Star Trek. Also mechas.*
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At their worst they could be considered the British empire in space.


Mr Sheldon said:
I actually find the Orks the most interesting race, in that they are the only truly happy faction in the entire setting. They have a society that is stable, self correcting, and yet still promotes growth. They carry with them their own hardy ecosystem that can be established nearly everywhere and provides everything they need. Ironically, despite the setting, they are one of the few races in fiction that can be truly considered a utopia, at least from their perspective.
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Hey wait a minute! Seeing as the beliefs and desires of psychic species can influence the warp and in turn the materium to some degree could this mean that the reason the 40k universe is so horrific is because the orks' (being highly psychic and the most numerous species in the galaxy) desire for war has slowly but surely twisted the fabric of reality to make a universe of constant conflicts. After all "in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium there is only war "

Doctor Squared said:
Theoretical: Chaos is Chaos but odds are that the Heretic Astartes and their ilk are just as xenophobic as their Loyalist counterparts. Or, the xenos that worship Chaos are more far-flung, isolated, or don't leave Eye-space that often.
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Or they are small fry compared to traitor marines and so aren't considered major threats. Or they are too busy attacking sapient species that are not humans.
 
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StarMaker764 said:
Hey wait a minute! Seeing as the beliefs and desires of psychic species can influence the warp and in turn the materium to some degree could this mean that the reason the 40k universe is so horrific is because the orks' (being highly psychic and the most numerous species in the galaxy) desire for war has slowly but surely twisted the fabric of reality to make a universe of constant conflicts. After all "in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium there is only war "
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Entirely possible. After all, the most united faction of all are the Orks. Even if they disagree on many many small things, they all believe strongly in a single thing, that war is best.
 
Rat King said:
Honestly, I'm not sure there's anything in the lore that supports the Tau in a "struggle" for survival of any kind. They've gone through like, what, five spheres of expansion or something? They're doing fine. Not huge, but they're holding their own.
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The results of the 5th sphere expansion are;
  • Most gains lost due to a warpstorm
  • A necron dynasty setting up next door
  • An orks and Nids settting up next door
  • A chaos faction setting up next door, with the aim of pushing for Tau Heartlands (Nurgle Death Guard)
  • A series of war crimes by various commanders culminating in purges, prisoner massacres, and sacrifices of Auxiliary forces that lead to a Kroot uprising, Auxilary forces being removed from some fourth sphere worlds and the commanders being punished before being returned for 'reassimilation.
  • The rise of the Greater Good warp God.
The way things have been set up now, safe and relatively easy expansion looks to become less viable, and defence of their current territory, and the resource strain that implies are set to become the new norm for the Tau for the near future.

However, the fact that they're still trying to expand without going full monster does them credit.
 
Eos_Astraeus said:
The results of the 5th sphere expansion are;
  • Most gains lost due to a warpstorm
  • A necron dynasty setting up next door
  • An orks and Nids settting up next door
  • A chaos faction setting up next door, with the aim of pushing for Tau Heartlands (Nurgle Death Guard)
  • A series of war crimes by various commanders culminating in purges, prisoner massacres, and sacrifices of Auxiliary forces that lead to a Kroot uprising, Auxilary forces being removed from some fourth sphere worlds and the commanders being punished before being returned for 'reassimilation.
  • The rise of the Greater Good warp God.
The way things have been set up now, safe and relatively easy expansion looks to become less viable, and defence of their current territory, and the resource strain that implies are set to become the new norm for the Tau for the near future.

However, the fact that they're still trying to expand without going full monster does them credit.
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Wait, a nascent Tau God?
 
In my opinion the Dark Eldar is what happens if the Dark Elves of Naggaroth and High Elves of Ulthuan trade personalities.
 
I'd honestly like to see more factions like the Tau.

Xenos that aren't special in some way like Orks, Eldar, or Necrons who somehow manage to survive against the Imperium and not be completely irrelevant.
 
I remember a very old Tau publicity sheet from GW that said that "The Tau were a light of good in a bleak universe". This was official GW announcement material, which leds me to claim that at some point GW wanted to make the Tau honest good guys in 40k.

What made them chance their minds and make them into space fish comunists, I don't know.
 
Sabertooth said:
I remember a very old Tau publicity sheet from GW that said that "The Tau were a light of good in a bleak universe". This was official GW announcement material, which leds me to claim that at some point GW wanted to make the Tau honest good guys in 40k.

What made them chance their minds and make them into space fish comunists, I don't know.
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All the pro-Imperials realizing they weren't really the "good guys" and pitching a fit. :V
 
Sabertooth said:
I remember a very old Tau publicity sheet from GW that said that "The Tau were a light of good in a bleak universe". This was official GW announcement material, which leds me to claim that at some point GW wanted to make the Tau honest good guys in 40k.

