randomly came across the above image through trolling the interwebs and a thought occured to me.
So while we know that blah blah hard to corrupt, for the emperor and in general would be excommunicated etc... say that somehow a chapter like the soul drinkers turned rogue for the usual reasons but didn't want to go down the road of chaos but instead decided to seek refuge within the Tau empire...
I'm thinking that they can definitely be used on the other frontiers fighting off orks/nids and away from other imperials but do you guys think:
1) would the marines eventually start using like 4 pulse rifles strapped together or just use rail rifles in rapid fire mode?
2) would a marine be able to fly a crisis or riptide suit? and if so, how well would he be able to use it? (for that matter, how fast could a marine learn the Tau language enough to use their equipment?)
3) would he fit inside a devilfish transport?
4) having stealth suit marines?
5) could the Tau start to have genetically modified fire warriors?
6) increase their use of chainsaws?
7) trade the marines to the kroot?
8) just use up the marines as soon as possible so as to be rid of them or try to keep them around for more studies?
The Tau don't strike me as being daft. Having a bunch of heavy assault infantry around will certainly be a plus. They would probably do the same role as they are used for in the imperium but have the advantage of shield tech and harder hitting guns...who knows maybe the Tau would do some research into energy melee weapons for them.
And if the Tau can manage to reverse engineer a geneseed they can make their own space marines out of Gue'vesa and brainwash them, indoctrinate and train them as usual.
I can't imagine the Space Marines would actually "fit" in most of the Tau equipment, so I'd scratch that idea, but I imagine they'd probably try and upgrade their equipment some and I'm sure tactically they'd utilize them as Assault troops to shore up their own weak points.
My biggest question is, "what would they do with the chapters Librarians?"
I don't think that ethereals will eagerly recruit SM. As sm will quickly figure out what's going on with ethereals and will pose a direct threat to their current rule. Besides, SM have a completely different mindset. They're currently a semi-independent force even within imperium. And i doubt they'd abandon IOM to just follow orders of some other despoty.
Now i think that rogue sm could potentially work side by side with Farsight enclave. As allies of convenience - not as one. I think SM would just maintain their independency.
I've brought this up before and I very much like the idea. I think a more loving chapter could join them and work together with xenos to benefit humanity better than the Imperium. The tau could more than likely support them and provide them with new technology and materials
I don't think it's that far from reality, actually.
Take a chapter who's main tenants is the defence of civilians, like a Raven Guard or Salamanders chapter. Then pick one of those chapters who's fairly depressed about the whole thing, like the Black Guard of the Raven Guard. A chapter like that could very much go "Okay, our Imperium are wasting human lives in ways so stupid and henious it is slowly tearing us apart... Wait, what do you say? There's humans in the Tau Empire? They are allowed to live a better life, support their state, rever the Emperor and basically are safe through science, a unifing ideal and a relatively high amount of tolerance? You know, that's at least better than what we have now. Screw you guys, I'm gonna go save what's saveable of the human race."
I agree that they'd be very independent, and maybe not accept Tau equipment and basically do what they want, but really, it's not hard for a chapter on the verge of the Imperium to see the bright sides of going on the other side. I mean, if a chapter is firmly based on the idea that they are protectors of humanity, they are basically still doing their job. Through a compromise, but still.
They'd eventually be whittled away into extinction. They have no means to replace their combat losses. The comparatively-comfortable lifestyles of Tau-ruled human enclaves don't offer much in the way of viable candidates for Space Marine initiates.
Psienesis wrote: They'd eventually be whittled away into extinction. They have no means to replace their combat losses. The comparatively-comfortable lifestyles of Tau-ruled human enclaves don't offer much in the way of viable candidates for Space Marine initiates.
They could still travel and recruit, and I'm sure the tau could figure out how to make gene seed
Travel to other Imperial Planets where they've been declared Excommunicatus Traitorus and come under fire from the planetary defense systems as soon as they're in orbit?
I'm sure the tau could figure out how to make gene seed
Given that it's taken Fabius Bile 10,000 years, the assistance of both the Dark Mechanicus and the Ruinous Powers to have kinda-sorta a working prototype, I think you are vastly overestimating the Tau understanding of genetic science, specifically (from a Tau perspective) xeno-genetics.
Psienesis wrote: They'd eventually be whittled away into extinction. They have no means to replace their combat losses. The comparatively-comfortable lifestyles of Tau-ruled human enclaves don't offer much in the way of viable candidates for Space Marine initiates.
Or they could just recruit from which ever human population they needed to. Strife and Turmoil is not needed for the Chapter to recruit. They could actually use the medical knowledge they have to recruit genetically viable recruits to use and then train them as they grow, much like in the case of the Red Scorpions, where the Chapter raises the children, who are presented to them upon birth.
To further this having genetically viable pool to recruit from they could start their own breeding program, where viable subjects who do well with the pre-implantation training are bred to females of a similar stock. Male offspring would be folded into the Chapter, female offspring would be used for various support roles as well as helping ensure the legacy of the Chapter.
They would only have to travel and take recruits for enough time until the humans on tau world's started to breed for space marines. And maybe I am overestimating the tau
It's not the gene-stock that is of concern, it's the background. Space Marine Chapters recruit from places where the aspirants are forced to prove themselves, whether this is the Under-Hive of Necromunda, the frozen wastelands of Fenris, or the Circus Maximus of Ultramar.
Living in a comparatively safe, stable environment like a Tau Enclave does not lend itself well to having a sizable pool of initiates who have, prior to their selection by the Chapter, proven themselves to be strong of both body and will.
Given that it's taken Fabius Bile 10,000 years, the assistance of both the Dark Mechanicus and the Ruinous Powers to have kinda-sorta a working prototype, I think you are vastly overestimating the Tau understanding of genetic science, specifically (from a Tau perspective) xeno-genetics.
Well, 10,000 for us real-worlders. He's been in the Eye of Terror, so he could have taken however long/short time that might not/might have taken. Just... The Warp.
But saying that there wouldn't be places to take from that are dangerous enough, it's not like the Empire haven't got Death Worlds, and human armies that are at least veterans of some war-acts.
Psienesis wrote: It's not the gene-stock that is of concern, it's the background. Space Marine Chapters recruit from places where the aspirants are forced to prove themselves, whether this is the Under-Hive of Necromunda, the frozen wastelands of Fenris, or the Circus Maximus of Ultramar.
Living in a comparatively safe, stable environment like a Tau Enclave does not lend itself well to having a sizable pool of initiates who have, prior to their selection by the Chapter, proven themselves to be strong of both body and will.
Except that the Red Scorpions canonically dont recruit them after they have proven themselves, they take them after child birth. The Chapter is literally all they have ever known.
But saying that there wouldn't be places to take from that are dangerous enough, it's not like the Empire haven't got Death Worlds, and human armies that are at least veterans of some war-acts.
And, in most circumstances, SM Chapters can recruit from said Death Worlds.
In these circumstances, though, these are renegade SM. The kind that, should an IN Battlegroup roll through the system, there's going to be a shoot-out above the planet (with the SM caught between the Navy and the planet's own gravity well). Highly risky; the sort of scenario that may end (less a matter of "if" than "when") with more losses to the Chapter than it gains. Remember that, once they've broken away from the Imperium, the Marines are cut-off from the supply lines of the Mechanicus, and any vehicles they lose are going to be near-unrecoverable. Lose a Strike Cruiser or a Battle Barge, and there's no replacing that. The Tau don't really have an equivalent.
Human veterans who are already in the Tau Empire are most-likely too old to begin Space Marine training. We haven't seen that being done since the GC/Heresy era.
ETA: And since "purity above all else" and "unquestioning devotion to the Emperor alone" are the hallmarks of the Red Scorpions, I think it safe to assume that the Red Scorpions are not going to be the Chapter joining up with heretical Xenos, so their recruitment practices (an exception that proves the rule) are not a factor here.
But saying that there wouldn't be places to take from that are dangerous enough, it's not like the Empire haven't got Death Worlds, and human armies that are at least veterans of some war-acts.
And, in most circumstances, SM Chapters can recruit from said Death Worlds.
In these circumstances, though, these are renegade SM. The kind that, should an IN Battlegroup roll through the system, there's going to be a shoot-out above the planet (with the SM caught between the Navy and the planet's own gravity well). Highly risky; the sort of scenario that may end (less a matter of "if" than "when") with more losses to the Chapter than it gains. Remember that, once they've broken away from the Imperium, the Marines are cut-off from the supply lines of the Mechanicus, and any vehicles they lose are going to be near-unrecoverable. Lose a Strike Cruiser or a Battle Barge, and there's no replacing that. The Tau don't really have an equivalent.
Human veterans who are already in the Tau Empire are most-likely too old to begin Space Marine training. We haven't seen that being done since the GC/Heresy era.
They could easily just take a Cruiser from one of the Chapters they'd end up fighting.
Also to what you said earlier about the strife and everything. Recruitment in Ultramar is all vonultary, anyone from any walk of life can volunteer for the Trials.
Yes, voluntary. Unlikely to be passed by anyone who isn't physically capable of it. Anyone can enlist in the Marine Corps, if you're a 300 pound couch potato, you're probably not going to make it through Basic, even if you somehow pass the initial screening tests.
I think they'd have no problem with space craft, as the tau can supply them with space craft, not like it has to be imperial. And if it's so hard to get recruits for space marines then chaos space marines should effectively not exist anymore
Psienesis wrote: Yes, voluntary. Unlikely to be passed by anyone who isn't physically capable of it. Anyone can enlist in the Marine Corps, if you're a 300 pound couch potato, you're probably not going to make it through Basic, even if you somehow pass the initial screening tests.
That all depends on motivation.
But anyway that still brings us back to the fact that there is a Chapter that takes you as a newborn and raises you in the Chapter. When you are selected for them there is no strife, its just training. Any other Chapter could do the same thing.
They'd absolutely be able to recruit from various places, even if people were "soft." They don't start out as a marine, and marine selection methods are as much (or more) ritual than practical. That being said, they'd be operating so autonomously that I don't think they'd ever be folded into the Tau Empire, or allow themselves to be. They may be rogue and tend to help the Tau, but they wouldn't actually become part of the Tau.
They wouldn't be accepted. Tau has no place for Astartes.
1) No. Bolter is way more useful for Marines than PR. 2) No. Suits are only for senior members of Fire Caste. 3) Propably. Not that they would use any. 4) No. Tau vs Marine physiology. 5) No. Tau philosophy prevents genetic modification. 6) No. Why would they? 7) What? No. 8) Propably just kill them on spot.
I feel that the Tau would accept Astartes, but they would have a lot less autonomy than in the IOM. They would basically be used as Ogryn-esque units, lifting resources and crates behind the battlelines or acting as an "immobile battlesuit" if you will. These conditions are taxing for a Space Marine to handle, and would probably rebel from the Tau as well. Not to mention that the Tau would need to create new armours and weapons to fit the Astartes, or find a way to recreate the (rather primitive) bolters and power armour and machine spirits for them. This would prove to be difficult for the Tau Earth Caste and Ethereals, as they are then technologically regressing, the very antithesis of their culture.
And the whole gene-seed point Psienesis put forward.
But saying that there wouldn't be places to take from that are dangerous enough, it's not like the Empire haven't got Death Worlds, and human armies that are at least veterans of some war-acts.
And, in most circumstances, SM Chapters can recruit from said Death Worlds.
In these circumstances, though, these are renegade SM. The kind that, should an IN Battlegroup roll through the system, there's going to be a shoot-out above the planet (with the SM caught between the Navy and the planet's own gravity well). Highly risky; the sort of scenario that may end (less a matter of "if" than "when") with more losses to the Chapter than it gains. Remember that, once they've broken away from the Imperium, the Marines are cut-off from the supply lines of the Mechanicus, and any vehicles they lose are going to be near-unrecoverable. Lose a Strike Cruiser or a Battle Barge, and there's no replacing that. The Tau don't really have an equivalent.
Human veterans who are already in the Tau Empire are most-likely too old to begin Space Marine training. We haven't seen that being done since the GC/Heresy era.
ETA: And since "purity above all else" and "unquestioning devotion to the Emperor alone" are the hallmarks of the Red Scorpions, I think it safe to assume that the Red Scorpions are not going to be the Chapter joining up with heretical Xenos, so their recruitment practices (an exception that proves the rule) are not a factor here.
The Carcharodons don't have recruiting worlds, and they get by just fine...
... probably not the best way to impress the Tau, though.
1) No. Bolter is way more useful for Marines than PR.
... and we have a winner for the award "Dumbest comment made in thread."
The pulse rifle is, in every way, superior to the bolter. It hits harder at greater range and is easier to build and supply.
Though it would need to be re-sized and all... Or maybe the Pulse Carbine would make a better weapon, as Marines are shock-troppers in nature and kinda need something balanced and short.
I'd draw an Astartes Pulsegun, but Imma going to bed. Maybe later.
Well, Space Marine Chapter, unit or individual could turn to the Greater Good. They would join auxillary units like humans, Vespids or kroots in their military. They would have to swear alligence to the Tau Empire and accept some doctrines of the Fire Warrior cast. Most of their stuff would remain similar with the oocasionnal tweek here and there in their equipment (new grenades, different munition for their bolters, different mark of armour, etc.). They would still need to recruit from male human children so the «soft lifestyle» aren't an issue. A nine years old hasn't proven anything in any culture beside his ability to listen to his mom and keep away from danger. Formal training will do the rest. Geneseed mutation would be a problem thought.
Why couldn't a chapter stockpile gene-seed and gear before they make the switch?
Plus, rouge traders could be used as a new source of gear / information / slaves for new recruits.
Or, why not create female space marines? That would solve the whole need for both gene-seeds and recruits while also allowing for some kick-shebs minis.
Note: 'shebs' is Mandalorian for rear-end / buttocks.
I for one would play this army, and just talking about it has made me want to do some serious kit-bashing.
So while we know that blah blah hard to corrupt, for the emperor and in general would be excommunicated etc... say that somehow a chapter like the soul drinkers turned rogue for the usual reasons but didn't want to go down the road of chaos but instead decided to seek refuge within the Tau empire...
I'm thinking that they can definitely be used on the other frontiers fighting off orks/nids and away from other imperials but do you guys think:
1) would the marines eventually start using like 4 pulse rifles strapped together or just use rail rifles in rapid fire mode? Unneccessary Equipment it is
2) would a marine be able to fly a crisis or riptide suit? and if so, how well would he be able to use it? Tech heresy.
3) would he fit inside a devilfish transport? rulez say 1:1. Models.....
4) having stealth suit marines? NO
5) could the Tau start to have genetically modified fire warriors? Never
6) increase their use of chainsaws? No
7) trade the marines to the kroot? They are goods you can trade? Why would Kroot want them ( except as food ) ?
8) just use up the marines as soon as possible so as to be rid of them or try to keep them around for more studies? Tau like their own ideas too much. So best bet is they "allow" them to die..
All Imperial Space Marines exist to cleanse the Galaxy of the Xeno. Both, Loyalist and Traitor still do.
Fall to a fan made heresy? Unlikely.
I would not put it past some people to buy into this "bright future" propaganda nonsense , but basically 40k is all about "no easy way out" and eternal war.
The tau would be stupid not to use space marines, and the tau are defiantly not. If they created their own space marines it would inspire loyalty amoung tau Gue'vesa, and make imperial planets more likely to join the tau empire. And of course with tau tech they would be superior man for man then any imperial space marine. The tau could also use kroot dna to try and make their own geneseeds and if they put a bit of tau dna in their as well then they will be totally loyal to the ethereals or use a vespid helm sort of thing.
Would the marines eventually start using like 4 pulse rifles strapped together or just use rail rifles in rapid fire mode?
. Pulse weaponry would probably be made available to Space Marines with bolters potentially being phased out if the Tau don't bother with manufacturing the bolt rounds.
2) would a marine be able to fly a crisis or riptide suit? and if so, how well would he be able to use it? (for that matter, how fast could a marine learn the Tau language enough to use their equipment?)
. this I don't see happening. Maybe some the Tau work to make jetpacks compatible with Power Armor, but full on crisis suits or riptides? Nahhh. (reminds me of the ultramarine armor in the dornian heresy though).
3) would he fit inside a devilfish transport?
Possibly get a Variant made for them after their rhinos run low in numbers for whatever reason.
4) having stealth suit marines?
Think this depends on the chapter and their beliefs. Those akin to raptors or mantis warriors would probably go for it. Your average chapter might see the stealth technology be adapted for their scouts. But those obsessed with "fighting honorably"? Probably not.
5) could the Tau start to have genetically modified fire warriors?
. I think the tau would eventually look into this, the chapter might be reluctant at first but one way or another, the Tau would get their hands on the geneseed and look into reverse engineering it to whatever extent.
6) increase their use of chainsaws?
. Don't see this happening to any significant extent. Probably just stays within the chapter and maybe extends to the possible groups of quasi-geneseed enhanced firewarriors.
7) trade the marines to the kroot?
Nope
8) just use up the marines as soon as possible so as to be rid of them or try to keep them around for more studies?
. Keep them around as long as possible/necessary. Gain insight on how to most efficiently kill a space marine, figure out their M.O., study geneseed... In short, keep them around until they figure out how they can make something similar to a Space Marine on their own. Once there is nothing more significant to gain, then find a way to dispose of them.
That's actually very clever. I kind of like it. It's almost like a tech heresy on top of the xenos one. Man, I love the background info!
I'm still wondering why the marine robot would still use a bolter. It'd be far more impressive to use a heavier gauge rail rifle mounted on an astartes chassis.
Would also make a really good in game rules standpoint. Like more expensive counter melee units like elite versions when you just don't want kroot around.
EmpNortonII wrote: ... and we have a winner for the award "Dumbest comment made in thread."
And I thought I was defensive about my CSM. Good gawd.
EmpNortonII wrote: The pulse rifle is, in every way, superior to the bolter. It hits harder at greater range and is easier to build and supply.
Than a human bolter, aye, probably.
Than an Astartes bolter? Significantly less consistent. There's sources and indications in either direction.
Fluff is always biased by whatever character is giving his opinions.
Tabletop is more cut and dry. Rules trump fluff in this instance.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
angelofvengeance wrote: Same thing that happens to everyone else guilty of heresy- cleansed!
... except for the Word Bearers, Night Lords, Death Guard, Black Legion, Thousand Suns, Red Corsairs, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Emperor's Children, and World Eaters.
9 of those 10 have been chilling for 10,000 years without being cleansed. Imperial efficiency is an oxymoron in Warhammer 40k.
The Thousand Sons are pretty well cleansed. After their disastrous attack on Fenris, the number of original, living 1KS can probably be counted on both hands.
The rest are simply empty suits of armor that get reanimated time and time again.
EmpNortonII wrote: ... and we have a winner for the award "Dumbest comment made in thread."
