Yes you read the title correctly. Why do people consider the Tau to be good guys. I simply find them to be another wave of Imperialists with delusions of grandeur. A sad fact of the warhammer 40k universe is that their is no one in that cursed galaxy that wants to live in peace with any one else. As they are either daemon worshiping aliens, aliens who enslave people or who consider humans or any sentient being to be food.

Is it because the Tau are not Xenophobic? If it is I shake my head and cry for why modern humans are so politically correct or sensitive? Almost everyone in 40k are either xenophobic, insular or peaceful to outsiders but are not interested in talking or trading with them. Examples are Rak'ghoul in the rpg books and the Hrud who were said to want everyone dead so they can rule the galaxy. How about the Thyrrus who make war because they want to give their gods a nice tv show to watch.

Is it because the Tau want to bring peace to the galaxy? If it is I . The tau are not the only ones who want to bring peace to the galaxy. The Imperium wants to bring peace to the galaxy by killing all aliens and humans who don't worship the Emperor so that when the human race is safe from all threats then peace will reign. The Eldar want to bring peace to the galaxy with the restoration of the Eldar empire using the bones of everyone who stands in their way as the foundation or from some implications they're god Ynnead, or whatever its called, will kill everyone. The Necrons for sure will bring peace to the galaxy. The peace of full scale extinction; when everyone's dead their is no more war because their will be no more disagreements.

So can anybody tell me why people gush over the Tau and think they are good guys?

ps: I don't consider Tau to be Evil just a lesser form of evil just like the Imperium and Eldar.

They aren't the good guys.
They are merely the nicer guys...
There are many implications of some pretty nasty stuff going on behind the scenes.

Sterilization, reeducation camps... they're not the saints of the galaxy.

1.) They're not genocidal (this is a big deal in the 41st Millennium, even the Imperium/Eldar engage in Xenocide/genocide)

2.) They promote a progressive ideology. The Greater Good works, is harmonious, and overall seems to be the best system to live under.

3.) The Tau "bringing peace to the galaxy" would be by far the least bloody road taken.

The Tau do have their share of repression, but it's all pretty minor compared to everybody else.

In our society, they'd be the bad guys, but in 40k, they look pretty nice.

As long as you don't change your mind, they won't sterlize or "reeducate" you.

because thay are more good then choas

dagsta2 wrote:because thay are more good then choas

Everythings more good than chaos.

I don't think many people feel that the Tau are "good guys". As with the above posters, I believe most people merely think the Tau are "better" in some ways compared to the other races, and rightly so.

First, the Tau are very open minded when compared to the rest of the galaxy. Look at the Imperium for example, who feels that the extermination of every possible threat to its existence "necessary". What is even worse, is that the "every possible threat" part includes all sentient life that is not human, and half the time, even humans fall under that category. While the Imperial doctrine is well founded in most cases, there have probably been countless times when the IoM would exterminate a species simply because said species was not human. At least when the Tau decides to commit genocide, it is often because the targeted race will not conform to their beliefs. In 40k terms, this is very open minded.

Second, the Tau may trample all over freedom of thought, but at least they do it for a decent (or supposed, depending on your view of the Ethereals) purpose, which is unity and (semi) equality. In all the other major races' vision of the ideal, it is only they who are left standing when the storm passes. At least the Tau allows for co-existence with other species, even if they do not tolerate any dissent.

Still, with that being said, I freaking love the Imperium of Man and everything it stands for in this insane, over the top universe. Not very often in science fiction do you see humanity taking their baser instincts to such extreme levels. For the IoM, it is not enough that they win- all others must not only fail, but be totally obliterated and wiped out from existence. For the eternal dominance of all Mankind!

I don't mean to sound vain when I say this, but I am petty muchly the cookie monster of Tau. Where the Cookie Monster knows his cookies, I know my Tau.



I feel that the only appropriate way to respond to this, is only to say how the Tau are jerks...to put it nicely. Tau are not shining saints, but in the universe of a giant dick measuring contest of damnation, the Tau more along the lines go about one inch to the IoM's immense thirty feet of death.

For the Tau, there has been only one recorded mention if extermination of species, this was on Nimbosa where a Shas'o who had gone bad ordered his forces to begin eradicating all human life on the planet on Nimbosa. When this autoricty reached the ears of Tau'n and the Ethreals, the general was tried and exiled from the Tau empire and the greater good.

Re-education camps? Yes, this is true, it's everywhere, reeducation into the greater good.

Sterilization? Come on, please. Before you giants of 40k intellectual property begin to spout out nonsense from Dawn of War, please understand that nothing in those games is Canon, except everything that the Blood Angels did (you know, space marines, Games workshops poster boys). There has been no recorded sterilization or anything, the stuff you see in DoW is nothing it's not even Canon.

Anyway, with luff. Avrik.

They're "the Greatest Good Guys" :p But honestly The seem to be one of the few who are willing to negotiate with other races peacefully and get along with other races peacefully. They are the only race that employs other minor and major races, kroot vespid and even humans. I am not saying they are all peace and love, nobody is peace and love in the 40k universe.lol You cant be peace and love if you want to survive. But where as other races want to unite the galaxy by destroying all the rest and being the only race in existence or enslaving the rest, the Tau are the only ones that are willing to do that and/or use diplomacy to bring them into the caste system. They are willing to take whichever route is strategically or logically better for society as a whole. (the greater good society) Im not saying they are saints and willing to do this with everyone, I mean chaos is...well chaos and orks are...well orks. They would never conform to a type of society that that is based around the greater good-aka being FORCED to work for everyone rather than yourself. Yes you can say they Tau's flaw is that it is forcing you to work for the betterment of society rather than asking you or giving you the option. But people might just see them as less ruthless and bloddthirsty b.c well they are less ruthless and bloodthirsty lol Also in America most would not like their system b/c the whole basis for America is that you have the choice to contribute to bettering society, but you dont have to! its strongly encouraged, but you are by no means forced to do so, like in the Tau world system. Do yo understand what I am gettin at? Basically that the Tau are perhaps a little misguided but they are not chaotic like the other races...oh ya and USA numba 1!!!

Because they want to bring peace without killing everyone.

Moving topic to 40K Discussions.

They think they're good because they have been 're-educated' by to think for the Greater Good!

Avrik_Shasla wrote:Sterilization? Come on, please. Before you giants of 40k intellectual property begin to spout out nonsense from Dawn of War, please understand that nothing in those games is Canon, except everything that the Blood Angels did (you know, space marines, Games workshops poster boys). There has been no recorded sterilization or anything, the stuff you see in DoW is nothing it's not even Canon.

Anyway, with luff. Avrik.

It's Blood Ravens, not Blood Angels. Also, each game does have a canon ending that fits in with the overall 40k canon just fine; it's obviously impossible to fit all 7 Dark Crusade endings in the same canon, after all. GW has full say over what goes into those games, and honestly that's pretty much all you need to know about how canonical it is. The project director of Soulstorm posts at another forum I frequent, and he mentioned that every single line of dialog had to be run by GW to be approved for the game. If that's not indication of canon, I don't know what is.

They're not the "Good" guys, they're the "Least Bad" guys. And even then I wouldn't much want to live under them.

Heresy.

Only the Emperor is good.

Because the designers intended them as such:

Original designer notes wrote:In contrast to other races, we wanted the Tau to be altruistic and idealistic, believing heartily in unification as the way forward. This meant that they would happily incorporate other races into their empire without subjugating them, instead enticing them in with the benefits of mutual protection, trade and technology.

The are not good guys, if you think they are good guy then how about ill put a helmet on your head and mined cotnrol you, how about if you will not except my cause I will wipe out your entire race.

They are not the go guys, they are just a bit nicer then the other races.

bob the heretic wrote:The are not good guys, if you think they are good guy then how about ill put a helmet on your head and mined cotnrol you, how about if you will not except my cause I will wipe out your entire race.

They are not the go guys, they are just a bit nicer then the other races.

I am kind of wondering about that. Are the translating helms mind control? It seems to imply that, but they could just be translation helms.

Also what races have they wiped out? I can't think of any mentioned in the codex.

Whipee, another one of these threads. Let the Tau hate roll....

They're not the good guys, they've just got the best PR.

Their professed values tend to agree with typically western ideals (mostly equality and not being genocidal maniacs), which is why people tend to like them. Everything behind the "Iron Curtain" is kept quiet.

People used to think the Soviet Union was a good thing too.

What always makes me shake my head in dispair about threads like these, is that canon/fluff is used to argue the various points. Yet no-one wants to listen to the authors of these various pieces, ie GW Designers state categorically that Tau are designed to be the good guys.

Kroothawk, everyone's talking, but no-one's listening.

Cheers

Andrew

The Tau are just the least bad.

They are also, IMO, the least barbaric. They only fight to expand their territory, and strive for peace. Whereas most of the other races fight just to fight, or hate everyone else and want to exterminate the other races, the Tau simply want to get along with everyone else. Though I'm sure they got all kinds of shifty stuff going on...

AndrewC wrote:GW Designers state categorically that Tau are designed to be the good guys.

Citation needed.

AndrewC wrote: GW Designers state categorically that Tau are designed to be the good guys.

[Citation Needed]

But I really doubt it. WH40K is all about the Black and Gray Morality. As soon as something starts to look un-grimdark, it gets hammered by GW back into the grimdarkness. Frankly The Tau are one of the lesser evils, but will in a heartbeat kill you for the greater good. I see them almost as a USSR with a sci-fi/anime facelift. Then again i dont view the IoM as evil. They just do what they have to do to survive. In 40k there are no good guys. If i had to rate from Less Evil to evil it would be IoM/Eldar/Tau ->Orks/Nids -> Necrons -> Choas

agnosto wrote:Whipee, another one of these threads. Let the Tau hate roll....

Tau have relatively little hate compared to some armies i could mention...

People call them "Anime" and "Communist" too, and they are neither.

They are simply the least evil of the races.

That is saying something a fascist race that will annihilate you from existence unless you accept there ideology, are the good guys.

They do what they have to do to survive. Their leaders know they are a small race in the grand scheme of things. As such they need more resources so they are expanding, and incorporating other races into the "greater good".

It is something like "Convert now or fall for ever".

When they become strong enough, you will see them show their true goals.

The tau have the least bad qualities as compared to the other races. That's all there is too it.

Of note, joining the tau empire as an imperial citizen, the quality of life improves greatly for the imperial.

The Tau are more subtly bad than the others.

That doesn't make them good.

dagsta2 wrote:because thay are more good then choas

Now, we all know 'good' is a relative thing. I'd rather have a tentacle sticking out of my rear than be a Tau. That's just me though.

The Tau are deceptively 'good'. As long as you tow the line you won't be sterilized, re-educated or exterminated. Simply because they have many races fighting at their side doesn't mean those forces are serving with them rather than for them.

WDs 261 (US) and 262 Aus, I can't find the UK issue number.

I will admit that the background has 'darkened' between Tau and Tau Empire, but the original design was for a 'good' race.

Cheers

Andrew

jacetms87 wrote:They are simply the least evil of the races.

Evil is in the eye of the beholder.

There's an in-universe example of an Eldar referring to Orks as the most noble of the intelligent species based on their direct, non-duplicitous, and simple philosophy. Orks like fighting. They don't like genocide, conquest, enslavement, politics, mysteries, or existentialism: just fighting.

DarknessEternal wrote:

AndrewC wrote:GW Designers state categorically that Tau are designed to be the good guys.

Citation needed.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:

AndrewC wrote: GW Designers state categorically that Tau are designed to be the good guys.

[Citation Needed]

Don't tell me that reading the first half page of this thread is beyond your attention span, seriously!

purplefood wrote:

agnosto wrote:Whipee, another one of these threads. Let the Tau hate roll....

Tau have relatively little hate compared to some armies i could mention...

I seriously doubt that. Many people find Space marines boring and dislike the neglect of all other races, but the hatemongering and made up lies spread for this Tau race are beyond compare according to my experience.

They are the Xeno. Hatred is the Emperor's greatest gift to Humanity.

No major army in 40k is 'Good', and no major army barring Chaos is 'Evil'. The Tau are more towards being 'Good' than any other major army. Yeah sure they preach a good ideology, certainly better than "Die Xenos! For The Emperor!", but when it comes down to it the Ethereals would destroy any race that continually refuses to join 'The Greater Good'.

Kroothawk wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

AndrewC wrote:GW Designers state categorically that Tau are designed to be the good guys.

Citation needed.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:

AndrewC wrote: GW Designers state categorically that Tau are designed to be the good guys.

[Citation Needed]

Don't tell me that reading the first half page of this thread is beyond your attention span, seriously!

purplefood wrote:

agnosto wrote:Whipee, another one of these threads. Let the Tau hate roll....

Tau have relatively little hate compared to some armies i could mention...

I seriously doubt that. Many people find Space marines boring and dislike the neglect of all other races, but the hatemongering and made up lies spread for this Tau race are beyond compare according to my experience.

And I was just about to quote both of them myself Kroot and label them both as illiterates after you JUST provided citation-was going to try to help you out . Of course, every time I hear someone mention Tau working towards "the greater good" I want to model up the council and Simon Pegg from "Hot Fuzz"

I won't even claim them to be good guys, however....Perspective. That is All

The Tau aren't good. They are a prime example of a well meaning "manifest destiny" 19. century imperialist. They view your culture as inferior and they will wage war against you if they deem it necessary.
The big difference to all other races is that, despite all those things, the Tau grant you a chance to join them and become a valued citizen. Sure, they still regard themselfs as the "first among equals" in political matters, but besides that they give you a chance to live no worse than the average Tau citizen IF you assimilate into their culture. No other 40k faction ( with the exception of the Tyrannid...hurhur ) grants you this option.

Well at least the tau have waffles. And pancakes. And pie. Also cake.

Whats your imperium got? Corpse starch? Fear? Maybe hotdogs?

Bah. the only good is the Emperors shining light.

I noticed the whole "sterilization" thing is touted a lot as the Tau being baddies. But outside of DoW are they even mentioned to sterilize?

Never saw them as good guys, I always read the Greater Good as the Greater Good Of The Tau....you are just helping them along if you join them, don't expect to get the best of the deal.

It's like all men are equal, but some are more so..

Harriticus wrote:I noticed the whole "sterilization" thing is touted a lot as the Tau being baddies. But outside of DoW are they even mentioned to sterilize?

Nope. But then again people will take anything to try to prove their opinion. If we accept fluff from videogames, then we have to accept it all, such as how a certain entire space marine chapter is lead by a librarian who is a servant of KHORNE.

juraigamer wrote:

Harriticus wrote:I noticed the whole "sterilization" thing is touted a lot as the Tau being baddies. But outside of DoW are they even mentioned to sterilize?

Nope. But then again people will take anything to try to prove their opinion. If we accept fluff from videogames, then we have to accept it all, such as how a certain entire space marine chapter is lead by a librarian who is a servant of KHORNE.

Being a psyker doesn't exclude you from worshiping Khorne.

KingDeath wrote:

juraigamer wrote:

Harriticus wrote:I noticed the whole "sterilization" thing is touted a lot as the Tau being baddies. But outside of DoW are they even mentioned to sterilize?

Nope. But then again people will take anything to try to prove their opinion. If we accept fluff from videogames, then we have to accept it all, such as how a certain entire space marine chapter is lead by a librarian who is a servant of KHORNE.

Being a psyker doesn't exclude you from worshiping Khorne.

Really? I thought Khorne hates psykers.... Wow, how fluff does change.

Not sure on Big K's viewpoint on psykers, but wouldn't one need them to bring Daemons over into realspace? I know he hated mages in Fantasy, yet could ally with Tzeentch (the God of Magic) but not Slaanesh... which makes little sense, but there it was.

Though, if one ignores all of the fluff novels, games, and the like... you lose a lot of insight into pretty much everything that provides background information on most of the setting.

It also enters into the "grades of canon" that the Star Wars universe currently... enjoys. This is, basically, a rating on how "canonical" a given bit of information is, with regards to the universe, based on its source. At the top of the list, A-canon, are the original films and the prequel trilogy, then there's the... novelizations of these 6 films, then... uh, I think the EU novels and comic books... then maybe the TV shows? I forget what order they list their canon entries after the movies.

With 40K, I suppose we would start with the codexes for the table-top game, then, um, WD magazine, then... uhm... forum posts and such from Devs? Then third-party, approved games like DH? Then video games? No idea, really.

It's been there since the begining fluff (RT days), Khorne hates sorcerers, magic and psykers. Summoning Khornate daemons is presumably done via sacrifice. No magic needed, just add blood (Insta-daemon TM). IIRC some Khornate units, or wargear have rules that give them better psychic defence due to their patron god.

iproxtaco wrote:No major army in 40k is 'Good', and no major army barring Chaos is 'Evil'. The Tau are more towards being 'Good' than any other major army. Yeah sure they preach a good ideology, certainly better than "Die Xenos! For The Emperor!", but when it comes down to it the Ethereals would destroy any race that continually refuses to join 'The Greater Good'.

Ok, the join or die lie gets said a lot and it makes a fair amount of sense, but can anyone think of an example? Some time when the tau to wiped out a peaceful race that didn't want to join?

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:No major army in 40k is 'Good', and no major army barring Chaos is 'Evil'. The Tau are more towards being 'Good' than any other major army. Yeah sure they preach a good ideology, certainly better than "Die Xenos! For The Emperor!", but when it comes down to it the Ethereals would destroy any race that continually refuses to join 'The Greater Good'.

Ok, the join or die lie gets said a lot and it makes a fair amount of sense, but can anyone think of an example? Some time when the tau to wiped out a peaceful race that didn't want to join?

dont waste your time dude, no buddy hear has bothered to even read how my post defending the tau. An so far no one has refuted it either. This is not an argument thread its a Tau hate spam thread based off of ilogical and irrelevant arguments that have already clearly been dissproven in previous posts. However the oppisite opinion just continues to spam the forum with the same irrelevant bs totally ignoring the other sides opinion. thats how forums work :p I think this thread was done 20 posts ago anyways, after that poster mentioned sterilization for the 20th time. Really what it comes down to is either you do not think the tau are bad and evil, thus making them the good guys. or your a critic who hates their way of thinking and ignores the othersides arguments. Thats literally the current standpoint and how it will continue to be for the next 40k amount of years

but hey, haters gonna hate

Tyranids are the least evil army. Theyre no more evil then a virus...a very hungry virus..

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:No major army in 40k is 'Good', and no major army barring Chaos is 'Evil'. The Tau are more towards being 'Good' than any other major army. Yeah sure they preach a good ideology, certainly better than "Die Xenos! For The Emperor!", but when it comes down to it the Ethereals would destroy any race that continually refuses to join 'The Greater Good'.

Ok, the join or die lie gets said a lot and it makes a fair amount of sense, but can anyone think of an example? Some time when the tau to wiped out a peaceful race that didn't want to join?

I believe it was called Nimbosa or something like that. And the fact of the matter is that their are a lot of races in 40k not interested in being a part of the greater good and that even if you destroy their military they will never surrender. The only way to be at peace with those type of races is to exterminate them. The Tau are going have to commit Xenocide in the end if they ever want to expand their empire. If not they are going to fail which in the end makes them as bad as everyone else. I would wholly support the Tau if they were not interested in conquest but they are interested and its not because of the greater good. Its good old fashioned Imperialism. I am tired of having to continually post this:

Friend You are blinded by Tau propaganda. The reason the Imperium launched the Damocles Crusade is because of this:

"Exactly when the Tau Empire and the Imperium of Man first made contact with one another is unknown, for each was slow to recognise the nature of the other. For the Tau's part, it was fringe, dissident or overtly renegade elements of humanity that they first encountered, in the form of Free Captains and pirates across the coreward borders of the region called the Damocles Gulf in the Ultima Segmentum to the galactic east of Terra. The initial contacts ranged from friendly negotiations and trade to outright hostility. It was some time before the Tau Water Caste understood the fact that the humans they had encountered were merely the forgotten outcasts of an incomprehensively vast interstellar empire that stetched across the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy. This empire was so vast, that any overt agression on the Tau's part might lead to the outright destruction of their nascent empire and the extinction of their species.

Though many of the more passionate leaders of the Tau Fire Caste called for a war of conquest against the Imperium, the Ethereals issued their instructions for the integration of the Imperium of Man into the Tau Empire. The Water Caste were to align themselves with nearby dissident human factions and over the course of several decades of patient negotiations insinuate themselves into the courts of several dozen Imperial Commanders (Planetary Governors). The influence of the Tau thus spread further and more rapidly into the Imperium than any amount of military conquest could have taken it, until a swathe of human worlds were trading with the Tau Empire in preference to the Imperium's own merchant trade cartels and Rogue Traders. Alien goods and technology flowed through the markets of these border worlds in blatant contradiction of the laws of the Imperium. The second phase of the Ethereals' instructions were thus ready to be initiated.

Upon a score of worlds, Water Caste envoys whispered long-rehearsed words into willing ears. The seeds of rebellion had long been cultivated by the Tau and now bore traitorous fruit as each Imperial Governor declared himself free of the shackles of the Imperium's rule. In the ensuing power vacuum, the Tau Empire expanded, claiming for themselves those human worlds that came to be known as the Farsight Enclaves.

The Imperium's response was unusually swift but characteristically brutal. War was declared and the Damocles Gulf Crusade was launched by the Ultima Segmentum Command, involving units of the Imperial Guard, the Imperial Navy and the several Chapters of Space Marines. "

"the manifest destiny of the Tau to expand the Greater Good across the galaxy. "

I would like anyone reading this to take the analogy of what would happen if the USA was paying no attention to Mexico and generally ignoring Mexicol until it started using their hidden negotiators and manipulators caused Hawaii to secede from USA and join Mexico. I'm sure I don't have to say that America would not be happy about this development.

