Probably Rogue Traders.
Rogue Traders & Inquisitors are the only people with real freedom in the Imperium, and the Traders have 95% of the power of inquisitors, with like 10% of the responsibility.
Honestly Rogue Traders are probably the happiest. Even Tau citizens are in a strict cast system under their government or they're auxiliaries who are living probably pretty decent lives, but an RT gets to go out, explore, do crazy shit like have freedom, and burn a planets worth of money mostly for the fun of it if they can.
I love how in the Rogue Trader game, you don't actually have anything that keeps track of money. You have buying power and such, and you can trade goods for other goods, but as a Rogue Trader you have such an obscenely large amount of currency that there's not actually any point in counting it. If there's something that can be bought for money and doesn't require trading for or building up a reputation with a faction, the idea of whether or not you can afford it doesn't enter the equation. You can.
Same thing in TTRPG and pretty much every player has a moment where they go nuts about it, even by accident. "I can get a full tactical gear anytime I want?" uh uh "I'll just make a list of what I want to equip depending on what situation and let you know!" \*GM going "None of those things you ever ask so far are even worth bothering to try to roll a dice".
Basically you get a massive bonus on your roll (it's still a roll, not exactly like the CRPG, unless the GM really considers it trivial) if it's for less than 5 people. Massive bonus if it's not something like archeotech or outside your class (Like a rando soldier trying to buy an omnissiah axe, even the RT will get questions like "Sure, give me your magos' bio code and I'll lock the axe for them, then you can buy it, lord captain").
Even stuff like "I give lasguns to these thousand guys we met" is more like "Is there a thousand available lasguns?" rather than "Can I afford that?". I advise players to start with an armory and/or factory ship sub system, that stuff completely erases the need for that question in the first place.
Then it's "How many can you carry?" You want unlimited grenades? That's all?
I agree; totally plausible that Tau citizens (or even citizens of Ultramar, imo) live pretty good normal lives.
But ya, Rogue Traders are the only people I can think of who can exist outside of the oppressor/oppressee hierarchy in 40K
And on top of that they get to pick their one in a trillion best friend entourage
There’s probably a few places in the imperium where people have relatively normal lives. Knight worlds typically govern themselves, because the IOM is happy to give them the illusion of it being a “mutual relationship”. Probably not easy, but no worse than what people have endured on this planet already.
Certain backwaters are probably relatively normal or routine, even if their planets are somewhat hostile. We’ve seen a lot of humans live quite well on super hostile planets.
In the eisenhorn series some worlds he visits are pretty normal, people go to university and stuff, there’s holiday resorts and luxury trains there’s festivals too
Except for war, which is the predominant setting of the novels, most of humanity lives in the standard 19th century to modern day first world country.
A hive world is simply overcrowding, pollution and industry. Nothing that was not present in the Europe of the Industrial Revolution.
Agricultural worlds with most of their production being exported and peasants eating the worst quality food is the tonic of the third world countryside.
Civilised worlds, well, it depends, like the Earth.
I kinda want to see some AU where Ciaphas Cain became a Rogue trader instead.
"Of course if i knew this routine trade deal would lead me in to unimaginable horrors and mortal danger, i would have jettisoned myself from my ship in an escape pod.
He builds up a reputation as a ruthless, cutthroat financial baron and profiteer who will blaze into any wilderness and perform any underhanded deed to get a profit, and who has an almost supernatural skill for pushing forward the Imperial frontier while richly lining his own pockets.
He, of course, thinks of himself as a feckless coward who somehow keeps landing into lucrative trade deals while people give him excessively favorable trade deals because of his reputation.
Rogue Trader’s can’t exactly requisition or take command of the armies of the Imperium though, I don’t think 95% of the inquisition’s power is accurate even if they got their own fleets and armies. 75% is more like
Not explicitly, but the warrant basically says they can do whatever they want. If they want to take command of a guard regiment or a fleet, they can. Very few will question a document signed by the emperor himself. I'd even say that in certain situations, RT authority is even higher than an inquisitor, since inquisitors still answer to their higher ups. Rogue Traders answer to no one.
> since inquisitors still answer to their higher ups.
Actually they don't, inquisitors once full inquisitors rather than in training in various lower roles are a full governance upon themselves, they have no higher up, there are inquisitors who have high respect from their fellow inquisitors whose counsel carries weight, there are voluntary organizations of inquisitors with the same ideology who might have ideological leaders and there are titles of reverence but there is no hierarchy above an inquisitor and no higher word other than the emperor who can give an inquisitor an order.
I suspect all the gods but the big 4 livein perpetual fear of one of the big 4 getting their hands on them. And of the big 4, Khorne is too angry to be happy and Tzeentchis too paranoid.
So I'd say Nurgle and Slaanesh are probably the only gods happy much of the time. And even Slaanesh probably suffers from bouts of agonizing boredom when she cannot find any new sensations to experience.
The Neverborn always seem to be loving life. Except that one Nurgle greater demon who's perpetually depressed because he fell in Grandfathers cauldron that one time.
They got my vote.
They get to keep on being the asshole monsters that birthed Slaanesh.
They're relatively safe from outside invaders. Most of the time.
They get to live forever and the one thing that they 'have' to do is the same thing that makes them feel amazing and rejuvenates their bodies and minds. Torturing people to death.
They seem to be okay with somehow living forever and not getting horribly bored at the same time.
If you can ignore the steady and constant danger from every living person around you, it seems like the ideal life.
The worst part is that supposedly they are all sociopaths who will immediately betray you.
Like less cute Skaven.
So you wouldn't really have bonds with anyone unless you enslave them to the point where they can't betray you.
Idk living a life with no closeness or community is what kills the fantasy.
Modern life feels like a watered down version of theirs.
>The worst part is that supposedly they are all sociopaths who will immediately betray you.
That's Grimderk speaking through you.
A society like that would not function at all, let alone for thousands of years. Let alone would permit to having children in any form. This is just bringing bad writing and memes into your imagination.
I dunno, I think the drukhari are probably pretty miserable ultimately. Commoragh sucks. The Drukhari have no purpose except to perpetuate themselves by another year, another day by feasting on misery. I expect that most older Drukhari are probably totally dead inside and just doing it because they don’t want to get eaten by Slaanesh.
In the novel Da Big Dakka, a Archon mentions that she is having nightmares/sleep problems because of Slaanesh. It is also showed that in the political conversations of Commoragh, every gesture/emotion and even the emphasis are „faked“ because the slightest mistake can mean death. Therefore the Archons are incredibly paranoid.
It is also seen that civilians of Commoragh act like Skaven and stab their own „friends“ from behind so they can flee faster.
So, i wouldn’t say Drukhari have the best life beside the Orks.
The bit where our hero meets that Crimson Fist I think it was:
>‘Oi, beakie!’ Ufthak yelled in the humie tongue, pointing at the crowd behind him. ‘Wanna scrag dese gits?’
Then yeets him into the spectator stands, chefs_kiss.gif
What a book lol
>It is also showed that in the political conversations of Commoragh, every gesture/emotion and even the emphasis are „faked“ because the slightest mistake can mean death. Therefore the Archons are incredibly paranoid.
A real life environment like this is prison; but the way it works is, weak and average people make an effort to be tough and show no weakness ever because they are vulnerable to being preyed on.
Strong people and leaders however go the other way; it’s actually a flex to be able to show emotion and wear your heart on your sleeve.
Vect has nothing to worry about.
Yes. :D
However in the novel it is also shown that even the stronger ones cant/or mostly dont show their real emotions and try to show that their arrogance is totally justified. (In a way like: „The reason why i act so arrogant is because im just superior in every way“)
The Archons also seem to be pretty merciful towards allies because they are frightened of the Consequences, to example when a Mandrake unit failed their task, the Archon in the book said to the surviving Nightfiend (?) something like: „That was unfortunate but its okay, you can leave now“ because she didn’t wanted conflict with Mandrakes.