What made them chance their minds and make them into space fish comunists, I don't know.
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The fact that the fanbase can't take that "To Be A man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." has appeared in literally every core book that isn't the first.
 
Sabertooth said:
I remember a very old Tau publicity sheet from GW that said that "The Tau were a light of good in a bleak universe". This was official GW announcement material, which leds me to claim that at some point GW wanted to make the Tau honest good guys in 40k.

What made them chance their minds and make them into space fish comunists, I don't know.
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The argument that an out and out Good Guy faction clashed with the aesthetics and themes of the rest of the factions to much had some merit. Most games and shows have established levels of violance and evil demonstrated within their showtimes. If i read a punisher comic and someones arguing that killing people is always wrong, then that person is an idiot who'll be proven wrong, and will only last in the story if he learns this because the themes of the Punisher as a character. If that exact same person shows up in a Batman comic, thens they would be proven write and have good odds of becoming a recurring character to reinfirce the message.

In 40K, the main theme is that things have gone to s**t, and every faction dealing with the s**t hand they've been dealt (even if they brought it on themselves) in different ways. This usually ends up causing most of the conflict

The other "Good" guy factions at the time.
The Eldar
  • Birthed Slannesh and gave Chaos an unassailable bastion to operate from. Still too arrogant to just give straight up help with others. Also incredibly racist, seeing other races as less than dirt, completely on board with letting the rest of the galaxy burn if it would guarantee eldar survival.
The IoM
  • Gave chaos the bulk of its active forces. Still too arrogant to just give straight up help with others. Also incredibly racist, seeing other races as less than dirt, completely on board with letting the rest of the galaxy burn if it would guarantee human survival.

A straight up good guy small faction makes for a nice contrast to all this (Lamentor Space marines, Salamanders), but as a major playable race it doesn't mesh with the rest of the setting.


The Tau being the most morally righteous good guy faction was fine. They just had to be the best factor on a scale calibrated against those 2 races. The current portrayal as space fish communists works well as it allows them to do so, while enabling then to do dark things when pressed as a point of comparison to the other 2 who'd do dark things because its convenient.
 
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Eos_Astraeus said:
The argument that an out and out Good Guy faction clashed with the aesthetics and themes of the rest of the factions to much had some merit. Most games and shows have established levels of violance and evil demonstrated within their showtimes. If i read a punisher comic and someones arguing that killing people is always wrong, then that person is an idiot who'll be proven wrong, and will only last in the story if he learns this because the themes of the Punisher as a character. If that exact same person shows up in a Batman comic, thens they would be proven write and have good odds of becoming a recurring character to reinfirce the message.

In 40K, the main theme is that things have gone to s**t, and every faction dealing with the s**t hand they've been dealt (even if they brought it on themselves) in different ways. This usually ends up causing most of the conflict

The other "Good" guy factions at the time.
The Eldar
  • Birthed Slannesh and gave Chaos an unassailable bastion to operate from. Still too arrogant to just give straight up help with others. Also incredibly racist, seeing other races as less than dirt, completely on board with letting the rest of the galaxy burn if it would guarantee eldar survival.
The IoM
  • Gave chaos the bulk of its active forces. Still too arrogant to just give straight up help with others. Also incredibly racist, seeing other races as less than dirt, completely on board with letting the rest of the galaxy burn if it would guarantee human survival.

A straight up good guy small faction makes for a nice contrast to all this (Lamentor Space marines, Salamanders), but as a major playable race it doesn't mesh with the rest of the setting.


The Tau being the most morally righteous good guy faction was fine. They just had to be the best factor on a scale calibrated against those 2 races. The current portrayal as space fish communists works well as it allows them to do so, while enabling then to do dark things when pressed as a point of comparison to the other 2 who'd do dark things because its convenient.
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I mean, I think you're flat wrong because why don't we just have someone who's actually good and trying to make the best of a situation? Who actually see the galaxy as a place where maybe they can be optimistic or even thrive? Why does it have to be awful? You can have ONLY WAR and not have everyone be a bag of dicks (like, we get this constantly with Imperial protags who are explicitly heroic despite being tools of the incredibly awful Empire).

Also they're not communists.
 
Again, the Tau aren't even vaguely communist.
They have an official caste system for fucks sake
 
Rat King said:
I mean, I think you're flat wrong because why don't we just have someone who's actually good and trying to make the best of a situation? Who actually see the galaxy as a place where maybe they can be optimistic or even thrive? Why does it have to be awful? You can have ONLY WAR and not have everyone be a bag of dicks (like, we get this constantly with Imperial protags who are explicitly heroic despite being tools of the incredibly awful Empire).

Also they're not communists.
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I've got nothing against there being good small factions trying to do the right thing and making the best of the situation. I only have an issue with it when its a major faction in a war being portrayed that way because 99% of poeple in the setting are some flavour of d***.