My $0.02:

The Tau are the evilest of all. That is because they use deceit, manipulation, bribery, and the promise of wealth to achieve their goals at the expense of even their own people, if necessary. For the Greater Good is analogous to For Your Own Good.

Also the Imperium utilizes useful or helpful aliens as well. Jokaero are a perfect example, as are Daemonhosts.

There, two non-human races working for the Imperium available on the tabletop. Sorta like the two non-Tau races working for the Tau available on the table top.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:No major army in 40k is 'Good', and no major army barring Chaos is 'Evil'. The Tau are more towards being 'Good' than any other major army. Yeah sure they preach a good ideology, certainly better than "Die Xenos! For The Emperor!", but when it comes down to it the Ethereals would destroy any race that continually refuses to join 'The Greater Good'.

Ok, the join or die lie gets said a lot and it makes a fair amount of sense, but can anyone think of an example? Some time when the tau to wiped out a peaceful race that didn't want to join?

I believe it was called Nimbosa or something like that. And the fact of the matter is that their are a lot of races in 40k not interested in being a part of the greater good and that even if you destroy their military they will never surrender. The only way to be at peace with those type of races is to exterminate them. The Tau are going have to commit Xenocide in the end if they ever want to expand their empire. If not they are going to fail which in the end makes them as bad as everyone else. I would wholly support the Tau if they were not interested in conquest but they are interested and its not because of the greater good. Its good old fashioned Imperialism. I am tired of having to continually post this:

Friend You are blinded by Tau propaganda. The reason the Imperium launched the Damocles Crusade is because of this:

"Exactly when the Tau Empire and the Imperium of Man first made contact with one another is unknown, for each was slow to recognise the nature of the other. For the Tau's part, it was fringe, dissident or overtly renegade elements of humanity that they first encountered, in the form of Free Captains and pirates across the coreward borders of the region called the Damocles Gulf in the Ultima Segmentum to the galactic east of Terra. The initial contacts ranged from friendly negotiations and trade to outright hostility. It was some time before the Tau Water Caste understood the fact that the humans they had encountered were merely the forgotten outcasts of an incomprehensively vast interstellar empire that stetched across the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy. This empire was so vast, that any overt agression on the Tau's part might lead to the outright destruction of their nascent empire and the extinction of their species.

Though many of the more passionate leaders of the Tau Fire Caste called for a war of conquest against the Imperium, the Ethereals issued their instructions for the integration of the Imperium of Man into the Tau Empire. The Water Caste were to align themselves with nearby dissident human factions and over the course of several decades of patient negotiations insinuate themselves into the courts of several dozen Imperial Commanders (Planetary Governors). The influence of the Tau thus spread further and more rapidly into the Imperium than any amount of military conquest could have taken it, until a swathe of human worlds were trading with the Tau Empire in preference to the Imperium's own merchant trade cartels and Rogue Traders. Alien goods and technology flowed through the markets of these border worlds in blatant contradiction of the laws of the Imperium. The second phase of the Ethereals' instructions were thus ready to be initiated.

Upon a score of worlds, Water Caste envoys whispered long-rehearsed words into willing ears. The seeds of rebellion had long been cultivated by the Tau and now bore traitorous fruit as each Imperial Governor declared himself free of the shackles of the Imperium's rule. In the ensuing power vacuum, the Tau Empire expanded, claiming for themselves those human worlds that came to be known as the Farsight Enclaves.

The Imperium's response was unusually swift but characteristically brutal. War was declared and the Damocles Gulf Crusade was launched by the Ultima Segmentum Command, involving units of the Imperial Guard, the Imperial Navy and the several Chapters of Space Marines. "

"the manifest destiny of the Tau to expand the Greater Good across the galaxy. "

I would like anyone reading this to take the analogy of what would happen if the USA was paying no attention to Mexico and generally ignoring Mexicol until it started using their hidden negotiators and manipulators caused Hawaii to secede from USA and join Mexico. I'm sure I don't have to say that America would not be happy about this development.

No actually your analogy does not work with hawii. it would be more like Guam or Puerto Rico. For the most part those were renegade planets and colonies, only very losely tied to the imperium at best. The imperium are the obvious agrressers here. The people living under the rule of the imperium are suffering anyways, the tau went in and managed to take those hurt emotions and turn them into words than into action. Also as far as anyone knows the people on those planets are now living fine fulfilled lives now that they are not some "product" of an over zealous industry whos sole purpose is to exterminate every other race in the galaxy other than their own. There was that one planet that was massacred, but that was not done by the order of the ethreals, it was done by a rouge fire caste leader who was in the end punished. An this "iron curtain" everyone keeps talking about is merely the lack of detail in the lore. thats the big secret, theres no information b/c its never been written by the creators!

darkcloud92 wrote:
No actually your analogy does not work with hawii. it would be more like Guam or Puerto Rico. For the most part those were renegade planets and colonies, only very losely tied to the imperium at best. The imperium are the obvious agrressers here. The people living under the rule of the imperium are suffering anyways, the tau went in and managed to take those hurt emotions and turn them into words than into action. Also as far as anyone knows the people on those planets are now living fine fulfilled lives now that they are not some "product" of an over zealous industry whos sole purpose is to exterminate every other race in the galaxy other than their own. There was that one planet that was massacred, but that was not done by the order of the ethreals, it was done by a rouge fire caste leader who was in the end punished. An this "iron curtain" everyone keeps talking about is merely the lack of detail in the lore. thats the big secret, theres no information b/c its never been written by the creators!

Ha ha ha.............. Whether those worlds are rebellious or not doesn't matter. Those worlds belong to the Imperium the Tau wormed their way in like any Imperialist power and swayed those worlds to join them. In the modern world this is not tolerated but of course our precious Tau can be forgiven. Look at all the factions of 40k with open and non-biased eyes and you will see that they all suck. The Imperium is not over zealous if you look at the background the Imperium is on the defensive for the most part. They are besieged on all sides by Tyranid, Ork, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Necron and Chaos invasions. The Tau have everything so good because they are small and have yet to attract the notice of anyone. If they ever expanded to the size of the Imperium they would also be in a sorry state as well. Everyone except for the Tau in 40k are out to exterminate every other race in the galaxy or have you forgotten about the Hrud, a race said to be waiting for all the races to kill each other before they rise to eliminate the survivors and then rule the galaxy. The Imperium have for the most part traveled the galaxy and run into hostile aliens in the past which has led to their xenophobia but they take it too far in that they assume that all aliens are out to get them when its only 9 out of 10 that are out to get them.

KingDeath wrote:The Tau aren't good. They are a prime example of a well meaning "manifest destiny" 19. century imperialist. They view your culture as inferior and they will wage war against you if they deem it necessary.

Which part of "without subjugating" in the designer notes was unclear?

Harriticus wrote:I noticed the whole "sterilization" thing is touted a lot as the Tau being baddies. But outside of DoW are they even mentioned to sterilize?

Actually, it is not even stated in DoW.
In a parallel universe of 40k where Tau win this planet, an Imperial narrator wonders, why men and women living separated in different camps get so few children. Sterilization is his THIRD likeliest explanation (ask Mom and Dad, why men and women must meet to get children ).

Kroothawk wrote:
Which part of "without subjugating" in the designer notes was unclear?

It doesn't matter what the original designer notes said; things have changed. Plus the Tau subjugate people in the end because as I have stated their are people who live fine and love their life the way it is. They don't care for the "Imperial Creed" or the "Greater Good" but the Tau will want to bring them in line anyway meaning conquest. That is subjugation pure and simple. Everyone is guilty of this in 40k.

They are not good, they just have good publicity.

Harriticus wrote:1.) They're not genocidal (this is a big deal in the 41st Millennium, even the Imperium/Eldar engage in Xenocide/genocide)

Sure they are. Any race that will not submit to the Tau idea of the greater good is open game to them. They must be eradicated in order to spread the greater good.

2.) They promote a progressive ideology. The Greater Good works, is harmonious, and overall seems to be the best system to live under.

The Greater Good works when the point of a rifle is telling it's citizen that it works. Tau are nothing more than another race forcefully spreading their way of life and stamping out all those who oppose it.

3.) The Tau "bringing peace to the galaxy" would be by far the least bloody road taken.

How is that? The Tau have already been known to eradicate those who won't become a part of their society. They are emulating the Great Imperial Crusade which attempted to bring all of humanity under the banner of the Emperor of mankind. Those who accepted the Emperor were brought in peacefully; those who didn't want to give up their culture or way of life were brought to their knees by the Astares. I see no difference between the two. Both the Imperium and the Tau wish to impose their way of life upon the galaxy to bring peace.

The Tau do have their share of repression, but it's all pretty minor compared to everybody else.

The Tau are hard core socialists. Look at socialist societies in the real world and see that they are among the most harsh and brutal regimes in human history. The state is elevated above the common man, and anyone who dares speak out against the state is dealt with horribly.


I would guess that the Eldar, as they are now, after the Fall, are the closest thing you might be able to compare as "good guys." The Eldar realize they are a doomed race and expend the last of their efforts trying to keep the galaxy from falling under the control of Chaos. Although they are doomed, Eldar society would probably be the best society to live in in my opinion.

augustus5 wrote:

The Tau are hard core socialists. Look at socialist societies in the real world and see that they are among the most harsh and brutal regimes in human history. The state is elevated above the common man, and anyone who dares speak out against the state is dealt with horribly.

bs. Just because they have strong utilitaristic tendencies does not make them a hardcore socialist society. Besides that, your definition of socialism is severely lacking. Putting the "state above the common man" is frequently done in fascist systems, theocratic systems, all kinds of dictatorshis, many monarchies, sometimes even democracies and, of course, most so called socialist societies.

The strong veneration of the Etherals and the quasi religious dogma of the Greater Good might give the Tau society some theocratical aspects, but even that is far fetched.

In regard to the subjugating issue, the Tau do in fact incorporate species into their empire which were, at first, unwilling to join. Page six of the current codex makes this quite clear "Many less advanced alien races were incorporated within it's and most ( there not all ) of these willingly became part of the Tau Empire. So yes, the Tau will subjugate you if they deem it necessary, the difference to all other races is that even after the subjugation you will have the oportunity to become an active and valued member of the Tau society.

Subjugate, that word again. The Tau will not leave a race or empire alone. The Imperium, such a vast realm that the Tau knew could destroy them, that likely had its own ideals and government, and yet this speck of a race still tried to subjugate what they knew would be an unwilling edition to the Empire. Some Fire Caste commanders called for a war of conquering! Ha! If that's not arrogance and naivety and don't know what is! They couldn't leave the Imperium, they had to try and impose their own ideology on it. The Tau think their 'Greater Good' is above the ways of any other race, and whilst this 'Greater Good' calls for the Tau to try and incorporate other races into the Empire, all those who are unwilling are SUBJUGATED. Their armies destroyed and their people forced to join the Tau. Sure, once they're in the Tau, they are largely valued so long as they fulfil a role in the expansion of the Empire, but that races own destiny that they may have had is gone. They're part of the Tau now, there to serve the Tau's own ideology, the Tau's ambitions and not their own.

Harriticus wrote:I noticed the whole "sterilization" thing is touted a lot as the Tau being baddies. But outside of DoW are they even mentioned to sterilize?

In the CJ article with human auxiliaries: It also mentions the concentration camps.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:No major army in 40k is 'Good', and no major army barring Chaos is 'Evil'. The Tau are more towards being 'Good' than any other major army. Yeah sure they preach a good ideology, certainly better than "Die Xenos! For The Emperor!", but when it comes down to it the Ethereals would destroy any race that continually refuses to join 'The Greater Good'.

Ok, the join or die lie gets said a lot and it makes a fair amount of sense, but can anyone think of an example? Some time when the tau to wiped out a peaceful race that didn't want to join?

I believe it was called Nimbosa or something like that. And the fact of the matter is that their are a lot of races in 40k not interested in being a part of the greater good and that even if you destroy their military they will never surrender. The only way to be at peace with those type of races is to exterminate them. The Tau are going have to commit Xenocide in the end if they ever want to expand their empire. If not they are going to fail which in the end makes them as bad as everyone else. I would wholly support the Tau if they were not interested in conquest but they are interested and its not because of the greater good. Its good old fashioned Imperialism. I am tired of having to continually post this:

Friend You are blinded by Tau propaganda. The reason the Imperium launched the Damocles Crusade is because of this:

"Exactly when the Tau Empire and the Imperium of Man first made contact with one another is unknown, for each was slow to recognise the nature of the other. For the Tau's part, it was fringe, dissident or overtly renegade elements of humanity that they first encountered, in the form of Free Captains and pirates across the coreward borders of the region called the Damocles Gulf in the Ultima Segmentum to the galactic east of Terra. The initial contacts ranged from friendly negotiations and trade to outright hostility. It was some time before the Tau Water Caste understood the fact that the humans they had encountered were merely the forgotten outcasts of an incomprehensively vast interstellar empire that stetched across the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy. This empire was so vast, that any overt agression on the Tau's part might lead to the outright destruction of their nascent empire and the extinction of their species.

Though many of the more passionate leaders of the Tau Fire Caste called for a war of conquest against the Imperium, the Ethereals issued their instructions for the integration of the Imperium of Man into the Tau Empire. The Water Caste were to align themselves with nearby dissident human factions and over the course of several decades of patient negotiations insinuate themselves into the courts of several dozen Imperial Commanders (Planetary Governors). The influence of the Tau thus spread further and more rapidly into the Imperium than any amount of military conquest could have taken it, until a swathe of human worlds were trading with the Tau Empire in preference to the Imperium's own merchant trade cartels and Rogue Traders. Alien goods and technology flowed through the markets of these border worlds in blatant contradiction of the laws of the Imperium. The second phase of the Ethereals' instructions were thus ready to be initiated.

Upon a score of worlds, Water Caste envoys whispered long-rehearsed words into willing ears. The seeds of rebellion had long been cultivated by the Tau and now bore traitorous fruit as each Imperial Governor declared himself free of the shackles of the Imperium's rule. In the ensuing power vacuum, the Tau Empire expanded, claiming for themselves those human worlds that came to be known as the Farsight Enclaves.

The Imperium's response was unusually swift but characteristically brutal. War was declared and the Damocles Gulf Crusade was launched by the Ultima Segmentum Command, involving units of the Imperial Guard, the Imperial Navy and the several Chapters of Space Marines. "

"the manifest destiny of the Tau to expand the Greater Good across the galaxy. "

I would like anyone reading this to take the analogy of what would happen if the USA was paying no attention to Mexico and generally ignoring Mexicol until it started using their hidden negotiators and manipulators caused Hawaii to secede from USA and join Mexico. I'm sure I don't have to say that America would not be happy about this development.

I looked up Nimbosa on the lexicanum and it was when the tau took advantage of a hive flee invasion to steal some worlds. It's sneaky, but wasn't what I was looking for. I want to know any examples of the Tau killing off a peaceful race.

From the sound of it, it seems like a lot of the tau evil is in the realm of "common knowledge"(Stuff that everyone "knows", but that there is no evidence to support it. It just feels true). That is not to say they don't do evil things, but when people say things like "The Tau use kroot as cannon fodder" or "The Tau kill anyone who dosen't join the empire" I want to know where that information comes from.


Edit: I was leafing thrugh my codex and found nimbrosa. It's listed under the koloth gorge massacre and it's quit evil. It starts off with the tau expanding into the IoM. The IoM is busy with hive fleets so they send some diplomats to the tau as a stalling tactic. It dosen't work. "Led by commander Brightsword, the full weight of the tau fell upon nimbosa and the colonists fought to the last, not a soul surviving the final attack." It was brutal. When the IoM, finally got to the planet, the tau lured them into a trap surrounded them and massacred them. Thats where the name comes from. It's a fin example of the Tau being brutal, but after this battle, the Tau recall commander Brightsword. He gets censured for being so brutal and unforgiving in the battle.

nomotog wrote:"The Tau kill anyone who dosen't join the empire" I want to know where that information comes from.

Codex Tau Empire.

There is a reason why a certain group refrains from citing their own codex.
Anyone else still waiting for Codex Tau empire, 5th ed rulebook/Expansions, BL novels quoted to prove any point one may like to make?

The Background of Tau is rather flexible since they are a new addition to 40k.
Latest course of GW was from "new optimistic upstart race who believes in uniting the galaxy under the greater food" to a "new optimistic upstart race who believes in the greater food but only trusts those who are under their absolute control".

Steps:
- new race, with an ally ( kroot ), see a bright future since they don't know better.
- new race, with 2 allies ( vespids, kroot ), still caught in their own dogma but first elements leave ( Farsight ).
- naive race, just growing up, running into opposition but cannot identify who to evade ( meet&greet incidents ).
> not contributing to combined efforts against different galaxy wide threats may isolate the Tau empire and those who know the darkness of the 40k verse wouldn't bet on Tau's survival. The incoming Nids, rise of Necrons and common daily threats of greenskin and chaos point to more open conflict to come.
=> this eternal war setup does not need any Good guys / bad guys. Just participants in a struggle nobody ever wins....

1hadhq wrote:Latest course of GW was from "new optimistic upstart race who believes in uniting the galaxy under the greater food" to a "new optimistic upstart race who believes in the greater food but only trusts those who are under their absolute control".

Skip dinner?

augustus5 wrote:Sure they are. Any race that will not submit to the Tau idea of the greater good is open game to them. They must be eradicated in order to spread the greater good.
The Greater Good works when the point of a rifle is telling it's citizen that it works. Tau are nothing more than another race forcefully spreading their way of life and stamping out all those who oppose it.
How is that? The Tau have already been known to eradicate those who won't become a part of their society. They are emulating the Great Imperial Crusade which attempted to bring all of humanity under the banner of the Emperor of mankind. Those who accepted the Emperor were brought in peacefully; those who didn't want to give up their culture or way of life were brought to their knees by the Astares. I see no difference between the two. Both the Imperium and the Tau wish to impose their way of life upon the galaxy to bring peace.
The Tau are hard core socialists. Look at socialist societies in the real world and see that they are among the most harsh and brutal regimes in human history. The state is elevated above the common man, and anyone who dares speak out against the state is dealt with horribly.

That's an impressive list of totally made up stuff that is crowned by a lack of knowledge of what socialism is.
Of course you can't quote a source for any of your statements, right? But true hate doesn't need a foundation in facts, I guess

augustus5 wrote:
The Tau are hard core socialists. Look at socialist societies in the real world and see that they are among the most harsh and brutal regimes in human history. The state is elevated above the common man, and anyone who dares speak out against the state is dealt with horribly.

You... have no clue what socialism is, do you? The fact that your banner says United States both scares, and annoys me, to no end. Please, and I don't want to sound too rude, but please, for the good of the country, learn about political ideologies before ever participating in politics.

Still, with that said, I do believe what you think about the Tau is somewhat agreeable.

I think that the Imperium of Man and the Tau empire are exactly the same, but the Tau are just more subtle about it.

Because Tau are awesome! no, seriously, i just think its because they have much fewer bad qualities than most other races. They brainwash Vespids while the Imperium commit genocides. They 'reeducate' you, while Eldar plot and deceive. Their system works, while the Orks just make war for fun, and have a 'bigger is better' mentality. Their hierarchy also works perfectly, with everything harmonising while Chaos yell "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" They're generally less bad, rather than more good. And they have negotiators of the water caste (I think it's water) who help with negotiations (what a surprise). So, they are definitely less bad.

augustus5 wrote:I would guess that the Eldar, as they are now, after the Fall, are the closest thing you might be able to compare as "good guys." The Eldar realize they are a doomed race and expend the last of their efforts trying to keep the galaxy from falling under the control of Chaos. Although they are doomed, Eldar society would probably be the best society to live in in my opinion.

The Eldar, as a whole, are so incredibly weird that I'm not really sure what to think of them.

Every Eldar feels the call to war at some point. Every Eldar eventually feels a state of ennui unless they are hardcore adherents to the Paths, and with their enhanced emotional and cognitive abilities, they feel it much stronger than any other race. They have to try very hard not to fall into depravity.

From the inside of the Eldar society, the Eldar most assuredly are the "good guys". Eldar from different craftworlds tend to support each other much more than the other races (except, perhaps, for mainstream Tau). They all fight for the salvation of the Eldar race, even Alaitoc, who quite a few of its own citizens consider a huge pain in the ass to live on.

From the outside, however, the Eldar are neutral and capricious at best, and xenophobic and genocidal at worst. They don't want to help or kill humans, for example; humans are simply not important at all. An analogy would be asking your average person today how they feel about goldfish. For most Eldar, killing a human would elicit about as much emotion as a human stepping on an earthworm. If you you come home one day and find earthworms all over your living room floor, you try to take them outside and dump them in the yard - if they don't want to leave, you squish them all; pretty much exactly how the more magnanimous Eldar treat humans living on Maiden worlds.

The Tau are a young race, getting more background with every new codex. I am very interested to see what happens with Farsight, for example. Personally, I think that the Tau were originally the "good guys" - a young, innocent race ready to take on the galaxy - much like the Imperium probably was when it first started (back before the Legions, even), and like the Eldar in their heyday. As they take their bruises, however, I expect to see the Tau to take on a much more mature, dark, and pragmatic nature.

Redscare wrote:You... have no clue what socialism is, do you? The fact that your banner says United States both scares, and annoys me, to no end. Please, and I don't want to sound too rude, but please, for the good of the country, learn about political ideologies before ever participating in politics.