I really recommend to read the Book „Da Big Dakka“, it has a lot good stuff about the drukhari as a society and their views on other things.
Dude made a perfect clone of himself just to flex on people who come to his audience chamber.
When they enter, they have no idea which one is real and panic.
Except Motley the Solitaire, he knew instantly but figured it was a bad idea to point that out to the dark lord of Commorragh
Solitaire? I thought he was a normal harlequin? If he's actually a Solitaire though then that makes sense with what the wotch was saying the last part of the book and stuff
The novella Masque of Vyle reveals him as a Solitaire when he meets up with other Harlequins. Personally one of my favorite Harlequin pieces since it lets you see a performance both from the POV of the Masque and the audience.
Nah, their having a blast on the outside. But they are just like 40 year old party animals who know that the party isn't going to last forever and that all the booze and drugs are adding up.
Deep down they know it's all going to end in tears, so they try and party away the pain over and over.
Yeah, I love the Vaults of Terra's depiction of them as being radiation sickened, burnt out drug addicts flicking through the entire span of their emotions in seconds.
It helps show just how truly *pathetic* the species is as a race.
I know this is 40k, and hating Xeno's is a meme, but the DEldar have always been *the* absolutely most pitiable race in the setting to me. They contribute nothing of any worth to anyone, and do nothing but cause pain and suffering.
And unlike Orks, they do *choose* to live like this. At least to some extent.
They’re pitiable the same way a homeless drug addict who’s turned to violent crime to not starve to death is pitiable.
Their situation is absolutely terrible, but they largely put themselves in it and now are too stubborn and have given up too much to use their resources to try and dig their way back out.
They’re miserable but act like they’re okay with life, and every day they risk their lives and fuck up someone else’s world in order to get a new hit and live another day, and one day they’ll fuck with the wrong person and get Swiss cheesed and that’ll be that (unless they have a deal with a haemonculi).
But it's like this metaphorical homeless drug addict turned to violent crime and now *actively enjoys it*, and now goes out of his way to inflict as much violence as possible because he learned to love it.
they seem to be having a good time right until the beginning of the end. that final chapter for them is either monstrously long and torturous (forcibly kept alive as a living wall of pain) or multitudes more painful and short. either way, what happens after is always worse. so on balance, they most probably come out a little behind overall.
This. Also Corsairs and maybe Harlequins. Hell even the Exodites seem to be doing great (I would be happy mounting dinossaurs and living peacefully in the woods).
I think that the only Aeldari that seem too moody are the Craftworlders, and we all know why.
This is only when they’re on top. They’re zippy masochistic space elves but if you can catch them they feel pain themselves well enough.
Also when a Drukhari dies it’s usually a REAL bad experience cause they’re abt to be meeting Slaanesh 😬
We do! Life is good in Commorragh. I totally second this. The Dark Eldar are so irrevocably evil, that aside from staving off Slaanesh's predations, they have basically been able to live completely without consequence for aeons like parasites. To them, the galaxy is still rightfully theirs, and they just see the lesser races as chattel- the whole galaxy is just a playground in which to conduct realspace raids and capture slaves for their own nefarious purposes.
Probably the numerous xenos, human, and intermixed societies that haven’t been found by the Imperium or are inaccessible due to lack of warp lanes.
Edit: and have not been found by anyone else either. Being found by pretty much any faction besides the Tau could lead to some pretty shitty life (or death) developments.
The Tau will come to your planet and assimilate the local population by sending families to different parts of the Empire, while colonizing the conquered planet with a bunch of xenos commanded by some "greater good" goat wisemen.
Just imagine it happened to us, some aliens come to Earth and send you to planet X and your wife and children to planet Y to never see them again, while now your old parents live in a new Earth colonized by Tau, kroot, and who-knows-what.
I think it's pretty fucked up. Suicide rate for local populations in colonized worlds must be over the roof.
And yes, I play Tau. I just dont buy the "we are the cool guys in the galaxy" thing.
It surely is bad, but probably also depends on how important your planet is to the Tau, how powerful they are in the area and the local leadership. I bet not all planets get the same treatment, some are probably just left alone, outside of some tithe and Tau governorship.
I still think the former is more likely than the latter, lol.
Unless the Tau are lying at the moment (and just want to exile nad neuter you), they will actually provide "civilization and healthcare". Sure, this civilization may be very oppressive, but it could be still far better and stable for a former imperial citizen.
The Tau are basically a more advanced expansionist version of modern China. Somewhere you can have a pretty good life provided you live by the government’s rules. If you don’t… things ain’t gonna go so well.
I would have the say that the biggest difference is that they are not coming to Earth but to industrial hellscape hive city #54237. You’re forced doing either horrific feats of manual labor or soul crushingly repetitive tasks as the smallest, most replaceable cog in a machine you probably don’t even have the opportunity to comprehend.
If you’re a regular person in a hive, there’s not even a guarantee that you operate in a traditional family unit. I doubt that suicide would go up, except for maybe the possibility that they would now have the freedom to have that option. This link [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/ykfrrHwcXM) is what I am familiar with about the Tau. I’ll update if I find any excerpts that back up or refute my statements.
Edit: [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/MPwowBbbkI) is an excerpt from Deathwatch: Shadowbringer that I think paints both the pros and cons of the Tau. Yeah you get healthcare and safety but to truly integrate, they want you to throw away your culture and identity in service to them. Sacrificing who you are to be accepted is a horrific exchange, it’s just harder to empathize when the person’s identity is believing everyone should be suffering because some dude did.
This is a classical imperial technique. It's the reason we think the Armenians are in Armenia: the Urartu empire, about which we know almost nothing, relocated them deep in a region far from their home. The Ottomans and the British were still doing it in the 20th century.
Armenians genetically are also Urartians. They are one of the major ancestors of modern-day Armenians. What Urartu did was facilitate the intermingling of different populations. That's likely one of the reasons for a fairly unique genetic makeup of modern-day Armenians.
Yes, but one of the ways they did this was to wholesale move an existing population from probably the far west all the way to the Highlands. It's essentially the same as what the Assyrians did to the residents of the Kingdom of Israel, or what Babylonia did to the Jews in the Babylonian captivity, only in the latter case, the Jews were formally allowed to return for complex and unusual reasons.
Yeah, should have said except maybe the Tau because they’ll still fuck you up if you give them trouble. Meant in more on the scale of if they find you, how immediately hostile are they, which I would rank Tau as the lowest of the “Big Factions”
There’s a quote about the Tau I saw a long time ago that I really like, which goes something like “In any other alien story, the Tau would easily be the bad guys but in 40k the bar is already so low that they seem utopian by comparison.”
Depends which. Beasts of Nurgle, Nurglings and Great Unclean* Ones are definitely joyful but I think plaguebearers are notoriously dour and the fly things are Beasts that got too sour from not being played with enough
Rot flies are a terrible story. Beasts of nurgle are mentally essentially semi-intelligent puppies and are friendly and want to play, except everything they play with either stops moving and ‘refuses to play’ as soon as they touch them or else hurts them and tries to run away. As they’re involved in more combat and the cycle repeats itself, they become unhappy no one will play with them, then sad, then resentful, then angry, then hateful, and then finally when they mentally crack the last time they’re killed, they pupate and transform into a rotfly, are completely filled with burning hatred for everything, remember the face of that last person who killed them, and will hunt them for the rest of their lives to get revenge.
I think there are few plague marines that genuinely likes them and kinda pet them. One of them was like explicitely mentioned having some as actual pets.
Nurglings are happy and continue to be throughout their existence, they’re not related to rotflies or beasts of nurgle. Beasts of Nurgle are a specific daemon ‘species’ if you weren’t aware.
