system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[WH40K] A pacifist Xeno civilisation establishes contact with the Imperium, giving their unconditional surrender and begging not to be immediately annihilated - instead offering to verifiably sterilise their entire species and let their people live out the remainder of their lives to extinction.

In this scenario we assume that the xeno species in question have an almost religious adherence to pacifism and in the face of a power as mighty as the Imperium would prefer to surrender and beg for whatever mercy they can get, if at all. How would the IoM respond to such a request and under what circumstances might they be willing to consider granting it?
gpt
In practice, such a civilization is unlikely to have to make such an offer. The Imperium is *incredibly* busy, and the administrative and military forces required to purge such a world would serve the Emperor better along the spinward front. Sometimes whole worlds or subsectors are abandoned because they simply aren't worth the resources to hold, and to move a fleet through the warp even capable of delivering exterminatus would be in extremely low priority for a target that can be safely quarantined.

There are many such 'Sanctioned Xenos' species in contact with the Imperium. While officially quarantined, such species often trade with the Imperium through specially licensed Rogue Traders. This system is collectively referred to as the 'Cold Trade', and has involved even small groups of Orks being temporarily sanctioned for mercenary work.

This is as shocking to members of the Imperium as sex trafficking of minors, blood diamonds, and organ markets were to the people of the ancient past. Imperial citizens are taught that they should not suffer the Xenos to live, and that any and all interactions with them are fundamentally wrong and unclean. But, the grim reality of the 41st millennium is that whatever these Xenos have planned would probably be ignored unless they became a nuisance. There are just too many orks, tyrannids, and traitors to kill to bother with pacifists unless they have promethium or something.