You understand such statements better, if you see them as an unreflected expression of maximum hate.
In conservative USA, the standard swear word in politics is "socialist" or "communist". In conservative Europe, it is mostly "Nazi". That's why the Tau are called commies in USA and Nazis in Europe, even when a caste system led by spiritual leaders has no similarity with either.

You will also understand the weekly Tau hater threads better when you realize that Tau haters NEVER quote sources, because there are none. And they rarely react to official quotes disproving their made up statements, ready to post them in the next Tau hater thread unmodified.

Another thread where everyone is gonna say Tau sterilization camps... from a totally none canon source.

Haters gonna hate.

Kroothawk wrote:
You understand such statements better, if you see them as an unreflected expression of maximum hate.
In conservative USA, the standard swear word in politics is "socialist" or "communist". In conservative Europe, it is mostly "Nazi". That's why the Tau are called commies in USA and Nazis in Europe, even when a caste system led by spiritual leaders has no similarity with either.

You will also understand the weekly Tau hater threads better when you realize that Tau haters NEVER quote sources, because there are none. And they rarely react to official quotes disproving their made up statements, ready to post them in the next Tau hater thread unmodified.

Nice.
Again the same unfounded claims of europes views upon Tau.
You have stored these nonsense for ease of use, sure?
Either back that statement up with examples or deem yourself worse than those "haterz", cause I find it offending to have fellow europeans falsly accused of calling Tau nazis.

Maybe you should begin to quote sources, but as usual, there is only the complaints of "Tau-haterz" .
Shall I count your "official quotes" ?
1 (outdated and incomplete designers notes )
.....

Seems not much. Maybe expand to 2 ?

DorianGray wrote:Another thread where the space marine fanboyz can go EMPEROR IS THE ONLY PURE GOOD, DEATH TO XENOS!

and then go on hating all non-humans. In a purely racist kind of way. Logic: Tau not human = evil = die.

Haters gonna hate.

Such an impressive post.

Did anyone mention the Emperor in this thread? No?

Maybe calling other posters racist fanboys isn't the way to go on Dakka.

Well, if the designer's explicit intention is not enough, how about this explicit text from the Battlefield Gothic rules:

As the Tau Empire expands out from its homeworld, the Tau inevitably encounter new races previously unknown to them, and to each of these an offer of allegiance is made. There are many aggressive, arrogant and selfish races in the galaxy, however, and even the Tau often find first contact results in nothing more than yet another bloody war. There are other races however, who readily accept the message of the greater good and take up their place in the Tau Empire. Some of these races are small, perhaps located on just a single world, or else primitive with little useful resource to offer the Tau, in which case their accession to the Empire is simply a formality, with the benevolent Tau offering protection to these lesser races while they can expect little other than appreciation and friendship in return.

Other additions to the Empire are advanced in themselves, and the union of two such cultures provides valuable new knowledge, technology and understanding for both parties. Such races, where able, fulfil their debt to the Tau Empire by a series of tithes which suit their own particular abilities. Able craftsmen, for instance, may be called upon to provide manufacturing capacity, while aggressive or warlike races will be obligated to provide troops to the armies of the Tau. There are other races still who do not wish to fully submit to the Empire, but who likewise have no wish for war with the Tau and will instead strike up armistices or treaties of neutrality, opening up lucrative new markets or providing new allegiances for mutual protection. Such races are also likely to hire themselves out as mercenaries to the Tau Empire when the opportunity arises.

And no, "the union of two such cultures provides valuable new knowledge, technology and understanding for both parties" is not an alternative English expression for "genociding the hell out of all underling Xeno scum".

But I agree that if GW lets Mat Ward write the next Tau Codex, some things might change: He made Blood Angels and Necrons buddies, Inquisition hire Xenos and Grey Knights slaughter Sororitas and bath in their blood to not succumb to the temptation of the Blood God no less

Maybe we should all start a fake Necron hater thread, claiming all Necrons to be social democrats or catholics or something,, because ... like ... everybody knows they are social democrats and catholics! Have a look at the cross on their Monolith! And how every Warrior is equal! We need more hate for other armies as well! Join the hate, screw facts, just let it out!

AndrewC wrote:

WDs 261 (US) and 262 Aus, I can't find the UK issue number.

I will admit that the background has 'darkened' between Tau and Tau Empire, but the original design was for a 'good' race.

Cheers

Andrew

I have to agree with Andrew C. When the Tau was being sold in my region, almost all of the GW staff, from management to employees to regional manager, were pushing that the Tau were "the Greater Good", emphasizing the "Good" aspect . A race that had auxiliaries of other races that were under their sphere of influence.

Now? The Tau Empire reminds me of Fish headed socialists, with mannerisms of brutality from the Stalin era of the USSR.

And I hate every aspect of it.

1hadhq wrote:

nomotog wrote:"The Tau kill anyone who dosen't join the empire" I want to know where that information comes from.

Codex Tau Empire.

There is a reason why a certain group refrains from citing their own codex.
Anyone else still waiting for Codex Tau empire, 5th ed rulebook/Expansions, BL novels quoted to prove any point one may like to make?

The Background of Tau is rather flexible since they are a new addition to 40k.
Latest course of GW was from "new optimistic upstart race who believes in uniting the galaxy under the greater food" to a "new optimistic upstart race who believes in the greater food but only trusts those who are under their absolute control".

Steps:
- new race, with an ally ( kroot ), see a bright future since they don't know better.
- new race, with 2 allies ( vespids, kroot ), still caught in their own dogma but first elements leave ( Farsight ).
- naive race, just growing up, running into opposition but cannot identify who to evade ( meet&greet incidents ).
> not contributing to combined efforts against different galaxy wide threats may isolate the Tau empire and those who know the darkness of the 40k verse wouldn't bet on Tau's survival. The incoming Nids, rise of Necrons and common daily threats of greenskin and chaos point to more open conflict to come.
=> this eternal war setup does not need any Good guys / bad guys. Just participants in a struggle nobody ever wins....

I looked through my codex. It's not in there. The closeness thing I found to the join or die idea is a line that says "some aliens had little alternative then to join". I can see someone jumping to the idea that these races where brought in at the muzzle of a pulse rifle, but it dosen't say that. It says they had little alternative. That can mean a lot of things.

Well I seem to have created a heated discussion here haven't I, along with some posters who seem to be trying to troll me and everyone else via copying, to me they are fail.

I have to say my peace on the whole Tau issue. I don't hate the Tau, I have even played 40k games as Tau using a friends miniatures. I even agree that the Tau are better than the Imperium or Eldar. But I also believe that they are not good guys, just a lesser evil who are 2 inches shorter on the measurement scale in comparison to Eldar or Imperium. The Tau want to conquer the galaxy, I have already posted how when they ran into the Imperium they wanted to conquer it. The Tau are simply like the Imperium or Eldar when those races where young; another wave of imperialists. They believe that they are better than everyone, their society is better than everyone and all should join them or be brought to heel.

As the Tau Empire expands out from its homeworld, the Tau inevitably encounter new races previously unknown to them, and to each of these an offer of allegiance is made. There are many aggressive, arrogant and selfish races in the galaxy, however, and even the Tau often find first contact results in nothing more than yet another bloody war.

So it is selfish for a race to govern themselves and live their life the way they want to and not be subject to the Tau. How benevolent! *sarcasm* Again the Tau are not alone in this, everyone is like this in 40k.

Another thing I don't care for about the Tau is their arrogance, they think the know everything and ignore all the warnings everyone tells them. Both Eldar and Imperium have suffered for their arrogance but the Tau have yet to suffer anything substantial and truly painful. Its like they have WardsUltramarine plot-armor protecting them and it pisses me off.

As for the Tau not ever committing xenocide, how naive you people are, the Tau are going to have commit xenocide if they ever hope to get anywhere in the end. If anyone has read the Dark Heresy: Creatures Anathema book. Their is a race called Simulcara or something like that. They are belligerent and they are very good infiltrators. They could conceivably eat a Tau and infiltrate the Tau empire all the way to Ethereal. Their are tons of races in 40k that have to be dealt with in one way-Exterminatus. If the Tau don't exterminate them they will fall like all other upstart empires. If the Tau exterminate them, they become hypocrites and are nothing but an alien version of the Imperium of man.

That's an impressive list of totally made up stuff that is crowned by a lack of knowledge of what socialism is.

You... have no clue what socialism is, do you? The fact that your banner says United States both scares, and annoys me, to no end. Please, and I don't want to sound too rude, but please, for the good of the country, learn about political ideologies before ever participating in politics.

I never attempted to define socialism in my post, but I did make an observation of socialist societies. Socialist societies do indeed put an emphasis on the state over the individual. Modern socialist societies are indeed some of the most harsh societies with some of the worst human rights records. Before either of you clowns try to tell me to educate myself about what socialism is perhaps you should educate yourselves first.

The Tau do seem very much to be a socialist society to me. They set aside individual goals for the goals of the state. The etherials are very much like the ruling elites in a socialist society and the rest of the castes are the citizens who work for the goals set by that elite caste. There is little or no room for individual expression and no way for the lower castes to set their own goals.

augustus5 wrote:

I never attempted to define socialism in my post, but I did make an observation of socialist societies. Socialist societies do indeed put an emphasis on the state over the individual. Modern socialist societies are indeed some of the most harsh societies with some of the worst human rights records. Before either of you clowns try to tell me to educate myself about what socialism is perhaps you should educate yourselves first.

The Tau do seem very much to be a socialist society to me. They set aside individual goals for the goals of the state. The etherials are very much like the ruling elites in a socialist society and the rest of the castes are the citizens who work for the goals set by that elite caste. There is little or no room for individual expression and no way for the lower castes to set their own goals.

Mind = Blown.

What are you talking about? Socialism has nothing to do with putting an emphasis on the state over the individual, nor does it have anything to do with "ruling elites", and nor do socialist societies "set aside individual goals for the goals of the state".

Most of Western Europe employ some forms of socialist policies and many of the European states are considered to be socialist societies.
The United State's free public education system is an example of a socialist policy.
Canada's health care system is another example of a socialist policy.

Yes, the Tau set aside individual goals for the goals of the state. Yes, the Ethereals act as ruling elites. Yes, there is little to no room for individual expression. Is that socialism? No.

Now before you make yourself look even more ignorant, which is frankly terrifying to think about, please listen to the "clowns" telling you that socialism has nothing to do with a fascist, totalitarian state. You live in the US, so here are some pointers.

-Take advantage of America's free public education system (which lasts from Kindergarten to the 12th grade).
-Go to high school and graduate (this is free and typically lasts 4 years, and is also the place where you first learn this stuff).
-Read a few books about social-political ideologies (this will probably require some work in colleges, which are these places you go to, to receive higher education).

augustus5 wrote:

That's an impressive list of totally made up stuff that is crowned by a lack of knowledge of what socialism is.

You... have no clue what socialism is, do you? The fact that your banner says United States both scares, and annoys me, to no end. Please, and I don't want to sound too rude, but please, for the good of the country, learn about political ideologies before ever participating in politics.

I never attempted to define socialism in my post, but I did make an observation of socialist societies. Socialist societies do indeed put an emphasis on the state over the individual. Modern socialist societies are indeed some of the most harsh societies with some of the worst human rights records. Before either of you clowns try to tell me to educate myself about what socialism is perhaps you should educate yourselves first.

The Tau do seem very much to be a socialist society to me. They set aside individual goals for the goals of the state. The etherials are very much like the ruling elites in a socialist society and the rest of the castes are the citizens who work for the goals set by that elite caste. There is little or no room for individual expression and no way for the lower castes to set their own goals.

Under the modern meaning of the word, the only heavily socialist countries in the world are those with the highest standards of living and the most individual freedom (most of Northern Europe). You're looking at "communist" (in the modern parlance) countries, with "communist" being a catchall term for a random assortment of often diametrically opposed ideologies. Not that either term has all that much meaning; the pro-business, anti-caring-for-their-own-people Nazis called themselves "socialists", while blaming anything and everything that went wrong on "communist" bogeymen; the Soviets turned Marx's Anarchist philosophy into a totalitarian cult of personality that committed the same abuses that Marx decried the victorian industrial capitalists for doing, while focusing on industry and technology; the Chinese under Mao rejected industry and technology, opting for peasant worship and idolizing gross incompetence for unfathomably stupid reasons; Pol-Pot interpreted the humanitarian ideals of Marxism as "MAIM KILL BURN, MAIM KILL BURN".

The Tau are a biological caste system ordered by pheremones. They're like a bee hive, if bees were individually sapient. There's even less on how their economy works than on how the Imperium's economy does (the answer to that: it varies from planet to planet, because the Imperium doesn't care about local politics so long as it doesn't involve witches, xenos, or tax evasion; mutants are occasionally tolerated), so it could be anything from socialist to capitalist to barter to "interpretive dance accepted as currency".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Xarian wrote:

augustus5 wrote:I would guess that the Eldar, as they are now, after the Fall, are the closest thing you might be able to compare as "good guys." The Eldar realize they are a doomed race and expend the last of their efforts trying to keep the galaxy from falling under the control of Chaos. Although they are doomed, Eldar society would probably be the best society to live in in my opinion.

The Eldar, as a whole, are so incredibly weird that I'm not really sure what to think of them.

Every Eldar feels the call to war at some point. Every Eldar eventually feels a state of ennui unless they are hardcore adherents to the Paths, and with their enhanced emotional and cognitive abilities, they feel it much stronger than any other race. They have to try very hard not to fall into depravity.

From the inside of the Eldar society, the Eldar most assuredly are the "good guys". Eldar from different craftworlds tend to support each other much more than the other races (except, perhaps, for mainstream Tau). They all fight for the salvation of the Eldar race, even Alaitoc, who quite a few of its own citizens consider a huge pain in the ass to live on.

From the outside, however, the Eldar are neutral and capricious at best, and xenophobic and genocidal at worst. They don't want to help or kill humans, for example; humans are simply not important at all. An analogy would be asking your average person today how they feel about goldfish. For most Eldar, killing a human would elicit about as much emotion as a human stepping on an earthworm. If you you come home one day and find earthworms all over your living room floor, you try to take them outside and dump them in the yard - if they don't want to leave, you squish them all; pretty much exactly how the more magnanimous Eldar treat humans living on Maiden worlds.

You mean Craftworlders. The Eldar are split up into four vastly different factions: the Exodites, ascetic luddites living in a self imposed stone age; the Craftworlders, angsty ascetics trying desperately to follow a code of behavior that's diametrically opposed to their instincts, and slowly dying off because of that conflict; Harlequins, a pan-eldar priest caste belonging to the Laughing God; and the Dark Eldar, the only ones that embrace the sadistic hedonism that the Eldar naturally fell into in their pre-fall post-labor society, and, notably, the only ones actively thriving and safe. What you described are the Craftworlders; Exodites being cave-eldar unaware of the world outside their tribes; Harlequins being obsessed with fighting chaos to the point of regularly working with the Imperial Inquisition; and Dark Eldar being high as a kite on space coke, while laughing and attempting to discover just how many organs you can remove from a human before it gets boring.

augustus5. Redscare and Sir Pseudonymous are completely right. I think you are confusing socialism with communism, which has unfortunately become a "catch-all" term for dictatorships and diametrically opposed ideologies. True communism is supposed to be about the people-at least that's what people tell me, unfortunately humans suck at not being power hungry which turns a rather nice but unrealistic ideology into a totalitarian society.

The Tau are not communist. They are in truth a weird mix of fascism(putting an emphasis on the state over the individual) and theocracy(everyone reveres the ethereal and they are the ruling elite) mixed with councils. Since they have "Reeducation centers" for people who don't like the greater good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry I have one last thing to say before I pretty much consider this thread closed. Despite all I have said against the Tau I still consider them to be somewhat more sympathetic in how they regard troop and well everything than other 40k factions. That still however doesn't change what I have said about the Tau in them being a lesser evil and another wave of imperialists. filled to the brim with arrogance that has no basis in fact unlike the Imperium and Eldar who have reasons to be arrogant.

Their I have said my peace. I will no longer be responding to posts on this thread unless someone says something absurd.

Anyway, peace out to everyone who has participated in this thread

Personally, I think the Tau come closest to an Orwellian Oligarchy. Everyone in the Empire technically serves the Ethereal Caste, through their catch phrase 'For the Greater Good'.

It has a similar siren call that communism's basic principles do: working for the betterment of all sentient life. In the end, though, you're still working for The Man. For the Greater Good not only appeals to people on a basic level, it appeals to our modern transhumanist sensibilities as well, since most of us are in some way interested in sci-fi and as a group we more xenophilic than we are xenophobic, unlike the Imperium.

To me, the Tau Empire has a very 1984/Animal Farm vibe. The Ethereals control the Empire through publicity and diplomacy but in the end, serving the Greater Good is serving the Ethereals.

Does this make them worse than the High Lords of Terra? No. But they're not happy-sparkle-good either. Is any government or system of society really good though? Not yet. Likely not until technology allows us to compensate for our base needs.

On the other hand, they're also neive enough that they give other factions a puppy to kick to show how bad they are, which really paid off in the DE book, which is a great way to show why the Imperium operates the way it does without the influence of the God-Emperor.

DeviantApostle wrote:The Ethereals control the Empire through publicity and diplomacy but in the end, serving the Greater Good is serving the Ethereals.

Here's a question for you, is there anything out there that would suggest that the greater good is a con?

By that I mean is there anything which shows that the 'greater good' doesn't actually work.

Cheers

Andrew

AndrewC wrote:Here's a question for you, is there anything out there that would suggest that the greater good is a con?

By that I mean is there anything which shows that the 'greater good' doesn't actually work.

No but there's nothing to say that it does work either. Even if it does work, it necessarily sacrifices the needs of the individual for the needs of many which makes me want to puke. It's the old Swordfish question: could you kill a little girl with cancer if the result was that nobody would ever die of cancer again? Great for everyone else, sucks if you're the little girl that has to die.

We get discussions like this because humanity can be broadly divided into two groups: those who thrive in structured, ordered, environments and those who value their freedom. Because of cultural programming we often mistake Order for Good and Chaos for Evil. Democracy isn't perfect but it's likely the best political ideal that we have yet to come across because it has the greatest chance for all views to be represented. The Tau Empire is not a democracy. Unless you are an Ethereal Caste, you will not be making the big decisions that will affect the Empire's development. The Ethereals have yet to prove that they will sacrifice themselves for the Greater Good.

The real question, I think, isn't so much one of good or evil, it's whether or not the observer believes that a rigid caste society with clear delineations of responsibility is Good. What works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another. I personally abhore the idea of such a society which is why I don't and will never play Tau. There is no room for the needs of the individual in such a machine of government. When one's only choice is obedience, sentience ceases and you become a machine, much like the mindless Tyranid drone or the soulless Necron.

DeviantApostle wrote:

AndrewC wrote:Here's a question for you, is there anything out there that would suggest that the greater good is a con?

By that I mean is there anything which shows that the 'greater good' doesn't actually work.

No but there's nothing to say that it does work either. Even if it does work, it necessarily sacrifices the needs of the individual for the needs of many which makes me want to puke. It's the old Swordfish question: could you kill a little girl with cancer if the result was that nobody would ever die of cancer again? Great for everyone else, sucks if you're the little girl that has to die.

We get discussions like this because humanity can be broadly divided into two groups: those who thrive in structured, ordered, environments and those who value their freedom. Because of cultural programming we often mistake Order for Good and Chaos for Evil. Democracy isn't perfect but it's likely the best political ideal that we have yet to come across because it has the greatest chance for all views to be represented. The Tau Empire is not a democracy. Unless you are an Ethereal Caste, you will not be making the big decisions that will affect the Empire's development. The Ethereals have yet to prove that they will sacrifice themselves for the Greater Good.

The real question, I think, isn't so much one of good or evil, it's whether or not the observer believes that a rigid caste society with clear delineations of responsibility is Good. What works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another. I personally abhore the idea of such a society which is why I don't and will never play Tau. There is no room for the needs of the individual in such a machine of government. When one's only choice is obedience, sentience ceases and you become a machine, much like the mindless Tyranid drone or the soulless Necron.

I can't believe I have to come here again. DeviantApostle, the Imperium of man follow a similar policy to the Tau empire except its for the good of humanity. They are willing to sacrifice millions of humans if it means humanity is safe. Just like the Ethereals will sacrifice the lives of the Tau, Kroot and Vespid so that they can rule the galaxy. Their is no freedom in 40k; the ones who seem to have freedom similar to what a human wants are Chaos, however if all of humanity falls to Chaos it will lead to humanity's self-destruction.

The Greater good is something that's already being practiced by the Imperium and Eldar except its for their greater good and bad for everyone else. The greater good of the Tau is essentially the greater good of the tau over everyone else. Along with the fact that as I have already posted their are many races in the galaxy not interested in the greater good or serving someone else. The only way to deal with them is xenocide. That's one of the greatest realism's of the 40k universe is that genocide is very much need to be committed in 40k otherwise your enemy will return and be deadlier than ever before. Look at what happened between the Old Ones and the Necrontyr; if the Old Ones had simply xenocided the Necrontyr at the end of the war, the C'tan would not have been given bodies, the warp would have remained the happy place it used to be, Orks and Eldar would never have been created etc.

How many lives could have been saved? How much suffering could have been avoided

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The Greater good is something that's already being practiced by the Imperium and Eldar except its for their greater good and bad for everyone else. The greater good of the Tau is essentially the greater good of the tau over everyone else. Along with the fact that as I have already posted their are many races in the galaxy not interested in the greater good or serving someone else. The only way to deal with them is xenocide. That's one of the greatest realism's of the 40k universe is that genocide is very much need to be committed in 40k otherwise your enemy will return and be deadlier than ever before. Look at what happened between the Old Ones and the Necrontyr; if the Old Ones had simply xenocided the Necrontyr at the end of the war, the C'tan would not have been given bodies, the warp would have remained the happy place it used to be, Orks and Eldar would never have been created etc.

