Several Chapters have purged whole world's if it was deemed they have been too corrupted or mutated. The Dark Angels and most of the Unforgiven pretty much hate and loathe all non-humans. Safe to say there is no such thing as defenseless in the eyes of the Astartes, with few chapters making exceptions.
Depends on Chapters, Salamanders/Ultra's/Space Wolves for example all greatly hate those who don't protect the innocent and avoid collateral at all costs
Two words: collateral damage. A feature of every war in history. Exterminatus would be an extreme example, morally equivalent to carpet bombing/nukes. Particularly notable in "total war" situations, which includes most conflict in WH40K. Some make more effort to be saviors, which is admirable, but Sgt. Avitus in DoW II has a good quote for this: "We are His angels of death, not His angels of mercy." Also, seeing that Space Marines are specialists in taking on the biggest threats to the Imperium (and to use them any other way would be an enormous waste of resources), how often do you think they encounter a "defenseless" foe? I have little patience with this thread as I am concerned that it will devolve into finger-pointing and other pathetic attempts by everyone to take the moral high ground, as the other thread did. So far this one is not so bad though.
Anyone read the Death of Antagonis? I thought it was almost kinda funny that the main character worked so hard to protect the little girl...only for her to turn out to be a demon monster the whole time.
Evacuation Marines? EDIT: Is Tau the only faction who will generally save children? They may sterilize them and use them a bit like slaves afterwards, being a grimdark world after all. IIRC, then the IG once sent children with bombs strapped to them against the Tau, since they knew the Tau wouldn't attack them at first.
This topic is possibly the best example of why the Imperium is not the "good" side in the lore, it's only slightly less evil than Chaos - if even that.
The secret munitorium branch of SM along with the other 1st founding munitorium marines: The Checkers, The Emperor's movers, and the much dreaded Auditors Extremis.
Aaahhh dat spoiler... Hm yeah most arguments already told here. 1. new space marines must survive a harsh training (few do) 2. collateral damage, necessity 3. “We go where we wilt, we slay who we wilt. Let the Emperor judge the righteousness of our deeds...” Just a few chapters really care about the ordinary man. Some even uses a commissar like attire and kill everyone who is not worthy (for example scared guards)
Exactly. There is a great example in the Salamanders omnibus where the Brother-Sergeant throws himself in front of a boy to protect him from a Tyranid type beast. This topic is subjective to each individual chapter as each will either believe themselves more or less righteous than the common human