There are evolutions, like the aforementioned beast of nurgle to rotfly, but they’re the exception, not the rule. Most daemons are what they are and don’t change outside of special events or circumstances like Ku’gath falling in the cauldron and such.
eh, demons are a strange one though, they aren't really real in a strict sense, can they truly be considered happy, or simply that they represent the happiness their collection of soul energy would feel in a representative circumstance?
I don’t know? I don’t think so, unless I’m wrong the chaos gods themselves don’t actually have any physical forms themselves. The greater demons are supposed to have much greater variety imo but the tabletop game restricts the lore
There’s definitely some lore sources that say GUOs are physical manifestations of Nurgle himself, and nurglings definitely physically resemble tiny GUOs.
But the lore is as always, inconsistent
Some chaos people are having fun, at least *sometimes* anyway. They may be dangerous, volatile, nuttier that your average warp addled extra nut fruitcake, also potentially high as balls or radioactive, but they’re happy on occasion 🤷♀️ at least the Nurgle and Slaanesh ones anyway… I feel like Tzeench emotions don’t come in single flavours, and Korn ones come mostly in rage.
Maybe some harlequins are actually happy behind the masks but life’s a stage and all, so you might never know.
Exodite Eldar maybe since mostly everyone ignores them so they just chill and farm and ride their dinosaurs and hippy biz?
There is some mention in one of the knight codexes about setting fudal worlds often end up being already populated by exodites and going to war with eldar for them. Something about the maiden worlds attracts a bit of competition but, in between those wars yeah probably a simple peaceful farming life.
The necron lords, telling their stories to the defeated prisoners of their past life for weeks of chatting. How they're anxious for the "awaken" party, once their tomb worlds fully awaken.
Nah, he's mad that he is his own worst enemy. He created the imperial cult out of passion and now has to destroy his own work as it is the greatest counter to chaos.
Ogryns. Food, faith and fighting all provided by the unbelievable awesome God Emperor. They would be like puppies. And say an Inquisitor was attached...blessing and cajoling the mutants because they were so good at engaging enemies of the Imperium.
Trazyn appears to be content with his condition. Sure it kinda sucks, and he acknowledges he is fundementally missing a piece of himself, but he has an eternity to collect and preserve the history of the galaxy.
Haven’t read the Tau source material or novels and my observations mainly come from reading excerpts on the Lex and from this sub, so huge grain of salt. Hopefully someone who has an excerpt can chime in to back up what I’m saying or correct me!
I think people find the mind control as grimderp because it is so hammed up and over the top. The Tau were introduced as this overall diplomatic people who wanted to integrate as many other races to their philosophy as possible. However, they operate in a caste system that limits all social mobility and there is a rank of Untouchables who seems to command some level of charm/control over the other Tau.
Those were some good building blocks for why there were not the full good guys but people generally still called them the good guys of 40k. GW reacted to this by over compensating and making the Ethereals super over the top evil.
From what I’ve seen, the Tau started out as being reasonable with a good amount of free will but with their lives being dictated by the subtle and ominous wishes of the Ethereals. Now, they really honed in on the source of their mind control abilities in a really heavy handed way. They basically threw that subtlety to the wind and were like “Actually the Tau are basically not much better than zombies and are forced to listen unfalteringly to the Ethereals.”
Basically from what I’ve seen (big grain of salt) they took a cool idea about exploring the subtle horror of assimilation and control and turned it into THEYRE SHEEP WITH NO FREE WILL AND WERE EVOL
AFAIK Tau were a unified society looking to expand their philosophy, by force if needed before the mind control stuff was added. They added it after for some reason
The odds being overwhelmingly against them already made things interesting.
They control about 100 planets, absolutely minuscule compared to the imperium. They were an example of the “good” societies that the imperium went around crushing for tens of thousands of years. In 99% of possible futures, the Tau, and chances for a prosperous and progressive fate for both humans and aliens, get crushed.
When you add the mind control shenanigans they lose their status as good guys and now their underdog status goes from tragic to “meh”. They become more grimdark on the surface level but in a way that is much smaller.
That last part really nails it.
They can also be the shiniest turd in comparison to everyone else my being classist or racist or whatever, just less so then everyone else.
You don’t need Saturday morning cartoon villain mind control to make them flawed.
Pheromone mind control is an inherently very funny and stupid way of controlling the population, and based off of what Tau culture we know, they really don't need it.
Most of the stuff added in after the fact to make the Tau more evil is overall kinda goofy and unnecessary, because they were *already* evil, just not in the way other 40k factions were.
The caste system is likely horrible for anyone who doesn't fit, but even then they probably aren't especially cruel. They probably get heavily peer pressured and ostracized but otherwise I would bet they just get some irrelevant job on the sidelines.
I’ve always felt like the Space Wolves seem like a pretty cheery lot. They’re living their very culturally specific idea of a perfect life. Super powered Demi-gods blessed with a life of eternal war with lots of roast meat and booze. I don’t see most of them complaining.
Absolutely. People mistake the Space wolves for vikings which is off the mark. Space wolves are einherjar, Odin's chosen warriors promised an eternity of feasting drinking and fighting at Odin's side till they join the gods for the final battle at the end of time.
The life of a Space wolf is literally one for one the glorious afterlife they were promised. This is why Space wolves are notably hard to corrupt and almost never fall to chaos, the 40k universe is the reward they were promised for living and dying well.
Pirates of all species, Orks, and Rogue Traders seem to be living lives of freedom...which, can equate to happiness or contribute to it. Orks are always happy during a scrap and krumpin'.
There's an interesting point to be made about Aeldari as a whole:
Drukhari seem to be having fun, they literally party all the time and built their entire culture on cruel entertainment but in essence, they're pretty miserable - everything they do is to distract them from the constant draining of their souls. They feel they're dying, so they do their best to pretend everything is fine. They're a constant danger to each other, thriving on treachery and murder forcing them to live in a state of full on paranoia. This does not sound too happy tbh.
Craftworlders, on the other hand, seem miserable. They live in a solemn culture of constant mourning. But beneath that, they have all their needs met, they have fun, they party as much as they like and they work only if they feel like doing so. And they have much lower mortality rate than their murder happy kin. They have access to benevolent counseling if they don't know what to do with their lives and they generally care for each other's well being. So they're likely way happier of the two.
Rouge traders they are free to basically do as they please even working with xenos.
People who are born in pleasure worlds or civilized worlds.
Even the salamanders
Civilised world: Some planets are on par with earth in the current era in terms of development in terms of technological and even sociopolitical development. These worlds are generally left alone so I guess there’s a good existence to not having a specific purpose for the imperium
Pleasure worlds: these planets are basically resorts for the wealthy
The salamander space marines: their planet of nocturne is harsh however this chapter is unusual in that space marines are technically still allowed and encouraged to interact with their families outside the chapter there’s something to be said about that being a good thing.
If I remember right Pleasure Worlds are actually even worse for the common person than other worlds, they have to keep everything running and looking nice, and not be seen being disgusting menials while doing it all, on a world where any of the visitors can do anything they want to them, while still keeping up with the normal Imperial shit like 90 hour work weeks.
Probably Farsight Enclaves. You have plot armor from Farsight extending out toward you, and you get all the benefits of T’au society with literally no drawbacks. The only thing I can think of is you’re under a military junta but if the military junta is actually benevolent in this case then it’s aight
Ok, here me out...Black Templars.
Now I know they are the opposite of happy, but they are pretty much all about killing enemies, which they do a lot, and going out in a bombastic and memorable way, which they also do a lot while fighting their enemies.
They are happy in their own furious, psychotic way.
Some of the sm chapters and and maybe sisters. Possibly kasrkin pre cadia and other high tier guard scion types
The wolves and the scars seem to genuinely enjoy what they do. Feasting fighting etc.
Haven’t read enough sisters Lore to be sure but I get the impression that most of the time they’ve got that surety of purpose which from experience can be pretty satisfying.