And I thought I was defensive about my CSM. Good gawd.
EmpNortonII wrote: The pulse rifle is, in every way, superior to the bolter. It hits harder at greater range and is easier to build and supply.
Than a human bolter, aye, probably.
Than an Astartes bolter? Significantly less consistent. There's sources and indications in either direction.
Fluff is always biased by whatever character is giving his opinions.
Tabletop is more cut and dry. Rules trump fluff in this instance.
Except that even in tabletop, if you look at the assortment of different types of ammunition available to the Astartes and Inquisition, the Boltgun is a more versatile and modular weapon design. Which makes it better for the Astartes than the Pulse Rifle considering the nature of their job as Shock Assault Troops, and technically Special Operations. For line troops, yes the Pulse Rifle is superior.
Lets look at a Chapter joining the Tau, likely their method of deployment would come to mirrior the fluff significantly more, with a Squad or Two being deployed to handle situations or acting as one of the Tau Mont'ka (Killing Blow) forces. With the advanced methods of production available to the Tau, the specialized Bolter shells usually only available to the first Company or Specialist formations would be come more available to the Chapter as a whole. Along with the shells the presently have the Tau could increase the types of shells available to the Chapter, or just produce a variant Boltgun incorporating Tau tech.
... you seriously just asked for a rules citation for things listed in the Tau and SM Codex? Like, not things that are hard to find, but the weapons profiles in the back of the books?
Heck, don't they include that stuff in the back of the 7th ed codex, too?
EmpNortonII wrote: ... and we have a winner for the award "Dumbest comment made in thread."
And I thought I was defensive about my CSM. Good gawd.
EmpNortonII wrote: The pulse rifle is, in every way, superior to the bolter. It hits harder at greater range and is easier to build and supply.
Than a human bolter, aye, probably.
Than an Astartes bolter? Significantly less consistent. There's sources and indications in either direction.
Fluff is always biased by whatever character is giving his opinions.
Tabletop is more cut and dry. Rules trump fluff in this instance.
Except that even in tabletop, if you look at the assortment of different types of ammunition available to the Astartes and Inquisition, the Boltgun is a more versatile and modular weapon design. Which makes it better for the Astartes than the Pulse Rifle considering the nature of their job as Shock Assault Troops, and technically Special Operations. For line troops, yes the Pulse Rifle is superior.
Lets look at a Chapter joining the Tau, likely their method of deployment would come to mirrior the fluff significantly more, with a Squad or Two being deployed to handle situations or acting as one of the Tau Mont'ka (Killing Blow) forces. With the advanced methods of production available to the Tau, the specialized Bolter shells usually only available to the first Company or Specialist formations would be come more available to the Chapter as a whole. Along with the shells the presently have the Tau could increase the types of shells available to the Chapter, or just produce a variant Boltgun incorporating Tau tech.
I can't bring myself to argue with anyone who is basing their argument on the vastly superior production power of the Tau Empire.
Sure, once Space Marines are being supplied by an empire that is competent enough to supply them with specialized ammo, sure, the bolter becomes a better option than by-the-book rules. Of course, that is only the case because the brightest thousand men and women in the Adeptus Mechanicus are about as quick-thinking, inventive, and well-educated as the first ten Earth Caste you could pull in off the streets of T'au.
Im pretty sure the etherals have some sort of knowledge about chaos and its threat.
enough to know that humans, especial stronger ones can be a massive threat to there reign so they keep most of them at arms length and never let them rank up in the hierarchy.
its possible they will allow SM to help them but will probably NEVER make a full alliance. at best they are asked to keep a specific world safe but always with an eye watching them.
I can't bring myself to argue with anyone who is basing their argument on the vastly superior production power of the Tau Empire.
Sure, once Space Marines are being supplied by an empire that is competent enough to supply them with specialized ammo, sure, the bolter becomes a better option than by-the-book rules. Of course, that is only the case because the brightest thousand men and women in the Adeptus Mechanicus are about as quick-thinking, inventive, and well-educated as the first ten Earth Caste you could pull in off the streets of T'au.
Well even rules wise I would say that the Sternguard Boltguns are functionally superior to the Pulse Rifle. Then if we go with Deathwatch and Black Crusade and the wider assortment of shells.
But yes, Tac Marine Bolter, to Firewarrior Pulse Rifle, the Pulse Rifle is better on the table.
Desubot wrote:Im pretty sure the etherals have some sort of knowledge about chaos and its threat.
enough to know that humans, especial stronger ones can be a massive threat to there reign so they keep most of them at arms length and never let them rank up in the hierarchy.
its possible they will allow SM to help them but will probably NEVER make a full alliance. at best they are asked to keep a specific world safe but always with an eye watching them.
They keep anyone that is not Tau at arms length, The Kroot are their least trusted force, but they are still in a full alliance. A Chapter would likely receive similar treatment, and frankly with how they are used to being autonomous anyway, would likely not be bothered by the fact.
EmpNortonII wrote: ... you seriously just asked for a rules citation for things listed in the Tau and SM Codex? Like, not things that are hard to find, but the weapons profiles in the back of the books?
I'm reasonably certain that Ashiraya is asking for a citation on "rules>fluff because rules are more consistent", not a rules citation on the tabletop mechanics of the weapons involved.
EmpNortonII wrote: I can't bring myself to argue with anyone who is basing their argument on the vastly superior production power of the Tau Empire.
Sure, once Space Marines are being supplied by an empire that is competent enough to supply them with specialized ammo, sure, the bolter becomes a better option than by-the-book rules. Of course, that is only the case because the brightest thousand men and women in the Adeptus Mechanicus are about as quick-thinking, inventive, and well-educated as the first ten Earth Caste you could pull in off the streets of T'au.
I'm going to use an example here.
Let's say that the "million world Imperium" is a literal quote, and that each world (very conservatively) has an average population of 500 million people. This works out to a total of 500 quadrillion inhabitants. A conservative number for only the Stormtroopers in the Imperium would be 0.1% of total population- or 1 quadrillion Stormtroopers.
Let's say that the Tau Empire consists of 1000 worlds with an average population of 10 billion people. This is then a total of 10 trillion people in the Tau Empire. Not "Tau". People. As in, all species that inhabit the Tau Empire.
A highly conservative estimate of Imperial population and Stormtrooper conscription/recruitment "rate" yields a value that indicates that the Imperium has more Stormtroopers- IE, an elite, highly motivated, well-trained, and well equipped force- than there exist members of the Tau species. Keep in mind that, in terms of difficulty of production, the hotshot lasgun and carapace armor issued to Stormtroopers is roughly comparable to the equipment issued to a Fire Warrior.
And the Imperium is equipping around three orders of magnitude more personnel than exist within the borders of the Tau Empire.
Any argument of "Tau production superiority" or "Tau technical superiority" is rapidly rendered meaningless and wrong when one considers even a very conservative estimate of Imperial population and the percentage of Imperial citizens that are under arms.
And I didn't even get into a plausible estimate of conscription into the line regiments of the Guard.
It's also worth noting that fluff-wise specialty ammunition is specialty for a reason- standard-issue bolt rounds apparently get the job done well enough that they've not really decided to upgrade it over the course of ten thousand years. As in, longer than the Tau Empire has even existed.
The Imperium is a slowly declining galaxy-spanning empire, yes. This doesn't really change the fact that despite all the decline and loss (and occasional rediscovery) of knowledge the Imperium has still stood for 10,000 years against all comers.
Tau probably can"t match the Imperium in production of regular troop gear, but they probably can exceed and at least match the Imperium in their ability toproduce high-tech gear. Most high-end Imperial gear (Teminator armor, Titans, Land Raiders, hell, eben Plasma Cannon Leman Russ IIRC) are stuff only a few Forge Worlds still can/know how to make. Tau suffer no such issues because technology seems to be well understood and freely shated within the Earth Caste.
That really falls apart though, when considering that a highly conservative estimate of Imperial population and a similarly conservative estimate of the proportion of total population to Stormtroopers as 0.1% yields a figure that there are more Stormtroopers in Imperial service than there exist sentient beings in the Tau Empire by a factor of 10-100 times.
When we further consider that the relative quality of equipment used by Imperial Stormtroopers and Tau Fire Warriors is comparable... the Tau's production doesn't look so hot.
That's not even considering all the things that the Imperium has a thorough understanding of that the Tau only barely understand the existence of- like the Warp, and the various technologies stemming from the applications of Warp energy (Vortex weapons, proper warp drives, psyker training).
Technology is often more freely shared among the members of the Earth Caste, certainly- but the Tau Empire is as a whole far more monolithic than the Imperium, and this extends to the AdMech as well- they're similarly non-monolithic and heavily distributed.
Take into account the logically hyper-conservative positions of the Mechanicus- you'd be the same way if introducing some new thing could lead to it being randomly possessed by daemons bent on eating your soul- and technical understanding sort of ends up being a case of "Imperium understands more, and knows why it's good to be conservative".
There is also the fact that the Mechanicus generally hold that the majority of things worth discovering were discovered during the Dark Age of Technology- the Tau have no such equivalent event, and so are currently relatively optimistic and quite frankly rather naive.
I think you guys overlook a very important fact: just because a Space Marine Chapter fell to the Greater Good, it doesn't automatically mean that they fell to the Tau Empire. Case in point: the Farsight Enclaves.
In my opinion, such a chapter would be a greater threat to the Tau Empire than any Imperial Crusade or Tyrannid Hive Fleet. It would be Farsight 2: The Electric Bungaloo all over again, but with a Space Marine Chapter f*cking sh*t up instead of Farsight and his misfits. Hell, Farsight would maybe even join the party with his forces just to watch Aun'va bend over.
It's also worth noting that fluff-wise specialty ammunition is specialty for a reason- standard-issue bolt rounds apparently get the job done well enough that they've not really decided to upgrade it over the course of ten thousand years. As in, longer than the Tau Empire has even existed.
.
Straight out of the Space Marine codex, the Adeptus Astartes and the Mechanicum couldn't, over the course of 4,000 of those years, figure out how to solder some anti-aircraft missiles and a radar onto a Rhino chassis.
They had to find an STC for it to be possible with their understanding of technology.
The IoM doesn't keep their current tech level because things work well. Mass-producing new types of bolter ammo is something that is literally beyond their understanding of technology, and that's why only a few units have access to it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AtoMaki wrote: I think you guys overlook a very important fact: just because a Space Marine Chapter fell to the Greater Good, it doesn't automatically mean that they fell to the Tau Empire. Case in point: the Farsight Enclaves.
In my opinion, such a chapter would be a greater threat to the Tau Empire than any Imperial Crusade or Tyrannid Hive Fleet. It would be Farsight 2: The Electric Bungaloo all over again, but with a Space Marine Chapter f*cking sh*t up instead of Farsight and his misfits. Hell, Farsight would maybe even join the party with his forces just to watch Aun'va bend over.
... except Farsight has been pointedly avoiding a confrontation.
That's not even considering all the things that the Imperium has a thorough understanding of that the Tau only barely understand the existence of- like the Warp, and the various technologies stemming from the applications of Warp energy (Vortex weapons, proper warp drives, psyker training).
Take into account the logically hyper-conservative positions of the Mechanicus- you'd be the same way if introducing some new thing could lead to it being randomly possessed by daemons bent on eating your soul- and technical understanding sort of ends up being a case of "Imperium understands more, and knows why it's good to be conservative".
You do realize that one of these causes the other, right? Tau don't currently have that problem and probably never will.
First of all, iy's debatable that fire warrior and storm trooper gear are equivalent from a technological point of view.
Armor: even if the protection is equivalent, the fire warrioris, as stated in the Tau codex, produced by more advanced techniques than those available to the Imperium. If the outer layer is Fio'tak (which probably is) that's a more advanced material than the Ceramite used in Space Marine Power Armor.
Wrapons: admitting for the sake of argument s3 ap3 is eqivalent to s5 ap5 (which would make hot-shot lasguns better than bolters and raise the question about why not give marines hot-shot lasguns), the hot-shot lasgun is based on las technology, whereas pulse rifles are a kind of plasma gun, a weapon which the Imperium is unable to both produce in mass as well as devise a version that is safe to operate.
There are also several areas of technology where Tau has a vastly better.understanding than mankind, plasma, anti-grav and high end materials being a few of them.
I would generally agree with you on the small powers that the Tau Empire represent compared to the Imperium, but you also need to consider two things. The Tau Empire is small and dense which means it's very easy to ferry ressources (living or not) from one point to the other of their Empire. The Imperium on the other side is stretched thin and entire region are prone to be left alone and to their own device. Considering it's asymetrical level of development, this can prove to be an issue.
I would also point out that I think you grossly over estimate the numbers of active Tempestus Scions in the Imperium. You would have them has 1 for every 1000 person in the Imperium which in my opinion is ridiculous for the following reasons.
Scions are orphanned nobles trained successfully in the Schola Progenium and who weren't selected by the Inquisition who has first pick, the Adeptas Sororitas who has second pick, then the Officio Prefectus who has third pick. They probably represent 20% of the those who enter the Schola Progenium who are themselves perhaps at most 10% of the noble population which is propably at most 0.1% of the total Imperial population.
So their would be a Scion (or Scion in training or retired) for every 50 000 person in the Imperium and that's the most that logic allows us to make it may actually be more around 1 Scion for every 500 000 person or even 1 for a million. Of course this represent billions of Scions in total, but spread thin in the entire galaxy. This is a very large and highly trained and well equipped army, but not so dangerous because of the actual position of the Imperium.
I would also point out that I think you grossly over estimate the numbers of active Tempestus Scions in the Imperium. You would have them has 1 for every 1000 person in the Imperium which in my opinion is ridiculous for the following reasons.
Scions are orphanned nobles trained successfully in the Schola Progenium and who weren't selected by the Inquisition who has first pick, the Adeptas Sororitas who has second pick, then the Officio Prefectus who has third pick. They probably represent 20% of the those who enter the Schola Progenium who are themselves perhaps at most 10% of the noble population which is propably at most 0.1% of the total Imperial population.
So their would be a Scion (or Scion in training or retired) for every 50 000 person in the Imperium and that's the most that logic allows us to make it may actually be more around 1 Scion for every 500 000 person or even 1 for a million. Of course this represent billions of Scions in total, but spread thin in the entire galaxy. This is a very large and highly trained and well equipped army, but not so dangerous because of the actual position of the Imperium.
The USA, which is vastly more efficient than the Imperium of Man, has about 36,000 special ops personnel out of a population of 320 million.
1 in 8,889. That's .012% of the population. A figure smaller than yours by a magnitude of 10, including what in the IoM would be the sum total of Stormtroopers, Vanguard vets, Space Marines, the SoB, and a bunch of other stuff.
From one bullshitter to another, if you're gonna pull numbers out of your ass, at least check to see how far in you have to reach to pull a number out.
Wrapons: admitting for the sake of argument s3 ap3 is eqivalent to s5 ap5 (which would make hot-shot lasguns better than bolters and raise the question about why not give marines hot-shot lasguns), the hot-shot lasgun is based on las technology, whereas pulse rifles are a kind of plasma gun, a weapon which the Imperium is unable to both produce in mass as well as devise a version that is safe to operate.
Out past (whatever the in-game equivalent of 18 inches figure out to in real terms), hot-shot lasguns work about as well as throwing rocks or shouting obsenities.
EmpNortonII wrote: The USA, which is vastly more efficient than the Imperium of Man, has about 36,000 special ops personnel out of a population of 320 million.
1 in 8,889. That's .012% of the population. A figure smaller than yours by a magnitude of 10, including what in the IoM would be the sum total of Stormtroopers, Vanguard vets, Space Marines, the SoB, and a bunch of other stuff.
Funnily enough, even if the US had the same percentage of special forces personnel (which it doesn't), the IoM still has far far far more warriors than the Tau has populace.
So his point actually stands.
From one bullshitter to another, if you're gonna pull numbers out of your ass, at least check to see how far in you have to reach to pull a number out.
Would you be so kind to tell me how many of the US special force were recruited at the age of 6 from orphanage dedicated only to raising children of Noble birth please?
The society that had the highest numbers of noble vs villains (AKA normal people) was France during the early 18th century with one noble for every 1600 normal person. Now, Scions are recruited from the orphaned sons and daughters of these noble people which means their parents need to be dead. Most of these person have a tendancy of not dying frequently because they are rich and rather well educated. So saying that 10% of all noble children are orphanned is rather generous. Then you have to deduct from tose 10% orphaned children those who will die in the Scholam (a decent number) those who will serve in more august institution then the Ordo Tempestus and those who just don't make the cut to be Scion despite their teachers best efforts.
Making a comparison between the US army and the Imperium military institution is about has intelligent has using the Napoleonian Army to assess the size and structure of the army of the Sarmatean Federation. These two civilsations have absolutly nothing in common when it comes to warfare, be it on the logistical, strategical or socio-economical structure. You got more chances of comming with correct numbers with a demographic assesment of the numbers of nobles vs villains in the Imperial society than counting special forces in the US army.
EmpNortonII wrote: The USA, which is vastly more efficient than the Imperium of Man, has about 36,000 special ops personnel out of a population of 320 million.
1 in 8,889. That's .012% of the population. A figure smaller than yours by a magnitude of 10, including what in the IoM would be the sum total of Stormtroopers, Vanguard vets, Space Marines, the SoB, and a bunch of other stuff.
Funnily enough, even if the US had the same percentage of special forces personnel (which it doesn't), the IoM still has far far far more warriors than the Tau has populace.
So his point actually stands.
From one bullshitter to another, if you're gonna pull numbers out of your ass, at least check to see how far in you have to reach to pull a number out.
Are you always this defensive about Tau?
Yup. Ask around.
The IoM's massive populace didn't help it defend Cadia against the Armless Wonder. You'd think that all those Stormtroopers would have turned the tide there, but they didn't. That's the thing- the Imperium has so many people it gives the overwhelming majority of them the worst weapons in the galaxy. The Tau, however, are able to give their basic grunts equipment on par with humanity's elite, and STILL give their elite warriors Crisis and Stealth suits... and since the Earth Caste doesn't horde its technology, the Tau can continue to equip its forces as it does no matter how large it gets, because their weapon systems (with a few exceptions, like maybe Riptides) can be produced locally.
A suit of Terminator armor or a Dreadnought is a valued relic that is difficult to replace. The Tau pump out Broadside suits with shields (not that many people want to pay the points for them on the tabletop) pretty easily... and it's only going to get easier. For humanity, it's the other way around.
EmpNortonII wrote: Straight out of the Space Marine codex, the Adeptus Astartes and the Mechanicum couldn't, over the course of 4,000 of those years, figure out how to solder some anti-aircraft missiles and a radar onto a Rhino chassis.
They had to find an STC for it to be possible with their understanding of technology.