How many lives could have been saved? How much suffering could have been avoided

For the Love of God, please read some official background text on Tau, any official background text on Tau, before you make up stuff like that.
Which part of "without subjgating other races" is unclear?
There are only 2 massacres by Tau reported, one by Farsight who was immediately expelled from the Empire and one by his pupil Brightsword, who was sacked immediately after that, tried to defect to the Farsight enclave but was caught and killed by Shadowsun (with his last words "For Farsight!").
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Brightsword

And because people seem to be unaware: The "Greater Good" is a philosophy that working together is better than killing each other, therefore the extensive use of Xeno allies and Xeno technology. Noone enslaves the Demiurg nor the Kroot, both are famous for doing what they want and not being stopped by Tau. The "Greater Good", like most things in Tau background, is inspired by East Asian societies that have less focus on individual freedom and more focus on the common welfare. As the example Japan shows, this is compatible with democratic structures (they even have a God-like ruler, the Tenno, certainly a major inspiration for ethereals)

AndrewC wrote:

DeviantApostle wrote:The Ethereals control the Empire through publicity and diplomacy but in the end, serving the Greater Good is serving the Ethereals.

Here's a question for you, is there anything out there that would suggest that the greater good is a con?

By that I mean is there anything which shows that the 'greater good' doesn't actually work.

Cheers

Andrew

I am thinking that it is a term coined by a member of the elite caste highest on the social structure. Funny how propeganda works like that in these supposedly socialist cultures where all the pee-on class are expected to be happy with their hard working place on the ladder. Or maybe the Ethereals aren't actually a ruling class at all, right? Maybe they exist only to serve (and wear shiney jewels and get carted around on space-pope litters)

I would be interested to see how many people who consider the Tau to be bad guys a) are Imperial players, and/or b) got into the hobby through DoW.

I'm a long time Imperialist, and when first Tau came on the scene I detest them because, for me, they messed with the Gothic atmosphere I so loved. Time is a healer, though, and now they seem like an integral part of the universe. I still hate them, though, but in character because they are xenos scum. Do I have a problem with them being 'good guys' compared to the Imperium? No, of course not. Anyone who thinks that the Imperium are the good guys is not reading their fluff. Honestly, how grimdark to GW have to make it so that people will pick up on what an awful place to live the Imperium is? Let the Tau be the starry eyed, naive and optomistic good guys. I wanna play as the space fascists.

Kroothawk wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The Greater good is something that's already being practiced by the Imperium and Eldar except its for their greater good and bad for everyone else. The greater good of the Tau is essentially the greater good of the tau over everyone else. Along with the fact that as I have already posted their are many races in the galaxy not interested in the greater good or serving someone else. The only way to deal with them is xenocide. That's one of the greatest realism's of the 40k universe is that genocide is very much need to be committed in 40k otherwise your enemy will return and be deadlier than ever before. Look at what happened between the Old Ones and the Necrontyr; if the Old Ones had simply xenocided the Necrontyr at the end of the war, the C'tan would not have been given bodies, the warp would have remained the happy place it used to be, Orks and Eldar would never have been created etc.

How many lives could have been saved? How much suffering could have been avoided

For the Love of God, please read some official background text on Tau, any official background text on Tau, before you make up stuff like that.
Which part of "without subjgating other races" is unclear?
There are only 2 massacres by Tau reported, one by Farsight who was immediately expelled from the Empire and one by his pupil Brightsword, who was sacked immediately after that, tried to defect to the Farsight enclave but was caught and killed by Shadowsun (with his last words "For Farsight!").
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Brightsword

And because people seem to be unaware: The "Greater Good" is a philosophy that working together is better than killing each other, therefore the extensive use of Xeno allies and Xeno technology. Noone enslaves the Demiurg nor the Kroot, both are famous for doing what they want and not being stopped by Tau. The "Greater Good", like most things in Tau background, is inspired by East Asian societies that have less focus on individual freedom and more focus on the common welfare. As the example Japan shows, this is compatible with democratic structures (they even have a God-like ruler, the Tenno, certainly a major inspiration for ethereals)

That is old fluff that has been contradicted by other sources. do you honestly think the Tau can bring the "Greater Good" to all species in the galaxy and those species will simply surrender to Tau leadership. Their are races in 40k aside from Orks who don't care about happiness or peace or just like ruling themselves. The Tau will have to conquer these races in order to get them as part of the Tau empire which is essentially "Subjugation" whether you like it or not. What you think that the races of the galaxy will go "Oh look, our benevolent Tau saviors. Let us bow before the greater good". Don't be wankish and Mary sueish for Tau. Their is also the part that the Tau are not really democratic which makes sense as a democracy over a large amount of world in 40k almost never works. As for the post that use quoted I wasn't taking about the Tau. I was talking about the lack of freedom in 40k and about how we modern and softhearted humans continuously decry Xenocide in 40k despite everyone doing it and how if the Old Ones had the balls to Xenocide the Necrontyr.

Do you get it? If the Old Ones had exterminated the Necrontyr, something the Imperium of man or Eldar would do in a heartbeat,when they had the chance the 40k galaxy would not be the hellhole it is today?

Corporal_Reznov wrote:As for the post that use quoted I wasn't taking about the Tau. I was talking about the lack of freedom in 40k and about how we modern and softhearted humans continuously decry Xenocide in 40k despite everyone doing it and how if the Old Ones had the balls to Xenocide the Necrontyr.

And then:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Do you get it? If the Old Ones had exterminated the Necrontyr, something the Imperium of man or Eldar would do in a heartbeat,when they had the chance the 40k galaxy would not be the hellhole it is today?

What? I certainly don't get it. How would this prevent the catacylsmic effect humans had on the warp, fuelling the Chaos Gods beyond precedent? How would this prevent the Tyranids from coming?

The Imperium are not good guys I agree, neither are the Eldar. Both those races though have reasons for why they are the way they are. The Imperium is trying to prevent the human race from being exterminated while having humans rule the galaxy. They cannot afford the daemons to exist in the material realm who are an actual threat, before Matt ward came on the scene, to the existence of the human race in 40k. Eldar are xenophoic along the veins that they believe are the superior species and that the galaxy belongs to them. They long for the return of the Eldar empire while kiiling everyone. This simply casts them in shades of gray.

The Tau are not "good guys", they are just a lesser evil just like the Imperium and Eldar when compared to the other 40k races and even lesser or more accurately nicer in comparison to Imperium and Eldar. I have never said Tau are evil, they are simply another wave of imperialist who are extremely naive. Look though the thread especially my posts and you will see large paragraphs that state the Tau want to conquer the galaxy either through diplomacy or military conquest, doesn't matter they still want to conquer the galaxy.

I have been playing the Warhammer 40k hobby before the release of the Dawn of war games.

Another thing read the fluff on psykers, what the Imperium does to them while unfortunate is for "the greater good" and for their own good; seeing as many people are complaining about the lot of psykers in the Imperium calling it tyranny. Human psykers are screwed in 40k no matter what especially the most powerful Alpha-plus graded ones seeing as most of them are either insane or possessed

OK, that's a fair point. Would you say that the Tau are possibly the lesser of all evils, though?

I'm still not sold on the Necrontyr dead = nice galaxy thing though.

htj wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:As for the post that use quoted I wasn't taking about the Tau. I was talking about the lack of freedom in 40k and about how we modern and softhearted humans continuously decry Xenocide in 40k despite everyone doing it and how if the Old Ones had the balls to Xenocide the Necrontyr.

And then:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Do you get it? If the Old Ones had exterminated the Necrontyr, something the Imperium of man or Eldar would do in a heartbeat,when they had the chance the 40k galaxy would not be the hellhole it is today?

What? I certainly don't get it. How would this prevent the catacylsmic effect humans had on the warp, fuelling the Chaos Gods beyond precedent? How would this prevent the Tyranids from coming?

The warp was calm before the war between the Necrons and the Old Ones. When the Old Ones started creating more and more psyker races to battle the Necrons and c'tan. The warp turned nasty leading to Enslavers who are still a threat in 40k(see 40k rpg) and I have heard it said that the chaos gods were actually created during this time but were not actually born until the medieval ages who were helped by both humans and aliens. Old Ones created Eldar who gave birth to Slaanesh whose gestation caused the age of strife(downfall of human civilization).The Eye of terror wouldn't exist.They also created Orks who have been warring with themselves and everyone else in the galaxy for millions of years. How many races do you think the Orks have genocided by accident in their quest for Waaaaagh?

Necrons and C'tan wouldn't exist to threaten the lives of all sentient species of the galaxy, well the C'tan would still exist but as harmless star eaters. Finally, without Eldar fuc$ing up the warp there wouldn't be a need for the Astrominicon.

Read 40k wikis or ask the others if there terms in my post you don't understand as I'm not going to describe everything.

There's no need to be patronising Reznov, it detracts from your argument, doesn't make it stronger. I'm not asking you to explain the fluff, but your interpretation of it.

Isn't it the case that those races were created by the old ones in their attempt to wipe out the Necrons? If they could have done it without them, why did they make them at all?

I'm sorry if I seem to be patronizing you.

Unless the fluff has changed the Old Ones fought two wars with the Necrons. First with the Necrons in their organic form as the Necrontyr, the Necrontyr lost and were driven back to their homeworld. The Old ones, they seem to be rational and logical people, let the Necrontyr live and that was their mistake. The Necrontyr like Germany under Adolf Hitler rose up once more as Necrons and slaves of the C'tan. They once more waged war on the Old ones. To combat these terrible foes, the Old Ones created new warrior races to battle for them, including the Eldar, the Rashan, the K'nib and the Krork, who may be the ancestors of the Orks. Knowing that the C'tan were vulnerable to psychic energies, the Old Ones designed their warrior species to be psychically linked to the Immaterium. Unfortunately, the raw emotions and collective unconscious beliefs of these new races altered the psychically-active Immaterium, creating their Gods and the daemons of Chaos. The introduction of these warlike and psychic races into the galaxy had the side effect of warping the Immaterium - the war, pain, suffering and destruction of the galaxy unleashed during the conflict was reflected in the Immaterium, literally changing its nature into that of the current chaotic and intrinsically hostile psychic dimension called the Warp. The innocuous entities which had naturally existed in the Immaterium were twisted into voracious and hostile predators.

There is no bad or good guys in the 40k universe, everyone wants to conquer all the other races for "peace"....this is how it is there is no peace to when it comes to conquering, even after they have done it...and that's saying IF they did it....but the foundation of there peace...is from....war.....there is no peace my brotha

Good god man, don't mention Hitler! Godwin's law! Godwin's law!

That's a sound theory, certainly, but what if the Old Ones had wiped out the Necrontyr and had remained undisputed masters of the galaxy? It seems unlikely that the peace would have lasted forever. I can see two possibly outcomes in this alternate timeline that would mess the whole thing up again.

First, the Old Ones would become decadent and debased. Wiping out an entire race because you think they might be a potential threat bears all the hallmark of a race spilling towards a bad place. Such powerful psykers descending into decadence would make the birth of Slaanesh look like a tea party.

Second, the Tyranids arrive. These monstrous, unstoppable eating machines would easily prove as great a threat as the Necrons. What would prevent the Old Ones from doing the same as they did in canon continuity to combat the Tyranids? And if they failed, well, there'd be peace of sorts. If you're a Tyranid.

Back towards the Tau are good guys thing and the point of the thread. I think people using 'good guys' to describe the Tau is valid only in that they are probably the least overtly evil race. It takes the 40K universe to make imperialism seem like a good thing. The British Empire was built 'for the greater good.' Those who disbelieve me should look up the concept of 'the white man's burden.'


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rogueyopants wrote:There is no bad or good guys in the 40k universe, everyone wants to conquer all the other races for "peace"....this is how it is there is no peace to when it comes to conquering, even after they have done it...and that's saying IF they did it....but the foundation of there peace...is from....war.....there is no peace my brotha

I remember reading somewhere that in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium there is only... something something.

Damn, now how did that end?

Corporal_Reznov wrote:That is old fluff that has been contradicted by other sources.

Okay. I quoted the explicit intent of the designers and the Battlefield Gothic Rulebook contradicting your view.
Now it is your time to quote the official GW sources with genocides, enslavements, subjugation and all the other evil-doings that put them on one level with the Imperium. Just desperately WANTING them to be evil is not enough.

Kroothawk wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:That is old fluff that has been contradicted by other sources.

Okay. I quoted the explicit intent of the designers and the Battlefield Gothic Rulebook contradicting your view.
Now it is your time to quote the official GW sources with genocides, enslavements, subjugation and all the other evil-doings that put them on one level with the Imperium. Just desperately WANTING them to be evil is not enough.

Well, some consider the suppression of freedoms as evil as any of those that which you have stated. I don't necessarily agree, but I can see their point. No matter what the Tau does or does not do, it is evident they will not tolerate anyone contradicting their beliefs in the Greater Good.

Redscare wrote:Well, some consider the suppression of freedoms as evil as any of those that which you have stated. I don't necessarily agree, but I can see their point. No matter what the Tau does or does not do, it is evident they will not tolerate anyone contradicting their beliefs in the Greater Good.

So can you quote any official source for your supposed suppression of freedom (other than guarding soldiers that wanted to kill Tau that is)? Or do you just know a person who made this up?
Also it is evident from the official Battlefleet Gothic text that Tau have peaceful relationships to planets not joining the "Greater Good", so it is not at all evident that the contrary is true. Can you quote a source? No commonwealth of planets can accept a new member that is opposed to peacefully working together and is just interested in its own advantage at all costs. So there must be rules for joining the Tau Empire. But as long as Demiurg and Kroot are part of it, rules can't be that restrictive.

Kroothawk wrote:

Redscare wrote:Well, some consider the suppression of freedoms as evil as any of those that which you have stated. I don't necessarily agree, but I can see their point. No matter what the Tau does or does not do, it is evident they will not tolerate anyone contradicting their beliefs in the Greater Good.

So can you quote any official source for your supposed suppression of freedom (other than guarding soldiers that wanted to kill Tau that is)? Or do you just know a person who made this up?
Also it is evident from the official Battlefleet Gothic text that Tau have peaceful relationships to planets not joining the "Greater Good", so it is not at all evident that the contrary is true. Can you quote a source? No commonwealth of planets can accept a new member that is opposed to peacefully working together and is just interested in its own advantage at all costs. So there must be rules for joining the Tau Empire. But as long as Demiurg and Kroot are part of it, rules can't be that restrictive.

I certainly can.

Tau Empire Codex, regarding treatment of other species.

"Perhaps unsurprisingly, few races are willing to surrender unreservedly, and so the Fire caste has gone to war on numerous occasions." pg10
"Those worlds that will not willingly join the empire are dragged to the negotiating table under threat of annihilation." pg10
"Those that remain openly defiant face obliteration under the orbital guns of he Air caste fleet." pg 10

Tau Empire Codex, regarding treatment of their own people.

"Tau are born into their caste and breeding between the castes is forbidden by the Ethereals." pg8
The exile of the prominent Commander Farsight, after he turns his back on the "Greater Good". pg42, 44, 46

Tau Empire Codex, regarding known speculations about the Tau and their Etherals.

"It has been whispered that this acceptance [by the Vespids] is linked to the fact that all of the race's leaders wear the interface helmets given to them by the Tau, but no evidence of this claim has proved forthcoming." pg16


There is plenty of evidence in the main source book that states , not suggests, the Tau empire is not a peace loving and benevolent society. The Tau admittedly do not engage in atrocities to the same extent as the Imperium, but I do not know how people can convince themselves their hands are clean in any respects.

Nice to see Kroothawks request for sources has been granted. Would you mind actually telling us your views of the Tau within context of the thread Kroothawk?

*Raises shield against Tau fanboys.*

I am going to give replies to all posters who have debated with me in this thread recently, all in one post. Anyway, let’s begin:

To htj:

Here are some links to help you understand what happened between the Old ones and Necrontyr-

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Old_Ones

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Old_Ones

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Necron

The race remembered now only as the "Old Ones" had developed terrestrially into a sentient species like most of the galaxy's other commonplace biological species. The Old Ones possessed a slow, cold-blooded wisdom. Their science was advanced to such a point that it was indistinguishable from sorcery. Their understanding of the universe allowed them to exploit the alternate universes such as the Warp and engage in psychic engineering.

Finding themselves to be virtually alone in the galaxy, they took it upon themselves to make worlds more favourable to support life, and they seeded other worlds with new lifeforms. They visited many worlds, and using primitive species as a stock, they created new and sentient species, which they continued to nurture. Many of the habitable and inhabited worlds in existence were terraformed from often barren worlds which were developed and seeded with life by the Old Ones

They for the most part are the first sentient race in the galaxy thus the galaxy could be said to belong to them by default.

The Astronomican's potent psychic beacon, unbeknownst to the Imperium's Adepts, is what is drawing the Tyranid Hive Fleets to threaten the Milky Way Galaxy and all of the Imperium of Man. It is also drawing them, inexorably and irresistibly, towards Terra itself.

So without the Astronomican existing, the Tyranids would pretty much ignore the galaxy. And the Old ones existed millions of years before humans even existed. So even if the nids invaded the milky way I believe that the Old ones would already be extinct by that point or ascend into a higher plain or whatever so it’s not their problem. The Astronomican exists because the warp has become even nastier than it was long ago during the war between old ones and necron. The warp was made worse by the Eldar because of their fall.

As for peace not lasting forever of course it wouldn't last forever. What, you think the Tau can bring peace to the galaxy that would last forever. True Peace or utopia leads to complacency and boredom which leads to decadence which leads to self-destruction unless it is averted somehow by deus ex machina. Look at the Eldar they had a utopia with their empire, for them at least, where they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted and not be worried about the rest of the universe or the facts of life. They were rulers of the galaxy, millions of years and unchallenged ones at that. They had what was basically their version of robots do everything for them like protecting their empire from outsiders etc. And their empire fell because of decadence and hedonism that was created because of too much peace, security and freedom and no enemies to fight.

Look at the star wars expanded universe; it took years of bloodshed to establish the republic after the star wars movies and in the end it was so weak, corrupt, hopelessly bureaucratic and spineless that it didn’t even survive a century and collapsed due to invasion before an new democratic alliance was born that after a century and a half fell to another empire. This is pretty common in fiction and real life that as a culture enters its twilight years having reached a technology level it can’t surpass or just long ages of prosperity and if it has no enemies, made worse if it is a democracy, will eventually collapse as their people leave in mass or rebel for whatever idiotic reasons they can think up- this is common for humans. A civ that tries to fight this can only win if they become a cruel and totalitarian regime which is only delaying the inevitable.

This can be prevented if the race ascends to a higher plain or just goes extinct.

As for the Old Ones exterminating the Necrontyr, who knows maybe you’re right or maybe you’re absolutely wrong. Take Doctor Who for example, if the Doctor had genocided the Daleks when he had the chance their wouldn’t have been a Time war and how about when the Daleks threatened the survival of the universe and then all of creation. All could have been avoided. Also, the Necrontyr were already insane as they started a war of extermination against all sentient beings because they were jealous, envious and full of resentment for the Old Ones who really did nothing to them as the war wasn’t about conquest but extermination at least for the Necrontyr- they weren’t a potential threat but a real threat that had been beaten but could rise again.

40k makes xenocide not a bad thing as everyone does it along with the fact that it gets rid of races who , true to the 40k setting, really are plotting against you. Like their called the Yu’vath who used to live in the Calixis sector before they got exterminated by the Imperium. You want to know how they lived- they had an empire that enslaved human worlds for the purposes of using humans as slaves and daemon fodder for the Yu’vaths sorceries which is basically what their technology is built on. They had something similar to the Orks shokk attack gun but for anti-ship work using projectiles.

To KrootHawk, Redscare along with everyone else:

Thank you Redscare, for providing evidence to KrootHawk, as I was a bit busy. To KrootHawk and all others who say Tau are “pure good” I have more evidence for you.

-Maskin Quiore, Gue’la Water Caste Liaison. Source: Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg 352. wrote:“What need you understand but the Greater Good? What more than the Greater Good can hold any concern for you? Ask not where your husband went. Rather, rejoice that his absence benefits us all!”

This was said to a human woman presumably.

-- Source: VELK’HAN SEPT. Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg 352. wrote:“The Sept’s humans (referred to by the Tau as ‘Gue’la’) adhere not the Imperial Creed, but to the Tau ideal of the Greater Good. The Tau teach that the perfect society, one modeled after the Tau themselves, has a place for every creature; with every creature in that place, fulfilling their assigned roles without question, for the good of the Sept as a whole. Imperial religion is prohibited and the Tau Water Caste run education (and re-education) programs that instill an understanding and love of the Greater Good into the somewhat reluctant gue’la minds. Populations are regularly sterilized to prevent population growth outstretching Tau methods of control. Human transgressors against the Greater Good are not publicly executed as is the Imperial way, for the Tau see no need to publicize the fates of those who oppose them. Instead, such gue’la simply disappear, and it is the way of the Greater Good to convince oneself that they never existed at all."

Heres's some more

-TSUA’MALOR. Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg352. wrote:“city, Beldar, is home to the Gue’Retha is a place which the Tau decline to name, but which human malcontents call the Lacuna. This underground research facility, it is rumored, is where the Tau conduct psychological experiments on the gue’la prisoners. The results supposedly help the Tau refine their methods of social manipulation, but no one can be sure since any heard to utter such thought vanish, quite possibly into Lacuna itself”

-Source: TSUA’MALOR. Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg352. wrote:“Tsua’Malor is the capital world of the Velk’Han Sept”

-Source: The Greyhell Front. Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg 354 wrote:“own side as he is to be killed by the xenos. Life is no better for the gue’la auxiliaries, who wont to be abandoned by their Tau overlords or betrayed by Imperial intelligence officers who have worked their way into their ranks.”

typo error here, same in the book, copied it so as to be accurate word for word.