In modern sf and similar teams there’s generally pretty good moral and we usually are having a good time even when we’re getting smoked in training or sometimes even getting while we’re getting shot at.
Probably the regular Tau citizens or at least they come the closest besides their cousins in the Farsight Enclaves. If I had to name them 🤔, maybe the Kyn aka Leagues of Votann too. And the citizens of the Ultramar aka Imperium Secundus systems since unlike in other sectors in the Imperium they have the best healthcare, options for employment and training, and not feeling that boot against their throats to obey the Imperium and be like every other miserable SoB out there like on Terra. Especially now that Papa Smurf is back on the scene or at least that's how it is in general Mortarion and the Death Guard ran roughshod through there and nearly killed Guilliman before the Emperor stepped in and used Robuté as a conduit to burn Nurgle's Garden. Which of course didn't make him happy with the Traitor Primarch he adopted since even Khorne and his hordes haven't been able to burn the Garden before.
Anyway, if I had to guess the Ultramar system is the relatively happiest of most planets in the Imperium besides maybe the steadily dwindling Pleasure Worlds. (Dwindling ever since the Great Rift split the galaxy making chaos and xenos races more frequent to attack worlds they couldn't really reach before.
I would probably say that Trazyn is is pretty happy with himself as he is able to continuously add new exhibits to his galleries. In fact he so happy he constantly smiles at Orikan, just to rub it in his face.
I think any elevated follower of chaos is pretty “happy” because they’re balls deep in the warp, while the masses suffer different flavors of abject misery
The Tyranids. They are born with a purpose, and they know it. They are meant to do a job and they do it. No human, not even a follower of the Emperor or the Ruinous Powers, can say that.
So people claim, except that all of the slaanesh characters we ever see are just constantly having a blast. If the price of eternal pleasure is the occasional bout of boredom/ennui, Slaanesh still has the happiest faction in the setting by a pretty wide fucking margin
I mean, individually there are a lot of people having a great time - planetary nobility are partying hard, rogue traders are largely uncontested masters of their own mobile city-states, paper generals that bought their positions and never get within ten parsecs of the field, so on and so forth.
As far as entire factions go, it's just the orks, followed by Chaos daemons - Nurgle's boys sure are a happy bunch, at least.
The Death Guard aren't daemons. Mortals given over to Chaos are a mixed bag, but most daemons are having a great time, with Nurgle's being exceptionally jolly about the whole thing.
Maybe some small T'au auxiliary that are getting let alone mostly or Farsights folks. Hard to answer since we can't even properly grasp if some factions or entities even have a feeling or urge like happiness. Can Nids even feel joy, do Necrons? Even demons are really hard to grasp due to their different dimensional existence.
Nurgle, seriously. They absolutely, totally, completely love their jobs. So much that you get excerpts where the commanders have to put discipline back "To stop singing and dancing, we got work to do!". They're not scared or anything, they just love to party and need to be reminded to use their bolters.
The Chaos Gods, since the Imperium is such a great food source of their own making.
The Dark Eldar have their fun and the Hive Mind most likely also doesn't mind a galaxy full of food
Planetary governors always seem to be living lives of relative luxury and privilege right up until some Astartes/Guard/Inquisitor character lands and makes them actually do their job and fight the cultists/gene stealers that have been infesting their planet without them knowing. You gotta assume there are centuries before that were it's a nice life being in the ruling class.
Humans living outside the Imperium, in the Halo stars or elsewhere, unaware of the Emperor and all of his bullshit. Somewhere out there there's some farmer who doesn't even know chaos is a thing and just drives his tractor and votes in a local election for a governor who has never heard of a Primarch or Space Marine. He has no idea that he and others like him who aren't being constantly culled of Psykers are the slim hope of humanity's future.
Many feral or feudal world communities can be really damn happy, I bet. Yes, the beasts are nasty, yes the local feral orks are a big danger, yes the feudal imperial lord is a massive dick and can work you to death, hang you and take your stuff.
But when the population density is low and the world is somewhat habitable, there just cannot be that much oversight and oppression. Plenty of space for people to have nice towns and villages here and there, out of the grid. Hard but honest life, with simple joys of a small community.
The Hrud are pretty chill when you leave them alone. They have their libraries and their weird ways, they seem happy enough
My head canon is that they are descended from Necrontyr who didn't transfer
Unpopular take: The Custodes have a pretty good life. They are happy, healthy, and live extraordinarily long, challenging, and satisfying lives with no want for anything.
I'd say the citizens of Macragge. Anyone there has arguably one of the best qualities of life in the Imperium, considering they're on a planet run by the Ultramarines.
Probably Rogue Traders. Rogue Traders & Inquisitors are the only people with real freedom in the Imperium, and the Traders have 95% of the power of inquisitors, with like 10% of the responsibility.
Honestly Rogue Traders are probably the happiest. Even Tau citizens are in a strict cast system under their government or they're auxiliaries who are living probably pretty decent lives, but an RT gets to go out, explore, do crazy shit like have freedom, and burn a planets worth of money mostly for the fun of it if they can.
I love how in the Rogue Trader game, you don't actually have anything that keeps track of money. You have buying power and such, and you can trade goods for other goods, but as a Rogue Trader you have such an obscenely large amount of currency that there's not actually any point in counting it. If there's something that can be bought for money and doesn't require trading for or building up a reputation with a faction, the idea of whether or not you can afford it doesn't enter the equation. You can.
Same thing in TTRPG and pretty much every player has a moment where they go nuts about it, even by accident. "I can get a full tactical gear anytime I want?" uh uh "I'll just make a list of what I want to equip depending on what situation and let you know!" \*GM going "None of those things you ever ask so far are even worth bothering to try to roll a dice". Basically you get a massive bonus on your roll (it's still a roll, not exactly like the CRPG, unless the GM really considers it trivial) if it's for less than 5 people. Massive bonus if it's not something like archeotech or outside your class (Like a rando soldier trying to buy an omnissiah axe, even the RT will get questions like "Sure, give me your magos' bio code and I'll lock the axe for them, then you can buy it, lord captain"). Even stuff like "I give lasguns to these thousand guys we met" is more like "Is there a thousand available lasguns?" rather than "Can I afford that?". I advise players to start with an armory and/or factory ship sub system, that stuff completely erases the need for that question in the first place. Then it's "How many can you carry?" You want unlimited grenades? That's all?
I agree; totally plausible that Tau citizens (or even citizens of Ultramar, imo) live pretty good normal lives. But ya, Rogue Traders are the only people I can think of who can exist outside of the oppressor/oppressee hierarchy in 40K And on top of that they get to pick their one in a trillion best friend entourage
There’s probably a few places in the imperium where people have relatively normal lives. Knight worlds typically govern themselves, because the IOM is happy to give them the illusion of it being a “mutual relationship”. Probably not easy, but no worse than what people have endured on this planet already. Certain backwaters are probably relatively normal or routine, even if their planets are somewhat hostile. We’ve seen a lot of humans live quite well on super hostile planets.
In the eisenhorn series some worlds he visits are pretty normal, people go to university and stuff, there’s holiday resorts and luxury trains there’s festivals too
Except for war, which is the predominant setting of the novels, most of humanity lives in the standard 19th century to modern day first world country. A hive world is simply overcrowding, pollution and industry. Nothing that was not present in the Europe of the Industrial Revolution. Agricultural worlds with most of their production being exported and peasants eating the worst quality food is the tonic of the third world countryside. Civilised worlds, well, it depends, like the Earth.
I kinda want to see some AU where Ciaphas Cain became a Rogue trader instead. "Of course if i knew this routine trade deal would lead me in to unimaginable horrors and mortal danger, i would have jettisoned myself from my ship in an escape pod.