Counterpoint: they had to find an STC because the STCs are historically resilient to daemonic possession unless deliberately corrupted. For an STC to be corrupt out of the box it's incredibly rare- as in, AFAIK there's less than five instances of STC systems being corrupted straight up. For the Marines/Mechanicus to require an STC to do so is logically consistent with how technology works in 40K- which is to say, that yes, those weird prayers are actually important because if your computer gets possessed by a daemon it will try to kill you and eat your soul.
It's also worth noting the general lack of anti-aircraft armaments of any level of sophistication in 40K.
Additional counterpoint: no, it is not as simple as "soldering some SAMs and a rader onto a Rhino". The design of armored vehicles is in fact a fairly complicated thing. Designing an AA missile system is not as simple as you make it out to be.
EmpNortonII wrote: The IoM doesn't keep their current tech level because things work well. Mass-producing new types of bolter ammo is something that is literally beyond their understanding of technology, and that's why only a few units have access to it.
I'll need proof that mass production of specific variants of bolter ammunition is beyond their understanding of technology. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that the Imperium simply finds it either unnecessary (better is the enemy of good enough, after all), or uneconomical to manufacture more specialized bolter ammunition en-masse.
OTOH, there's no solid numbers on how many Marines are seconded to the Deathwatch, and it's certainly multiple Chapters' worth of Marines, and given that most of these specialty rounds come from Deathwatch innovation- Dragonfire and Vengeance rounds didn't exist way back in the Horus Heresy.
EmpNortonII wrote: You do realize that one of these causes the other, right? Tau don't currently have that problem and probably never will.
Don't have what problem? Computers turning into gibbering abominations bent on consuming the souls of all the things? I mean sure, the Tau being about as Warp-attuned as a brick helps avoid that problem, but some of the particularly sophisticated things that came out of the Dark Age are simply beyond the Tau- at least at this point, and without an extra millenia or four.
LordBlades wrote: First of all, iy's debatable that fire warrior and storm trooper gear are equivalent from a technological point of view.
Armor: even if the protection is equivalent, the fire warrioris, as stated in the Tau codex, produced by more advanced techniques than those available to the Imperium. If the outer layer is Fio'tak (which probably is) that's a more advanced material than the Ceramite used in Space Marine Power Armor.
Wrapons: admitting for the sake of argument s3 ap3 is eqivalent to s5 ap5 (which would make hot-shot lasguns better than bolters and raise the question about why not give marines hot-shot lasguns), the hot-shot lasgun is based on las technology, whereas pulse rifles are a kind of plasma gun, a weapon which the Imperium is unable to both produce in mass as well as devise a version that is safe to operate.
There are also several areas of technology where Tau has a vastly better.understanding than mankind, plasma, anti-grav and high end materials being a few of them.
I'm not arguing that hotshot lasguns and pulse rifles are equivalent in firepower, I'm arguing that from a technical- and perhaps more relevantly and economic- standpoint they are of similar sophistication. Keep in mind that pulse weapons aren't "true" plasma- they leverage a coilgun accelerator and the munitions- which start off as a solid- are then rendered into an ionized "pulse" state. True plasma armaments pretty much run off of compressed hydrogen charges of some kind.
It's also worth noting that:
1) Plasma weapons are difficult to decipher on a pure fluff basis; referring to the RPGs reveals that only when fired at "maximal" 'yields' is Imperial plasma weaponry unstable. It's also worth noting that there's still so many Imperial personnel under arms that the Imperium is probably producing plasma weapons on a scale comparable to Tau pulse rifles- it's just that they have so many mans that it's not economical to issue plasma guns to every single soldier.
2) Tau understanding isn't better. They simply have more widespread implementation, on account of significantly less pressure to crank out enough tanks to equip more Guardsmen than there are Tau.
I'll also comment that I did not realize that the new "Scion" fluff made the Stormtroopers the equivalent of nobility. Which is kind of dumb, IMO.
EmpNortonII wrote: The USA, which is vastly more efficient than the Imperium of Man, has about 36,000 special ops personnel out of a population of 320 million.
1 in 8,889. That's .012% of the population. A figure smaller than yours by a magnitude of 10, including what in the IoM would be the sum total of Stormtroopers, Vanguard vets, Space Marines, the SoB, and a bunch of other stuff.
From one bullshitter to another, if you're gonna pull numbers out of your ass, at least check to see how far in you have to reach to pull a number out.
....I did not include Astartes or Sisters in the number. On purpose, in fact. Because Astartes fulfill a very specific role- and fluff feats make Space Marines ridiculously powerful- while Sisters have the equivalent of mass produced power armor.
Also, Vanguard Veterans are a sub-formation of Codex-compliant Astartes chapters, not a separate formation. If you're going to BS about "spec ops population ratios", then try to make an effort to sound vaguely informed about what you're throwing around.
Further, the Imperium is a ridiculously militarized society. Keep in mind that the Imperium has been under attack, at a steady (if not continuous) pace, for ten thousand years. To say that 0.1% of the population is "spec ops personnel" is, IMO, quite reasonable.
As a further example, using our (incredibly) conservative 500 quadrillion total Imperial population estimate, I would argue that, as a minimum, the Imperium maintains at least 5% of its population as an active combat element of the Imperial Guard.
Which means there are 25 quadrillion Guardsmen, or three orders of magnitude more active soldiers than there are members of the Tau species. When you have to equip that many mans, on a galactic scale, it isn't going to be particularly practical to give them all the equivalent of carapace armor and pulse rifles.
EmpNortonII wrote: Out past (whatever the in-game equivalent of 18 inches figure out to in real terms), hot-shot lasguns work about as well as throwing rocks or shouting obsenities.
Tabletop stats are not relevant to this discussion, particularly considering I was referring to the technical difficulty of the manufacture of the two weapons, as well as the economic requirements involved. It's not about how effective the gun is- it's about how much that gun costs.
EmpNortonII wrote: The IoM's massive populace didn't help it defend Cadia against the Armless Wonder. You'd think that all those Stormtroopers would have turned the tide there, but they didn't. That's the thing- the Imperium has so many people it gives the overwhelming majority of them the worst weapons in the galaxy. The Tau, however, are able to give their basic grunts equipment on par with humanity's elite, and STILL give their elite warriors Crisis and Stealth suits... and since the Earth Caste doesn't horde its technology, the Tau can continue to equip its forces as it does no matter how large it gets, because their weapon systems (with a few exceptions, like maybe Riptides) can be produced locally.
The Imperium is fighting hundreds of wars across dozens of theaters. The Black Crusaders are a major threat- and if you'd logically considered things like the Damocles Crusade, you'd have realized that the Imperium really only stopped because the Tyranids were knocking on the door, and the planet-consuming gribbly tide of giant space bugs who are immune to Raid tend to be a much bigger problem than the Tau.
As in, the only reason the Tau still exist is because the Imperium has far bigger fish to fry. Only the Imperium is trying to fry multiple said bigger fish, because said fish all want to pick a fight at the same time.
EmpNortonII wrote: A suit of Terminator armor or a Dreadnought is a valued relic that is difficult to replace. The Tau pump out Broadside suits with shields (not that many people want to pay the points for them on the tabletop) pretty easily... and it's only going to get easier. For humanity, it's the other way around.
Both of which were affected by the Horus Heresy; keep in mind that the Imperium, mighty as it is, is still dealing with the after-effects of a war that split the galaxy, and destroyed more than the Tau really have a reference point to even understand. It's also worth noting that Terminator armor is used as a general-purpose super-heavy-infantry armor.
Broadside battlesuits are used exclusively as a heavy weapons platform. The comparison is completely flawed; even a Dreadnought is a poor comparison to the Broadside, on account of how Dreads are really nasty in boarding assaults, and also absolutely terrifying to deal with when you don't have much in the way of heavy weapons on hand.
Incidentally, Broadsides are arguably more vulnerable to anti-armor weapons, on account of how Dreadnoughts tend to be armored to similar standards of armored vehicles.
Sorry, my bad. I tend to be brisk when it comes to these kind of comparison. I have my apologies. I see far to often people trying to rationalise the Imperium by drawing comparision with modern western world, forgetting that the Imperium has more in common with absolutist France of the 18th century than modern country.
It's true thought that the main issue of the Imperium is not the number or even the quality of it's soldiers but it's capacity to deploy them in numbers where and when it counts. Their numerous ennemies aren't helping either.
Sorry, my bad. I tend to be brisk when it comes to these kind of comparison. I have my apologies. I see far to often people trying to rationalise the Imperium by drawing comparision with modern western world, forgetting that the Imperium has more in common with absolutist France of the 18th century than modern country.
It's true thought that the main issue of the Imperium is not the number or even the quality of it's soldiers but it's capacity to deploy them in numbers where and when it counts. Their numerous ennemies aren't helping either.
All forgiven, friend.
The Warp doesn't help. A billion Stormtroopers don't get you very far when the ships carrying most of their ammunition and food show up 10 years too late.
... or if the Imperial bureaucracy loses the papers for the supplies. Or if they get send to the wrong world. Or a dozen other things that could (and often do) go wrong.
Players who are super gung-ho about the imperium often forget that stuff like that happens frequently.. it just doesn't get written about in the Black Library because no one wants to read about the IG Infantry Regiment that dropped to a world, fired off their ammunition, and were then clubbed to death by Orks or eaten alive by Tyranids... or the IG Tank Regiment that dropped to a Tau world without the infantry they were supposed to receive that were taken apart by Fire Warriors hiding in the terrain... or the Titan legion tasked with turning back a Chaos warband that never left its world because the Warp ate their transport ship.
The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
LordBlades wrote: The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
LordBlades wrote: The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.
less we forget the lessons of the past.
Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...
To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.
LordBlades wrote: The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.
less we forget the lessons of the past.
Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...
Until it does become a problem
Thats the grimdark part of this setting. its not 100% supposed to be realistic.
DAoT allowed for some crazy gak and AI systems that turned and feth everyone up the bumb.
so a culture of protecting and preventing rampant techonoligcal growth happened
that became a cult
and now all da things HAVE to be sanctioned by techowizards otherwise bad things happen. and if you are found doing techoheresy bad things will happen to you. so who do you think would be willing to deal with that?
Players who are super gung-ho about the imperium often forget that stuff like that happens frequently.. it just doesn't get written about in the Black Library because no one wants to read about the IG Infantry Regiment that dropped to a world, fired off their ammunition, and were then clubbed to death by Orks or eaten alive by Tyranids... or the IG Tank Regiment that dropped to a Tau world without the infantry they were supposed to receive that were taken apart by Fire Warriors hiding in the terrain... or the Titan legion tasked with turning back a Chaos warband that never left its world because the Warp ate their transport ship.
You forgot all those who died of dysentery, various pox, flu and fevers they catch on different worlds, in the squalid condition of their campment or while waiting for their next drop of food and resources. The story of a mighty Space Marine company who all dies of thirst in the middle of a desert wasteland because their supplies don't come has it's perks, but it's not the kind of things that GW writes.
LordBlades wrote: The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.
less we forget the lessons of the past.
Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...
To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.
Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem. It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.
LordBlades wrote: The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.
less we forget the lessons of the past.
Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...
To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.
Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.
And that is the issue. They have Land Speeder plans but they.don't really.understand them,not to the level to realize how to take a part of it and do something else with it, even.if that somethimg has proven safe in the past.
It's also worth noting that the only tech that has Daemon possession issues is human. Not Tau, not Eldar/DE, not Necron. Just human.
The most likely thing to happen is that such a grave, unprecedented heresy as Astartes defecting to xenos would bring a very harsh response from the Inquisition. Normally, when a SM chapter turns renegade, they seek refuge in the Warp or keep running around to escape the wrath of the Inquisition. The Tau Empire would not be able to provide a safe refuge for the renegade Marines.
LordBlades wrote: The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.
less we forget the lessons of the past.
Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...
To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.
Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.
... and production decreased why? Because without the STC and a magic factory to pump them out, the Imperium... can't... build.... anti-grav... tech. All they can do is follow the already-made instructions.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Iron_Captain wrote: The most likely thing to happen is that such a grave, unprecedented heresy as Astartes defecting to xenos would bring a very harsh response from the Inquisition. Normally, when a SM chapter turns renegade, they seek refuge in the Warp or keep running around to escape the wrath of the Inquisition. The Tau Empire would not be able to provide a safe refuge for the renegade Marines.
Of course, it could take centuries for the Inquisition to hear about, assign resources to deal with it, and then actually send those resources out to deal with it.
Besides, I imagine a renegade SM Chapter isn't a big deal compared to, say, Cadia being swallowed by the Eye of Terror if Abaddon takes it. I can't imagine one renegade Chapter of marines is a big deal compared to the 13th Black Crusade.
LordBlades wrote: The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
It's entirely possible that the particular design was lost, and that there was, post-Heresy, no desire to try and revive production of Jetbikes from whatever scraps they had left. As mentioned:
Finlandiaperkele wrote: Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.
Many of the FWs that specialized in Jetbike manufacture sided with Horus. As such, there's a couple of things that are likely to have occurred:
1) Jetbikes may have become stigmatized as being a "Traitor" preference.
2) As the Heresy closed and the Scouring began and ended, these FWs were likely sabotaged by the Traitor forces. Whatever scraps are left isn't enough to put together complete, mass-producible patterns.
3) There may in fact be no tactical necessity or desire for Jetbikes in Marine forces. Post-Heresy and post-Scouring eras, the Astartes were organized in an entirely different fashion, so Jetbikes may actually no longer fit doctrinal requirements.
Remember, the "better is the enemy of good enough". If more traditional, rubber-to-the-road bikes are good enough for the Marines, then that's what they're going to get, as Jetbikes then become a superfluous expense to supply a force that is already expensive to support.
EmpNortonII wrote: Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...
To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.
Funny how the Tau have tiny supply lines, and there's a great deal of evidence that old-school "tires 'n' tracks" are much more economical to build on the scale necessary for the Imperial armed forces.
LordBlades wrote: And that is the issue. They have Land Speeder plans but they.don't really.understand them,not to the level to realize how to take a part of it and do something else with it, even.if that somethimg has proven safe in the past.
It's also worth noting that the only tech that has Daemon possession issues is human. Not Tau, not Eldar/DE, not Necron. Just human.
As mentioned, there's nothing that says that they don't understand Land Speeder technology. They can presumably manufacture "new-build" Land Speeders, as well as even innovate a bit and deploy newer designs, like the Land Speeder Storm or the Land Speeder Vengeance- neither of which existed during the Heresy or Scouring. As such, it's more likely that the specific derivatives necessary to produce Jetbikes are either lost entirely, incomplete, or deemed unreliable/untrustworthy.
Or simply unnecessary, when it seems that the Astartes chapters appear to be perfectly happy with their old school rubber-to-the-road bikes.
It's also worth noting that:
Necrons were never warp-sensitive, and mostly rely on weird hyperspace-pocket-dimension kit; roughly speaking, there's very little in the Tau armory that could not be replicated by the Imperium... and potentially there's quite a bit that's already been independently developed during the DAoT, and subsequently lost/rediscovered/deemed unfit. Necron tech is itself on a whole other level from the Imperium.
As far as the Eldar- they have been demonstrated as having a much more significant mastery of Warp-based technologies and the applications thereof, not to mention that the majority of their equipment is basically psycho-sensitive super-plastics that are then attuned to the Eldar, who are themselves very psychically attuned (as opposed to the "Warp-sensitive as a brick" Tau).
For the DE, they've got a pretty much deathly fear of daemons and the Warp, so quite obviously they're going to work very hard to make sure that none of their kit is susceptible. Remember, most human technology that seemed to have this problem (Iron Men, for example) is strictly DAoT- when the Imperium didn't exist and humanity as a whole was more like the Tau, in that they were very optimistic and relatively naive.
Fast forward to the Great Crusade through the Heresy and Scouring to the "present day" of 40K, and you've got the hyper-conservative Imperium that fully understands- on a grand strategical scale at least- that you do not take chances with things that could, even if only remotely possible, taint one or more persons just from using it. Or get possessed by homicidal, genocidal daemons intent on consuming the souls of all the things.
EmpNortonII wrote: ... and production decreased why? Because without the STC and a magic factory to pump them out, the Imperium... can't... build.... anti-grav... tech. All they can do is follow the already-made instructions.
Or it could have been any of the reasons I've just listed. They might have lost the plans entirely, and deemed it uneconomical to start from scratch. They may have only fragments that they've deemed to be unreliable or untrustworthy for whatever reason.
Hell, they might even have multiple complete STCs for jetbikes, but they don't dare use them because of the significant risk that the STCs were very comprehensively corrupted during the time that the Traitor Legions were in possession of the relevant FWs that were the major suppliers of Jetbikes to the Astartes Legions.
The funny thing about lost SM stuff is that, going by IA2, it is not so much that the Imperium cant make a lot of this stuff as it is that they do not want to. The Fellblade being a good example of this. They are still making the bloody things just not in any significant numbers. It is implied that the reason being that there isnt much demand for a huge tank from the 40k marines.
Finlandiaperkele wrote: Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.
Many of the FWs that specialized in Jetbike manufacture sided with Horus. As such, there's a couple of things that are likely to have occurred:
1) Jetbikes may have become stigmatized as being a "Traitor" preference.
2) As the Heresy closed and the Scouring began and ended, these FWs were likely sabotaged by the Traitor forces. Whatever scraps are left isn't enough to put together complete, mass-producible patterns.
3) There may in fact be no tactical necessity or desire for Jetbikes in Marine forces. Post-Heresy and post-Scouring eras, the Astartes were organized in an entirely different fashion, so Jetbikes may actually no longer fit doctrinal requirements.
1) No, jetbikes were used even after the heresy.
2) More likely the Forge Worlds that sided with Horus destroyed all production lines to cripple the loyalists.
3) Doctrinial role of bikes remained the same; to offer fast relocation of small units. Anti-Grav would be better for this job than standard tires. (Tires are slowed down by rough/soft terrain. AG isn't).
The use just started to shift away as the jetbikes began to get older and older, and no replacement units could be produced. That's why Imperial jetbikes are considered relics in 41st millenium.
Whiskey144 wrote: Or it could have been any of the reasons I've just listed. They might have lost the plans entirely, and deemed it uneconomical to start from scratch. They may have only fragments that they've deemed to be unreliable or untrustworthy for whatever reason.
Hell, they might even have multiple complete STCs for jetbikes, but they don't dare use them because of the significant risk that the STCs were very comprehensively corrupted during the time that the Traitor Legions were in possession of the relevant FWs that were the major suppliers of Jetbikes to the Astartes Legions.
There is also the small issue of building huge production lines from nothing.
TheCustomLime wrote: The funny thing about lost SM stuff is that, going by IA2, it is not so much that the Imperium cant make a lot of this stuff as it is that they do not want to. The Fellblade being a good example of this. They are still making the bloody things just not in any significant numbers. It is implied that the reason being that there isnt much demand for a huge tank from the 40k marines.
