I've been meditating about Warhammer 40,000

As we all know

There are no good guys

Every faction is bad

The Eldar think nothing of sacrificing millions of humans to save a handful of their own

The Imperium is a xenophobic and racist death cult

The T'au are probably the least outright evil but like they run an autocratic state where all non-t'au are second class citizens who regularly get sidelined, exploited, and even potentially mind controlled

BUT

I think that is not the same thing as saying there are "no good guys"

As an institution, the Space Marines are an army of religious zealots trained to be xenophobic murder machines for centuries

but A Space Marine

one guy

Has free will

He can choose to exercise mercy and show kindness if he wants

There are Good Guys in Warhammer 40k

They are scattered across the galaxy and trapped in cruel uncaring systems

And are doing the best they can with the tools they have available

Even if their "good" is like

"I focused my carpet bombing on the T'au base to be clustered on military targets, rather than hitting the civilian targets as well"

"May the emperor forgive me"

oh hey I slipped and fell on this fanfic by Erika Flyingcircus Chapelle about someone trying so hard to be a good person in the Imperium

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/...

which is to say: this is a good thought and I want more stories about it