-Source: Kroot Mercenary. Rouge Trader – Into the Storm, The Explorer’s Handbook. Pg 52. wrote:“Chaos renegades or the Ork hordes. Kroot mercenaries hold no prejudices against any particular race, and care only that they are well paid for their services. Naturally, such behavior is anathema to the Tau’s philosophy of the Greater Good. Thus, the Kroot hide their mercenary activities and avoid contact with Tau forces if at all possible. In the end, strengthening the Kroot’s genetic makeup is of paramount importance, and the Koronus Expanse is an opportunity the Kroot simply cannot ignore.”

This one is to show that the Tau don’t tolerate what they perceive to be not compatible with their ideology of the “Greater Good” along with another above example shows that in some ways they are just as intolerant as the Imperium. Hell, the Imperium is less they don’t care if you become a bounty hunter or a mercenary unless you’re a mercenary against the Imperium then you’re just dead.

Second to the last one,

-Source: Aun'Va, Master of the Undying Spirit, Tau quotes Lexicanum.com. wrote:“It saddens me greatly that we must take arms against the peoples of the galaxy. By their deaths, they deny themselves the liberation that is only to be found in total surrender to the Greater Good.”

"Surrender" to the Greater Good simply means subjugation to the Tau.

[sarcasm] How benevolent! The Tau are the most democratic, peaceful, enlightened and free race in the galaxy. They simply want to extend this freedom and goodness to everyone else.[/sarcasm]

Last one,

Games Workshop
LICENSING MANAGER
Owen Rees
HEAD OF LICENSING
Paul Lyons
HEAD OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Alan Merrett

This is on all the books of Dark Heresy, Rouge Trader and Deathwatch just so you guys can’t say that it is not part of canon.

Their is my evidence.

ps: I apologise, in advance, to any one who can't read this well due to its size. Just post saying you can't read it and I will split this one massive post into two for everyone's convenience.

Thank you.

My intention in putting forth the quotations was to lay the matter to rest- not to "one-up" someone.

However, I am stumped how a 4 page discussion on this topic was even made possible when it is so clearly stated in the Tau codex that the Tau are not at all the "good guys". Relative good? Maybe. But no where close as to being good as an absolute- I don't think the 40k universe can even allow for such an anomaly.

Hopefully, the OP can copy the quotations and edit them into the opening post and bring a resolution to this discussion.

I'm giving an apology to all Tau players for if you guys are insulted by the things I posted along with the facts like the Tau lovers and noobs, stuff like that. I was a bit drunk at the time when I posted that massive post and had just came from another forum where a Tau player had been flaming me for a few comments I made about his stupid idea and so I took my annoyance fueled by alcohol to taunting you guys. So again I'm sorry.

Other than that, the evidence is here so you guys are free to discuss the implications of it or not

Thanks for reading.

ps: I will be editing my previous post to get rid of the taunts.

It's starting to look like the tau are more or less evil depending on where you look. I get the feeling that their canon has morphed overtime to be more evil/oppressive.

There is something I don't quite get. Why would the tau sterilize people? I guess the reason is to keep population down, but that dosen't make a of sense to me. They can always just move people around, or slow down expansion till they can manage the planets they take (Maybe rule by proxy for awhile). Not to mention children would be more loyal to the tau then the adults would. Also how do they do it? I kind of picture them flying over people dumping chemicals from a old crop duster plain.

Then I also makes me wonder why the tau are so involved in the human worlds they have, but they don't seem as involved in the Kroot. I kind of base that on the kroot still being able to act as mercenaries outside of the empire and that the kroot don't have much tau weaponry. It just seems odd.

Oh and kind of a shout out to all politics talk. The tau are a caste based monarchy, and that leads me to another question. Do kroot, vesipn or human leaders have a role in tau politics like the fire caste generals or the air case admirals. What i am kind of wondering is do they gain rank or if they are in a different system. Something like that?

Just posting the fact that I have edited my massive post with a short sentence. I know I'm being ridiculous and I appologise for it. Anyway its a continuiation of the "Look at the Eldar they had a utopia with their empire, for them at least, where they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted and not be worried about the rest of the universe or the facts of life." part. Its basically "And their empire fell because of decadence and hedonism that was created because of too much peace, security and freedom and no enemies to fight."

Other than the small sentence, no other change were made.

This is the last update I swear.

Nerivant wrote:Sterilization, reeducation camps... they're not the saints of the galaxy.

as opposed to mass genocide at first sight? Yeah. They aren't saints but they are the saints of the 40k universe.

gendoikari87 wrote:

Nerivant wrote:Sterilization, reeducation camps... they're not the saints of the galaxy.

as opposed to mass genocide at first sight? Yeah. They aren't saints but they are the saints of the 40k universe.

Exactly.

On a scale of "Free Love" to "Grimdark," they're hovering somewhere around the USSR under Stalin.

Which is pretty good considering the par for this course.

Nerivant wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

Nerivant wrote:Sterilization, reeducation camps... they're not the saints of the galaxy.

as opposed to mass genocide at first sight? Yeah. They aren't saints but they are the saints of the 40k universe.

Exactly.

On a scale of "Free Love" to "Grimdark," they're hovering somewhere around the USSR under Stalin.

Which is pretty good considering the par for this course.

exactly and when you put them next to the imperium, chaos, and the like, they look like mother theresa by comparison.

Yes, the Tau do look rather like monsters, sophisticated monsters, but still monsters who care nothing about the non-tau species.

The Kroot don't entirely trust the Tau for a good reason.

Guys I know this may seem petulant and childish but I spent money at internet cafes in order to create that post and going through all of the Warhammer 40k rpg books to get the quotes, I have more ready quotes if you want them, and yet no one has yet posted any discussion about what I have posted. It makes me a bit .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nomotog wrote:It's starting to look like the tau are more or less evil depending on where you look. I get the feeling that their canon has morphed overtime to be more evil/oppressive.

There is something I don't quite get. Why would the tau sterilize people? I guess the reason is to keep population down, but that dosen't make a of sense to me. They can always just move people around, or slow down expansion till they can manage the planets they take (Maybe rule by proxy for awhile). Not to mention children would be more loyal to the tau then the adults would. Also how do they do it? I kind of picture them flying over people dumping chemicals from a old crop duster plain.

Then I also makes me wonder why the tau are so involved in the human worlds they have, but they don't seem as involved in the Kroot. I kind of base that on the kroot still being able to act as mercenaries outside of the empire and that the kroot don't have much tau weaponry. It just seems odd.

Oh and kind of a shout out to all politics talk. The tau are a caste based monarchy, and that leads me to another question. Do kroot, vesipn or human leaders have a role in tau politics like the fire caste generals or the air case admirals. What i am kind of wondering is do they gain rank or if they are in a different system. Something like that?

The reason for the sterilization is right their in the second quote. Its "Populations are regularly sterilized to prevent population growth outstretching Tau methods of control." along with other lovely gems.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Guys I know this may seem petulant and childish but I spent money at internet cafes in order to create that post and going through all of the Warhammer 40k rpg books to get the quotes, I have more ready quotes if you want them, and yet no one has yet posted any discussion about what I have posted. It makes me a bit .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nomotog wrote:It's starting to look like the tau are more or less evil depending on where you look. I get the feeling that their canon has morphed overtime to be more evil/oppressive.

There is something I don't quite get. Why would the tau sterilize people? I guess the reason is to keep population down, but that dosen't make a of sense to me. They can always just move people around, or slow down expansion till they can manage the planets they take (Maybe rule by proxy for awhile). Not to mention children would be more loyal to the tau then the adults would. Also how do they do it? I kind of picture them flying over people dumping chemicals from a old crop duster plain.

Then I also makes me wonder why the tau are so involved in the human worlds they have, but they don't seem as involved in the Kroot. I kind of base that on the kroot still being able to act as mercenaries outside of the empire and that the kroot don't have much tau weaponry. It just seems odd.

Oh and kind of a shout out to all politics talk. The tau are a caste based monarchy, and that leads me to another question. Do kroot, vesipn or human leaders have a role in tau politics like the fire caste generals or the air case admirals. What i am kind of wondering is do they gain rank or if they are in a different system. Something like that?

The reason for the sterilization is right their in the second quote. Its "Populations are regularly sterilized to prevent population growth outstretching Tau methods of control." along with other lovely gems.

Ya I get that. I just don't think it makes sense. Like it was thrown in just to give the tau something evil to do. It feels a little lazy IMHO. It would make more sense for the tau to just not take over a world they can't control. Like I suggest they can rule by proxy through the planets Governor. Ask him to do the sterilizing and all other evil things. Then, when they have the space, they invade and "liberate" the people from their oppressive puppet. Another ,more evil option, they can take the children put them in tau "totally not brain washing schools" and make sure that they grow up with the ideas of the "Greater Good" That makes a lot more sense then sterilization.

That's one of the things I hate about GW, inconsistent fluff. If you're going to make a story, at least stick to the main tenants of the story. With GW it seems like it all depends on what the writer feels.

"Hey, Bob, we need some fluff for the next Tau codex."
"Sure, I'll just type this up."
"Bob, you realize you just completely changed the entire structure of the story?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Well, the deadline's here, there's nothing for it, let's just print it."

Reznov, not to detract from your research but all of that was pretty much from one source, one that is designed soley around an imperial perspective in a fight against "evil" aliens. Kind of hard to fight those aliens without vilifying them, right?

Deathwatch is a roleplaying game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, where you take on the role of a member of the Adeptus Astartes - the devout, bio-engineered super-soldiers also known as Space Marines....all Deathwatch Marines must learn to put aside their differences and work together to succeed in the most extraordinary operations - whether facing the threat of total annihilation when confronted by implacable alien foes, or fighting against the foul daemon menace that crawls forth hungrily from beyond the Warp.

And in Rogue Trader, you can work with them... or play as them.

remeber this note from your friendly nieghborhood inquisitor
imperium=good
tau=bad
eldar=bad
necron=bad
chaos=bad
orks=WTF?!
seriously what are orks doing in space

I am just working through the quotes of Deathwatch, as Space Marine books are not my traditional terrain (and I want to know what I am talking about before posting).

Some first impressions:

1.) Yes, Deathwatch is licenced by GW, as are C.S.Goto books and the PC games. Alan Merrit is the IP specialist of GW, but not the background specialist. This is still a non-GW product. But I acknowledge that some unidentified parts of the book were written by Andy Hoare, author of the last Codex.

2.) Every game has its rules. In this game, Tau are the major enemies of the heroes, and the heroes are supposed to be more or less good (the evil Space Marines will be featured in the next RPG). So the setting must give the heroes something to clean up. In a PC game you have to provide a planet with all races and scenarios for all races to win or lose.

3.) Of course, all quotes are deliberately taken out of context: The first quote is by a human in Tau services, not a Tau. Makes sense as the majority of the Velk'han Sept are humans, mostly led by human leaders, although in agreement to the ideal of the Greater Good. But as stated several times, there is a dark secret in that area, some unknown alien force ""infecting humans and tau alike with madness" (p.352). So we can't blindly judge the whole Tau Empire by this potentially corrupted part of it. We have to wait for more material to shed light upon this. BTW the human adversary Ebongrave seems a mad fanatic as well, having quarantined 3 planets to be hopelessly "corrupted by Tau sympathy", so they now feature mass starvation by the quarantine.

4.) Still, the introduction of the capital Tsua'Malor starts with "Once a populous and advanced human world, it was transformed by Earth caste architects into a shining example of civilisation and enlightenment" (your quote just stopped before that for obvious reasons). They then describe the reseach and learning facilities for tau and humans. Taking prisoners is not evil per se, and the psychological experiments I know have nothing to do with torture. Social manipulation and education are not evil per se as seen by Allied "de-nazification" in post-WW2 Germany, a good, successful and necessary process. Executing opponents and sterilization are rather bad and IIRC the first explicit mention of this practice. They don't fit my image of Tau, not sure if GW wants to change background in that direction as well. But they also gave us bro-fisting Blood Angels and Necrons plus Grey Knights bathing in the blood of Sororitas to overcome the temptation of the Blood God.

5.) Concerning Guela fates: the deliberately uncomplete quote states that an Imperial Guardsman "is almost as likely to be executed by his own side as as he is killed to be killed by Xenos". We know that Gue'la are led by humans not Tau, and Tau don't interfer much with gue'la. The quote means that gue'la feel abandonned by their leaders or threatened by Imperial traitors within their ranks. This is something completely different from Tau treating them badly.

Melissia wrote:Yes, the Tau do look rather like monsters, sophisticated monsters, but still monsters who care nothing about the non-tau species.
The Kroot don't entirely trust the Tau for a good reason.

There wouldn't be a Kroot race, if the Tau hadn't fought next to them against Orks without asking for a benefit. Kroot are grateful for that. One Kroot became general in the Tau army. Kroot just have their own agenda, based on their biology. Fighting for Chaos and Orks is obviously not a good thing, but there is absolutely no hint that Tau suppress Kroot to stop that.

As said, this is just a short answer, as I am currently too busy to do more reading, but it is some kind of reply.

To agnosto and KrootHawk. The Warhammer 40k rpg books are that "RPG books" so they are written from an omniscient perspective except for a few parts here and their unless your saying that the description are from an Imperial perspective and I simply don't see it that way as the books describe things that we know but members of the Imperium don't unless of course your saying that the descriptor is the Emperor.

As for all the so called parts I left out, it wasn't intentionally because I wanted to obscure evidence or something like that, its just that the paragraphs are large and I didn't have a lot of change at the time to continue using the computers. But that's why I put in sources and pages for you guys to search for them yourself.

4.) Still, the introduction of the capital Tsua'Malor starts with "Once a populous and advanced human world, it was transformed by Earth caste architects into a shining example of civilisation and enlightenment" (your quote just stopped before that for obvious reasons). They then describe the reseach and learning facilities for tau and humans. Taking prisoners is not evil per se, and the psychological experiments I know have nothing to do with torture. Social manipulation and education are not evil per se as seen by Allied "de-nazification" in post-WW2 Germany, a good, successful and necessary process. Executing opponents and sterilization are rather bad and IIRC the first explicit mention of this practice. They don't fit my image of Tau, not sure if GW wants to change background in that direction as well. But they also gave us bro-fisting Blood Angels and Necrons plus Grey Knights bathing in the blood of Sororitas to overcome the temptation of the Blood God.

Whats the difference between this "Once a populous and advanced human world" and this "it was transformed by Earth caste architects into a shining example of civilisation and enlightenment"? Not all orwellian police states have to be shitholes that look like crap check out Deus Ex: Invisible War endings on YouTube for an example.

You are very naive like the Tau themselves are. You think that simply because the Tau fight for the Greater good and that they negotiate they will be able to rule that galaxy without killing large amount of people. I have already stated countless times about how the Tau will have to eventually commit genocide if they want to survive and truly expand as a lot of races don't give a care for one ounce of the greater good. The Tau are either two things - incredible liars who simply have good publicity and hide their evil behind closed doors or they are slowly become evil due to the nature of the galaxy.

Concerning Guela fates: the deliberately uncomplete quote states that an Imperial Guardsman "is almost as likely to be executed by his own side as as he is killed to be killed by Xenos". We know that Gue'la are led by humans not Tau, and Tau don't interfer much with gue'la. The quote means that gue'la feel abandonned by their leaders or threatened by Imperial traitors within their ranks. This is something completely different from Tau treating them badly.

Here is the quote again:

-Source: The Greyhell Front. Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg 354 wrote:“own side as he is to be killed by the xenos. Life is no better for the gue’la auxiliaries, who wont to be abandoned by their Tau overlords or betrayed by Imperial intelligence officers who have worked their way into their ranks.”

I didn't post the prequel to that as its about the Imperium and we already know how the Imperium acts so no need for more evidence. They do interfere its stated in the book, you just can't get your head around it because you love Tau. I don't love any particular army, I have played them all but my personal army are Orks. I am not biased.

As for the Tau and Kroot, the Kroot don't want the Tau to learn that their still acting as mercenaries because its against the greater good ideology of the Tau so what do they do; they hide the fact that theiyare still mercenaries which means that their is a punishment for going against what the Tau believe to be wrong. Otherwise why would the Kroot hide that fact.

-Source: Kroot Mercenary. Rouge Trader – Into the Storm, The Explorer’s Handbook. Pg 52. wrote:“Chaos renegades or the Ork hordes. Kroot mercenaries hold no prejudices against any particular race, and care only that they are well paid for their services. Naturally, such behavior is anathema to the Tau’s philosophy of the Greater Good. Thus, the Kroot hide their mercenary activities and avoid contact with Tau forces if at all possible. In the end, strengthening the Kroot’s genetic makeup is of paramount importance, and the Koronus Expanse is an opportunity the Kroot simply cannot ignore.”

I am prepared to post images with all the paragraphs from the books and paste them here if someone would be kind enough to tell me how to do that?

Unity in Fear the Alien. The races the Tau bring into the GG aren't there for the GG. Kroot are looking for a meal. As mentioned before Vespids have the helmet thingy. Tau control populations the way we control pet populations, they're just missing a Bob Barker.

So the Deathwatch books did expand on the idea of evil Tau.

ah well, it least I can follow GW's own law of canon material and just pretend it doesn't exist.

Crevab wrote:So the Deathwatch books did expand on the idea of evil Tau.

ah well, it least I can follow GW's own law of canon material and just pretend it doesn't exist.

If you want to ignore it fine, thats okay. But it was made by Fantasy Flight Games with GW supervising. Hell, FFG has a Horus Heresy Board game approved by GW. Don't believe me? Here is the proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4F6PE0ELuY. It seems that GW and Fantasy Flight Games have become very close and it is logical to assume that GW would try and keep a watch over their product and its background so that it doesn't have any really big inconsistencies or at least what GW doesn't believe are inconsistencies.

Um, one question Crevab what army do you play by the way?

Melissia wrote:And in Rogue Trader, you can work with them... or play as them.

What are you talking about Melissia?

Course I believe you. Other than this Tau revelation, I've quite enjoyed what I've read from FFG's works.

That second line is just me being bitter and invested in the wrong game. I like continuity, so rub that up against GW's "it's all propaganda, everything is true" attitude? not the best. For example, I read a blog by Aaron dempski-bowden last week. In one part he relayed that his editor asked him why he would change something that had been set forth in an earlier HH book. He replyed that he thought it was stupid, so he just ignored it.


And what army? all of them.Though Tau were the first to catch my interest.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:To agnosto and KrootHawk. The Warhammer 40k rpg books are that "RPG books" so they are written from an omniscient perspective except for a few parts here and their unless your saying that the description are from an Imperial perspective and I simply don't see it that way as the books describe things that we know but members of the Imperium don't unless of course your saying that the descriptor is the Emperor.

Ultimately, I could care less if Tau are raving lunatics in the fluff and running around offing anything that isn't hooved; it's a game to me and the fluff is more or less just the setting for my little toys to do their thing.

I bring up the perspective of the writing because GW writers are terrible at separating dispassionate facts from the beliefs of an outside source. Heck, even the Tau codex has passages that are written from the IoM perspective, and nothing from a strictly Tau perspective. Which reminds me that I always thought it odd that they wouldn't include passages from a Tau source (i.e. a training manual, diary, fragments of the greater good is good for you guide....anything). Maybe the writers are so bad they can't write anything except from a human perspective.

Meh. People can believe what they want but my Tau are the bunnies of the universe, they hop around the table, trying to avoid death, and deal a little greater good to the oppressed masses. If someone else has a different viewpoint, good for them but it'll never affect my games or the fantasy setting in my mind.

Meh. The Tau don't fight for the greater good as we know it. They fight for the Greater Good as the tau know it. THEIR greater good, to harm of everyone else.

Melissia wrote:Meh. The Tau don't fight for the greater good as we know it. They fight for the Greater Good as the tau know it. THEIR greater good, to harm of everyone else.

At least the Tau didn't turn to chaos and have to be wiped out by Grey Knights...bathe in the blood of the emperor's harlots!

If Chaos deemed the Tau worth attacking at all in any reasonable force, the Tau would have no defense against the corruption of Chaos to begin with.

Surtur wrote:Unity in Fear the Alien. The races the Tau bring into the GG aren't there for the GG. Kroot are looking for a meal. As mentioned before Vespids have the helmet thingy. Tau control populations the way we control pet populations, they're just missing a Bob Barker.

Don't forget to spade and neuter your human.

I think the Tyranids are much more communist and progressive than the Tau, they require they greatest sacrifice to reach greater perfection, they just happen to misunderstood by the short-sighted races in the galaxy. In the end, all of the Tyranids enemies join them, and contribute to the greater progress of the race. The Tyranids are a triumph of life in it's perfected form. Dang, that guy from Jurassic Park was right, nature always finds a way.

Tau are not human, they don't think in a humanlike way. The people who keep ascribing human morality and ethical systems to them are kinda missing he point.

Think about Orks-- in the recent Into the Storm supplement for Rogue Trader, there's rules for playing Orks. They had a page dedicated to the Ork mindset, and how different it was from humans, and even then they only touched on a few things. Orks, for example, have no concept of gender. They do not understand and they do not bother to try to understand. Similarly, Orks can't be seduced through human charms-- their minds and bodies just don't work that way, and hell, their minds and bodies are resistant to the woes of corruption to begin with to the point where they are in essence (with rare exceptions) basically completely immune. The way Ork insanity works is also quite different.