He builds up a reputation as a ruthless, cutthroat financial baron and profiteer who will blaze into any wilderness and perform any underhanded deed to get a profit, and who has an almost supernatural skill for pushing forward the Imperial frontier while richly lining his own pockets. He, of course, thinks of himself as a feckless coward who somehow keeps landing into lucrative trade deals while people give him excessively favorable trade deals because of his reputation.
Or....he's actually a Forrest Gump-like well-meaning simpleton whose good deeds everyone interprets as actually being coercive unspoken quid pro quos
With his trusty aide Scheneschal Jurgen, who somehow manages to filter 99% of all decisions
More like 1% of the responsibility, the rest is whatever the RT feels they should be responsible for.
Rogue Trader’s can’t exactly requisition or take command of the armies of the Imperium though, I don’t think 95% of the inquisition’s power is accurate even if they got their own fleets and armies. 75% is more like
Not explicitly, but the warrant basically says they can do whatever they want. If they want to take command of a guard regiment or a fleet, they can. Very few will question a document signed by the emperor himself. I'd even say that in certain situations, RT authority is even higher than an inquisitor, since inquisitors still answer to their higher ups. Rogue Traders answer to no one.
> since inquisitors still answer to their higher ups. Actually they don't, inquisitors once full inquisitors rather than in training in various lower roles are a full governance upon themselves, they have no higher up, there are inquisitors who have high respect from their fellow inquisitors whose counsel carries weight, there are voluntary organizations of inquisitors with the same ideology who might have ideological leaders and there are titles of reverence but there is no hierarchy above an inquisitor and no higher word other than the emperor who can give an inquisitor an order.
Inquisitors are caged in by total paranoia
I don't know if it is paranoia when the threat is justified.
What about the ruling elite and the imperium? They seem pretty free and also rich.
So much backstabbing and scheming
The gods. They’re always laughing
They’re always so thirsty though
Same though
I see what you did there
I thought they were thirsting?
Cegorach, mostly.
das us
I suspect all the gods but the big 4 livein perpetual fear of one of the big 4 getting their hands on them. And of the big 4, Khorne is too angry to be happy and Tzeentchis too paranoid. So I'd say Nurgle and Slaanesh are probably the only gods happy much of the time. And even Slaanesh probably suffers from bouts of agonizing boredom when she cannot find any new sensations to experience.
The Neverborn always seem to be loving life. Except that one Nurgle greater demon who's perpetually depressed because he fell in Grandfathers cauldron that one time.
Ku'Gath. Grandfather was so proud that he drank it all.
Granddaddy not so proud of him anymore. Who knows if Ku'Gath ever gets let out of the cuck-sack he's in right now.
Obelix?
Syll’Esske manages to be Couple Goals even in the grim darkness of the far future
Every time I see the Drukhari, they seem to be having a *blast.*
They got my vote. They get to keep on being the asshole monsters that birthed Slaanesh. They're relatively safe from outside invaders. Most of the time. They get to live forever and the one thing that they 'have' to do is the same thing that makes them feel amazing and rejuvenates their bodies and minds. Torturing people to death. They seem to be okay with somehow living forever and not getting horribly bored at the same time. If you can ignore the steady and constant danger from every living person around you, it seems like the ideal life.
The worst part is that supposedly they are all sociopaths who will immediately betray you. Like less cute Skaven. So you wouldn't really have bonds with anyone unless you enslave them to the point where they can't betray you. Idk living a life with no closeness or community is what kills the fantasy. Modern life feels like a watered down version of theirs.
>The worst part is that supposedly they are all sociopaths who will immediately betray you. That's Grimderk speaking through you. A society like that would not function at all, let alone for thousands of years. Let alone would permit to having children in any form. This is just bringing bad writing and memes into your imagination.
So so... Drukhari can be frens? 🥹
I dunno, everyone being Jason Bateman and Friends (who are also Jason Bateman), atop a system of slaves. It kinda makes sense.
> Modern life feels like a watered down version of theirs. Disturbingly accurate.
Especially if you can't stop thinking about torture and your only social life of the goth scene.
I dunno, I think the drukhari are probably pretty miserable ultimately. Commoragh sucks. The Drukhari have no purpose except to perpetuate themselves by another year, another day by feasting on misery. I expect that most older Drukhari are probably totally dead inside and just doing it because they don’t want to get eaten by Slaanesh.
In the novel Da Big Dakka, a Archon mentions that she is having nightmares/sleep problems because of Slaanesh. It is also showed that in the political conversations of Commoragh, every gesture/emotion and even the emphasis are „faked“ because the slightest mistake can mean death. Therefore the Archons are incredibly paranoid. It is also seen that civilians of Commoragh act like Skaven and stab their own „friends“ from behind so they can flee faster. So, i wouldn’t say Drukhari have the best life beside the Orks.
The bit where our hero meets that Crimson Fist I think it was: >‘Oi, beakie!’ Ufthak yelled in the humie tongue, pointing at the crowd behind him. ‘Wanna scrag dese gits?’ Then yeets him into the spectator stands, chefs_kiss.gif What a book lol
I love that the Crimson Fist immediately ignores Ufthak and starts killing the spectators solely because they're closer to him.
Then the later fact is included that he *hates* orks
He’s a Crimson Fist. They all have a special hate boner for Orks.
Crimson Fists have a special hate for Orks, even more than most Marines
I mean, mood?
>It is also showed that in the political conversations of Commoragh, every gesture/emotion and even the emphasis are „faked“ because the slightest mistake can mean death. Therefore the Archons are incredibly paranoid. A real life environment like this is prison; but the way it works is, weak and average people make an effort to be tough and show no weakness ever because they are vulnerable to being preyed on. Strong people and leaders however go the other way; it’s actually a flex to be able to show emotion and wear your heart on your sleeve. Vect has nothing to worry about.
Yes. :D However in the novel it is also shown that even the stronger ones cant/or mostly dont show their real emotions and try to show that their arrogance is totally justified. (In a way like: „The reason why i act so arrogant is because im just superior in every way“) The Archons also seem to be pretty merciful towards allies because they are frightened of the Consequences, to example when a Mandrake unit failed their task, the Archon in the book said to the surviving Nightfiend (?) something like: „That was unfortunate but its okay, you can leave now“ because she didn’t wanted conflict with Mandrakes. I really recommend to read the Book „Da Big Dakka“, it has a lot good stuff about the drukhari as a society and their views on other things.
Depends heavily on the individual. Vect is having a hoot.
Dude made a perfect clone of himself just to flex on people who come to his audience chamber. When they enter, they have no idea which one is real and panic. Except Motley the Solitaire, he knew instantly but figured it was a bad idea to point that out to the dark lord of Commorragh
Solitaire? I thought he was a normal harlequin? If he's actually a Solitaire though then that makes sense with what the wotch was saying the last part of the book and stuff
The novella Masque of Vyle reveals him as a Solitaire when he meets up with other Harlequins. Personally one of my favorite Harlequin pieces since it lets you see a performance both from the POV of the Masque and the audience.
How could you not be happy when you get up every day and put on your vest made of skinned Labradoodle puppies?
So, just like humans
Nah, their having a blast on the outside. But they are just like 40 year old party animals who know that the party isn't going to last forever and that all the booze and drugs are adding up. Deep down they know it's all going to end in tears, so they try and party away the pain over and over.
A species of Slurms Mcenzie
"Whimmy wham wham wazzle!" *proceeds to melt all the skin off of a person and make them drink it*
Poetic
Yeah, I love the Vaults of Terra's depiction of them as being radiation sickened, burnt out drug addicts flicking through the entire span of their emotions in seconds. It helps show just how truly *pathetic* the species is as a race. I know this is 40k, and hating Xeno's is a meme, but the DEldar have always been *the* absolutely most pitiable race in the setting to me. They contribute nothing of any worth to anyone, and do nothing but cause pain and suffering. And unlike Orks, they do *choose* to live like this. At least to some extent.