Well, there are no longer Astartes Armoured Brigades, so, yeah...
EmpNortonII wrote: ... and production decreased why? Because without the STC and a magic factory to pump them out, the Imperium... can't... build.... anti-grav... tech. All they can do is follow the already-made instructions.
If they couldn't build AG, they couldn't build Land Speeders. The Anti-Grav plates don't appear out of thin air. Imperium has the understanding of how to build Anti-Grav. It's just the fact that due to the enormous size of the Imperium's Armed Forces, the supply demands are just ginormous. And putting up new production lines isn't cheap. It's cheaper to replace one missing thing with one already in production, if it fills the same niche.
Finlandiaperkele wrote: And putting up new production lines isn't cheap. It's cheaper to replace one missing thing with one already in production, if it fills the same niche.
[Emphasis mine]
That's the point I'm making about why the Imperium no longer manufactures and deploys jetbikes- traditional bikes are good enough. Jetbikes would certainly be better, but traditional bikes get the job done just fine, so they have instead chosen to discontinue deployment of jetbikes.
No, the Imperium has the understanding of how to follow the directions to build anti-grav. They don't understand how it works, they're just mindlessly following "insert part A into hole B" directions to assemble the existing designs according to the blueprints created by people who did understand the technology. That's why they can't adapt anti-grav technology for other vehicles that don't already have complete instructions for building them. For example, an engineer who understands anti-grav technology would be able to use the same principles that make the X" by Y" squares of anti-grav plates for a land speeder to make A" by B" anti-grav plates for a LRBT. A mindless Imperial factory worker, on the other hand, can't make that change because they don't understand how the things they're assembling work.
1) would the marines eventually start using like 4 pulse rifles strapped together or just use rail rifles in rapid fire mode?
Probably not, although we might see more integrated heavy weapon, such as burst cannons and such, as well as upgrades to the bolter (maybe tunring it into a coil gun meaning more space for exposives?)
2) would a marine be able to fly a crisis or riptide suit? and if so, how well would he be able to use it? (for that matter, how fast could a marine learn the Tau language enough to use their equipment?)
No, the size difference it too great
3) would he fit inside a devilfish transport?
I doubt it, they are made for tau, who are supposed to be slightly shorter then humans, although the rihno might too some grav upgrades.
4) having stealth suit marines?
That's a definite possibility
5) could the Tau start to have genetically modified fire warriors?
If the tau could learn from studding the space marine, maybe, although they probebly wouldn't sucseed
6) increase their use of chainsaws?
I doubt it
7) trade the marines to the kroot?
no
8) just use up the marines as soon as possible so as to be rid of them or try to keep them around for more studies?
A chapter would be a great asset, and fully willing space marines would be great allies
No, the Imperium has the understanding of how to follow the directions to build anti-grav. They don't understand how it works, they're just mindlessly following "insert part A into hole B" directions to assemble the existing designs according to the blueprints created by people who did understand the technology. That's why they can't adapt anti-grav technology for other vehicles that don't already have complete instructions for building them. For example, an engineer who understands anti-grav technology would be able to use the same principles that make the X" by Y" squares of anti-grav plates for a land speeder to make A" by B" anti-grav plates for a LRBT. A mindless Imperial factory worker, on the other hand, can't make that change because they don't understand how the things they're assembling work.
So it's entirely and utterly necessary for every worker on the factory floor to have an intimate, thorough, and detailed understanding of high-energy laser physics in order to build lasguns? Because that's kind of what you're saying, by attempting to equivocate an engineer and a floor worker. The requirements for those two different jobs are entirely different; the engineer, certainly, would benefit from an understanding of the underlying principles of the technologies they work with. But a factory floor worker? All he needs to know is how to work whatever part of the line he's on.
You're also making an enormous assumption that the Imperium can't do this because they don't understand it, rather than the much simpler solution that it's not economically viable to do so. Remember, the Imperium is sort of like Russia, in that they pretty much religiously adhere to the idea that "better is the enemy of good enough"; if a tried-and-trusted, old-school tracked design for a vehicle works, and is economically simple to manufacture in the quantities necessary, then it's a lot more likely that they'll just stick with that rather than stick anti-grav plates onto it because then it will be "better" for whatever reason.
I'm not going to dispute the idea that anti-grav Russes would be absolutely badass; but I will dispute that they'd be economically viable.
LordBlades wrote: The fact that the Imperium has forgotten to.build jetbikes for example between the Heresy and now, and despite still being able to build Land Speeders they seem unable to extrapolate that tech to relearn jetbike building shows that the Imperium has a very rudimentary understanding of even the stuff they mass produce.
Its a whole lot less unable as to unwilling.
less we forget the lessons of the past.
Funny how the Tau can build new hover vehicles without that problem...
To address the OP, a SM chapter that *did* find its way to the Greater Good might get to have jet bikes, since the Tau are capable of building such things. It's not how the Tau fight themselves, but I could see an Earth Caste engineering team cooking some up for them. The Tau do like mobile warfare, after all.
Imperium can build Land Speeders without a problem.
It's not that they can't build Anti-Grav tech, but due to the fact that the major Forge Worlds that supplied the jetbikes to Astartes sided with Horus. After that, the Jetbikes started to be phased out from major deployment due to the catastrophical decrease in production.
And that is the issue. They have Land Speeder plans but they.don't really.understand them,not to the level to realize how to take a part of it and do something else with it, even.if that somethimg has proven safe in the past.
It's also worth noting that the only tech that has Daemon possession issues is human. Not Tau, not Eldar/DE, not Necron. Just human.
There are plenty of daemonically-possessed Xeno artifacts, usually from cultures that went extinct because of drawing said attention from the Warp.
I could see Marines and the Enclaves working out, not so much the empire thanks to Ethereals.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Co'tor Shas wrote: 1) would the marines eventually start using like 4 pulse rifles strapped together or just use rail rifles in rapid fire mode?
Probably not, although we might see more integrated heavy weapon, such as burst cannons and such, as well as upgrades to the bolter (maybe tunring it into a coil gun meaning more space for exposives?)
2) would a marine be able to fly a crisis or riptide suit? and if so, how well would he be able to use it? (for that matter, how fast could a marine learn the Tau language enough to use their equipment?)
No, the size difference it too great
3) would he fit inside a devilfish transport?
I doubt it, they are made for tau, who are supposed to be slightly shorter then humans, although the rihno might too some grav upgrades.
4) having stealth suit marines?
That's a definite possibility
5) could the Tau start to have genetically modified fire warriors?
If the tau could learn from studding the space marine, maybe, although they probebly wouldn't sucseed
6) increase their use of chainsaws?
I doubt it
7) trade the marines to the kroot?
no
8) just use up the marines as soon as possible so as to be rid of them or try to keep them around for more studies?
A chapter would be a great asset, and fully willing space marines would be great allies
they could indeed fly like crisis suits, Stealth suits "fly" and they are roughly the same size if not a little bigger than marines.
They would likely engineer new power weapons. Pulse rifles and carbines could be modified with bigger grips for the marines, so this would be a good transition over the inferior bolter. But I could see them using a variant of the Rail Rifle before pulse weapons(Rail rifles are undergoing field testing to replace the Pulse rifle as per the Rail rifles munitorum book page thing)
They would likely strictly deploy them in heat via Orca or some other newer transport.
Stealth suit marines would mean adding the stealth field nodes to power armour. Space marines (smallest I've ever heard is 7ftt) could not fit in a crisis suits or riptide. They could, of course, get special suits, but those would not be crisis suits or riptides.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Stealth suit marines would mean adding the stealth field nodes to power armour. Space marines (smallest I've ever heard is 7ftt) could not fit in a crisis suits or riptide. They could, of course, get special suits, but those would not be crisis suits or riptides.
They could fit in a Crisis Suit. Just gut all of the motors that actually make it move and the Astartes could probably just wear it..
Yeah you might be able, that wouldn't be a very good idea. Be better to just design a whole new exo-suit thing for them. It would be like big bulky armour with assisted movement and a jet pack, plus stuff like mounted weapons.
Im pretty sure a lot of the "hard" wiring that is required to pilot those things as a tau probably wont be cross compatible with humans.
IIRC some one did get fried trying to interface with some xeno tech
If by some miracle the space marines son married the ethereal's daughter to the point they will actually share high level tech. you will probably seeing haywire grenades at minimal. probably some flavor of pulse -> rail carbine weapons. and possibly sharing stealth nodes and connect to the markerlight drone system.
Best case scenario they get integrated and are allowed to recruiter from one of the hume planets that are potentially compatible to keep with recruitment. the etherals will probably ask they stick to the codex to "keep em in check" size wise, upgrade basic equipment and allow them to be used as area defense and shock attack units.
But a mass explosion of fandom scratchbuilds? probably not.
No, the Imperium has the understanding of how to follow the directions to build anti-grav. They don't understand how it works, they're just mindlessly following "insert part A into hole B" directions to assemble the existing designs according to the blueprints created by people who did understand the technology. That's why they can't adapt anti-grav technology for other vehicles that don't already have complete instructions for building them. For example, an engineer who understands anti-grav technology would be able to use the same principles that make the X" by Y" squares of anti-grav plates for a land speeder to make A" by B" anti-grav plates for a LRBT. A mindless Imperial factory worker, on the other hand, can't make that change because they don't understand how the things they're assembling work.
So it's entirely and utterly necessary for every worker on the factory floor to have an intimate, thorough, and detailed understanding of high-energy laser physics in order to build lasguns? Because that's kind of what you're saying, by attempting to equivocate an engineer and a floor worker. The requirements for those two different jobs are entirely different; the engineer, certainly, would benefit from an understanding of the underlying principles of the technologies they work with. But a factory floor worker? All he needs to know is how to work whatever part of the line he's on.
What we're saying is there are NO engineers of the sort you described in the Imperium of Man. There is NO ONE who actually understands how these things work. The Mechanicum hordes forgotten tech, they don't try to understand it so they can improve on it. Period.
Funny how the Tau have tiny supply lines, and there's a great deal of evidence that old-school "tires 'n' tracks" are much more economical to build on the scale necessary for the Imperial armed forces.
Let's start here.
Tau supply lines are tiny because each Sept is capable of manufacturing the equipment it needs. There is no Empire-wide bureaucracy responsible for organizing resources- there is a complete, self-contained bureaucracy that governs maybe a dozen systems that are capable of resupplying their forces independent from the Empire's central government.
The Tau, therefore, will continue to be able to supply their forces almost as well as they do now no matter how large the Empire grows because of this.
EmpNortonII wrote: What we're saying is there are NO engineers of the sort you described in the Imperium of Man. There is NO ONE who actually understands how these things work. The Mechanicum hordes forgotten tech, they don't try to understand it so they can improve on it. Period.
Then you'll need to provide some proof, because they obviously do have people who understand it, otherwise the laundry list of hardware that didn't exist during the Heresy and Scouring would not exist in 'modern' 40K.
Things like:
Thunderfire Cannons
Razorbacks
Land Raider Crusaders
Land Raider Redeemers
Land Raider Prometheus
Land Raider Ares
Land Raider Terminus Ultra
Land Raider Helios
Stalkers
Stormravens
Storm Talons
Centurion Warsuits
Predator Annihilators
Repressors
Immolators
Exorcists
Land Speeder Tempests
Land Speeder Storms
Macharius Heavy Tanks
Macharius Vanquishers
Macharius Vulcans
Macharius Omegas
Leman Russ Punishers
CRASSUS ARMORED ASSAULT TRANSPORTS
Praetor Armored Assault Launchers
Dominus Armored Siege Bombards
Gorgon Assault Carriers
Taurox APCs
Taurox Primes
Tauros Assault Vehicles
Tauros Venators
Dragonfire Bolt Shells
Hellfire Bolt Shells
Metal Storm Bolt Shells
Vengeance Bolt Shells
Stalker "Silenced" Bolt Shells
Inferno Bolt Shells (the Imperial incendiary-charge one, not the magic Thousand Sons one)
Psycannon/Psybolt Shells
All that stuff sure seems like a lot of innovation and development and understanding of the hardware involved to me. I mean sure, all that stuff just had to be laying around during the Heresy and nobody used it because it couldn't possibly have been useful!
Whiskey144 wrote: Funny how the Tau have tiny supply lines, and there's a great deal of evidence that old-school "tires 'n' tracks" are much more economical to build on the scale necessary for the Imperial armed forces.
Let's start here.
Tau supply lines are tiny because each Sept is capable of manufacturing the equipment it needs. There is no Empire-wide bureaucracy responsible for organizing resources- there is a complete, self-contained bureaucracy that governs maybe a dozen systems that are capable of resupplying their forces independent from the Empire's central government.
The Tau, therefore, will continue to be able to supply their forces almost as well as they do now no matter how large the Empire grows because of this.
So, Tau supply lines aren't small because the Tau Empire is just really small? I mean, it couldn't possibly be that Tau supply lines are short on account of them having, say, a very small slice of territory compared to the XBAWKSEHUEG galactic-scale territory of the Imperium?
No? You're sure that the Empire is just 'super efficient'?
Because resources have to come from somewhere, and eventually worlds are mined out- the Imperium is a fair example of this, considering that there are worlds that exist simply to export people, on account of that being the only useful resource that they have left, or that they can produce; the Tau Empire doesn't include many deathworlds from which only manpower can be drawn. Nor does the Tau Empire consist of a symbiotic relationship between two separate institutions, both of which are legally considered semi-sovereign entities, with their own attendant territories.
EmpNortonII wrote: What we're saying is there are NO engineers of the sort you described in the Imperium of Man. There is NO ONE who actually understands how these things work. The Mechanicum hordes forgotten tech, they don't try to understand it so they can improve on it. Period.
Then you'll need to provide some proof, because they obviously do have people who understand it, otherwise the laundry list of hardware that didn't exist during the Heresy and Scouring would not exist in 'modern' 40K.
Things like:
Thunderfire Cannons
Razorbacks
Land Raider Crusaders
Land Raider Redeemers
Land Raider Prometheus
Land Raider Ares
Land Raider Terminus Ultra
Land Raider Helios
Stalkers
Stormravens
Storm Talons
Centurion Warsuits
Predator Annihilators
Repressors
Immolators
Exorcists
Land Speeder Tempests
Land Speeder Storms
Macharius Heavy Tanks
Macharius Vanquishers
Macharius Vulcans
Macharius Omegas
Leman Russ Punishers
CRASSUS ARMORED ASSAULT TRANSPORTS
Praetor Armored Assault Launchers
Dominus Armored Siege Bombards
Gorgon Assault Carriers
Taurox APCs
Taurox Primes
Tauros Assault Vehicles
Tauros Venators
Dragonfire Bolt Shells
Hellfire Bolt Shells
Metal Storm Bolt Shells
Vengeance Bolt Shells
Stalker "Silenced" Bolt Shells
Inferno Bolt Shells (the Imperial incendiary-charge one, not the magic Thousand Sons one)
Psycannon/Psybolt Shells
All that stuff sure seems like a lot of innovation and development and understanding of the hardware involved to me. I mean sure, all that stuff just had to be laying around during the Heresy and nobody used it because it couldn't possibly have been useful!
That's apparently because you don't read anything about the setting... like what an STC is, and why the Mechanicum gets a hard-on every time someone so much as says the letters.
The Standard Template Construct (STC) systems were complex analytical and processing systems created during the Dark Age of Technology (M21 - M23). They are said to have contained the entirety of human technological knowledge up to that point. Following the Age of Technology, the systems became increasingly rare, until becoming lost entirely. In the current Age of the Imperium, the ancient technological knowledge survives only because it was preserved in STC hard copies.
Hell, go to the 2nd entry on your list, the Razorback.
A variant of the Predator Battle Tank designed to carry troops is believed to be the first precursor to the modern Razorback. However, the STC template for the Razorback was first rediscovered in M36 by Chief Artisan Tilvius while he was exploring the Southern Rim of the galaxy. When he returned to Mars, the Adeptus Mechanicus recognized it from earlier records and commenced work on its production. Within two hundred years the first Razorbacks were field-tested and began seeing service to the Adeptus Astartes soon after.
In other words, humanity is so incompetent that soldering an lascannon to the top of a Rhino is beyond their technological grasp... and pretty much everything on your list is the same way, my favorite example being the Stalker, of course, because it is explicitly stated that humanity tried and FAILED to create something like it for thousands of years before the STC was recovered.
Whiskey144 wrote: Funny how the Tau have tiny supply lines, and there's a great deal of evidence that old-school "tires 'n' tracks" are much more economical to build on the scale necessary for the Imperial armed forces.
Let's start here.
Tau supply lines are tiny because each Sept is capable of manufacturing the equipment it needs. There is no Empire-wide bureaucracy responsible for organizing resources- there is a complete, self-contained bureaucracy that governs maybe a dozen systems that are capable of resupplying their forces independent from the Empire's central government.
The Tau, therefore, will continue to be able to supply their forces almost as well as they do now no matter how large the Empire grows because of this.
So, Tau supply lines aren't small because the Tau Empire is just really small? I mean, it couldn't possibly be that Tau supply lines are short on account of them having, say, a very small slice of territory compared to the XBAWKSEHUEG galactic-scale territory of the Imperium?
No? You're sure that the Empire is just 'super efficient'?
Because resources have to come from somewhere, and eventually worlds are mined out- the Imperium is a fair example of this, considering that there are worlds that exist simply to export people, on account of that being the only useful resource that they have left, or that they can produce; the Tau Empire doesn't include many deathworlds from which only manpower can be drawn. Nor does the Tau Empire consist of a symbiotic relationship between two separate institutions, both of which are legally considered semi-sovereign entities, with their own attendant territories.
They're shipping equipment across dozens of light-years of space. They would be shipping over many times that, except that all Hammerheads aren't made on one single world.
You seem to be saying the Imperium is awesome because it does things like dedicate a single world to building tanks when that's a stupid thing to do.
It's more efficient to build locally when you can. If humanity had organized itself in a more reasonable fashion, many of said problems you listed wouldn't be problems.
They also might be able to give their front line troops weapons that are more than marginally superior to flashlights.
EmpNortonII wrote: That's apparently because you don't read anything about the setting... like what an STC is, and why the Mechanicum gets a hard-on every time someone so much as says the letters.
The Standard Template Construct (STC) systems were complex analytical and processing systems created during the Dark Age of Technology (M21 - M23). They are said to have contained the entirety of human technological knowledge up to that point. Following the Age of Technology, the systems became increasingly rare, until becoming lost entirely. In the current Age of the Imperium, the ancient technological knowledge survives only because it was preserved in STC hard copies.
So, in other words, an STC is a record of the entirety of human knowledge as recorded during the DAoT. The entry even says that the STC could supply plans for things using only locally available materials. As in, you could theoretically build a Rhino out of rocks and trees if you had a complete, fully-functional STC.