Similarly, Kroot do not suffer corruption in the same way as humans do-- instead tending towards a regression towards their more primitive and feral origins, and their alien mind suffers insanity in an entirely different way, such as having no real concept of sin and penance, and no fear of the dead as we do (the dead are just food to the kroot), etc. They have senses that we do not have, and they lack the history and culture we have.

Tau are similarly alien in their mindset, if not moreso. They did not experience the fifty thousand years of cultural history that we have, they have an entirely different cultural history, an entirely different biological and genetic history. They don't think like we do, and it's nonsensical to claim that their "greater good" is the same thing as in our own moral systems.

Melissia wrote:If Chaos deemed the Tau worth attacking at all in any reasonable force, the Tau would have no defense against the corruption of Chaos to begin with.

That's the other thread. This thread is all about cuddly kittens and how the Greater Good is the only good for you.

No it's not.

Melissia wrote:No it's not.

You're just being obstinate about this, aren't you.

Now look at this kitten.



The kitten likes the Greater Good and would a kitten this cute lie?

Give Tau players a break, everyone hates them, and they know everyone hates them, which causes them to fanboy up, which makes everyone hate them more. It's a vicious cycle. Maybe if people stopped pointing out the Tau's weak points, they would be a bit "cooler," I mean, Eldar are cool, but they're space elves with guns that shoot ninja stars.

Farsight is a beast, even I will admit that.

No, that kitten is scared of the greater good and is running away.

I'm not bashing tau players, just the view that Tau are some sort of mary sue.

Melissia wrote:No, that kitten is scared of the greater good and is running away.

I'm not bashing tau players, just the view that Tau are some sort of mary sue.

Therefore, bashing Tau players.

Mustela wrote:

Melissia wrote:No, that kitten is scared of the greater good and is running away.

I'm not bashing tau players, just the view that Tau are some sort of mary sue.

Therefore, bashing Tau players.

You're the only one insulting tau players here.

Melissia wrote:

Mustela wrote:

Melissia wrote:No, that kitten is scared of the greater good and is running away.

I'm not bashing tau players, just the view that Tau are some sort of mary sue.

Therefore, bashing Tau players.

You're the only one insulting tau players here.

...

What?

Mustela wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Mustela wrote:

Melissia wrote:No, that kitten is scared of the greater good and is running away.

I'm not bashing tau players, just the view that Tau are some sort of mary sue.

Therefore, bashing Tau players.

You're the only one insulting tau players here.

...

What?

You insinuated that all tau players hold the view that Tau are some sort of race of mary sue characters.

That's YOUR doing, not mine.

Again: FFG has a license, that doesn't mean every page is read and edited for background errors by Merrit, see PC games and Goto books.

Then: Of course Deathwatch is NOT written from an omniscient perspective: Even your third Deathwatch quote is full of "rumoured" and "noone can be sure". And the whole territory is threatened by a yet unknown (!) Xeno thread, making humans and Tau mad. 40k has never been about abolute truths, spreading false tracks just to keep everything mysteriuos. Jervis (IIRC) explicitely said that everything is narrated from an in universe perspective so is kind of true for the narrator, even if it contradicts another narrator. And the GW doctrine that noone can write from a Xenos perspective is still widespread (even, if recently some authors like Gav broke that doctrine, all others had no problem to write from High Elf or Skaven perspective or ... gasp ... a woman's perspective (what can be mpre alien to BL writers ).

I agree that wars involve hurting and killing opponents, and Tau have fought Orks and Tyranids without hope for a peace treaty. But history shows that they I don't say they are saints, but they try to spread a form of society where peaceful exchange of goods and knowledge prevails (=common welfare="Greater Good") instead of killing each other (they learned from their civil war times). If you think they are genociding for their ideal of altruism, then you haven't understood altruism (and you can't find any example). Remember, Tau are low on emotions, don't hate other races, don't enjoy enslaving other sentient beings. And even if they wanted (they don't), they are not nearly numerous enough to subjugate a whole Empire (including human planets).

Concerning Kroot: There would be no Kroot race without Tau fighting 10 years along their side. Kroot swore loyalty to the Tau Empire, as loyal as Kroot can be. They are aware that fighting for the Empires enemies like Orks and Chaos is not exactly respectful to that oath, so they don't talk about it. But there is no indication of any kind that Tau ever tried to punish Kroot.
And Melissia meant that you can play a Kroot character in Rogue TraderRPG (I do ).

Concerning posting pics of FFG/GW IP material: Not allowed by forum rules.

Melissia wrote:If Chaos deemed the Tau worth attacking at all in any reasonable force, the Tau would have no defense against the corruption of Chaos to begin with.

The novel Firewarrior is featuring such a conflict and Chaos doesn't succeed in corrupting even one exhausted and above average emotional Tau. So good luck

Excuse my ingnorance, but what is "mary sue"

Mustela: Here's a good explanation:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

Essentially, though, in this case it is a reference to a character who is overly idealized and "perfect" and "better" than everyone else.

Kroothawk: I repeat myself:

Melissia wrote:Tau are not human, they don't think in a humanlike way. The people who keep ascribing human morality and ethical systems to them are kinda missing he point.

Think about Orks-- in the recent Into the Storm supplement for Rogue Trader, there's rules for playing Orks. They had a page dedicated to the Ork mindset, and how different it was from humans, and even then they only touched on a few things. Orks, for example, have no concept of gender. They do not understand and they do not bother to try to understand. Similarly, Orks can't be seduced through human charms-- their minds and bodies just don't work that way, and hell, their minds and bodies are resistant to the woes of corruption to begin with to the point where they are in essence (with rare exceptions) basically completely immune. The way Ork insanity works is also quite different.

Similarly, Kroot do not suffer corruption in the same way as humans do-- instead tending towards a regression towards their more primitive and feral origins, and their alien mind suffers insanity in an entirely different way, such as having no real concept of sin and penance, and no fear of the dead as we do (the dead are just food to the kroot), etc. They have senses that we do not have, and they lack the history and culture we have.

Tau are similarly alien in their mindset, if not moreso. They did not experience the fifty thousand years of cultural history that we have, they have an entirely different cultural history, an entirely different biological and genetic history. They don't think like we do, and it's nonsensical to claim that their "greater good" is the same thing as in our own moral systems.

But Tau are an invention by human writers, wanting an idealistic and not subjugating race.

Kroothawk wrote:But Tau are an invention by human writers, wanting an idealistic and not subjugating race.

Yes, because it's impossible for a race to be truly "alien," simply because it was created by humans.

/sarcasm

Nerivant wrote:Yes, because it's impossible for a race to be truly "alien," simply because it was created by humans.

/sarcasm

Actually, it would be impossible for a human to write about something that is truly alien to them. Look up the word in the dictionary. All those Sci-fi books, movies, etc. They all have "alien" characters with human characteristics.

/no sarcasm

Merriam-Webster: differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility.

Only because we readers mentally attribute human attributes to non-human things. It's not impossible to CREATE a non-human thing, it's just difficult to read about it without assigning human attributes.

Melissia wrote:Only because we readers mentally attribute human attributes to non-human things. It's not impossible to CREATE a non-human thing, it's just difficult to read about it without assigning human attributes.

Reading and writing are closely related skills. Look at the 40k universe as an example; even the "mysterious" Eldar aren't all that hard to figure out. It wouldn't be much of a game if you couldn't identify on some level with the denizens of the universe.

Just because someone BELIEVES that they can identify with an alien creature doesn't mean it is true.

agnosto wrote:Actually, it would be impossible for a human to write about something that is truly alien to them. Look up the word in the dictionary. All those Sci-fi books, movies, etc. They all have "alien" characters with human characteristics.

/no sarcasm

Merriam-Webster: differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility.

Incompatible and inconceivable are different things. By the way that you are using the term, nothing at all would be "alien" to humans. Even creatures that are paradoxical; i.e. things that have two traits that preclude each other. For example, "that which exists and does not exist at the same time". H.P. Lovecraft and others thought up and wrote about that stuff, too.

Alien, in a broad sense, means "extremely different". The thought process of an ant, for example, is pretty alien to a human, but that doesn't mean that we can't speculate or even determine how a thing like that might work.

There are more pragmatic reasons that humanoid aliens constantly show up in games and stories.
- Readers/players identify more with creatures to which they are similar
- Writers have an easier time giving creatures personality when they can draw from their own experiences
- It's easier to model something without it coming out to look like a formless blob (especially applicable to 40k - even many Tyranids look humanoid or resemble Earth animals)
- For live action stuff, it's easier to find a human actor and put him in a suit than it is to find an alien actor or use CGI

Xarian wrote:
Incompatible and inconceivable are different things. By the way that you are using the term, nothing at all would be "alien" to humans. Even creatures that are paradoxical; i.e. things that have two traits that preclude each other. For example, "that which exists and does not exist at the same time". H.P. Lovecraft and others thought up and wrote about that stuff, too.

Alien, in a broad sense, means "extremely different". The thought process of an ant, for example, is pretty alien to a human, but that doesn't mean that we can't speculate or even determine how a thing like that might work.

There are more pragmatic reasons that humanoid aliens constantly show up in games and stories.
- Readers/players identify more with creatures to which they are similar
- Writers have an easier time giving creatures personality when they can draw from their own experiences
- It's easier to model something without it coming out to look like a formless blob (especially applicable to 40k - even many Tyranids look humanoid or resemble Earth animals)
- For live action stuff, it's easier to find a human actor and put him in a suit than it is to find an alien actor or use CGI

Heh. Can't see the word "inconceivable" without thinking of Princess Bride...love that movie.

The thing is, if you read any book that involves demons, aliens, monsters, etc. They all have human-like characteristics; usually the darker aspects of humanity. This is especially true of GW "fluff". Could they write from a completely alien perspective? Maybe but it wouldn't be any more believable than this:

Kroothawk wrote:Again: FFG has a license, that doesn't mean every page is read and edited for background errors by Merrit, see PC games and Goto books.

Then: Of course Deathwatch is NOT written from an omniscient perspective: Even your third Deathwatch quote is full of "rumoured" and "noone can be sure". And the whole territory is threatened by a yet unknown (!) Xeno thread, making humans and Tau mad. 40k has never been about abolute truths, spreading false tracks just to keep everything mysteriuos. Jervis (IIRC) explicitely said that everything is narrated from an in universe perspective so is kind of true for the narrator, even if it contradicts another narrator. And the GW doctrine that noone can write from a Xenos perspective is still widespread (even, if recently some authors like Gav broke that doctrine, all others had no problem to write from High Elf or Skaven perspective or ... gasp ... a woman's perspective (what can be mpre alien to BL writers ).

I agree that wars involve hurting and killing opponents, and Tau have fought Orks and Tyranids without hope for a peace treaty. But history shows that they I don't say they are saints, but they try to spread a form of society where peaceful exchange of goods and knowledge prevails (=common welfare="Greater Good") instead of killing each other (they learned from their civil war times). If you think they are genociding for their ideal of altruism, then you haven't understood altruism (and you can't find any example). Remember, Tau are low on emotions, don't hate other races, don't enjoy enslaving other sentient beings. And even if they wanted (they don't), they are not nearly numerous enough to subjugate a whole Empire (including human planets).

Concerning Kroot: There would be no Kroot race without Tau fighting 10 years along their side. Kroot swore loyalty to the Tau Empire, as loyal as Kroot can be. They are aware that fighting for the Empires enemies like Orks and Chaos is not exactly respectful to that oath, so they don't talk about it. But there is no indication of any kind that Tau ever tried to punish Kroot.
And Melissia meant that you can play a Kroot character in Rogue TraderRPG (I do ).

Concerning posting pics of FFG/GW IP material: Not allowed by forum rules.

Melissia wrote:If Chaos deemed the Tau worth attacking at all in any reasonable force, the Tau would have no defense against the corruption of Chaos to begin with.

The novel Firewarrior is featuring such a conflict and Chaos doesn't succeed in corrupting even one exhausted and above average emotional Tau. So good luck

Its a rpg game with fluff to describe a sector and its planets that you will do stuff on. Are you telling me that an Imperial will know what the Tau are doing on a particular planet, that they have no presence on and is far away from them and yet they know how the Tau treat their subjects and what the Tau are doing their simply because they know? Wow I didn't know that the Humans in 40k are omniscient and thus any data we read about alien races is of course their propaganda(even though we know what real imperial propaganda looks like -Imperial uplifting primer) which states that these races can destroy the Imperium. So your saying that the Imperium knows about how the necrons were created or about the "War in Heaven" which happened millions of years before humanity even existed. But of course the Imperium knows because they KNOW!

Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?

Moving on, how can you be sure that this is only limited to that Sept. And most of the so called madness is limited on a particular planet or that planet that the Tau are screwing around with and waking up spirits who don't care for the greater good and yet Tau response is to assimilate them into the Tau empire. Thats another thing that just makes me cackle with glee when it comes to the Tau, for the most part the Imperium tries not to screw around with alien structures or artifacts which in this setting makes sense. But the Tau are gleefully digging and butting their ignorant faces into everything which is going to someday wake up something thats going to tear their heads off. And that so called secret threat in that sector, a friend of mine who plays the games and has more of the Deathwatch books told me that the Jericho Reach has a Necron Tombworld located there waiting for something to wake it up.

Remember my quote about the Damocles crusade and Redscare quotes. The Tau want to impose their greater good ideology on the galaxy as well as an empire for themselves with them ruling it, the Tau are not out to free the galaxy from the grip of the Imperium because the Imperium only holds a million worlds filled with humans. If they want to liberate any body they should be focusing on the rest of the galaxy which is filled with Orks. No race that reaches what the Tau, Eldar or Imperium is altruistic. If you truly believe that, you are even more naive than the Tau.

The Kroot don't want the Tau to know that they are still acting as mercenaries because their way of life is "anathema to the greater good" ideology of the Tau. Why would they hide it if their is know punishment? Even we humans follow this rule, if an ally of ours is doing things behind our back and we find out about it we punish them or give them warning not to do it again or we punish them. Simple.

Kroothawk wrote:But Tau are an invention by human writers, wanting an idealistic and not subjugating race.

God-Emperor, Chaos gods, Orks gods and C'tan, please give me strength to sustain myself from these.....argh . The word "Subjugation" as described by merriam-webster.com is "the act or process of bringing someone or something under one's control" and its synonyms are vanquishing, domination. Its related words are defeat.

As for the pics *rage face*, anyway I will be posting those quotes again along with the paragraphs that they are a part of along with additional data for everyone to read and discuss so that everyone can make their own decision on the answer to the question about Tau. I may post the data after two days as I will be very busy tomorrow so bear with me guys and gals(if their are any gals ).

Oh Mellisia, I agree with you completely that the Tau are nothing but mary-sues just like Calgar and Chuck Draigo Norris. Fail GW, extreme fail.

Melissia wrote:Only because we readers mentally attribute human attributes to non-human things. It's not impossible to CREATE a non-human thing, it's just difficult to read about it without assigning human attributes.

Like being bipedal and upright, or having two arms with opposed thumbs on them.

I don't think GW have produced anything that isn't somehow inspired by or a reference to human history or endeavour, the Tau being no exception. But, hey, that's just my opinion.

augustus5 wrote:
The Tau do seem very much to be a socialist society to me. They set aside individual goals for the goals of the state. The etherials are very much like the ruling elites in a socialist society and the rest of the castes are the citizens who work for the goals set by that elite caste. There is little or no room for individual expression and no way for the lower castes to set their own goals.

By that definition, the Empire of Man is socialistic/communist TO THE EXTREME. All praise and glory to the flawless leader. All industry and effort devoted to fueling the war effort. Full castes of brain-washed elite units keeping the peace. Entire planets cleansed clean of life for stepping out of line. The average citizen in ignorant squalor, always readily punished for not serving the state ENOUGH.

Aslo *cough* comissars. Just saying.

Sephyr wrote:

augustus5 wrote:
The Tau do seem very much to be a socialist society to me. They set aside individual goals for the goals of the state. The etherials are very much like the ruling elites in a socialist society and the rest of the castes are the citizens who work for the goals set by that elite caste. There is little or no room for individual expression and no way for the lower castes to set their own goals.

By that definition, the Empire of Man is socialistic/communist TO THE EXTREME. All praise and glory to the flawless leader. All industry and effort devoted to fueling the war effort. Full castes of brain-washed elite units keeping the peace. Entire planets cleansed clean of life for stepping out of line. The average citizen in ignorant squalor, always readily punished for not serving the state ENOUGH.

Aslo *cough* comissars. Just saying.

You mean Stalinism. Socio-communism taken to the extreme would have no leader at all.

Old 40K Forum Argument 4B: Activate!

htj wrote:

Sephyr wrote:

augustus5 wrote:
The Tau do seem very much to be a socialist society to me. They set aside individual goals for the goals of the state. The etherials are very much like the ruling elites in a socialist society and the rest of the castes are the citizens who work for the goals set by that elite caste. There is little or no room for individual expression and no way for the lower castes to set their own goals.

By that definition, the Empire of Man is socialistic/communist TO THE EXTREME. All praise and glory to the flawless leader. All industry and effort devoted to fueling the war effort. Full castes of brain-washed elite units keeping the peace. Entire planets cleansed clean of life for stepping out of line. The average citizen in ignorant squalor, always readily punished for not serving the state ENOUGH.

Aslo *cough* comissars. Just saying.

You mean Stalinism. Socio-communism taken to the extreme would have no leader at all.

Old 40K Forum Argument 4B: Activate!

Again all of you guys are generalizing. The Imperium exterminatuses planets for three main reasons Tyranids, Daemons and genestealers. Not tax returns.

Here is an a world that got exterminatused for a very good reason:

"The battle of Sondheim V. A peaceful Agri-world in the Imperium of Man that has been up to that point far removed from any conflict for thousands of years suddenly sees the skies turn into a multihued mess as the Daemon prince M'kar the Reborn decides to turn it into his private playhouse and Daemons start running loose everywhere. But soon after this a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan descends upon the planet and the sky starts glowing in other weird colors as endless numbers of Mycenic spores rain down upon the planet. Gaunts, Genestealers, and Warriors start fighting Bloodletters, Horrors, Daemonettes and Plaguebearers, utterly undeterred by their Daemonic nature. Gargoyles and Furies gnash and tear at one another in the skies while Carnifexes, Tyrannofexes, Hive Tyrants, and all sorts of bio-titans fight Greater Daemons in the streets. Nurglings and Rippers devour one another while Zoanthropes fight psychically with Lords of Change. Now this may sound awesome, but imagine if you were just a normal Imperial Citizen cowering under his bed while watching two of the greatest horrors in the Galaxy have a go at each other. The entire Sky Sentinels chapter is sent to reclaim the planet, but the whole thing is so terrifying that they just decide to Exterminatus the place and blow up the hive fleet tendril."

As a Tau player i must say Taus are not exactly the good guys of the universe, i mean, they dont just float accross the universe in a yellow submarine singing and giving flowers to any one they find. But I agree that they are the lesser evil, ass fluff says when tau find another race they first send their Water Caste to negotiate, only in failing several times and under a constant treat of war they send the firewarriors to cleanse the violent ones and recluit the remaining.

Lets make an example: Somewhere in the universe a young race of non-violent cientist (lets name them Dakkers) make its first jump out they star sistem and have their first non-dakker contact with...

Orks: 'DA FIGHT!!!!!!!!!

(All rainbow) Space Marines: Mmmm...they have something that could be handy lets kill this ones and take a sample.(After investigation) Sweet!! This could solve all our problems, even repair the golden trone, revive the emperor and restore all the hair he has lost...oh yeah! I forgot that's heresy, just wipe them out.

I. Guard: Sir!! We have made contact with an unidentified xeno ship bearing a white flag and with no visible weapons, -A white flag??!! All right guys it seems that we got no choise but crush our ship agains them and give our lifes to the last man...FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!-

Chaos: Honestly man, we are the cool guys, now if you could just bow a little and show me your neck ill prove it to you.

The Hive Mind:....Ñom!

Eldars: Look let me make this clear to you, THIS is the cool table, THAT is where you belong...

D. Eldars: Look let me make this clear to you, THIS is the cool table...now get this leather clothes on and ill spank you later.

Necrons: Hi there good looking! May i say that your command bay is just gorgeus and...wait you are infested of life...let me take care of that for you.

Tau: Hi there!!! Wanna be friends?, sure?, really sure?, really really sure? really really really sure? We got cookies...no? last chance...ill count to 3. 1...2....2 and a half............3, ok this is my big cousin Shas'O, perhaps he will make you change your mind.

Anyway, i play a Farsight army so ill let the loyal tau players stand for them XD.

htj wrote:
You mean Stalinism. Socio-communism taken to the extreme would have no leader at all.

Old 40K Forum Argument 4B: Activate!

Agreed! Please note that I started the post with "By THAt definition", meaning that person's forum post.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Again all of you guys are generalizing. The Imperium exterminatuses planets for three main reasons Tyranids, Daemons and genestealers. Not tax returns.

Exterminatus is not the only way to wipe out a population. Look at Armaggedon: an entire population enslaved to death AFTER A VICTORY. For knowing too much about things the Empire would rather keep under wraps. Worked to death and sterilized in camps, new worker population transplanted from somewhere else to be keep production going. It's hard to get more Stalinist than that. It's actually a good parallel with existing totalitarian regimes punishing 'heretical' (counter-revolutionary) knowledge broadly and harshly.

the way i read tau are the good guys, and in thier own alien way they are tring to unite the galaxy in the bes tintrest of all speices... they however do not believe orks are capable of peace (and rightly so) so they so have some desire to comit xenocide none that are paricularly outside the realm of justified though

i think there are execlent points being made on all sides but i think in the 40k univers if you are on the outside you see tau as a threat that may change things, once in it you are likely going to be living in the tau's idea of a free world which yu may not like any better than the imperium

that said as a whole i think the tau are ovrall good and use violence only to spread what they believe if freedom for most species (whether they want it or not)

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?