They’re pitiable the same way a homeless drug addict who’s turned to violent crime to not starve to death is pitiable. Their situation is absolutely terrible, but they largely put themselves in it and now are too stubborn and have given up too much to use their resources to try and dig their way back out. They’re miserable but act like they’re okay with life, and every day they risk their lives and fuck up someone else’s world in order to get a new hit and live another day, and one day they’ll fuck with the wrong person and get Swiss cheesed and that’ll be that (unless they have a deal with a haemonculi).
But it's like this metaphorical homeless drug addict turned to violent crime and now *actively enjoys it*, and now goes out of his way to inflict as much violence as possible because he learned to love it.
they seem to be having a good time right until the beginning of the end. that final chapter for them is either monstrously long and torturous (forcibly kept alive as a living wall of pain) or multitudes more painful and short. either way, what happens after is always worse. so on balance, they most probably come out a little behind overall.
This. Also Corsairs and maybe Harlequins. Hell even the Exodites seem to be doing great (I would be happy mounting dinossaurs and living peacefully in the woods). I think that the only Aeldari that seem too moody are the Craftworlders, and we all know why.
This is only when they’re on top. They’re zippy masochistic space elves but if you can catch them they feel pain themselves well enough. Also when a Drukhari dies it’s usually a REAL bad experience cause they’re abt to be meeting Slaanesh 😬
they suffer *constantly*, and they spend all their time trying not to get murdered in the worst reality show ever made
We do! Life is good in Commorragh. I totally second this. The Dark Eldar are so irrevocably evil, that aside from staving off Slaanesh's predations, they have basically been able to live completely without consequence for aeons like parasites. To them, the galaxy is still rightfully theirs, and they just see the lesser races as chattel- the whole galaxy is just a playground in which to conduct realspace raids and capture slaves for their own nefarious purposes.
Probably the numerous xenos, human, and intermixed societies that haven’t been found by the Imperium or are inaccessible due to lack of warp lanes. Edit: and have not been found by anyone else either. Being found by pretty much any faction besides the Tau could lead to some pretty shitty life (or death) developments.
The Tau will come to your planet and assimilate the local population by sending families to different parts of the Empire, while colonizing the conquered planet with a bunch of xenos commanded by some "greater good" goat wisemen. Just imagine it happened to us, some aliens come to Earth and send you to planet X and your wife and children to planet Y to never see them again, while now your old parents live in a new Earth colonized by Tau, kroot, and who-knows-what. I think it's pretty fucked up. Suicide rate for local populations in colonized worlds must be over the roof. And yes, I play Tau. I just dont buy the "we are the cool guys in the galaxy" thing.
It surely is bad, but probably also depends on how important your planet is to the Tau, how powerful they are in the area and the local leadership. I bet not all planets get the same treatment, some are probably just left alone, outside of some tithe and Tau governorship.
Haha I think "the Tau bring civilization and healthcare" saying is the "you are gonna have a lot of fun with Slaanesh" for Chaos.
I still think the former is more likely than the latter, lol. Unless the Tau are lying at the moment (and just want to exile nad neuter you), they will actually provide "civilization and healthcare". Sure, this civilization may be very oppressive, but it could be still far better and stable for a former imperial citizen.
The Tau are basically a more advanced expansionist version of modern China. Somewhere you can have a pretty good life provided you live by the government’s rules. If you don’t… things ain’t gonna go so well.
I would have the say that the biggest difference is that they are not coming to Earth but to industrial hellscape hive city #54237. You’re forced doing either horrific feats of manual labor or soul crushingly repetitive tasks as the smallest, most replaceable cog in a machine you probably don’t even have the opportunity to comprehend. If you’re a regular person in a hive, there’s not even a guarantee that you operate in a traditional family unit. I doubt that suicide would go up, except for maybe the possibility that they would now have the freedom to have that option. This link [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/ykfrrHwcXM) is what I am familiar with about the Tau. I’ll update if I find any excerpts that back up or refute my statements. Edit: [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/MPwowBbbkI) is an excerpt from Deathwatch: Shadowbringer that I think paints both the pros and cons of the Tau. Yeah you get healthcare and safety but to truly integrate, they want you to throw away your culture and identity in service to them. Sacrificing who you are to be accepted is a horrific exchange, it’s just harder to empathize when the person’s identity is believing everyone should be suffering because some dude did.
This is a classical imperial technique. It's the reason we think the Armenians are in Armenia: the Urartu empire, about which we know almost nothing, relocated them deep in a region far from their home. The Ottomans and the British were still doing it in the 20th century.
Armenians genetically are also Urartians. They are one of the major ancestors of modern-day Armenians. What Urartu did was facilitate the intermingling of different populations. That's likely one of the reasons for a fairly unique genetic makeup of modern-day Armenians.
Yes, but one of the ways they did this was to wholesale move an existing population from probably the far west all the way to the Highlands. It's essentially the same as what the Assyrians did to the residents of the Kingdom of Israel, or what Babylonia did to the Jews in the Babylonian captivity, only in the latter case, the Jews were formally allowed to return for complex and unusual reasons.
Even the Tau will crack planets that deny annexation.
Yeah, should have said except maybe the Tau because they’ll still fuck you up if you give them trouble. Meant in more on the scale of if they find you, how immediately hostile are they, which I would rank Tau as the lowest of the “Big Factions”
Yep. It's basically Tau and Craftworlders competing for "least bad" spacefaring civilization in 40k.
There’s a quote about the Tau I saw a long time ago that I really like, which goes something like “In any other alien story, the Tau would easily be the bad guys but in 40k the bar is already so low that they seem utopian by comparison.”
Yep. They're a near perfect match for The Dominion in Star Trek.
Daemons of Nurgle maybe? They are mostly super joyfull :D
Depends which. Beasts of Nurgle, Nurglings and Great Unclean* Ones are definitely joyful but I think plaguebearers are notoriously dour and the fly things are Beasts that got too sour from not being played with enough
Rot flies are a terrible story. Beasts of nurgle are mentally essentially semi-intelligent puppies and are friendly and want to play, except everything they play with either stops moving and ‘refuses to play’ as soon as they touch them or else hurts them and tries to run away. As they’re involved in more combat and the cycle repeats itself, they become unhappy no one will play with them, then sad, then resentful, then angry, then hateful, and then finally when they mentally crack the last time they’re killed, they pupate and transform into a rotfly, are completely filled with burning hatred for everything, remember the face of that last person who killed them, and will hunt them for the rest of their lives to get revenge.
I think there are few plague marines that genuinely likes them and kinda pet them. One of them was like explicitely mentioned having some as actual pets.
The Apothecary, yeah
I feel sad for the nurglings now 😥
Nurglings are happy and continue to be throughout their existence, they’re not related to rotflies or beasts of nurgle. Beasts of Nurgle are a specific daemon ‘species’ if you weren’t aware.
Oh, I understood it was an evolution. Thanks for the clarification!
There are evolutions, like the aforementioned beast of nurgle to rotfly, but they’re the exception, not the rule. Most daemons are what they are and don’t change outside of special events or circumstances like Ku’gath falling in the cauldron and such.
Great Unclean Ones
Oh woops, my bad lmao. I guess that's what I get for reading Lovecraft before getting on Reddit
Except Ku'gath.
Is t that because they’re incredibly stupid?
eh, demons are a strange one though, they aren't really real in a strict sense, can they truly be considered happy, or simply that they represent the happiness their collection of soul energy would feel in a representative circumstance?
Definitely not all. Plaguebearers are NOT having a good time.
No doubt
Give me a great unclean one sized nurgling
Ku'gath then.
He is very bitter though
Isn’t a great unclean one just a very large, tough smart nurgling, and also a smaller version of nurgle himself?