Obviously that's probably not going to work as well as using more traditional materials, but the point is that STCs aren't just instructions- though they certainly contain such- they're a holistic device that really only stops short of actually putting things together... and even then, there's a few that do that too!
EmpNortonII wrote: Hell, go to the 2nd entry on your list, the Razorback.
A variant of the Predator Battle Tank designed to carry troops is believed to be the first precursor to the modern Razorback. However, the STC template for the Razorback was first rediscovered in M36 by Chief Artisan Tilvius while he was exploring the Southern Rim of the galaxy. When he returned to Mars, the Adeptus Mechanicus recognized it from earlier records and commenced work on its production. Within two hundred years the first Razorbacks were field-tested and began seeing service to the Adeptus Astartes soon after.
In other words, humanity is so incompetent that soldering an lascannon to the top of a Rhino is beyond their technological grasp... and pretty much everything on your list is the same way, my favorite example being the Stalker, of course, because it is explicitly stated that humanity tried and FAILED to create something like it for thousands of years before the STC was recovered.
Or maybe there's more to it than "soldering a lascannon to the top of a Rhino"? I mean, you make it sound like it's so simple to do that, but that is not how that works. In fact, your own argument could be turned around, to claim that the Tau are all terminally stupid and barely intelligent on account of their premier battle tank being the equivalent of a Devilfish with "a railgun soldered to the top".
I'm certain that you would vehemently reject that as being the case- why is it true for the Imperium but not the Tau? Do you just hate the Imperium for whatever reason? Is it that you cannot accept the possibility that the Imperium is actually full of people who are far more intelligent than your supposedly amazing Earth Caste scientists?
Oh, and Predator Annihilators have no STC equivalent. Some Marines just up and decided to slap some lascannons into the turret to make it a better tank killer, and that's that.
EmpNortonII wrote: They're shipping equipment across dozens of light-years of space. They would be shipping over many times that, except that all Hammerheads aren't made on one single world.
You seem to be saying the Imperium is awesome because it does things like dedicate a single world to building tanks when that's a stupid thing to do.
It's more efficient to build locally when you can. If humanity had organized itself in a more reasonable fashion, many of said problems you listed wouldn't be problems.
They also might be able to give their front line troops weapons that are more than marginally superior to flashlights.
So it doesn't occur to you that the Imperium is leveraging an absolutely insane amount of economy of scale by having Forge Worlds (which are themselves the sovereign domains of what is technically a separate nation, BTW), and that the Imperium is technologically capable of, compared to the Tau, extreme-range Warp travel?
Part of the problem that the Tau are having, even now, is that their FTL is too slow for them to expand much beyond what they've currently got while remaining as heavily centralized as they are. Remember, the Tau Empire is not like the Imperium- for all your claims about Imperial administration being heavily centralized, in practice the Imperium is built around what is essentially a feudal system- the various Sector/Subsector/Planetary Governors are all responsible for rulership, and when it comes down to it the Imperium really only requires the following things:
1) Loyalty to the Imperium/God-Emperor; mostly by not allowing mutants/heretics/xenos to run around unchecked
2) Paying taxes/tithes of money, men, and materials
You could even simplify it a bit further to claim that the Imperium really only requires that a world pay their taxes. The Tau Empire, OTOH, demands absolute loyalty and rules with an authoritarian bent of such pervasiveness that if I ever had the choice... well, I think I'd rather live free and in squalor than be in luxury and constantly worrying that the slightest word "out of line" would send me to 'reeducation' or 'attitude adjustment'.
It's also worth noting that lasguns are quite lethal weapons- it's just that the really big nasty dangerous things are of such big, nasty, dangerous quality that lasguns fail to impress. Considering that Lasguns are easily eclipsing modern-day infantry weapons for firepower... I'm inclined to say that lasguns are quite lethal, and the only real issue is that the "big deal" threats of such lethality and durability that it makes lasguns look bad in comparison.
Of course, pulse weapons have their gakky showings- IIRC it's one of the Last Chancers novels that has a Space Marine in power armor end up with a heavily beat up- but still intact- breastplate after taking continuous fire from a burst cannon. Oh, and said Marine? Yeah, he stabbed the Crisis suit that shot at him. To death, in fact.
EmpNortonII wrote: In other words, humanity is so incompetent that soldering an lascannon to the top of a Rhino is beyond their technological grasp... and pretty much everything on your list is the same way, my favorite example being the Stalker, of course, because it is explicitly stated that humanity tried and FAILED to create something like it for thousands of years before the STC was recovered.
Alot of the AFV's used by the Imperium are born by field-modding the older models. Most of the Rhino and Land Raider variants were born this way. The reason the retrofitting failed was the absensce of a proper targeting system. With the discovery of Hunter STC that no longer was a problem. (Also, it didn't fail that horribly since there is an AA-version of Whirlwind.)
Also, the tech isn't as stagnant as you think. AdMech is constantly researching and adjusting xenos tech to use by the Imperium. Examples include:
C'tan phase weapon
Digital Weapon (Yeah, not exactly AdMech R&D, but xenos still)
Photon grenades
There were some else xenos-originated weapon tech I don't remember right now...
And IIRC, there was a story in older Necron book about a Tech-Priest who researched on Necron gauss-tech, trying to incorporate it to Imperial tech, but the power requirements were just too huge for any practical application.
EmpNortonII wrote: They're shipping equipment across dozens of light-years of space. They would be shipping over many times that, except that all Hammerheads aren't made on one single world.
You seem to be saying the Imperium is awesome because it does things like dedicate a single world to building tanks when that's a stupid thing to do.
It's more efficient to build locally when you can. If humanity had organized itself in a more reasonable fashion, many of said problems you listed wouldn't be problems.
They also might be able to give their front line troops weapons that are more than marginally superior to flashlights.
Tau doesn't have a space-faring history as much as the Imperium. Humans used to be equally as strong (hell, maybe even stronger) than Eldar. Tau doesn't have to hold ground on all parts of the galaxy, they hold just a microscopic part of the whole galaxy.
Yes, local production does help with the supply lines, but the lines are stretched just way too far due to ginormous size of the IoM.
If the Tau had to hold the same amount of ground as the Imperium, they would be doomed. They could not hold any ground due to their limited FTL, and would lose way too much planets constantly. Also the caste system would make Tau fragile on the long-run.
Humanity wasn't as strong as the Old Eldar Empire, If you meant Humanity's technology was on par with the Eldar prior to the Old Night I might agree although it is debatable.
Khonsu wrote: Humanity wasn't as strong as the Old Eldar Empire, If you meant Humanity's technology was on par with the Eldar prior to the Old Night I might agree although it is debatable.
Well, it's also debatable if the DAoT humanity was as strong as the Eldar, since the Eldar worlds mainly located in the area that's currently known as Eye of Terror, whereas the humanity spanned the entire galaxy.
While Tau FTL might be slower than mankind's, it has a quality that makes it better in many ways for logistics: it's reliable. A Tau commander can count on the fact that his supplies due tomorrow will arrive tomorrow.
An Imperial commander can't even count on the fact that his supplies javen't been eaten by Warp monsters in transit.
If an entire Space Marine chapter fell to the greater good then they would slowly die out over time and not contribute much to the Tau war effort except maybe bolstering the morale of Gue'vesa troopers.
Tabletop is more cut and dry. Rules trump fluff in this instance.
...*sigh*
Having actually worked on GW product, this is, sadly, not always the case. I can think of at least one instance I'm aware of where point cost and weapon stats were dictated by fluff rather than balance or good game design. Fluff and crunch have little to do with one another, unless a GW executive decides they do.
A few other things: as of Taros Campaign, tau FTL is just as fast as IN.
SM would not die out under the tau, if for no other reason than they have near zero dependance on the Imperium in the first place. SM can produce their own weapons, etc etc. There is no lack of death worlds in tau space, nor is there a lack of worlds with harsh, unforgiving environments, despite the best the tau can manage. SM are perfectly willing to create situations to produce ideal candidates, and the Tau are willing to turn a blind eye toward the kroot eating people, they're probably not going to care much about living conditions on a recruitment world.
Throw in that some chapters have variant SM creation processes that make the 'rules' for the creation of a space marine questionable at best (since we've all seen 'pre adolecents' with full beards and bodies to make Arnold in his prime look weak being inducted as SM initiates. Looking at YOU Blood Angels, Black Templars, and Space Wolves....)
One (strangely reasonable) thread about the death of the Emperor and what would happen after it suggested the Tau and Ultramarines would likely ally.
If the imperium collapsed (which would make an awesome story line), I'm sure the humanity near the eastern fringe would ally with tau to protect themselves, as well as having an ally against the forces of chaos that I'm sure would be spreading across the imperium. Not only that, imperial worlds would be quite isolated without the light of the astrothing, and might even trade for some tau warp drives. This wouldn't be instant, it would probably take hundreds of years.
Hrm... that gives me some great ideas for some rouge trader stuff.
I can see some rogue trader ship having both tau warp drives along with the standard imperial ones as a secret weapon to help explore the deep dark places where the astronomican doesn't shine and or navigator got their head exploded from the usual warp madness
I don't understand the philosophy of the marines dying out?
They could arguably get stronger. Since each marine, once fully matured can be harvested of a gene seed, that means you can make more marines, make more marines, you can make more apothecaries, and so on and so on. Now, a recruiting world(s) could potentially be a problem, but cloning would also no longer be an issue, find some suitable candidates and let the tau help you build the equipment and facilities and in not very long, you are going to have an endless supply of recruits, then once the gene seed starts becoming a hindering factor, let the tau help you clone more of it (if possible) and even get rid of some of the defects or even make it better.
Basically, once you can get over the gene seed hurdle, there is absolutely no reason a space marine chapter that falls to the greater good couldn't grow to legion size providing they are protected/hidden somewhat. The only other problem with that idea, is would the tau allow them to grow that strong? A legion size upgraded space marine force, within your own lines? Risky... Especially if they then fell to chaos.
Anyway, to summarise my point, the marines dying out wouldn't be guaranteed at all.
They could arguably get stronger. Since each marine, once fully matured can be harvested of a gene seed, that means you can make more marines, make more marines, you can make more apothecaries, and so on and so on. Now, a recruiting world(s) could potentially be a problem, but cloning would also no longer be an issue, find some suitable candidates and let the tau help you build the equipment and facilities and in not very long, you are going to have an endless supply of recruits, then once the gene seed starts becoming a hindering factor, let the tau help you clone more of it (if possible) and even get rid of some of the defects or even make it better.
Basically, once you can get over the gene seed hurdle, there is absolutely no reason a space marine chapter that falls to the greater good couldn't grow to legion size providing they are protected/hidden somewhat. The only other problem with that idea, is would the tau allow them to grow that strong? A legion size upgraded space marine force, within your own lines? Risky... Especially if they then fell to chaos.
Anyway, to summarise my point, the marines dying out wouldn't be guaranteed at all.
I think the most important thing is that would the Ethereals allow them to join in the first place?
Astartes aren't submissive, and I doubt that they would just start to blindly follow the greater good.
Yes, they would propably get along just fine with the Fire Caste, but they would be butting heads with the ethereals.
I am not actually sure of what the Tau would do if they met someone who said 'We agree with you, and we will fight with you and help you, but we will not serve you.'
I don't think the Tau would try to force them, or try to conquer them anyway. It'd hurt their own morale.
Ashiraya wrote: I am not actually sure of what the Tau would do if they met someone who said 'We agree with you, and we will fight with you and help you, but we will not serve you.'
I don't think the Tau would try to force them, or try to conquer them anyway. It'd hurt their own morale.
I mean, that's what happened in the Damocles Gulf, isn't it? The local imperial populace traded openly with the Tau and many civilians joined gangs of Tau supporters, shaving their heads into high-knots to resemble the tau.
Co'tor Shas wrote: If the imperium collapsed (which would make an awesome story line), I'm sure the humanity near the eastern fringe would ally with tau to protect themselves, as well as having an ally against the forces of chaos that I'm sure would be spreading across the imperium. Not only that, imperial worlds would be quite isolated without the light of the astrothing, and might even trade for some tau warp drives. This wouldn't be instant, it would probably take hundreds of years.
Why wouldn't they just look to nearby Ultramar for protection?
And I dunno, the whole thing just seems very unlikely to me. They have a direct connection to the Emperor through their gene-seed. Why would they ever abandon that for the Greater Good? The Greater Good offers nothing a Space Marine would be interested in, as they live only to fight for the Emperor and humanity. And I'm not sure the Ethereal's pheremones would work on them. Even Farsight abandoned the Greater Good once he was outside of the Ethereal's influence. Why would psycho-indoctrinated Astartes even care? They'd be too stubborn to seek out Xenos protection if they went rogue (plus all the chapters we know of that go rogue either continue to fight for humanity or fall to Chaos).
EngulfedObject wrote: Why wouldn't they just look to nearby Ultramar for protection?
ATM both the Tau and Ultramar are up to their eyeballs in Kraken and Leviathan. If the astronomicon went out with the emperor's death, the Ultramarines wouldn't be in much of a position to help anyone.
And I'm not sure the Ethereal's pheremones would work on them. Even Farsight abandoned the Greater Good once he was outside of the Ethereal's influence. Why would psycho-indoctrinated Astartes even care? They'd be too stubborn to seek out Xenos protection if they went rogue (plus all the chapters we know of that go rogue either continue to fight for humanity or fall to Chaos).
The pheromones thing has been retconned. Farsight abandoned the Greater Good because Chaos now, though exactly what's going on there is not actually very clear. (being that the ruinous powers can't get a good grip on Tau souls, apparently, but they're working on it. Farsight has already lived several hundred years, when most tau die of old age around 60, IIRC.) It seems that atm he's angry because the Etherials knew about Chaos but don't consider it a threat, or some such.
BaronIveagh wrote: ATM both the Tau and Ultramar are up to their eyeballs in Kraken and Leviathan. If the astronomicon went out with the emperor's death, the Ultramarines wouldn't be in much of a position to help anyone.
True, totally forgot the Astronomican!
BaronIveagh wrote: The pheromones thing has been retconned. Farsight abandoned the Greater Good because Chaos now, though exactly what's going on there is not actually very clear. (being that the ruinous powers can't get a good grip on Tau souls, apparently, but they're working on it. Farsight has already lived several hundred years, when most tau die of old age around 60, IIRC.) It seems that atm he's angry because the Etherials knew about Chaos but don't consider it a threat, or some such.
Has it? I know Farsight abandoned the Greater Good after coming into contact with Chaos but it has more to do with Chaos killing off the Ethereals and freeing him of their influence (unless the Farsight Enclaves supplement has been retconned?). Another reason is that he realizes the naivety of dismissing threats like Chaos with the inevitable success of the Greater Good (very similar to the Imperial Truth if you think about it - and I think it's implied as well).
And Farsight living several hundred years has nothing to do with Chaos, it's the life-stealing Dawn Blade that's allowing him to live that long.
Iron_Captain wrote: The most likely thing to happen is that such a grave, unprecedented heresy as Astartes defecting to xenos would bring a very harsh response from the Inquisition. Normally, when a SM chapter turns renegade, they seek refuge in the Warp or keep running around to escape the wrath of the Inquisition. The Tau Empire would not be able to provide a safe refuge for the renegade Marines.
Of course, it could take centuries for the Inquisition to hear about, assign resources to deal with it, and then actually send those resources out to deal with it.
Besides, I imagine a renegade SM Chapter isn't a big deal compared to, say, Cadia being swallowed by the Eye of Terror if Abaddon takes it. I can't imagine one renegade Chapter of marines is a big deal compared to the 13th Black Crusade.
Actually it is. It may not be a physical threat to the Imperium, but it is an ideological threat. It is a heresy of the greatest magnitude, for it undermines the core beliefs of the Imperial Creed and the Adeptus Astartes. If the Inquisition does not respond to it with extreme prejudice, it could set a very dangerous precedent. Not to mention the disaster if the news would spread around. It is all about setting an example and covering up dangerous truths that could undermine the entire system of propaganda, lies, xenophobia and blind faith the Imperium is built upon.
Of course, it is possible that it takes a thousand years before anyone notices the missing Chapter, but those instances seem to be exception, rather than rule. Imperial communication is unreliable (Actually it is very efficient by 40k standards, Imperial communication is only second to the Eldar) but adequate considering the vast size of the Imperium.
Based on what I read call from reading the Farsight book, Farsight's main reason for deserting was that he felt he and Tau in general had been manipulated. He was convinced the Ethereals had known about Chaos beforehand and therefore had a special interest in Arthas Moloch.
Based on them not going Tau, Or Eldar, or Necron(Lol) or Dark Eldar it is safe to assume the only power to bypass Space Marine psycho-indoctrination is Chaos, Or maybe they sincerely hate Xenos that bad.
Khonsu wrote: Based on them not going Tau, Or Eldar, or Necron(Lol) or Dark Eldar it is safe to assume the only power to bypass Space Marine psycho-indoctrination is Chaos, Or maybe they sincerely hate Xenos that bad.
Chaos appeals to their basic human feelings; lust for power, knowledge, wealth, etc.
There is one instance of a Chapter (nearly) falling to The Greater Good. (spoiler'd)
Spoiler:
In the Tranzia Rebellion, the Doom Eagles chapter come back to the planet, for their regular recruitment do. After a few strange things happening, it is revealed that the Tau have sneakily infiltrated the fortress monastery, and indoctrinated the recruits to the ways of the Greater Good. It was later revealed that Azhek Ahriman had been responsible for this, so he could access the AdMech dig site where they were excavating Eldar relics. He had been trying to get at a webway portal that would let him in to the Black Library.
I'm surprised that there haven't been multiple instances of Tau trying to actively recruit space marine chapters to the greater good. I'm sure if they had a chapter willing to join them that the Tau could reverse engineer and improve existing equipment for the chapter fairly easily. Or simply modifying existing Tau equipment to fit the space marines. They could bolster the ranks of the astartes with the humans who are a part of the Tau empire or possibly find some way to make Tau space marine (which is far less plausible). But I'm really curious as to who in the chapter makes space marines into space marines, because whoever is could teach the Tau how or just simply keep the chapter numbers from deteriorating. But anyway I really like the idea of a chapter serving the greater good and it's an interesting thing to think about for sure, I just don't know how plausible it actually is.
In my eyes atleast the only way Space Marine indoctrination could be broken is with the temptation of Chaos, Even when a Space Marine chapter goes renegade it cannot betray the Emperor and serve Xenos, They might disagree with the Imperium, But I doubt they'd serve a blue race with hooves that is dominated by Ethereal mind control.
And Farsight living several hundred years has nothing to do with Chaos, it's the life-stealing Dawn Blade that's allowing him to live that long.