How ridiculous is an omniscient narrator who confesses every second paragraph that he doesn't know much:

TSUA’MALOR. Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg352. wrote:“city, Beldar, is home to the Gue’Retha is a place which the Tau decline to name, but which human malcontents call the Lacuna. This underground research facility, it is rumored, is where the Tau conduct psychological experiments on the gue’la prisoners. The results supposedly help the Tau refine their methods of social manipulation, but no one can be sure since any heard to utter such thought vanish, quite possibly into Lacuna itself”

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Moving on, how can you be sure that this is only limited to that Sept.

If Tau find the ruins new, puzzling and want to explore them, they can't be commonly found on every Tau planet, can they

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:But Tau are an invention by human writers, wanting an idealistic and not subjugating race.

God-Emperor, Chaos gods, Orks gods and C'tan, please give me strength to sustain myself from these.....argh . The word "Subjugation" as described by merriam-webster.com is "the act or process of bringing someone or something under one's control" and its synonyms are vanquishing, domination. Its related words are defeat.

Yes, and the creators made it clear that Tau don't want to subjugate.

htj wrote:

Sephyr wrote:

augustus5 wrote:
The Tau do seem very much to be a socialist society to me. They set aside individual goals for the goals of the state.

By that definition, the Empire of Man is socialistic/communist TO THE EXTREME.

You mean Stalinism. Socio-communism taken to the extreme would have no leader at all.

Has anyone heard of the crazy idea that Tau are inspired by East Asian societies? That the Western form of Individualism is unknown in countries like Japan or China? And that Confucius wasn't an early Stalinist?

Kroothawk wrote:Yes, and the creators made it clear that Tau don't want to subjugate.

Though that won't stop them if you don't want to voluntarily join.

The difference between the Tau and most of the other codex races/groups is that the Tau are willing to let you live and serve under them, while the majority of the other groups will just plain wipe you out as readily as look at you. The Tau will still take your planet out from under you just like everyone else. It's just that the Tau will ask nicely first and let you stick around (clarification - stick around alive and largely unharmed) afterwards. And if you don't like what the Tau just did, then they might only send you to a reeducation camp (at least according to FFG - I'm well aware that a number of players are violently opposed to the idea of the Tau doing anything like that) instead of shooting you out of hand.

The only other notable exception to the "kill 'em all and take their stuff" attitude is the eldar - and only because you're utterly and completely beneath their notice. If you actually do have something that the eldar want (heaven help you if you unknowingly live on a Maiden World) then they'll slaughter you without a shred of regret just like everyone else. The good news is that you can usually avoid obtaining something that the eldar want by studiously ignoring all of those ancient ruins scattered around the galaxy (which is usually a good move anyway, given how many of them seem to be anti-C'Tan devices or something similar).


The Tau attitude toward everyone else really seems to be the 40K version of "The White Man's Burden", all nice and militantly grim-darked up just like the rest of the 40K setting.

@Sephyr.

My bad, reading comprehension failure on my part.

@Kroothawk

I don't think the Tau are based on Stalinist Russia, I was merely countering the definition of Communism as presented in Sephyr's post. Wrongly, as it turns out. Their being based on Eastern cultures is pretty obvious, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, they came from the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy. Dead subtle, that is.

TMonkeyGuru wrote:But I agree that they are the lesser evil, ass fluff says when tau find another race they first send their Water Caste to negotiate

Submit or die is the same thing that Darkseid says. So Tau are kinda like Darkseid, but not as cool.

I guess this is fan canon, but I'm of the idea that the tau is willing to tolerate a neutral group. So long as they are not openly hostile, the plan is to just wait them out or ignore them till they come around. The tau want people to join them. They don't want to kill everyone, so I don't like the idea that they instantly flip from "cookies and cake!" to "burn in plasma!!" on people who aren't attacking them.

I figure the long term plan is to just increase their presence. Start with a few traders who flood the markers with tau goods. Maybe send a few diplomats to advise the leaders. After the people get use to the tau presence and all the benefits, they start placing buildings "I am glad you like are cookies, but it's so hard to ship them. Maybe you can let us build one little factory?" It won't be long before they drop in a earth caste building crew to build cites.

Even when there is open conflict, there main goal is not to kill everyone, but to force negotiations.

nomotog wrote:I guess this is fan canon, but I'm of the idea that the tau is willing to tolerate a neutral group.

I don't. The ultimatum is surrender or die. Not surrender, coexist, or die.

So the fluff about them developing long-term trading partnerships etc; we'll just throw that out the window and paint them with the "submit or die" brush. Okie dokie.

Don't make me throw the kitten picture at you again.

Edited for quote:
Codex, page 8:

Members of the Water caste had established trade agreements with Imperial worlds on the frontier and exchanges of goods and technology were common.

The Tau have an entire population that is devoted to non-violent pursuits.
Codex page 9 you hardly need an entire caste dedicated to trade and diplomacy if you're going to give ultimatums; a fire caste warrior could easily do that kind of blunt work:

So it is that Water caste members are bureaucrats, politicians, negotiators and and administrators. They are the merchants and diplomats....Water caste members often accompany Tau expeditionary forces to negotiate safe transit through alien systems and smooth the passage of Tau merchants and colonists.

Melissia wrote:

nomotog wrote:I guess this is fan canon, but I'm of the idea that the tau is willing to tolerate a neutral group.

I don't. The ultimatum is surrender or die. Not surrender, coexist, or die.

I don't think the tau actually has the firepower to enforce a join or die policy. They have wars with the orks IoM and all kinds of openly hostile aliens. Diverting a battle fleet to destroy a planet that poses no threat is stupid. They have real threats that need that battle fleet. They can just let a water caste envoy soften them up over time.

nomotog wrote:I don't think the tau actually has the firepower to enforce a join or die policy. They have wars with the orks IoM and all kinds of openly hostile aliens. Diverting a battle fleet to destroy a planet that poses no threat is stupid. They have real threats that need that battle fleet. They can just let a water caste envoy soften them up over time.

Which is all well and dandy, and yet, that's still what they do.

If the Tau want a planet which does not want to be ruled by them and rejects all potential treaties to that effeect, they'll first attempt to subvert that planet's culture and plant sympathizers with which to create upheaval, and then eventually they'll invade and subjugate. Pretty much like what they did in the first Cain book.

In the long run the Tau Empire cannot accept the existence of truly neutral planets, at least not as long as they do not wish to abandon their philosophy of the greater good which sooner or later has to include everyone. In most other settings the Tau would be the villains, comparable to the Star Trek Dominion perhaps, which has a similar agenda.

Only in Warhammer 40k, where everyone else either wants to either
kill you ( for being different, or because of hunger, or because it's fun, because you are vermin, because you tried to modify your pocket calculator, because you look strangely at the commisar, because you weren't praying hard enough, because some terrible alien farseer decided that it's necessary, because some even more terrible alien warlord decided that your face would make a nice mask, because your screams would sound lovely, because you simply had bad luck, because the techpriest in charge forgot that dancing around a nuclear reactor isn't quite enough, because your planetary govenor is corrupt and now the entire planet is punished for his misdeeds, because after a 18 hour shift at the factory your tongue slipped...ah, so many reasons, because you didn't want to give your only son to some giant, mutant freaks whose idea of recruiting is lethal gladiatorial combat..., ah so many reasons to die in the dark 40. millenium ) or rape your soul for all eternity, the Tau, who "merely" wish to incorporate you into their alien culture ( of course, once again your own wishes and desires are secondary ) could be called good guys.

Melissia wrote:Which is all well and dandy, and yet, that's still what they do.

If the Tau want a planet which does not want to be ruled by them and rejects all potential treaties to that effeect, they'll first attempt to subvert that planet's culture and plant sympathizers with which to create upheaval, and then eventually they'll invade and subjugate. Pretty much like what they did in the first Cain book.

I get that it is canon, but I don't think it makes any sense. That's why I called my post fan cannon.

And I don't think yours makes any sense. It's an overly idealized version, what the tau WANT you to think sure, but it's not what actually happes.

I'll make a deal with you Melissia; you let me believe what I want about the fictional universe that my toy soldiers inhabit and I'll do the same for you.

Melissia wrote:And I don't think yours makes any sense. It's an overly idealized version, what the tau WANT you to think sure, but it's not what actually happes.

That's fair.

because some terrible alien farseer decided that it's necessary

It should be noted that this particular one applies just as much to the Tau (change the word 'farseer' to 'ethereal') as it does to everyone else. If the Tau leadership honestly believes that your death will serve the Greater Good, then they'll have you killed.

It's just that the Eldar Farseers tend to be much better at identifying exactly who it is that needs to die than anyone else, and therefore use the method significantly more often than anyone else. The Tau, being a notably non-psychic race, are forced to rely on more conventional methods of analysis to pinpoint such individuals. And such methods have a much more difficult time identifying specific 'assassination-worthy individuals'.

Melissia wrote:

nomotog wrote:I guess this is fan canon, but I'm of the idea that the tau is willing to tolerate a neutral group.

I don't. The ultimatum is surrender or die. Not surrender, coexist, or die.

Kroot didn't surrender and still prosper, Demiurg didn't surrender and still prosper. Actually, you will not even find so much as a fan-fiction of the Tau Empire massacring the population of a planet (only Farsight and his follower Brightsword).

Melissia wrote:Pretty much like what they did in the first Cain book.

You mean the planet the Tau left on their own account? Leaving a planet as the ultimate form of subjugation?

They didn't leave the planet IIRC. They actually stayed there and kept trying to convert more and more of the population to Tau beliefs so that there would be more rebellion.

Hell the entire conflict in the first Cain book was caused by Tau subversion (rabble rousing to convert people to their beliefs) combined with genestealer cults.

Kroothawk wrote:

Melissia wrote:

nomotog wrote:I guess this is fan canon, but I'm of the idea that the tau is willing to tolerate a neutral group.

I don't. The ultimatum is surrender or die. Not surrender, coexist, or die.

Kroot didn't surrender and still prosper, Demiurg didn't surrender and still prosper. Actually, you will not even find so much as a fan-fiction of the Tau Empire massacring the population of a planet (only Farsight and his follower Brightsword).

The faresight and brightsword are neat examples. In both cases, they got in trouble for their actions. They where acting outside of where they should have and got punished. Bright sword got recalled to face some kind of charge and farsighit has been made a rebel. (More fan canon, but I bet that the eternal caste now has a plan in case anymore commanders go rouge. Involving hijacking the ship controls and setting them a drift out in nowhere.)

Melissia wrote:They didn't leave the planet IIRC. They actually stayed there and kept trying to convert more and more of the population to Tau beliefs so that there would be more rebellion.

Hell the entire conflict in the first Cain book was caused by Tau subversion (rabble rousing to convert people to their beliefs) combined with genestealer cults.

Actually, they did leave in the end. They figured that the place was such a mess that it wasn't worth the trouble of trying to take over.

Or in other words, they were going to wait a couple of decades and then come back once the planet had straightened its issues (generally, genestealer related) out. It was a straightforward cost/benefit analysis. Let the Imperium pay the cost of cleaning up after the genestealers, and then swoop back in once the Imperium had been distracted and was looking somewhere else.

The discussion on the "Greater Good" can be better understood, if you look at the end of World War 2 in Europe:

In Western Europe, two major ideologies clashed: German and Italian fascism and French/British/American ideas of freedom, human rights and democracy. The allies won the war and the Western allies forced their ideology on Germany, with imprisonment of their opponents (anyone who fights freedom, human rights and democracy), massive reeducation and social manipulation with the effect that the German population finally adopted the other ideology. According to the argumentation in this thread, this makes the Western Allies evil and another subjugating empire trying to force their ideology on defeated enemies (implying that the support for freedom/humanrights/democracy is just another ideology on the same level as fascism).

The Western Allies were no saints, but they certainly were not as evil and on the same level as the Nazi regime.

So in 40k, fighting for the genocide of all Xeno scum and rule of the human master race (IoM) or trying to establish a peaceful union of Xeno races exchanging goods and knowledge for mutual benefit (Tau Empire) is not the same. Trying to convert a racist, aggressive and undemocratic society to a tolerant, peaceful and democratic one by reeducation and social manipulation is not something evil. Trying to imprison terrorists, racists and fascists is not a bad thing. Think about it.

Kroothawk wrote:The discussion on the "Greater Good" can be better understood, if you look at the end of World War 2 in Europe:

In Western Europe, two major ideologies clashed: German and Italian fascism and French/British/American ideas of freedom, human rights and democracy. The allies won the war and the Western allies forced their ideology on Germany, with imprisonment of their opponents (anyone who fights freedom, human rights and democracy), massive reeducation and social manipulation with the effect that the German population finally adopted the other ideology. According to the argumentation in this thread, this makes the Western Allies evil and another subjugating empire trying to force their ideology on defeated enemies (implying that the support for freedom/humanrights/democracy is just another ideology on the same level as fascism).

The Western Allies were no saints, but they certainly were not as evil and on the same level as the Nazi regime.

So in 40k, fighting for the genocide of all Xeno scum and rule of the human master race (IoM) or trying to establish a peaceful union of Xeno races exchanging goods and knowledge for mutual benefit (Tau Empire) is not the same. Trying to convert a racist, aggressive and undemocratic society to a tolerant, peaceful and democratic one by reeducation and social manipulation is not something evil. Trying to imprison terrorists, racists and fascists is not a bad thing. Think about it.

I am a little confused, are you trying to say that the tau practice democracy? Because they don't. They are a monarchy.

nomotog wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:The discussion on the "Greater Good" can be better understood, if you look at the end of World War 2 in Europe:

In Western Europe, two major ideologies clashed: German and Italian fascism and French/British/American ideas of freedom, human rights and democracy. The allies won the war and the Western allies forced their ideology on Germany, with imprisonment of their opponents (anyone who fights freedom, human rights and democracy), massive reeducation and social manipulation with the effect that the German population finally adopted the other ideology. According to the argumentation in this thread, this makes the Western Allies evil and another subjugating empire trying to force their ideology on defeated enemies (implying that the support for freedom/humanrights/democracy is just another ideology on the same level as fascism).

The Western Allies were no saints, but they certainly were not as evil and on the same level as the Nazi regime.

So in 40k, fighting for the genocide of all Xeno scum and rule of the human master race (IoM) or trying to establish a peaceful union of Xeno races exchanging goods and knowledge for mutual benefit (Tau Empire) is not the same. Trying to convert a racist, aggressive and undemocratic society to a tolerant, peaceful and democratic one by reeducation and social manipulation is not something evil. Trying to imprison terrorists, racists and fascists is not a bad thing. Think about it.

I am a little confused, are you trying to say that the tau practice democracy? Because they don't. They are a monarchy.

authocratic theocracy/hierocracy ( assuming that there can be theocracies which have, for example, democratic elements, which the Tau Empire seems to lack )

They try to use diplomatic methods BEFORE they bring out the guns. Of course, their diplomats are very manipulative and slippery, so basically they try trickery before guns.

They're still plenty happy to use guns, though.

Okay everyone, I'm back. I will be posting the full paragraphs of the FFG rpg books about the Tau as well as quotes from Redscare, who has been kind enough too put forward quotes for everyone to read and judge for themselves, 1 or 2 days from now.

Anyway I want to respond to some posters in this thread especially you- KrootHawk. Lets begin:

To TMonkeyGuru:

Finally, someone sane among the Tau players. I thank you for at reading the entire thread and looking at the evidence presented and acknowledging the fact that the Tau do invade and conquer other races. It seems that other Tau players seem to be under the delusion that the everyone in 40k wants to live under the Tau empire and will not have to be forced into it. What you said about the Tau being a lesser evil is what I have been saying all along since I created this thread, but people can't seem to get it and keep saying that I'm accusing that the Tau are evil when in truth(their blinding by Tau propaganda), this is what they claim, the Tau are 'pure whitey goodness'.

To Sephyr:

I do not deny that. I simply wanted to stop a nonsense that has been spreading since WH40k became more popular to the masses; they say that the Imperium exterminatuses its own planets because of bad tax returns or something like that. Which is pure nonsense, nothing more; no empire could last no matter how brutal or high living standards it has if it keeps burning planets for not paying taxes since this is something that happens for nearly all planets

Now for the issue of Armageddon. That is something that never sat right with me because it contradicts other fluff seeing as their are Imperial guardsmen and other people that know about Chaos and daemons and fight against them and yet they are not all mind wiped or killed. Those are what the Imperium did all the time 95%(cadians are the remaining 5%) that faced chaos and its daemons in earlier fluff. But this has been shown not to be completely true seeing as their are daemons and chaos forces now raiding everywhere so much that it couldn't be covered up the fact that Chaos exists anymore even if only to its own armies and not the population. This has changed, yet again due to another crappy codex with more inconsistent and contradictory fluff; the Grey knight codex were they kill or mind wipe everyone they come into contact with.

So I don't know anymore, its all GW's fault.

To G00fySmiley:

How naive are you? I have already said countless times that their are races in the galaxy who's best interest is to take over the galaxy or kill everyone in their path. Their own society's don't oppress them in any way. Infact, living under the Tau would be oppressive to them but of course you ignore this. The Tau don't fight for the best interests of everyone; they fight for what "they believe" is the best interest of everyone, even if everyone disagrees. How is this any different from the Imperium who conquer independent human planets to bring them into the fold for their own 'good'?

Here are some races who will certainly care nothing for the greater good:

Hrud- waiting for the races of the galaxy to pretty much wipe each other and than they will rise up from their warrens and kill the survivors. Imperium tried to exterminate them but failed.

Thyruss or however its spelled- who make war to please their gods by giving them some nice war series to watch.

Slaught- A race who have been implied to have been playing with the human race since before the age of strife. They like to manipulate humans into causing massive wars with each other or hell anyone else. Then they move in and eat the bodies.

Yu'Vath- An alien empire of slavering warp worshiping sorcerers who built an empire on the back of enslaved humans for well slavery and daemon fodder fuel seeing as the Yu'Vath are sorcerers after all. Their entire tech base is basically sorcery. Its been said that they have been exterminated by the Imperium. But rumors state that their could be survivors.

These races will have to be exterminated by the Tau which means Xenocide. Something all Tau players seem to disparage the Imperium for but when the Tau empire will have to do it themselves if they want to be successful, but of course you guys will ignore the evil of xenocide and just sprout "Its for the Greater Good" like good little Tau workers. Just fail.

To KrootHawk:

You are viewing the scene in the wrong way! The narrator is saying that the human Malcontents, which is a surprise in of itself seeing as you Tau players think Tau are like the second coming of Jesus and that all humans are perfectly content in the Tau empire, call that place Lacuna and that they believe or their rumors state that it is a place the Tau use to conduct experiments, but they can't be sure since they can't get in there. But people who do say such things conveniently disappear.

The Narrator can't be an Imperial as he knows things that an Imperial scholar can't possibly know.

KrootHawk wrote:If Tau find the ruins new, puzzling and want to explore them, they can't be commonly found on every Tau planet, can they

Meaning the Tau are stupid naive imbeciles playing with stuff best left alone. Even the medieval Imperials know better than to screw around with alien stuff. Any Imperials that do is something they do on their own initiative.
And no their is no so called madness that affects everyone like a plague only a few people and on specific planets. Look at the stupidity and sheer stubbornness of the Tau in trying to assimilate a crystal-spirit creature that don't care for anything into their empire.

KrootHawk wrote:Yes, and the creators made it clear that Tau don't want to subjugate.

It doesn't matter what the creators intended any more because the fluff has changed. Also, are you now saying that Merriam-Webster.com is wrong in their definition of subjugation? Redscare gave quotes that the Tau do subjugate but of course you are ignoring it because you're a Tau fanboy.

Mellisia, someone who I see as a fellow kin in the fight against Tau in this thread, can you hold the line while I prepare all the quotes and paragraphs?

Monarchy? Kind of, but very loosely. Kroothawk, do you actually think they are 'good guys' or are you of the opinion that they are more towards being 'good' than any other race?

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Okay everyone, I'm back. (...)
To TMonkeyGuru: Finally, someone sane among the Tau players.(...)
Tau players seem to be under the delusion(...)
people can't seem to get it(...)
pure nonsense, nothing more(...)
How naive are you? (...)
of course you ignore this.(...)
of course you guys will ignore the evil of xenocide and just sprout "Its for the Greater Good" like good little Tau workers.(...)
you're a Tau fanboy.(...)
Melissia (...) a fellow kin in the fight against Tau

Okay, we prepare ourselves for the next batch of rude insults.

Kroothawk wrote:The discussion on the "Greater Good" can be better understood, if you look at the end of World War 2 in Europe:

In Western Europe, two major ideologies clashed: German and Italian fascism and French/British/American ideas of freedom, human rights and democracy. The allies won the war and the Western allies forced their ideology on Germany, with imprisonment of their opponents (anyone who fights freedom, human rights and democracy), massive reeducation and social manipulation with the effect that the German population finally adopted the other ideology. According to the argumentation in this thread, this makes the Western Allies evil and another subjugating empire trying to force their ideology on defeated enemies (implying that the support for freedom/humanrights/democracy is just another ideology on the same level as fascism).

The Western Allies were no saints, but they certainly were not as evil and on the same level as the Nazi regime.