The 40K galaxy is one were hope and optimism comes at great cost. The protag saving a world is contrasted against the fact that thousands to billions died giving them that chance, the fact that the world was put in danger by a threat that's rarely unique and on another world somewhere in the galaxy, they're doing the exact same thing and succeeding, and that for Imperial protags, they are at best stemming the flow and not actually closing the gapping wounds in the empire.

There's no great victory that'll secure peace throughout the realm, just another battle to make sure the trench-lines don't move and place this planet on the enemy side.

When I said that the other factions dealing with the s**t hand, I meant that living in the Galaxy as it existed when the Tau started to get darkened, a society dealing with things with optimism and hope contrasted to deaply with the other factions.
  • The Eldar are forced to live completely restrictive lives dedicating there entire being into a profession with no hobbies or distractions due to Slannesh.
  • The IoM is a broken shell surviving on pure momentum that degrading on all fronts. The bulk of there cruelty comes from policies aimed at stopping Chaos, and people being Hard Men about every choice because the alternative is annihilation, even when more moderate approaches work.
  • The Necrons at the time had lost all free will they had, and were trapped in eternal servitude to the Ctan
  • The Tyranids are all part of a gasalt entity. The only characters that can be interacted with are unknowing pasties locked into thinking that they'll bring there worlds salvation (genestealer infecties and hybrids)
  • The bulk of Chaos forces were lambs being led to the slaughter by people aiming for demonhood.
  • The Orks were a degraded bio-weapon constantly misfiring on itself rather than unite to improve there lot as target practice to whichever empire controlled the Galaxy (At least they were having fun)
The only exception was the Dark Eldar because they were okay making others deal with the hand they were dealt in Slannesh by torturing others.

A new major faction that was both inherently good and had no major structural drawbacks beyond naivety didn't mesh with this

I personally enjoy the direction that they've been taken in. The results of the fifth sphere expansion showed 2 things.
  1. That when pushed, the Tau military was as capable of brutality and treachery as the rest of the galaxy
  2. That the Tau government would not tolerate this behaviour and treated those actions as serious warcrimes compared to every other faction that would only complain if the tactics failed.
It made the Tau look to be a faction that is Good and is lead by people can be want to be the good guys, but is having that tested as they face the horrors of the galaxy and can be bad people when pushed.

For me at least that's more interesting than a faction that's just good in a galaxy were nothing would inspire or encourage such behaviour.

And yes, I know they aren't communists. I was replying to someone who used that as part of their description
 
I mean, the universe being a catastrafuck headed for oblivion isn't incompatible with a group of naive do-gooders trying to do the right thing; if anything it just casts their naïveté and optimism into harsher relief.

"There's no hope, but goddamnit we're going to try anyway" is a nice change up from "We're just as grimderp as the rest, just with an anime veneer."
 
Eos_Astraeus said:
The 40K galaxy is one were hope and optimism comes at great cost. The protag saving a world is contrasted against the fact that thousands to billions died giving them that chance, the fact that the world was put in danger by a threat that's rarely unique and on another world somewhere in the galaxy, they're doing the exact same thing and succeeding, and that for Imperial protags, they are at best stemming the flow and not actually closing the gapping wounds in the empire.
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I mean, this works if you subscribe to the idea that the Imperium is some kinda dark tragic anti-hero shit. Where the story of the Imperium is a story about human perseverance and idealism being tragically whittled down by an unfair universe.

I don't. It think that's bullshit.

The Imperium is a bloated patchwork empire founded by a crazy space dictator who slaughtered his way across the galaxy with his VERY NORMAL SONS. Half of whom flipped out and tried to kill the other half, breaking a galaxy that they had already themselves broken and tried to put together. Today the Imperium is a crumbling shithead of psychopathic hierarchies propelled purely through institutional intertia and fanaticism.

There's no story of fall from grace or redemption or tragedy in the Imperium, it's just a pile of human flaws stacked in the vague shape of a civilization. There is no cosmic karma that dictates that because the Imperium couldn't hack it that other civilizations are born doomed.
 
The Dark Eldar isn't much better off, everything that defined them was gone except of the excesses of the old Empire. The Dark Eldar's way of life is as much as the Craftworld Eldar's but they are unable to use psyker tech anymore or practice their religous customs in fear of Awakening Slaanesh's servants
 
Mr Sheldon said:
The Tyranids have lower psychic capability, pound for pound. The average Greenskin has more psychic power than the average Tyranid. Otherwise the Shadow in the Warp wouldn't require hundreds of Hive ships to initiate.
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He is referring to the fact tyranid infighting is way less prevalent than orks and even then two hive fleets fighting just ends with them merging into a bigger fleets
 
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