The Pheromone thing got nuked in Deathwatch, but it's source, Xenology, has also been heavily retconned.
or, it gets nuked when you stop and think about it:
Fire warrior armor is NBC sealed. How would a pheromone get in?
Further, fire warriors know when the last ethereal on a planet dies, yet pheromones might not fill a conference room. So it's not built-in to the suit, otherwise it would just keep running.
Farsight is not the only commander to have all the ethereal around him killed, so why is he the only one to have abandoned the greater good?
It almost all goes back to the Dawn Blade. Which, as a life stealing sword, pretty much as 'property of the Ruinous Powers' engraved on it.
Fair enough about the pheremones not making sense but you're still ignoring the mind control theme the codex and supplement pretty much beats you on the head with. These are just about Farsight specifically but there's more in the actual codex including a passage heavily implying the Vespids leaders were converted through mind control helmets:
"After the incident on Arthas Moloch, Farsight returned to his established holdings on the far side of the Damocles Gulf. Farsight began to secretly become highly distrustful of the Ethereal Caste, coming to suspect that they may be controlling the Tau by more than simple charisma and wisdom, perhaps employing more sinister methods."
"At first he merely thought their leadership was flawed, that the other castes would be better off seeking harmony with each other without their oversight. But the more he though on the instances where obedience to the Etherals had been taken to illogical and foolish extremes. Worse, many of the actions taken under their guidance had seemed at the time both wise and necessary seemed now deplorable and wrong.[4b]"
"The inevitable conclusion that the Ethereals' control extended beyond simple logic and loyalty to something darker drove him to sickening panic.Heresies began filling Farsights mind, and not even he truly knew why. The truth he held could dissolve the Empire and drive the Tau back to the Mont'au, a fate far worse than the Ethereals' rule. Unable to tell anyone this truth but unwilling to pretend or forget, Farsight chose exile over obedience. [4b]"
"Farsight's forces had lost all of their Ethereal leaders in the battle, and O'Shovah suspected that some malevolent force had deliberately done this."
The Tau are cool and all but I don't see how you can ignore the mind control theme. It's one of their central themes.
In other case of Ethereals being killed off, the commander is immediately recalled or another Ethereal is hurriedly sent. Farsight was too far away for another Ethereal to be sent, which is why he was freed from their influence. The point is that ALL the ethereals on the expedition were killed off and that he was really far away, further than any Tau before him had been.
And about the Dawn Blade, yeah it could be Necrontyr, or maybe from some other kind of alien. We don't know for sure.
What about the Vespid mind control helmets? You know what I'm talking about. Don't make me go and dig up the exact quote and page... And how can you read the above and say it's just propaganda and training? That's just being stubborn. There's already been threads discussing how the Tau fit into the "grimdark" universe - mind control and mindless obedience is one of their central themes.
Co'tor Shas wrote: That's a different matter entirely, I'm talking about on tau. There are lots of hints, but no solid proof. Nothing is explicitly stated.
And you know what, that's kind of the point of tau. There are hints of darker subtext, but nothing is in your face like the imperium.
Well specifically for the Tau there's the entire Farsight Enclaves deal with the stuff above. You can't really imply it more heavily than that without outright stating it. There's always room for head-canon but officially there seems to be much less wiggle space.
That's actually one of the reasons I didn't really like the FA book that much. I liked the subtle hints. The theories. They were interesting. Just saying "oh, they are alll mind controlled" is lazy and boring. The tau would closely guard all information, the only things you would get is tiny hints of something bigger.
IMO, tau got a lot less interesting in 6th. My personal tau fluff is still firmly rooted in 4th edition. Still grimdark, but in a more subtle way.
Co'tor Shas wrote: That's actually one of the reasons I didn't really like the FA book that much. I liked the subtle hints. The theories. They were interesting. Just saying "oh, they are alll mind controlled" is lazy and boring. The tau would closely guard all information, the only things you would get is tiny hints of something bigger.
IMO, tau got a lot less interesting in 6th. My personal tau fluff is still firmly rooted in 4th edition. Still grimdark, but in a more subtle way.
I can agree with that, but it seems the current fluff is moving more towards the mind control direction. It's given us a renegade Farsight though, and he's a pretty cool character. I wouldn't mind if he actually took over the Tau Empire but that would never happen...
Co'tor Shas wrote: That's actually one of the reasons I didn't really like the FA book that much. I liked the subtle hints. The theories. They were interesting. Just saying "oh, they are alll mind controlled" is lazy and boring. The tau would closely guard all information, the only things you would get is tiny hints of something bigger.
IMO, tau got a lot less interesting in 6th. My personal tau fluff is still firmly rooted in 4th edition. Still grimdark, but in a more subtle way.
I can agree with that, but it seems the current fluff is moving more towards the mind control direction. It's given us a renegade Farsight though, and he's a pretty cool character. I wouldn't mind if he actually took over the Tau Empire but that would never happen...
Never say never. Since GW blew up the entire Warhammer Fantasy world, I guess anything could happen.
EngulfedObject wrote: Fair enough about the pheremones not making sense but you're still ignoring the mind control theme the codex and supplement pretty much beats you on the head with.
"Heresies began filling Farsights mind, and not even he truly knew why. " I think the writers very specifically chose this sentence. If the codex is heavy handed with implications of tau mind control, this hits you in the face with a sledgehammer as to what's really happening. It's not so much that the Tau practice mind control (they might, but it seems unlikely, there are much easier ways to manipulate a population) but that Tzeench most definitely does.
To call this an almost stereotypical case of a leader falling to the ruinous powers is an understatement. If he was human, he'd be sprouting tentacles by now.
In Damocles Shadowsun implies she suspects that the Ethereals are hiding something about Farsight. Even the story where mind control elements are brought up, even the narrator admits that it's not clear if mind control was going on or not.
Little hypothesis about Farsight and the Ethereal. What if all those «hints» about Ethereal mind control are actualy hints of Farsight own paranoia and delusion. What if they were indeed good people with noble intentions, but a corruptible and ambitious military leader can be easily swayed. I like it better. It's a bit reminescent of Horus and even more Grimdark. It's a kick in the nuts of the very popular nolbe rebel thrope used by very single science fiction setting.
Taffy17 wrote: A space marine would never let anyone, and definitely not a xenos, mess with their equipment even if it would make them better.
So no stealth marines or pulse bolters I don't think.
At least AD mech wise i hear they have no issue going through and reverse engineering xeno tech. though from what i recall it usually involves things exploding.
Im sure there was a instance or two where they use xeno tech with no issue. and at that they defiantly have no issues collecting them (as a trophy)
Edit and at that 30k wise, the alpha legion definitely uses xeno tech in there venom spheres which are IIRC dark eldar poison splinters.
About the question how to get new recruits, they could also make usage of the Alpha Legions tactic. Infiltrating a recruiting world of a loyal SM chapter and manipulate the subconscious of the inhabitants. After the loyal SM transform the aspirants to Space Marines, they attack and activate the subconscious implemented teachings by psy power so the aspirants attack their own brothers. The surviving SM will be taken into the Alpha Legions army (with this way the Alpha Legion destroyed the chapter of the Emperor's Swords).
I'm rather surprised that no one mentioned the Ultramarines. From everything I've read, Ultramar sounds much better than modern day Earth, and they don't seem to have any trouble recruiting from their defended worlds.
carldooley wrote: I'm rather surprised that no one mentioned the Ultramarines. From everything I've read, Ultramar sounds much better than modern day Earth, and they don't seem to have any trouble recruiting from their defended worlds.
A lot of Imperial players don't think. They just want to hate on everything that isn't Imperial.
this is from the FB thread on this and most of this has probably covered but couldn't resist commenting
ok so if we are going to place the theoretical then lets look at it properly
1) would the marines eventually start using like 4 pulse rifles strapped together or just use rail rifles in rapid fire mode?
they would continue to use their exsisting weapons as both the chapter and the tau would be able to reproduce them, eventually if they were thought to be impractical they would end up using tau weapons that were developed specifically for their size and methods - bolter sized carbines and the like
2) would a marine be able to fly a crisis or riptide suit? and if so, how well would he be able to use it? (for that matter, how fast could a marine learn the Tau language enough to use their equipment?)
marines learn through hypno doctrine so would learn pretty quick, the question arises would the suits be big enough for the marine, new variants would be the more likely out come. they would be able to use them extremely well, marines are bred to fight in armour, thing of power armour, termie armour, centurion arnour, drednought armour, dredknight armour - see a pattern here
3) would he fit inside a devilfish transport?
yes, remember the models aren't to scale, there are plenty of examples of marines in rhinos (remember these were human colonists vehicles in the depths of time before they became astartes transports), chimeras and other human scale vehicles so fitting them inside a tau/human scale vehicle isn't a stretch just wouldn't get 10 in, though again as the models aren't true scale it could be that their holds are big enough to hold 10 of them - we don't really have an accurate scale reference.
4) having stealth suit marines?
again with the same idea as crisis suits, possible eventually but would require working to either get larger suits or combine with the marine armour, not impossible and most certainly something they would look at for once they have proved their loyalty
5) could the Tau start to have genetically modified fire warriors?
no as the marine gene seed is designed for the human genome, so unlikey and I doubt any chapter, loyal to imperium or tau would sacrifice their geneseed. not to mention the Fire warriors and Tau ethereals are really against polluting their genetic make up so adding something as artificial as genenseed would be a big no no
6) increase their use of chainsaws?
the tau or marines? if marines probably not, remember the chainsword is most cases a weapon of last resort for shock and awe, guns are preferred. in tau then again probably not, they have no need, the marines could do that for them, theres a saying about having a dog and barking for yourself
7) trade the marines to the kroot?
not a chance, why would you turn potentially the greatest assault force in your entire army in to Kroot Kibble? they would be indoctrinated and expanded, maybe eventually to work with the kroot but that's it.
8) just use up the marines as soon as possible so as to be rid of them or try to keep them around for more studies?
as with question 7, keep em, there will be enough dead marines or captured marines from other conflicts so use them, expand them and make them an integral part so you don't sacrifice too many tau
carldooley wrote: I'm rather surprised that no one mentioned the Ultramarines. From everything I've read, Ultramar sounds much better than modern day Earth, and they don't seem to have any trouble recruiting from their defended worlds.
Ultramar was mentioned on the first page. Specifically how recruitment there is done on an all voluntary basis, and how its available to anyone.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
millest wrote: (for that matter, how fast could a marine learn the Tau language enough to use their equipment?)
They'd be able to learn it rather quickly if they had a Tau corpse on hand. Eat a Tau, learn a language.
Did it in a Deathwatch Campaign so I could listen in on Tau Coms as a Sniper.
Considering its GW, it does both. They have a knack for saying it does something, but has a fancy name that means it wouldn't do that.
The big thing is that is says they are able to learn by eating, and as super soldiers only being able to know the biological make up of something, wouldn't help them much.
I think a good example of something like this happening was the "Dornian heresy" fanfic. While it's not canon at all, a independent and self sufficient force could develop their own ideology that is comparable with the tau and less dependent on the imperium. Trade and friendly relations could thrive there.
Obviously the armor and guns would improve for the space marines. The Tau would benefit by learning about genetic modification beyond the accelerated Darwinism they have now.
The space marines would know they were committing heresy and would be integrating with the Tau for protection of numbers from the inquisition and other space marine chapters. the Tau, as previously noted would be happy to get such experienced shock troopers.
Co'tor Shas wrote: He had his reservations before having the dawn blade.
I personally think that it's necrotyr, it's perfect for their short lives and all.
Edit: Also, Farsight hasn't abandoned the idea of the greater good, he simply disagrees with the etherials.
Plus if you compare the shape of the Dawnblade to Necron swords/warscythes...
Exactly. It does not seem like a demon sword. he visual design matches a lot of necron stuff. This could be a coincidence, or this could be the original idea for it. Ii also may have been originally a tau invention, and was designed to look sleek, not like the swords the imperium or chaos use.
Co'tor Shas wrote: There seems to be a lack of consensus on that. Apparently they actually only learn genetic information, but I have heard it both ways.
According to the consistent versions of the fluff, it transfers memories and experiences. But it wouldn't transfer contextual information like a language. A few words might be distinguishable at best if they could be tied to actions or things. Otherwise, the Space Marine is just hearing words without the context to understand them.
Using it to spy on enemy comms is a clever RPG idea, but probably not an accurate representation of how the omophagea would actually work.
Yes, the design for the dawnblade was done some time ago, when they were pitching the idea that he had been corrupted by Necron technology. This was brought up on an interview in WD.
Greater Good appeals to the downtrodden of Imperial society. Your humble factory worker, brutalized conscript, or a lowly Hive citizen. Astartes are among the most privileged class of the Imperium, Really only the Ecclesiarchy, High Lords, and Inquisition enjoy more privilege. they wouldn't seek anything that the Greater Good could provide.
Harriticus wrote: Greater Good appeals to the downtrodden of Imperial society. Your humble factory worker, brutalized conscript, or a lowly Hive citizen. Astartes are among the most privileged class of the Imperium, Really only the Ecclesiarchy, High Lords, and Inquisition enjoy more privilege. they wouldn't seek anything that the Greater Good could provide.
I could see a Salamander successor leaving the Imperium after seeing a world Exterminatused after they successfully defended it because some douchey Inquisitor wasn't sure it was safe.
The Tau don't indiscriminately butcher enemy civilians. The Imperium indiscriminately kills its own civilians.
Harriticus wrote: Greater Good appeals to the downtrodden of Imperial society. Your humble factory worker, brutalized conscript, or a lowly Hive citizen. Astartes are among the most privileged class of the Imperium, Really only the Ecclesiarchy, High Lords, and Inquisition enjoy more privilege. they wouldn't seek anything that the Greater Good could provide.
I could see a Salamander successor leaving the Imperium after seeing a world Exterminatused after they successfully defended it because some douchey Inquisitor wasn't sure it was safe.
The Tau don't indiscriminately butcher enemy civilians. The Imperium indiscriminately kills its own civilians.
Also, it's worth remembering the Space Wolves got involved in a lengthy conflict with the Inquisition and Grey Knights for protecting the people of Armageddon. A lesser chapter, that had neither the resources nor the strength of a First Foundimg non-Codex chapter would have likely bern bullied into submission or declared traitors. I can totally see such guys choosing Tau over Chaos.
A non first founding tiny renegade (but not chaos) space marine chapter if all the stars alined and tzeench wasn't being a total gak could possibly seek to work with the Tau if they where in some sort of desperate situation like a nid invasion
Its HIGHLY unlikely any other way since they are basically indoctrinated to be full on xenophobes. perhaps a planetary recruitment type chapter. since maybe the human folkes had come in contact with the tau before so know them not to be total gaks.
Desubot wrote: A non first founding tiny renegade (but not chaos) space marine chapter if all the stars alined and tzeench wasn't being a total gak could possibly seek to work with the Tau if they where in some sort of desperate situation like a nid invasion
Its HIGHLY unlikely any other way since they are basically indoctrinated to be full on xenophobes. perhaps a planetary recruitment type chapter. since maybe the human folkes had come in contact with the tau before so know them not to be total gaks.
They're also indoctrinated to oppose Chaos and fall to it all the time.
Desubot wrote: A non first founding tiny renegade (but not chaos) space marine chapter if all the stars alined and tzeench wasn't being a total gak could possibly seek to work with the Tau if they where in some sort of desperate situation like a nid invasion
Its HIGHLY unlikely any other way since they are basically indoctrinated to be full on xenophobes. perhaps a planetary recruitment type chapter. since maybe the human folkes had come in contact with the tau before so know them not to be total gaks.
They're also indoctrinated to oppose Chaos and fall to it all the time.
Well the whispers directly in there brain vs an annoying little blue dude squawking in some unknown language...
A lot fall just because they do there jerb. kill the heretic! Cut his throat! Kill the Xeno! Bash him in! Blood for the BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KORN FLAKES!
Desubot wrote: A non first founding tiny renegade (but not chaos) space marine chapter if all the stars alined and tzeench wasn't being a total gak could possibly seek to work with the Tau if they where in some sort of desperate situation like a nid invasion
Its HIGHLY unlikely any other way since they are basically indoctrinated to be full on xenophobes. perhaps a planetary recruitment type chapter. since maybe the human folkes had come in contact with the tau before so know them not to be total gaks.
They're also indoctrinated to oppose Chaos and fall to it all the time.
This is a pretty common myth and usually vastly overstated. 50ish Chapters in 10,000 years isn't really "all the time".
The failure rate for Space Marine Chapters since the Codex Astartes was implemented is like 2%. And Chaos can offer the Space Marines things they want. Power, martial achievement, glory, etc. The Tau don't really have anything Space Marines want. Equality, job satisfaction, happiness, etc. It's all meaningless to a Space Marine. The problem with Space Marines falling to the Greater Good is not that Space Marines are infallible. It's that the Tau have very little to entice them with that they don't already have.
Vespid wrote: And if the Tau can manage to reverse engineer a geneseed they can make their own space marines out of Gue'vesa and brainwash them, indoctrinate and train them as usual.
Creating/reverse engineering a geneseed is incredibly difficult. I am unsure tau are capable of doing so.
Harriticus wrote: Greater Good appeals to the downtrodden of Imperial society. Your humble factory worker, brutalized conscript, or a lowly Hive citizen. Astartes are among the most privileged class of the Imperium, Really only the Ecclesiarchy, High Lords, and Inquisition enjoy more privilege. they wouldn't seek anything that the Greater Good could provide.
I could see a Salamander successor leaving the Imperium after seeing a world Exterminatused after they successfully defended it because some douchey Inquisitor wasn't sure it was safe.
The Tau don't indiscriminately butcher enemy civilians. The Imperium indiscriminately kills its own civilians.
But how would a Space Marine know that? They can't simply read Codex: Tau Empire, all they know about the Tau is what the Imperial propaganda says, which is basically: "All xenos are evil bloodthirsty monsters that want to subjugate and enslave mankind". Even when they appear nice at first, they just want you to lower your guard so that they can subjugate you. Xenos must be killed on sight if mankind wants to survive. They will have grown up with hearing this since earliest childhood, not to mention that they were heavily indoctrinated as part of their Space Marine training. The only time at which a Space Marine will not shoot a Tau on sight is when they need their help to defeat an even more dangerous foe. The chance that a Space Marine would actually listen to what a Tau says is ridculously small.
Also, the Salamanders would actually be one of the least likely chapters to defect to xenos. The Salamanders fight for the good of mankind. This requires mankind be free from any xenos overlords. The thought of mankind being subject to some alien would be unbearable for the Salamanders. The only possibility that they might join the Tau Empire is if the Tau gave up their dominant position to the Humans, thus in effect creating a new Human empire.