So in 40k, fighting for the genocide of all Xeno scum and rule of the human master race (IoM) or trying to establish a peaceful union of Xeno races exchanging goods and knowledge for mutual benefit (Tau Empire) is not the same. Trying to convert a racist, aggressive and undemocratic society to a tolerant, peaceful and democratic one by reeducation and social manipulation is not something evil. Trying to imprison terrorists, racists and fascists is not a bad thing. Think about it.

No it isn't, the Tau fight for empire with everyone under the leadership of the Tau for the greater good. The Tau are aggressive seeing as they want to conquer the galaxy. The human race is not alone in being xenocidal, look at Eldar especially Biel-tan. The Imperium wants to genocide all races because they are paranoid that was born of the age of strife and most aliens being monsters. So they took that as the standard and then decide kill them all. Tau don't have democracy of human rights or are you saying that if humanity goes into space and runs into a hive mind society that has been at peace and prosperity for thousands of years, we should conquer them because they are not democratic *raises eyebrow*.

The Tau were butting their noses into Imperium of man business as stated by that big post about the damocles crusade that is sourced from warhammer 40k wiki.

KingDeath wrote:

nomotog wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:The discussion on the "Greater Good" can be better understood, if you look at the end of World War 2 in Europe:

In Western Europe, two major ideologies clashed: German and Italian fascism and French/British/American ideas of freedom, human rights and democracy. The allies won the war and the Western allies forced their ideology on Germany, with imprisonment of their opponents (anyone who fights freedom, human rights and democracy), massive reeducation and social manipulation with the effect that the German population finally adopted the other ideology. According to the argumentation in this thread, this makes the Western Allies evil and another subjugating empire trying to force their ideology on defeated enemies (implying that the support for freedom/humanrights/democracy is just another ideology on the same level as fascism).

The Western Allies were no saints, but they certainly were not as evil and on the same level as the Nazi regime.

So in 40k, fighting for the genocide of all Xeno scum and rule of the human master race (IoM) or trying to establish a peaceful union of Xeno races exchanging goods and knowledge for mutual benefit (Tau Empire) is not the same. Trying to convert a racist, aggressive and undemocratic society to a tolerant, peaceful and democratic one by reeducation and social manipulation is not something evil. Trying to imprison terrorists, racists and fascists is not a bad thing. Think about it.

I am a little confused, are you trying to say that the tau practice democracy? Because they don't. They are a monarchy.

authocratic theocracy/hierocracy ( assuming that there can be theocracies which have, for example, democratic elements, which the Tau Empire seems to lack )

I don't think the GG is a religion, more of an ideal. I said monarchy because the eternals rule by birth right. Their titles also translate as king prince and such.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
To G00fySmiley:

How naive are you? I have already said countless times that their are races in the galaxy who's best interest is to take over the galaxy or kill everyone in their path. Their own society's don't oppress them in any way. Infact, living under the Tau would be oppressive to them but of course you ignore this. The Tau don't fight for the best interests of everyone; they fight for what "they believe" is the best interest of everyone, even if everyone disagrees. How is this any different from the Imperium who conquer independent human planets to bring them into the fold for their own 'good'?

Here are some races who will certainly care nothing for the greater good:

Hrud- waiting for the races of the galaxy to pretty much wipe each other and than they will rise up from their warrens and kill the survivors. Imperium tried to exterminate them but failed.

Thyruss or however its spelled- who make war to please their gods by giving them some nice war series to watch.

Slaught- A race who have been implied to have been playing with the human race since before the age of strife. They like to manipulate humans into causing massive wars with each other or hell anyone else. Then they move in and eat the bodies.

Yu'Vath- An alien empire of slavering warp worshiping sorcerers who built an empire on the back of enslaved humans for well slavery and daemon fodder fuel seeing as the Yu'Vath are sorcerers after all. Their entire tech base is basically sorcery. Its been said that they have been exterminated by the Imperium. But rumors state that their could be survivors.

These races will have to be exterminated by the Tau which means Xenocide. Something all Tau players seem to disparage the Imperium for but when the Tau empire will have to do it themselves if they want to be successful, but of course you guys will ignore the evil of xenocide and just sprout "Its for the Greater Good" like good little Tau workers. Just fail.

You cant really use examples of exterminations that haven't happened. Maybe it's impossible for these races to join, but you never quite know. Before the tau, the idea of any kind of kind of federation seemed impossible (Edit: Turns out I was wrong on this). Also you don't arrest people for crimes they haven't committed yet. Tom crews dose it, but ... ya.

This dose kind of lead to something I don't think we have really talked about. The dark future awaiting the tau. Assuming they grow in size, they have to start taking on the role of defending the galaxy from the real big nasty nastys and not exactly knowing how to do it. It's going to be hard for them to maintain their forward optimistic thinking when they have to sacrifice worlds to halt the hive fleets, when they have to start feeding Demiurg to the golden thrown, or how about when they run out of wars and can't feed the kroot?

So far the tau doesn't have to pull any of theses triggers, but they will. I wonder how they will manage shooting their own dog?

nomotog wrote:Before the tau, the idea of any kind of kind of federation seemed impossible.

Bull.

There have been numerous examples of non-Tau aliens allying together, even long-term, in the fluff. They just haven't gotten their own codices.

Melissia wrote:

TMonkeyGuru wrote:But I agree that they are the lesser evil, ass fluff says when tau find another race they first send their Water Caste to negotiate

Submit or die is the same thing that Darkseid says. So Tau are kinda like Darkseid, but not as cool.

No, they say submit or die please, that is much nicer.

Mr Nobody wrote:

Melissia wrote:

TMonkeyGuru wrote:But I agree that they are the lesser evil, ass fluff says when tau find another race they first send their Water Caste to negotiate

Submit or die is the same thing that Darkseid says. So Tau are kinda like Darkseid, but not as cool.

No, they say submit or die please, that is much nicer.

It's the little things that count.

iproxtaco wrote:Monarchy? Kind of, but very loosely. Kroothawk, do you actually think they are 'good guys' or are you of the opinion that they are more towards being 'good' than any other race?

Not even close. If anything they're an Oligarchy with flavorings of Confucianism.

agnosto wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Monarchy? Kind of, but very loosely. Kroothawk, do you actually think they are 'good guys' or are you of the opinion that they are more towards being 'good' than any other race?

Not even close. If anything they're an Oligarchy with flavorings of Confucianism.

Wasn't me who suggested it first, sorry.
They're a lose monarchy in that the ruling caste is hereditary and there is no democratic way of electing the Empires rulers, and they hold all the power. Monarchy wouldn't be the term I'd use either. Oligarchy would be the best way to describe the Ethereal Caste, you're right.

nomotog wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
To G00fySmiley:
How naive are you? (...) but of course you guys will ignore the evil of xenocide and just sprout "Its for the Greater Good" like good little Tau workers. Just fail.

You cant really use examples of exterminations that haven't happened.

Yeah, that's a classic:
"These races are anti-democratic. I would kill them if I were Tau. Therefore Tau are evil bastards committing Xenocides."

Based on the fluff, what I do know is that, if I was a generic small-time race of lightbulb-headed aliens kicking in my little planet in the 40k universe, and my sensors picked another alien fleet entering my system, I'd PRAY, so hard I'd likely achieve the super-sayan VII level of prayer, that it was a Tau fleet.

Kroothawk wrote:

nomotog wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
To G00fySmiley:
How naive are you? (...) but of course you guys will ignore the evil of xenocide and just sprout "Its for the Greater Good" like good little Tau workers. Just fail.

You cant really use examples of exterminations that haven't happened.

Yeah, that's a classic:
"These races are anti-democratic. I would kill them if I were Tau. Therefore Tau are evil bastards committing Xenocides."

Again both you and G00fySmiley are interpreting my words to suit your needs because you have nothing do defend your position with other than placing fingers in your ears and singing la la la la.............

First, the Tau are not a democracy, they are an empire. This is something even tvtropes agrees on.

Second, those races I listed can't be negotiated with because they are either xenophobic or have views that are completely incompatible with the the greater good.

You were the one who said that if it ain't democratic, its evil, not me. As for the Tau committing xenocide, I have never said that the Tau have ever committed a xenocide. I simply said that if they want to rule the galaxy which is their true goal, not some fairy tale democratic republic. They will have to commit xenocide, a lesson that races older than them such as Eldar and Humans have already learned.

Sephyr wrote:Based on the fluff, what I do know is that, if I was a generic small-time race of lightbulb-headed aliens kicking in my little planet in the 40k universe, and my sensors picked another alien fleet entering my system, I'd PRAY, so hard I'd likely achieve the super-sayan VII level of prayer, that it was a Tau fleet.

I agree with you in that I wouldn't want to meet the other factions but neither would I want to be ruled by the Tau. I would actually prefer to meet no one seeing as the Tau will eventually force us to become part of their empire.

I think being conquered by Tau wouldn't be that bad, it sounds like they eventually replace your government and you might get a Tau neighbour or two, or something subtle like that. This is how many empires in history have been successful and isn't that bad for commoners.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:

nomotog wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
To G00fySmiley:
How naive are you? (...) but of course you guys will ignore the evil of xenocide and just sprout "Its for the Greater Good" like good little Tau workers. Just fail.

You cant really use examples of exterminations that haven't happened.

Yeah, that's a classic:
"These races are anti-democratic. I would kill them if I were Tau. Therefore Tau are evil bastards committing Xenocides."

Again both you and G00fySmiley are interpreting my words to suit your needs because you have nothing do defend your position with other than placing fingers in your ears and singing la la la la.............

First, the Tau are not a democracy, they are an empire. This is something even tvtropes agrees on.

Second, those races I listed can't be negotiated with because they are either xenophobic or have views that are completely incompatible with the the greater good.

You were the one who said that if it ain't democratic, its evil, not me. As for the Tau committing xenocide, I have never said that the Tau have ever committed a xenocide. I simply said that if they want to rule the galaxy which is their true goal, not some fairy tale democratic republic. They will have to commit xenocide, a lesson that races older than them such as Eldar and Humans have already learned.

Sephyr wrote:Based on the fluff, what I do know is that, if I was a generic small-time race of lightbulb-headed aliens kicking in my little planet in the 40k universe, and my sensors picked another alien fleet entering my system, I'd PRAY, so hard I'd likely achieve the super-sayan VII level of prayer, that it was a Tau fleet.

I agree with you in that I wouldn't want to meet the other factions but neither would I want to be ruled by the Tau. I would actually prefer to meet no one seeing as the Tau will eventually force us to become part of their empire.

wait wait wait

here is my only contribution to this thread bud

"the way i read tau are the good guys, and in their own alien way they are trying to unite the galaxy in the best interest of all species... they however do not believe orks are capable of peace (and rightly so) so they so have some desire to commit xenocide none that are particularly outside the realm of justified though

i think there are excellent points being made on all sides but I think in the 40k universe if you are on the outside you see tau as a threat that may change things, once in it you are likely going to be living in the tau's idea of a free world which you may not like any better than the imperium

that said as a whole I think the tau are overall good and use violence only to spread what they believe if freedom for most species (whether they want it or not) "

somebody quoted your response to me... but it wasn’t me I can see the confusion of somebody responding to your post to me and quoting it... but I’m a pretty optimistic person... some might call that naivety, however I choose to think the tau really do want their idea of good to be pervasive around the universe, however I do believe their idea of the greater good is against to natural order of some species and contrary to their idea of a paradise in my post and even admit that ultimately I too feel they will commit xenocide against some races who will simply not be willing to follow under their idea of an ideal world.

But this is simply my opinion, and you are entitled to interpret what you read as you see fit. As more and more books are released maybe there will be vindication to one side or the other (but probably not). Until then you can keep seeing them in likely the same way the imperium looks at them, as a deceitful people who want to take over the galaxy and enslave everybody under their rule. I’ll think of them as idealist who want combined peace through the galaxy by their definition of a paradise. The truth may be on one side or in the middle only time will tell

nomotog wrote:I am a little confused, are you trying to say that the tau practice democracy? Because they don't. They are a monarchy.

I always assumed that Tau have a sort of democracy, meaning that Ethereal caste votes for its supreme leader, who holds this position until he dies. It resembles the way Catholics choose Pope.

Kallimakus wrote:

nomotog wrote:I am a little confused, are you trying to say that the tau practice democracy? Because they don't. They are a monarchy.

I always assumed that Tau have a sort of democracy, meaning that Ethereal caste votes for its supreme leader, who holds this position until he dies. It resembles the way Catholics choose Pope.

Nope. It's more an Oligarchy; rule by a small number of elite individuals or in this case the Ethereal caste. There is a council made of members from every caste (I believe or it could just be fire caste I don't recall exactly) that advises the ethereals though.

No, it's a caste system, figure! Close to a estate-based society or Feudal society, with the leading caste being spiritual leaders, not absolutistic single regents (too many people in the caste to make it an oligarchy). This system combined with the philosophy of the "Greater Good" proved to be necessary to end the civil war between the other castes and hasn't been changed since then. Interestingly, the Tau have no interest to export this caste system to other races.

Kroothawk wrote:No, it's a caste system, figure! Close to a estate-based society or Feudal society, with the leading caste being spiritual leaders, not absolutistic single regents (too many people in the caste to make it an oligarchy). This system combined with the philosophy of the "Greater Good" proved to be necessary to end the civil war between the other castes and hasn't been changed since then. Interestingly, the Tau have no interest to export this caste system to other races.

Gotta differ with you there because a caste system is a social construct while we're talking about a politics. As far as how many people makes an Oligarchy, it's all relative; I've never seen anything that indicates that Ethereals make up more than a minute part of the overall Tau race which leads towards the Oligarchy since they are in control while receiving "advice" from the council. The only other system of governance that I can think of that might fit is a Unitary State form of government but that's stretching it.

Really? Geeze people not this again about the tau government.

You can't just apply a simple word to the tau government, as it would be incorrect or not fully right in all instances, if you must know the tau government structure is the following:

A Despotic Totalitarian Collectivist Imperialistic Utilitarianist Society ruled by Theocratic Hereditary Oligarchies presiding over Meritocratic Councils.

Trying to find the link atm...

Edit: Ok sorry, it took me for hell and ever, multiple logins on many different sites to even find this, in the end I'm just copy/pasting the whole thing for safekeeping and to save everyone else time, while giving the original author credit. Minor changes were made to make it easier to read.

And yes, it is a wall of text. However it you really want to understand the tau government structure, you should give it a read.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Doombringer:

Revised Essay on the Tau Government and Communism

In response to many of the recent claims otherwise, the Tau are not a Socialist, Marxist, or Communist state.


--- Communism and Marxism ---

Put quite simply, taken directly from Wikipedia, Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production.

Tau are not classless, having a rigid Caste and Rank system that while does not impose any stigma on being of a lesser rank while preaching equality, is far from equal. A Shas'la cannot wake up one morning and decide to be a Kor'la - it is forbidden of him, thereby stripping the Shas'la of his would-be Communist/Marxist freedom of not having an exclusive sphere of activity but being able to be accomplished in any branch he wishes.

He is placed where the Empire wants him, then inconspicuously and subtly forced to submit.


--- Socialism and Democracy ---

Socialism, on the other hand, is a much broader socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community, and is often characterized by state or community ownership of the means of production.

The Tau community does not control the Empire's property or distribution of wealth, again having a rigid Caste system and government-placed jobs based on the needs of the Empire and abilities of the individual. If anyone has control of the Tau's property and wealth, it is the High Councils and the Aun who distribute it "equally" amongst the public.

In addition, full Socialism would not work without extensive implementation of Democracy - another little system of government that the Tau do not grasp. The common Tau has no say in how he lives his life; his individuality is slightly/extremely suppressed (depends on how you look at it), he serves his superiors without question, and devotes his life to the Greater Good of his nation. Only the High Councils and the Aun have any say in how the Empire progresses.


--- What are the Tau then? ---

With this in mind, you should now be able to see that while Collectivist in nature, the Socialist/Communist approach simply doesn't parallel or mesh with the Tau Empire very well.

So what are they, you ask?

I strongly believe that the Tau Empire has much more in common with the concepts of Imperialistic Utilitarianism, a rather vague but overall more fitting explanation or description for how the Tau run things (rather than an even more vague and irrelevant socio-economic system, considering the fluff still hasn't provided any information regarding a Tau economic system at all).

Imperialism, being the forceful extension of a nation's authority by territorial gain or by the establishment of economic and/or political dominance over other nations.

Utilitarianism, being the ethical doctrine that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility. Utility, being the "good to be maximized" (sound familiar?).

Originally Posted by Tau Empire Codex pg. 10
The Tau are a supremely dynamic and energetic race. The principle of the Tau'va - the Greater Good - drives them ever outwards from their homeworld, into the great unknown of space. [...] The Greater Good requires that all join together and acknowledge the guidance of the Ethereal caste, and this includes any and all races with whom the Tau come into contact. [...] Those worlds that will not willingly join the Empire are dragged to the negotiating table under threat of annihilation. Those that remain openly defiant face obliteration under the orbital guns of the Air Caste fleet.

The Tau Empire encompasses a dense yet astrographically small area of space. [...] As the Tau steadily expand the borders of their empire, they continue to encounter other races. The empire now encompasses over twenty septs - fully developed Tau systems - and a large number of vassal alien homeworlds. The populations of these worlds are fully integrated in to the empire, each striving towards the Greater Good.

--- Despots, Totalitarianism, and Oligarchies? ---

So now you may find yourself asking, doesn't this mean that the Tau Empire is run by despots if the common people really have no say in their own futures?

In a manner of speaking, yes, but don't look at it from a human perspective. Separate yourself from the idea that "all men are created equal" and forget you ever learned about the concepts of freedom and democracy, and you can see that being a despotic society isn't necessarily an "evil" thing at all when implemented in the way that the Tau implement it.

Being a Despotic society seems to be one of the only ways to make what the Tau Empire does, work. No so-called "ethical", "moral", or "free" individual in their humanly right mind would want to willingly give up that freedom or individuality to exercise the type of Utilitarianism that the Tau Empire practices daily - they'd have to be subtly forced or coerced into doing it, as we know the Ethereals do through the fear of returning to the Mont'au.

As stated by Khanaris, and extrapolated by myself, these rulers are Theocratic Hereditary Oligarchies of the Aun Caste (overseen by "Chairtau" Aun'va) and the the tight-knit Meritocratic "Lower Councils" comprised of figureheads of the Elemental Castes.

Of course, the Tau implement so many of these systems across the various Sept worlds that comprise the Empire that it is a Checks and Balances system in its own, ensuring no one Tau can ultimately control every aspect of the entire Empire, but it's speculated that Aun'va could come dangerously close to it. This is likely simply due to the fact that he is said to be the oldest and wisest Ethereal, so many Tau would believe that there wouldn't be anything wrong with his council, suggestions, or declarations and wouldn't bother to oppose him, even if they could.

In addition, this is a very Totalitarian society, in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior so that individuals are allowed certain personal freedoms, except when they are counter to the Utilitarian and Religious ideals of the "Greater Good".


--- Utilitarian Misconceptions ---

Like the Wikipedia article says, there are two common "misconceptions" about modern human Utilitarian society that seem to have to be justified by/to us humans to understand or accept for ourselves.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia - Utilitarianism
The principle of "the greatest good for the greatest number", introduced by Bentham, is often mistaken as meaning that if something hurts one person and helps many, it is always morally justified. This is not the case, however; as noted above, Bentham dropped the misleading "greatest number" part of the principle, replacing the original formulation with the more direct "greatest happiness principle." Thus, the morality of an action is not determined by the number of people made happier, but rather the quantity of happiness produced. A great loss to one individual might be outweighed by small gains for many, but it might not. Even if 1 person is hurt and 100 people are helped, the harm to the one might be so great as to outweigh the small gains for the rest of the people.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia - Utilitarianism
Second, some criticize utilitarianism for implying that individuals; interests can be sacrificed for the sake of the "society" or the nation. Modern utilitarianism however proposes that one individuals interests can only be sacrificed for the sake of the interests of other individuals. As Bentham put it, "The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in the phraseology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it is often lost. When it has a meaning, it is this. The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is...the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it." [6] While it may benefit individuals to have a healthy society or a functional state, neither of these are ends in themselves.
While these criticisms are countered and justified by Jeremy Bentham to apply to modern non-dictatorial human civilization, the Tau's hereditary Ethereal leadership, otherwise suppressed freedoms and individualities, and rigid Caste system do not require such justifications for a Tau to accept.

It is perfectly acceptable in Tau society (whether the individual Tau has any say or not) to follow such an extreme form of Utilitarianism as morally justifying anything that hurts one to help many, or to sacrifice one's individual interests for the sake of the nation as a whole - which is probably why so many people find it hard to wrap their heads around this concept - because we aren't little blue aliens and so our brains work differently.

But if you want the Tau in a nutshell with as many labels as possible, then here's what you get.

The Tau Empire
Despotic Totalitarian Collectivist Imperialistic Utilitarianist Society
ruled by Theocratic Hereditary Oligarchies presiding over Meritocratic Councils

but more importantly...

The Tau Empire - NOT COMMUNIST/MARXIST/SOCIALIST SPACE RUSSIANS/CHINESE

And that's just the political side of the house. We still have very little information on how the Tau's economic system works, so we can only theorize and wait before we can start adding a Socialist/Capitalist label for that.

If you want, you can add even more defining labels to it than what I have included above, but juxtaposing specific human socio-economic systems onto an alien culture of little blue aliens (which we still don't know enough about to make a final decision on) just doesn't work.

Hope this helps.
----------------------------------------
Original source page for those who can view it, or wish to:

http://forums.tauonline.org/tau/57762-tau-communism.html