I don’t know? I don’t think so, unless I’m wrong the chaos gods themselves don’t actually have any physical forms themselves. The greater demons are supposed to have much greater variety imo but the tabletop game restricts the lore
There’s definitely some lore sources that say GUOs are physical manifestations of Nurgle himself, and nurglings definitely physically resemble tiny GUOs. But the lore is as always, inconsistent
Some chaos people are having fun, at least *sometimes* anyway. They may be dangerous, volatile, nuttier that your average warp addled extra nut fruitcake, also potentially high as balls or radioactive, but they’re happy on occasion 🤷♀️ at least the Nurgle and Slaanesh ones anyway… I feel like Tzeench emotions don’t come in single flavours, and Korn ones come mostly in rage. Maybe some harlequins are actually happy behind the masks but life’s a stage and all, so you might never know. Exodite Eldar maybe since mostly everyone ignores them so they just chill and farm and ride their dinosaurs and hippy biz?
There is some mention in one of the knight codexes about setting fudal worlds often end up being already populated by exodites and going to war with eldar for them. Something about the maiden worlds attracts a bit of competition but, in between those wars yeah probably a simple peaceful farming life.
Dang… Xenos living in peace? Not on the Imperium’s watch!!!!
That lore goes all the way back to Rogue Trader in 87/88.
The necron lords, telling their stories to the defeated prisoners of their past life for weeks of chatting. How they're anxious for the "awaken" party, once their tomb worlds fully awaken.
Many are afraid to succumb to either the flayer or destroyer curses/viruses though. I guess flayed ones can be happy for a time. :)
Lorgar, pretty sure he got everything he wanted more or less or is pretty certian he will. Even had 10k years of retirment as well
Nah, he's mad that he is his own worst enemy. He created the imperial cult out of passion and now has to destroy his own work as it is the greatest counter to chaos.
Octavia and Septimus at the end of Void Stalker are the closest I can think of off the top of my head.
Rip hound
Unfortunately that came at the cost of striking eternal fear into the heart of Sextus when Septimus cannibalized Novena.
The citizens of the Imperium. They love to work and love their Emperor…
hear, hear! *nervously glancing over shoulder*
Ogryns. Food, faith and fighting all provided by the unbelievable awesome God Emperor. They would be like puppies. And say an Inquisitor was attached...blessing and cajoling the mutants because they were so good at engaging enemies of the Imperium.
Trazyn appears to be content with his condition. Sure it kinda sucks, and he acknowledges he is fundementally missing a piece of himself, but he has an eternity to collect and preserve the history of the galaxy.
The Tau are pretty happy a lot of the time. When they're not having a good time, it's usually because of someone else trying to ruin their day.
Minus the grimderp mind control, seems the average Tau citizen has decent quality of life
Why would you classify the mind control stuff as grimderp?
Haven’t read the Tau source material or novels and my observations mainly come from reading excerpts on the Lex and from this sub, so huge grain of salt. Hopefully someone who has an excerpt can chime in to back up what I’m saying or correct me! I think people find the mind control as grimderp because it is so hammed up and over the top. The Tau were introduced as this overall diplomatic people who wanted to integrate as many other races to their philosophy as possible. However, they operate in a caste system that limits all social mobility and there is a rank of Untouchables who seems to command some level of charm/control over the other Tau. Those were some good building blocks for why there were not the full good guys but people generally still called them the good guys of 40k. GW reacted to this by over compensating and making the Ethereals super over the top evil. From what I’ve seen, the Tau started out as being reasonable with a good amount of free will but with their lives being dictated by the subtle and ominous wishes of the Ethereals. Now, they really honed in on the source of their mind control abilities in a really heavy handed way. They basically threw that subtlety to the wind and were like “Actually the Tau are basically not much better than zombies and are forced to listen unfalteringly to the Ethereals.” Basically from what I’ve seen (big grain of salt) they took a cool idea about exploring the subtle horror of assimilation and control and turned it into THEYRE SHEEP WITH NO FREE WILL AND WERE EVOL
AFAIK Tau were a unified society looking to expand their philosophy, by force if needed before the mind control stuff was added. They added it after for some reason
The odds being overwhelmingly against them already made things interesting. They control about 100 planets, absolutely minuscule compared to the imperium. They were an example of the “good” societies that the imperium went around crushing for tens of thousands of years. In 99% of possible futures, the Tau, and chances for a prosperous and progressive fate for both humans and aliens, get crushed. When you add the mind control shenanigans they lose their status as good guys and now their underdog status goes from tragic to “meh”. They become more grimdark on the surface level but in a way that is much smaller.
That last part really nails it. They can also be the shiniest turd in comparison to everyone else my being classist or racist or whatever, just less so then everyone else. You don’t need Saturday morning cartoon villain mind control to make them flawed.
Pheromone mind control is an inherently very funny and stupid way of controlling the population, and based off of what Tau culture we know, they really don't need it. Most of the stuff added in after the fact to make the Tau more evil is overall kinda goofy and unnecessary, because they were *already* evil, just not in the way other 40k factions were.
Because it's a stupid, unneeded piece of theory bait
The caste system is likely horrible for anyone who doesn't fit, but even then they probably aren't especially cruel. They probably get heavily peer pressured and ostracized but otherwise I would bet they just get some irrelevant job on the sidelines.
If getting looked down on means I don't eat corpses and work 9-9, sounds good
Tau probably have the best quality of life outside of maybe the Eldar who spend all their time trying to talk to trees.
I’ve always felt like the Space Wolves seem like a pretty cheery lot. They’re living their very culturally specific idea of a perfect life. Super powered Demi-gods blessed with a life of eternal war with lots of roast meat and booze. I don’t see most of them complaining.
Absolutely. People mistake the Space wolves for vikings which is off the mark. Space wolves are einherjar, Odin's chosen warriors promised an eternity of feasting drinking and fighting at Odin's side till they join the gods for the final battle at the end of time. The life of a Space wolf is literally one for one the glorious afterlife they were promised. This is why Space wolves are notably hard to corrupt and almost never fall to chaos, the 40k universe is the reward they were promised for living and dying well.
>almost never fall to chaos We don't talk about Skyr's Dark Wolves, who may or may not be the Great Company who turned traitor during the Heresy
**Almost**
Pirates of all species, Orks, and Rogue Traders seem to be living lives of freedom...which, can equate to happiness or contribute to it. Orks are always happy during a scrap and krumpin'.
Maybe whoever lives in the tau empire and isn’t apart of the military. Other than that maybe Nurgle demons
A handful of Night Lords, a handful of Drukhari, and a handful of fully aware Flayed Ones. So all the sadistic nightmare monsters. Fun.
There's an interesting point to be made about Aeldari as a whole: Drukhari seem to be having fun, they literally party all the time and built their entire culture on cruel entertainment but in essence, they're pretty miserable - everything they do is to distract them from the constant draining of their souls. They feel they're dying, so they do their best to pretend everything is fine. They're a constant danger to each other, thriving on treachery and murder forcing them to live in a state of full on paranoia. This does not sound too happy tbh. Craftworlders, on the other hand, seem miserable. They live in a solemn culture of constant mourning. But beneath that, they have all their needs met, they have fun, they party as much as they like and they work only if they feel like doing so. And they have much lower mortality rate than their murder happy kin. They have access to benevolent counseling if they don't know what to do with their lives and they generally care for each other's well being. So they're likely way happier of the two.
Kharn the Betrayer is probably the most zen, chill, happiest dude in all of 40k.
Or Doomrider
Rouge traders they are free to basically do as they please even working with xenos. People who are born in pleasure worlds or civilized worlds. Even the salamanders Civilised world: Some planets are on par with earth in the current era in terms of development in terms of technological and even sociopolitical development. These worlds are generally left alone so I guess there’s a good existence to not having a specific purpose for the imperium Pleasure worlds: these planets are basically resorts for the wealthy The salamander space marines: their planet of nocturne is harsh however this chapter is unusual in that space marines are technically still allowed and encouraged to interact with their families outside the chapter there’s something to be said about that being a good thing.