Harriticus wrote: Greater Good appeals to the downtrodden of Imperial society. Your humble factory worker, brutalized conscript, or a lowly Hive citizen. Astartes are among the most privileged class of the Imperium, Really only the Ecclesiarchy, High Lords, and Inquisition enjoy more privilege. they wouldn't seek anything that the Greater Good could provide.
I could see a Salamander successor leaving the Imperium after seeing a world Exterminatused after they successfully defended it because some douchey Inquisitor wasn't sure it was safe.
The Tau don't indiscriminately butcher enemy civilians. The Imperium indiscriminately kills its own civilians.
But how would a Space Marine know that? They can't simply read Codex: Tau Empire, all they know about the Tau is what the Imperial propaganda says, which is basically: "All xenos are evil bloodthirsty monsters that want to subjugate and enslave mankind". Even when they appear nice at first, they just want you to lower your guard so that they can subjugate you. Xenos must be killed on sight if mankind wants to survive. They will have grown up with hearing this since earliest childhood, not to mention that they were heavily indoctrinated as part of their Space Marine training. The only time at which a Space Marine will not shoot a Tau on sight is when they need their help to defeat an even more dangerous foe. The chance that a Space Marine would actually listen to what a Tau says is ridculously small.
Also, the Salamanders would actually be one of the least likely chapters to defect to xenos. The Salamanders fight for the good of mankind. This requires mankind be free from any xenos overlords. The thought of mankind being subject to some alien would be unbearable for the Salamanders. The only possibility that they might join the Tau Empire is if the Tau gave up their dominant position to the Humans, thus in effect creating a new Human empire.
If Uriel fething Ventris can figure out that Tau don't approve of killing civilians- even enemy ones- other Space Marines can, too.
All it takes is for a Salamander-like Chapter to prefer Tau is to figure out that the Tau treat humans better than the High Lords do.
If Uriel fething Ventris can figure out that Tau don't approve of killing civilians- even enemy ones- other Space Marines can, too.
All it takes is for a Salamander-like Chapter to prefer Tau is to figure out that the Tau treat humans better than the High Lords do.
And the same chapter knows that the second they go rogue the imperial hammer will instantly face them and the tau. And they sure as hell know if the imperium got there heads out of there caves and just dealt with the tau the entire sector will be deleted instantly. so why the hell would they take a suicide path like that.
I'm not so sure this is possible, as unique an idea as it is. My reasoning is this.
In the 40k universe, the seductions of chaos are of the soul, the spirit, unspoken desires and goals otherwise unattainable. It doesn't really just grab you by the shoulders and shake you until you give in as much as take you by the shoulder, and slowly convert you to its way of thinking through half-truths, selective lies, and actions that reveal to one's self the things they would otherwise deny. (Doing the unthinkable to win, then realizing you did so, and the world didn't end for it ect).
Its a more pervasive thing, and more spiritual thing. Its harder to resist the influence of chaos when your neighbor tells you the aches and pains of the factory can be eased just by praying to this idol once a day with your fellow workers.
The seductions of the greater good always struck me as the geo(Galactic?)-political ideology of an alien species. Its a system of government and social standing, its a caste system. Its very up front about what it wants, and what it expects. (unless you believe the ethereal conspiracy theories). While there may be subliminal messaging involved with bringing people to its way of thinking, thats something every culture in 40k uses.
The greater good's conversion of human planets (without force) is largely accomplished through treaties with far too open minded imperial elites, who are promised wealth and advantage over their peers, in return for cooperation. Is it devious? Sure. Is it tangible, yes. Is it spiritual? No.
40k's concept of spirituality, the strength of faith (in good or evil, either way) being extremely important is a central theme of the universe. Without it, you are placed within the realm of the "science is magic" trope.
Now, Space Marines, they have no need for money. The chapter and emperor provide what they need. They are indoctrinated, and bombarded constantly that they must revile the alien, and hate the alien. They have no desire to use Tau technology, other than to take it apart, and know how to destroy it better. They objectively have shielded themselves from the "logical path" of the greater good, via Xenophobia, and Imperial Dogma, thousands of years of it. They also have little to no patience for politics, outside of chapter standing internally, and public face externally.
Sure, the Tau up front present a public face of fair treatment of humans, there are examples throughout cannon of Tau rendering mass sterilizations, repopulations, using them as cannon fodder, and the like upon conquered or converted Imperial worlds. It means, they are just likely better at covering their footsteps.
Given that Space Marine Chapters very, very rarely fall to Chaos (50something in 10,000 years or so was the number), which is the #1 threat to the imperium, and a more pervasive, insidious threat due to its nature.., I can't really say I could see it happening.
warboss wrote: The "second" is a bit of an exaggeration. Even the Damocles Crusade response took almost a century to organize in the fluff.
ok well thats true. but ya know unless you are some sort of super alpha legion master spy and completely cripple the imperims logistics. its only inevitable that full attention will go to the tau area if they start becoming a credible threat.
If wind got out of a legion sized tau enhanced space marine army, the imperium would probably get there gak together. at least all the ordo xeno fools.
Edit: IIRC the mass sterilization theories are all off FFG stuff which isnt really cannon.
And the same chapter knows that the second they go rogue the imperial hammer will instantly face them and the tau. And they sure as hell know if the imperium got there heads out of there caves and just dealt with the tau the entire sector will be deleted instantly. so why the hell would they take a suicide path like that.
Because
A) 'instantly' is highly subjective when talking about the Imperium.
B) The issue of the fact that there's only one warp route to Tau space that's bottle up with the equivalent of an Imperial segmentum fortress, and a whole Crusade came to a screeching halt when it hit it makes it unlikely the Imperium could actually pull it off. Particularly since, based on the current fluff for the more recent Damocles gulf actions, they've pushed the Imperium back to the coreward side of the Gulf again, despite the best efforts of the Imperial fleet, the White Scars, the Ultramarines, the Raven Guard, and several lesser chapters, a titan legion, and Knight house Tyrren (Sp?). .
I am fairly sure Tau Astartes won't happen. Space Marines are incredibly reliable in their loyalty. It takes supernatural forces like Chaos to turn them.
Ashiraya wrote: I am fairly sure Tau Astartes won't happen. Space Marines are incredibly reliable in their loyalty. It takes supernatural forces like Chaos to turn them.
Or just plain greed and thirst for material power like with the Badab war. They have the same motivations as normal humans outside of maybe sexual ones, some higher in strength than humans and others lower.
warboss wrote: The "second" is a bit of an exaggeration. Even the Damocles Crusade response took almost a century to organize in the fluff.
That's because it only affected frontier worlds and was the first time it happened. A First Founding chapter going over to the Tau would merit a much swifter and deadlier response. Not that a chapter with such an illustrious history would ever convert to the Greater Good...
Ashiraya wrote: I am fairly sure Tau Astartes won't happen. Space Marines are incredibly reliable in their loyalty. It takes supernatural forces like Chaos to turn them.
The entire Night Lords legion went renegade without Chaotic influence, remember? Didn't the Soul Drinkers also go renegade?
Any SM Chapter that has fought the Tau know them to be honorable foes. Any SM Chapter that knows this and is declared Excommunicate Tratoris could (and likely would, given their other options) find safe haven with the Tau. Since this can happen because any random Inquisitor gets pissed off (even if they're crazy/corrupted by Chaos) there's plenty of opportunity for Space Marines to see the light of the Greater Good.
Ashiraya wrote: I am fairly sure Tau Astartes won't happen. Space Marines are incredibly reliable in their loyalty. It takes supernatural forces like Chaos to turn them.
The entire Night Lords legion went renegade without Chaotic influence, remember? Didn't the Soul Drinkers also go renegade?
Any SM Chapter that has fought the Tau know them to be honorable foes. Any SM Chapter that knows this and is declared Excommunicate Tratoris could (and likely would, given their other options) find safe haven with the Tau. Since this can happen because any random Inquisitor gets pissed off (even if they're crazy/corrupted by Chaos) there's plenty of opportunity for Space Marines to see the light of the Greater Good.
Uh, the Night Lords are infested with Chaos taint, not to mention their legion was wavering on renegade from the start thanks to them not being indoctrinated in the least.
Plus Legions lacked the mindscrubbingly thorough brainwashing of how Astartes are currently made after the Codex Astartes was established.
Veteran Sergeant wrote: The failure rate for Space Marine Chapters since the Codex Astartes was implemented is like 2%.
At least 2%. Think of all chapters that were never mentioned in the fluff. How many of those have gone traitor? We do not know.
Veteran Sergeant wrote: And Chaos can offer the Space Marines things they want. Power, martial achievement, glory, etc. The Tau don't really have anything Space Marines want.
That's because it only affected frontier worlds and was the first time it happened. A First Founding chapter going over to the Tau would merit a much swifter and deadlier response. Not that a chapter with such an illustrious history would ever convert to the Greater Good...
This is where the issue wit the Salamanders raises it's head: their indoctrination is not the same. In Helsreach Grimaldus sort of underlines it when the Salamanders refuse to abandon the civilians in order to press the attack against the orks. The Black Templars exist to protect the Imperium. The Salamanders exist to protect people. At once, the difference is both subtle, and very large. Further, a lot of the Greater Good mirrors Vulkan's own teachings. Interestingly, the Tau mindset also closely mirrors Ultramarine philosophy on civilian government. (Yes, since they do rule Ultramar, not the Imperium [Another subtle, but important, issue that people try very hard to ignore on occasion]) though it's unlikely the smurfs would join the tau in any situation short of the death of the Emperor.
And, bluntly, the Imperium does NOTHING quickly. Part of the problem is simply the lack of space vessels. Even heavily armed sectors can field maybe 70 warships. They take decades, if not centuries, to build.
It takes the tau four years to produce the equivalent of an Emperor class battleship.
The Imperial fleet has exactly one means of access to the Tau empire.
This means that attrition works against the Imperium here. Which probably means that the various Solar Admirals are stumped as to what to do.
However, both sides are currently distracted by Tyranids, so...
While some marines might turn renegade or fall to chaos, the question really becomes why they would turn renegade and then decide to join Tau.
Space Marines were indoctinated to serve humanity, to defend the IoM. How are they going to become disillusioned with the IoM but still want to serve humanity. Even if they did not like the IoM, surely they must also know that they are probably best served by sticking with the IoM. Turning traitor(not chaos, but serving the greater good would still be traitor) would mean 2 inescapeable things.
First it would cause strife for the IoM, more of the IoM finite resources would have to be devoted to pursuing them and battling them; this doesn't serve humanity or the greater good. War and wasted resources serves no one.
Secondly they would run out of new war materials and maintenance parts. While they might be able to shed their bolters for pulse rifles rather easily, their power armor is linked to their nerve bundles by a series of implants. Finding a way to make their implants compatable with Tau technology would be tough, certainly beyond them, possibly beyond the Tau. With weapons that were not designed for them, they might be less effective, certainly they would require a lot of trial and error/+training to design and learn to use Tau technology. All that time and effort they certainly aren't able to serve humanity, or even the greater good as the warriors they are.
Now you might say they could just scavenge spare parts like other Traitor or Renegade Marines do. 2 things. First the reason that people are saying the IoM could not pursue them, there isnt much IoM presense in tau space, hence few spare parts. Second other traitor/renegade marines scavenge their parts by attacking loyalist marines and supplies. Serving the greater good would not be best to nessesitate constant direct conflict with the IoM.
So even a disillusioned SM chapter would probably not turn traitor and join the Tau. It would end up hurting their aims more than it would help them.
Exergy wrote: While some marines might turn renegade or fall to chaos, the question really becomes why they would turn renegade and then decide to join Tau.
Space Marines were indoctinated to serve humanity, to defend the IoM. How are they going to become disillusioned with the IoM but still want to serve humanity. Even if they did not like the IoM, surely they must also know that they are probably best served by sticking with the IoM. Turning traitor(not chaos, but serving the greater good would still be traitor) would mean 2 inescapeable things.
First it would cause strife for the IoM, more of the IoM finite resources would have to be devoted to pursuing them and battling them; this doesn't serve humanity or the greater good. War and wasted resources serves no one.
Secondly they would run out of new war materials and maintenance parts. While they might be able to shed their bolters for pulse rifles rather easily, their power armor is linked to their nerve bundles by a series of implants. Finding a way to make their implants compatable with Tau technology would be tough, certainly beyond them, possibly beyond the Tau. With weapons that were not designed for them, they might be less effective, certainly they would require a lot of trial and error/+training to design and learn to use Tau technology. All that time and effort they certainly aren't able to serve humanity, or even the greater good as the warriors they are.
Now you might say they could just scavenge spare parts like other Traitor or Renegade Marines do. 2 things. First the reason that people are saying the IoM could not pursue them, there isnt much IoM presense in tau space, hence few spare parts. Second other traitor/renegade marines scavenge their parts by attacking loyalist marines and supplies. Serving the greater good would not be best to nessesitate constant direct conflict with the IoM.
So even a disillusioned SM chapter would probably not turn traitor and join the Tau. It would end up hurting their aims more than it would help them.
They'd replace their gear the same way Carcharodons replace their gear- stealing it from corpses and Imperial supply ships as "tithes." After all, the Tau fights the Imperium often enough, and Space Marines get drawn in often enough.
There're plenty of Gue'vesa to serve in the Tau Empire. They're humans- admittedly, humans that are already better-protected than the overwhelming majority of the Imperium's citizens, but humans all the same.
... and if the SM Chapter in question decides the gov't of the Imperium is evil, then yes, direct conflict with them DOES serve the greater good.
Ashiraya wrote: I am fairly sure Tau Astartes won't happen. Space Marines are incredibly reliable in their loyalty. It takes supernatural forces like Chaos to turn them.
The entire Night Lords legion went renegade without Chaotic influence, remember? Didn't the Soul Drinkers also go renegade?
Any SM Chapter that has fought the Tau know them to be honorable foes. Any SM Chapter that knows this and is declared Excommunicate Tratoris could (and likely would, given their other options) find safe haven with the Tau. Since this can happen because any random Inquisitor gets pissed off (even if they're crazy/corrupted by Chaos) there's plenty of opportunity for Space Marines to see the light of the Greater Good.
Uh, the Night Lords are infested with Chaos taint, not to mention their legion was wavering on renegade from the start thanks to them not being indoctrinated in the least.
Plus Legions lacked the mindscrubbingly thorough brainwashing of how Astartes are currently made after the Codex Astartes was established.
1) At the time the Night Lords blew up Nostramo? No, I've had people argue repeatedly that there wasn't Chaotic influence involved there. Pretty sure they're right.
Ashiraya wrote: I am fairly sure Tau Astartes won't happen. Space Marines are incredibly reliable in their loyalty. It takes supernatural forces like Chaos to turn them.
The entire Night Lords legion went renegade without Chaotic influence, remember? Didn't the Soul Drinkers also go renegade?
Any SM Chapter that has fought the Tau know them to be honorable foes. Any SM Chapter that knows this and is declared Excommunicate Tratoris could (and likely would, given their other options) find safe haven with the Tau. Since this can happen because any random Inquisitor gets pissed off (even if they're crazy/corrupted by Chaos) there's plenty of opportunity for Space Marines to see the light of the Greater Good.
Uh, the Night Lords are infested with Chaos taint, not to mention their legion was wavering on renegade from the start thanks to them not being indoctrinated in the least.
Plus Legions lacked the mindscrubbingly thorough brainwashing of how Astartes are currently made after the Codex Astartes was established.
1) At the time the Night Lords blew up Nostramo? No, I've had people argue repeatedly that there wasn't Chaotic influence involved there. Pretty sure they're right.
2) No response for Soul Drinkers?
As has been mentioned, the Night Lords were almost renegades from the start. They did not have the same high level of indoctrination and moral character as some of the other Legions had. Also, it could easily be argued that Curze's visions etc. were caused by Chaos.
The Soul Drinkers never turned renegade, they were simply kicked out by the Imperium. They still hate Chaos and Xenos as much as they did before.
Ashiraya wrote: I am fairly sure Tau Astartes won't happen. Space Marines are incredibly reliable in their loyalty. It takes supernatural forces like Chaos to turn them.
The entire Night Lords legion went renegade without Chaotic influence, remember? Didn't the Soul Drinkers also go renegade?
Any SM Chapter that has fought the Tau know them to be honorable foes. Any SM Chapter that knows this and is declared Excommunicate Tratoris could (and likely would, given their other options) find safe haven with the Tau. Since this can happen because any random Inquisitor gets pissed off (even if they're crazy/corrupted by Chaos) there's plenty of opportunity for Space Marines to see the light of the Greater Good.
Uh, the Night Lords are infested with Chaos taint, not to mention their legion was wavering on renegade from the start thanks to them not being indoctrinated in the least.
Plus Legions lacked the mindscrubbingly thorough brainwashing of how Astartes are currently made after the Codex Astartes was established.
1) At the time the Night Lords blew up Nostramo? No, I've had people argue repeatedly that there wasn't Chaotic influence involved there. Pretty sure they're right.
2) No response for Soul Drinkers?
As has been mentioned, the Night Lords were almost renegades from the start. They did not have the same high level of indoctrination and moral character as some of the other Legions had. Also, it could easily be argued that Curze's visions etc. were caused by Chaos.
The Soul Drinkers never turned renegade, they were simply kicked out by the Imperium. They still hate Chaos and Xenos as much as they did before.
If Space Marines can be created as renegades from the start, I'm not sure that helps your point. A lot can happen in 10,000 years...
I want to ignore the concept of "Why" and focus on the "What".
I am thinking of better equipped Armour, weaponry and vehicles. Think hover rhinos, Bolters with plasma technologies, the stealth capabilities of the tau, combined with the Asartes would lead for a Uber Raven guard force.
The Jump/Jet packs of the Crisis suits combined with assault troops for a streamlined look and more powerful boost.
The Quasi AI of the Tau working alongside the tech marines? Think Devastators with Rail guns, Landraiders with Ion cannons.
this type of stuff is (in my opinion) way more fascinating than debating whether it would be possible or not. It's a fantasy universe where you can make up your own interpretation of the Fluff and Cannon. Or Ignore it completely like the Dornian Heresy and others do.
And thats why they dont create space marines willy nilly
All the genetic testing and trials.. ya know to catch all that.
Legions where made by the Big E and im not actually sure the technical aspects was ever touched on in fluff.
Edreynaline wrote: It's a fantasy universe where you can make up your own interpretation of the Fluff and Cannon. Or Ignore it completely like the Dornian Heresy and others do.
Well its a discussion. that's why a lot of people are counting your fantasy views with our own
Space Marines were indoctinated to serve humanity, to defend the IoM.
How they interpret those though varies wildly between chapters, and it's not 'serve' it's 'protect' for many of them. If you were a chapter that emphasized Protect (Salamanders as an example) then it's entirely possible that they might decide that the Imperium is no longer servign that purpose. (I mean, hell there's an entire subset of Inquisitors who think that)
How are they going to become disillusioned with the IoM but still want to serve humanity. Even if they did not like the IoM, surely they must also know that they are probably best served by sticking with the IoM.
