Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-90.211.181.229-20130907201722/@comment-3258762-20131111194445

.Talik wrote: and the imperium can stop them now? from this viewpoint, they look just as doomed anyways. And I have a hard time believing a united human-xeno front is weaker then a human-vs-xeno-vs-tyranid front. Of course the Imperium can't stop it, that's part of the story; Shit is going to hell.

But the Imperium has weathered 13 crusades from the forces of Chaos, and the most that has been accomplished was the conquest of a single planet and the destruction of a few more. And that is an offensive by Renegade humans, xenos, Astartes and Daemons. I do not think anything less militarized and, quite frankly, less effective could have done so. Sure, they would not be fighting Astartes, but they'd be fighting something else.

The truth of it all is that the Imperium is a cruel, mean, unforgiving murder machine. It is not shrinking notably, it is constantly expanding, crushing things under its feet. Any "nicer" faction could not hope to rival the Orks and Tyranids in the number of warriors it can bring up, and that is very important for the survival of the human race; You loose one regiment of Guardsmen, suddenly 10 more takes their place. Humans die in the millions, but are born and put to work in the trillions. The Imperium is, quite frankly, the most effective government in the 40k universe AND it's one of the few things that are keeping Chaos, the Orks and the Tyranids at bay.