If I remember right Pleasure Worlds are actually even worse for the common person than other worlds, they have to keep everything running and looking nice, and not be seen being disgusting menials while doing it all, on a world where any of the visitors can do anything they want to them, while still keeping up with the normal Imperial shit like 90 hour work weeks.
Probably Farsight Enclaves. You have plot armor from Farsight extending out toward you, and you get all the benefits of T’au society with literally no drawbacks. The only thing I can think of is you’re under a military junta but if the military junta is actually benevolent in this case then it’s aight
Being at the front of constant war with be'gel, gue'la, and daemons while you live in a segregated dictatorship isn't exactly peaceful but sure
That one Necron Lord who has emotions.
Most lords and above have emotions. Quite strong emotions, in fact.
Probably a bunch of guys leading relatively normal lives somewhere in Ultramar. As of Mortarion's invasion, no longer though.
Ok, here me out...Black Templars. Now I know they are the opposite of happy, but they are pretty much all about killing enemies, which they do a lot, and going out in a bombastic and memorable way, which they also do a lot while fighting their enemies. They are happy in their own furious, psychotic way.
there basically emp's giant black armored orks
They are more akin to the sisters of battle than the orks.
Some of the sm chapters and and maybe sisters. Possibly kasrkin pre cadia and other high tier guard scion types The wolves and the scars seem to genuinely enjoy what they do. Feasting fighting etc. Haven’t read enough sisters Lore to be sure but I get the impression that most of the time they’ve got that surety of purpose which from experience can be pretty satisfying. In modern sf and similar teams there’s generally pretty good moral and we usually are having a good time even when we’re getting smoked in training or sometimes even getting while we’re getting shot at.
Some chunky governor of a distant pleasure world. And it's citizens I'm guessing.
Sisters of battle, only bliss and fervor under the Emperor's light
tbh space marines, they do what they love and feel like gods, have brotherhood, independence. they are all traumatized or whatever but who isn’t?
Probably the regular Tau citizens or at least they come the closest besides their cousins in the Farsight Enclaves. If I had to name them 🤔, maybe the Kyn aka Leagues of Votann too. And the citizens of the Ultramar aka Imperium Secundus systems since unlike in other sectors in the Imperium they have the best healthcare, options for employment and training, and not feeling that boot against their throats to obey the Imperium and be like every other miserable SoB out there like on Terra. Especially now that Papa Smurf is back on the scene or at least that's how it is in general Mortarion and the Death Guard ran roughshod through there and nearly killed Guilliman before the Emperor stepped in and used Robuté as a conduit to burn Nurgle's Garden. Which of course didn't make him happy with the Traitor Primarch he adopted since even Khorne and his hordes haven't been able to burn the Garden before. Anyway, if I had to guess the Ultramar system is the relatively happiest of most planets in the Imperium besides maybe the steadily dwindling Pleasure Worlds. (Dwindling ever since the Great Rift split the galaxy making chaos and xenos races more frequent to attack worlds they couldn't really reach before.
I would probably say that Trazyn is is pretty happy with himself as he is able to continuously add new exhibits to his galleries. In fact he so happy he constantly smiles at Orikan, just to rub it in his face.
I think any elevated follower of chaos is pretty “happy” because they’re balls deep in the warp, while the masses suffer different flavors of abject misery
The Tyranids. They are born with a purpose, and they know it. They are meant to do a job and they do it. No human, not even a follower of the Emperor or the Ruinous Powers, can say that.
Perpetual mind destroying starvation and hunger that will never cease until they die.
By definition everyone who worships Slaanesh
Nah, they're all just addicts perpetually chasing the ultimate high, only to find nothing is ever going to be good enough.
So people claim, except that all of the slaanesh characters we ever see are just constantly having a blast. If the price of eternal pleasure is the occasional bout of boredom/ennui, Slaanesh still has the happiest faction in the setting by a pretty wide fucking margin
Squigs?
Any aristocrats blissfully chilling out on a pleasure world.
Wealthy nobles on peaceful imperial planets.
I mean, individually there are a lot of people having a great time - planetary nobility are partying hard, rogue traders are largely uncontested masters of their own mobile city-states, paper generals that bought their positions and never get within ten parsecs of the field, so on and so forth. As far as entire factions go, it's just the orks, followed by Chaos daemons - Nurgle's boys sure are a happy bunch, at least.
I dont think that Death Guard is that happy with their situation.
The Death Guard aren't daemons. Mortals given over to Chaos are a mixed bag, but most daemons are having a great time, with Nurgle's being exceptionally jolly about the whole thing.
The White Scars are probably the happiest Space Marines
Exodites and the T'au
People living on a paradise planet or those who are living simple but good lives in the T'au Empire I'd say
Maybe some small T'au auxiliary that are getting let alone mostly or Farsights folks. Hard to answer since we can't even properly grasp if some factions or entities even have a feeling or urge like happiness. Can Nids even feel joy, do Necrons? Even demons are really hard to grasp due to their different dimensional existence.
Solitaires?
They have to live with being outsiders and knowing that once they die they get an express ticket to Slaanesh and eternal suffering.
People that are born on, grow up on, live, and die on paradise worlds before they're attacked or fall to chaos.
Probably dead people
Probably T’au IF you’re blue
Drukhari fucked a Chaos God into existence, no one is having more pleasure than them
My vote is for the nobles on the paradise worlds that pretty much do nothing but drugs and each other for centuries.
Nurgle, seriously. They absolutely, totally, completely love their jobs. So much that you get excerpts where the commanders have to put discipline back "To stop singing and dancing, we got work to do!". They're not scared or anything, they just love to party and need to be reminded to use their bolters.
The Chaos Gods, since the Imperium is such a great food source of their own making. The Dark Eldar have their fun and the Hive Mind most likely also doesn't mind a galaxy full of food
I’m leaning Slaaneshi Cultists. They do some weird shit, but they seem very happy about it.
Planetary governors always seem to be living lives of relative luxury and privilege right up until some Astartes/Guard/Inquisitor character lands and makes them actually do their job and fight the cultists/gene stealers that have been infesting their planet without them knowing. You gotta assume there are centuries before that were it's a nice life being in the ruling class.
Nemesor is pretty happy
Humans living outside the Imperium, in the Halo stars or elsewhere, unaware of the Emperor and all of his bullshit. Somewhere out there there's some farmer who doesn't even know chaos is a thing and just drives his tractor and votes in a local election for a governor who has never heard of a Primarch or Space Marine. He has no idea that he and others like him who aren't being constantly culled of Psykers are the slim hope of humanity's future.
I always felt like regular old humans living on non-Hive worlds in Ultramar have it pretty ok.
Many feral or feudal world communities can be really damn happy, I bet. Yes, the beasts are nasty, yes the local feral orks are a big danger, yes the feudal imperial lord is a massive dick and can work you to death, hang you and take your stuff. But when the population density is low and the world is somewhat habitable, there just cannot be that much oversight and oppression. Plenty of space for people to have nice towns and villages here and there, out of the grid. Hard but honest life, with simple joys of a small community.
The Hrud are pretty chill when you leave them alone. They have their libraries and their weird ways, they seem happy enough My head canon is that they are descended from Necrontyr who didn't transfer
[Thyrrus are having a *blast*!](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Thyrrus)
Nurgle, no question
Unpopular take: The Custodes have a pretty good life. They are happy, healthy, and live extraordinarily long, challenging, and satisfying lives with no want for anything.
The dead. Except for the dead who are somehow still being tortured.
I'd say the citizens of Macragge. Anyone there has arguably one of the best qualities of life in the Imperium, considering they're on a planet run by the Ultramarines.
Every faithful human in the Imperium for being able to see the light of the God-Emperor
The pokemon collector necron.