This has actually happened before though, where chapters have split from the IoM and still wished to protect mankind (Soul Drinkers spring to mind)
First it would cause strife for the IoM, more of the IoM finite resources would have to be devoted to pursuing them and battling them; this doesn't serve humanity or the greater good.
This assumes that they even notice. Chapters simply vanish on a regular basis. there's a reason, for example, the Cursed Founding has an unknown number of chapters founded. There are a lot of 'unknown numbers' when dealing with Space Marines, and the fluff for, example, the Charcaradonts suggests that chapters go missing all the time and might not be seen for millennia.
It only actually becomes an issue if SM chapters start broadcasting that they're switching sides. And even then may or may not be an issue.
Secondly they would run out of new war materials and maintenance parts. While they might be able to shed their bolters for pulse rifles rather easily, their power armor is linked to their nerve bundles by a series of implants. Finding a way to make their implants compatable with Tau technology would be tough, certainly beyond them, possibly beyond the Tau.
Incorrect. One, SM chapters are largely self sufficient. See Charcaradonts for just how far this can be taken. Two, thanks to the Inquisition and casualties among the Raven Guard, no, no it's not beyond the tau to manufacture SM equipment. They have plenty of samples to reverse engineer now.
I mean, hell, they've been reverse engineering IoM Starship technology and or creating their own equivalents, they're most likely going to figure out SM armor pretty quick. Even if they cannot interface the technology (which has already happened in fluff, during a interrogation of a captured member of the Raven Guard) they could probably produce their own parts, since SM do know that much about their own armor.
First it would cause strife for the IoM, more of the IoM finite resources would have to be devoted to pursuing them and battling them; this doesn't serve humanity or the greater good.
This assumes that they even notice. Chapters simply vanish on a regular basis. there's a reason, for example, the Cursed Founding has an unknown number of chapters founded. There are a lot of 'unknown numbers' when dealing with Space Marines, and the fluff for, example, the Charcaradonts suggests that chapters go missing all the time and might not be seen for millennia.
It only actually becomes an issue if SM chapters start broadcasting that they're switching sides. And even then may or may not be an issue.
It certainly is possible to just leave and never be heard from again, but if one was leaving they would have to assume the risk of being discovered into the equation. The blood and suffering that would occur if they were discovered would seem to counter what betterment or protection for mankind they would get from turning to the Tau.
Certainly many chapters do turn their back on the IoM and run off to fight chaos; however, usually their motivation is more to free themselves from administration and inefficient control in order to pursue a vendetta against other traitor marines or chaos. They accept they are possibly causing humanity harm, but think it's worth it if they get to eradicate some part of true evil.
Secondly they would run out of new war materials and maintenance parts. While they might be able to shed their bolters for pulse rifles rather easily, their power armor is linked to their nerve bundles by a series of implants. Finding a way to make their implants compatable with Tau technology would be tough, certainly beyond them, possibly beyond the Tau.
Incorrect. One, SM chapters are largely self sufficient. See Charcaradonts for just how far this can be taken. Two, thanks to the Inquisition and casualties among the Raven Guard, no, no it's not beyond the tau to manufacture SM equipment. They have plenty of samples to reverse engineer now.
I mean, hell, they've been reverse engineering IoM Starship technology and or creating their own equivalents, they're most likely going to figure out SM armor pretty quick. Even if they cannot interface the technology (which has already happened in fluff, during a interrogation of a captured member of the Raven Guard) they could probably produce their own parts, since SM do know that much about their own armor.
Space Marines are largely self sufficient. They can fight for decades without resupply. However over those decades some things break which they cannot fix. The things they cannot fix would probably also be the things the Tau would have the hardest time replicating or fixing. But leaving for good, particularly so far from the imperial core, would be tough.
Just having something doesnt mean you can reverse engineer it. Reverse engineering can be incredibly difficult, sometimes more so than just engineering a parallel technology that does the same thing.
In the great scheme of things SM are a much higher level of technology than an IoM starship. Starships were created well before the Emperor and new starship tech has been engineered after his sleep. SM were created only with the Emperor of mandkind's direct intervention and short of Fabulus Bill and a few certifiably insane iron warriors, nothing like them has been created since, and they had the DE or pure chaos to assist. The only thing the IoM can do with SM is just continue their existence and try to prevent geneseed mutation. I dont see the Tau, who we dont have any real example of their ability to manipulate genetic implants, being able to do what only the emperor was able to do.
They'd replace their gear the same way Carcharodons replace their gear- stealing it from corpses and Imperial supply ships as "tithes." After all, the Tau fights the Imperium often enough, and Space Marines get drawn in often enough.
There're plenty of Gue'vesa to serve in the Tau Empire. They're humans- admittedly, humans that are already better-protected than the overwhelming majority of the Imperium's citizens, but humans all the same.
So to protect the Gue'vesa, these space marines are going to put themselves in a situation where they must willfully murder other humans to get their equipment.
... and if the SM Chapter in question decides the gov't of the Imperium is evil, then yes, direct conflict with them DOES serve the greater good.
If they think they can beat the IoM in a suitably fast period of time. You can only save humanity from the IoM if you can defeat it quickly. Creating a long war or making the current one harder doesnt protect humans it puts them at risk.
They'd replace their gear the same way Carcharodons replace their gear- stealing it from corpses and Imperial supply ships as "tithes." After all, the Tau fights the Imperium often enough, and Space Marines get drawn in often enough.
There're plenty of Gue'vesa to serve in the Tau Empire. They're humans- admittedly, humans that are already better-protected than the overwhelming majority of the Imperium's citizens, but humans all the same.
So to protect the Gue'vesa, these space marines are going to put themselves in a situation where they must willfully murder other humans to get their equipment.
... and if the SM Chapter in question decides the gov't of the Imperium is evil, then yes, direct conflict with them DOES serve the greater good.
If they think they can beat the IoM in a suitably fast period of time. You can only save humanity from the IoM if you can defeat it quickly. Creating a long war or making the current one harder doesnt protect humans it puts them at risk.
Killing Marines is the inevitable result of defending Gue'vesa from the predations of the Imperium.
... and considering that Marines can live for centuries, I see them as more willing to adopt long-term thinking than you give them credit for. After all, there is no quick way to overthrown the High lords- especially not for a lone renegade Chapter.
They'd replace their gear the same way Carcharodons replace their gear- stealing it from corpses and Imperial supply ships as "tithes." After all, the Tau fights the Imperium often enough, and Space Marines get drawn in often enough.
There're plenty of Gue'vesa to serve in the Tau Empire. They're humans- admittedly, humans that are already better-protected than the overwhelming majority of the Imperium's citizens, but humans all the same.
So to protect the Gue'vesa, these space marines are going to put themselves in a situation where they must willfully murder other humans to get their equipment.
... and if the SM Chapter in question decides the gov't of the Imperium is evil, then yes, direct conflict with them DOES serve the greater good.
If they think they can beat the IoM in a suitably fast period of time. You can only save humanity from the IoM if you can defeat it quickly. Creating a long war or making the current one harder doesnt protect humans it puts them at risk.
Killing Marines is the inevitable result of defending Gue'vesa from the predations of the Imperium.
Killing marines sent to attack the Tau is one thing, having to search out humans to raid to get supplies. Killing and stealing from people whose only crime is being part of the IoM. Doesnt sound like it's serving the greater good. Sounds pretty selfserving and evil to me.
... and considering that Marines can live for centuries, I see them as more willing to adopt long-term thinking than you give them credit for. After all, there is no quick way to overthrown the High lords- especially not for a lone renegade Chapter.
Marines may live for centuries, but turning traitor in small numbers to the Tau doesnt weaken the IoM in any meaninful way as to bring out it's downfall. It just makes the lives of the humans in the IoM that much more miserable as they are tithed and taxes to hunt down more traitors.
So they are turning traitor for their own self interest. Sounding more and more morally right.
What if the high lords of terra send 50 guard regiments and 5 space marine chapters to hunt the traitor SMs that betrayed the IoM to the Tau.
Is it good for all of those humans to die, just because they are servents of the IoM? What about the Tau killed battling them? Those battles need not have happened. Is it good to attract the ire of the IoM, I'm not sure the Tau would even want a chapter of SM to defect to them. It might go unnoticed, but it might be catastrophic.
Killing marines sent to attack the Tau is one thing, having to search out humans to raid to get supplies. Killing and stealing from people whose only crime is being part of the IoM. Doesnt sound like it's serving the greater good. Sounds pretty selfserving and evil to me.
Yeah...have you read any of the fluff on how Carcharodons treat other loyalists?
TheCustomLime wrote: Just 50 guard regiments would make a difference on Cadia? The Departmento Munitorim probably loses 50 a day due to accounting errors.
Just saying- a Space Marine chapter quits and goes Tau? Galaxy goes on as normal.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just 50 guard regiments would make a difference on Cadia? The Departmento Munitorim probably loses 50 a day due to accounting errors.
Would 50 guard regiments make a difference against the Tau?
TheCustomLime wrote: Just 50 guard regiments would make a difference on Cadia? The Departmento Munitorim probably loses 50 a day due to accounting errors.
Would 50 guard regiments make a difference against the Tau?
TheCustomLime wrote: Just 50 guard regiments would make a difference on Cadia? The Departmento Munitorim probably loses 50 a day due to accounting errors.
Just saying- a Space Marine chapter quits and goes Tau? Galaxy goes on as normal.
Except that the Inquisition and Eccessiarchy will blow their minds out over the unimaginable heresy. Space Marines were created to defeat Xenos and liberate Humanity from their alien oppressors. Space Marines serving Xenos and working to subjugate Mankind under alien rule would be the ultimate Heresy. Something like that has never occurred in millennia-long history of the Imperium. It would be far worse than a Chapter falling to Chaos. The ideological damage would be immense.
Not really, they lost more than that when the Tau pushed back across the gulf. Remember, the tau didn't stop until they hit the Knight world of Voltoris.
Throw on that about 25 of those regiments will probably be diverted to fight the Hive Fleets alongside the tau. In some areas around the Damocles gulf, IG and the Inq is embracing the idea of "The Enemy of my Enemy is someone to draw fire for us". Inq has even provided the Tau with astropaths and limited access to AdMech facilities.
Except that the Inquisition and Eccessiarchy will blow their minds out over the unimaginable heresy.
Except those inquisitors who have already gone over to the Tau. One such, in Damocles, lays a trap for the Raven guard that was...well, 100% successful, even providing the Tau with space marine prisoners to interrogate.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just 50 guard regiments would make a difference on Cadia? The Departmento Munitorim probably loses 50 a day due to accounting errors.
Just saying- a Space Marine chapter quits and goes Tau? Galaxy goes on as normal.
Abaddon takes Cadia? Game over for the Imperium.
Yeah, but the Imperium has deep enough pockets to off a Space Marine chapter. It's not they haven't done it before.
Ashiraya wrote: Fine, SM are incorruptible outside of chaos and unique cases.
If I have several “unique cases”, how are they still unique .
By looking at the description for the Soul Drinker, why would they refuse an alliance offer from the Tau that would help them protect human members of the Tau empire against Orks or Tyranids or any such enemy? Why do you think Lufgt Huron would have refuse an offer from the Tau to become the leader of a human planet/system inside the Tau empire?
Exergy wrote: Space Marines were indoctinated to serve humanity, to defend the IoM. How are they going to become disillusioned with the IoM but still want to serve humanity.
Read the Soul Drinkers series and find out!
To answer your question, once the Imperium as already decided you were renegade, if you still want to serve humanity, you have few choices. Either continue on your own, which means a very hard time getting new suppliers, or join Chaos for power and stuff, or join the Tau so they can give you supplies and aid you. I would go Tau. I would replace my power armor by some Tau exo-armor, my bolter by some Tau reliable plasma weapon, …
Power and Terminator Armor: Rebuilt/upgraded with Tau materials and technology. Fio'tak is lightweight and stronger than ceramite, so I'd expect stronger and lighter armor. One could also expect helmets to be upgraded with Tau sensors and communications gear.
Weapons: judging by their relative size on the tabletop, most marines should be able to wield Crisis suit weaponry. Plasma Rifles, Fusion Blasters and Burst Cannons shouldn't be too hard to adapt for marine hand-held use, and provide them with a big firepower increase.
Battlesuits: marines are already tough as nails, by Tau standards at least. I think putting a valid marine in a suit is a waste of that toughness. I could totally see using some of the larger suits (Y'vahra maybe) as Dreadnought replacements)
Vehicles: I see no reason why marines couldn't switch over to Tau vehicles. Assuming the relative size on the tabletop for vehicles is correct, the Devilfish looks like it could at least accommodate a Combat Squad. Same goes for Predator vs. Hammerhead/Skyray. Land Raiders would be more problematic, both to maintain (especially their Machine Spirit) and to replace (Tau have no comparable vehicle).
I like that idea that they could carry crisis suit weaponry. Do you think they would use it as a squad special weapons, eg melta/fusion gun heavy bolter/burst cannons type thing or would the whole squad be toting tau weaponry like a 30k support squad?
On the vehicles side of things what would your ultimate tau/SM predator load out be?
Edreynaline wrote: I like that idea that they could carry crisis suit weaponry. Do you think they would use it as a squad special weapons, eg melta/fusion gun heavy bolter/burst cannons type thing or would the whole squad be toting tau weaponry like a 30k support squad?
On the vehicles side of things what would your ultimate tau/SM predator load out be?
Plasma Rifles would make excellent Bolter substitutes so I'd expect chapter-wide deployment. Fusion Blasters and Burst Cannons would probably be used as squad support (1-2 per squad) due to their more specialized nature.
Regarding Predators, I feel the Tau would just modify Hammerhead, or allow / support the marines in manufacturing their own Predators (according to Lexicanum, with IA2 given as source, some chapter armories can produce their own Predators). However, if they decided to reverse engineer/upgrade one, I'd expect the ultimate one to carry the Riptide guns. Predator is already a roomy tank (it used to have transport capacity but that got dropped in Great Crusade time for more ammo), and using Fio'tak instead of ceramite allows thinner armor plates, making it even roomier, so there would be plenty of space for the gun support systems.
Edreynaline wrote: I like that idea that they could carry crisis suit weaponry. Do you think they would use it as a squad special weapons, eg melta/fusion gun heavy bolter/burst cannons type thing or would the whole squad be toting tau weaponry like a 30k support squad?
On the vehicles side of things what would your ultimate tau/SM predator load out be?
Considering the Tau appears much more able to mass-produce (or perhaps more willing to issue) their heavier armaments to fully equip squads with them (such as whole Crisis units being armed with dual plasma rifles, for example), I would expect small individual units of marines with dedicated roles and weapons to match.
So you'd have 5 marines with plasma rifles to hunt heavy infantry, 5 marines with fusion blasters to hunt tanks, small units of scouts with rail rifles/ion rifles etc.
I think the tau would use a laspred to work out lascannon tech, then have a Railhead with Lascannon secondary systems (in place of burst cannons/SMS) as a tank hunter. Would be very scary to face, 1 S10 AP1 shot and 2 S9 AP2 shots from a Skimmer with heavy armour and able to make use of markerlight support? Ouch
I like this idea...*starts to think of ways to counts as* I really like the idea of a Rail gun equipped dreadnaught too. Imagine a mortis rail gun dread. that would look fun. so basically a broadside/dread cross.
Would using Fio'tak be a way to get slimline Marines? If its lighter and thinner than ceramite?
Edreynaline wrote: I like that idea that they could carry crisis suit weaponry. Do you think they would use it as a squad special weapons, eg melta/fusion gun heavy bolter/burst cannons type thing or would the whole squad be toting tau weaponry like a 30k support squad?
On the vehicles side of things what would your ultimate tau/SM predator load out be?
Considering the Tau appears much more able to mass-produce (or perhaps more willing to issue) their heavier armaments to fully equip squads with them (such as whole Crisis units being armed with dual plasma rifles, for example), I would expect small individual units of marines with dedicated roles and weapons to match.
So you'd have 5 marines with plasma rifles to hunt heavy infantry, 5 marines with fusion blasters to hunt tanks, small units of scouts with rail rifles/ion rifles etc.
I think the tau would use a laspred to work out lascannon tech, then have a Railhead with Lascannon secondary systems (in place of burst cannons/SMS) as a tank hunter. Would be very scary to face, 1 S10 AP1 shot and 2 S9 AP2 shots from a Skimmer with heavy armour and able to make use of markerlight support? Ouch
Not really; the Imperium simply has so many guys that it needs to equip that it's not economically viable to hand out hotshot lasguns and plasma weapons to everybody. Also keep in mind that the standard for the most common Imperial infantryman- a Guardsman- is basically "as simple, cheap, and reliable as is possible". Also keep in mind that the Imperium doesn't have much incentive to equip their Guardsmen as well as the Tau equip Fire Warriors- if there is one resource the Imperium has plenty of, it's manpower.
TheCustomLime wrote: Just 50 guard regiments would make a difference on Cadia? The Departmento Munitorim probably loses 50 a day due to accounting errors.
Just saying- a Space Marine chapter quits and goes Tau? Galaxy goes on as normal.
Except that the Inquisition and Eccessiarchy will blow their minds out over the unimaginable heresy. Space Marines were created to defeat Xenos and liberate Humanity from their alien oppressors. Space Marines serving Xenos and working to subjugate Mankind under alien rule would be the ultimate Heresy. Something like that has never occurred in millennia-long history of the Imperium. It would be far worse than a Chapter falling to Chaos. The ideological damage would be immense.
Of course, it'll take 2-3 hundred years for the heads of said organizations to find that out, assuming the missives don't disappear into the Warp.
Edreynaline wrote: I like that idea that they could carry crisis suit weaponry. Do you think they would use it as a squad special weapons, eg melta/fusion gun heavy bolter/burst cannons type thing or would the whole squad be toting tau weaponry like a 30k support squad?
On the vehicles side of things what would your ultimate tau/SM predator load out be?
Considering the Tau appears much more able to mass-produce (or perhaps more willing to issue) their heavier armaments to fully equip squads with them (such as whole Crisis units being armed with dual plasma rifles, for example), I would expect small individual units of marines with dedicated roles and weapons to match.
So you'd have 5 marines with plasma rifles to hunt heavy infantry, 5 marines with fusion blasters to hunt tanks, small units of scouts with rail rifles/ion rifles etc.
I think the tau would use a laspred to work out lascannon tech, then have a Railhead with Lascannon secondary systems (in place of burst cannons/SMS) as a tank hunter. Would be very scary to face, 1 S10 AP1 shot and 2 S9 AP2 shots from a Skimmer with heavy armour and able to make use of markerlight support? Ouch
Not really; the Imperium simply has so many guys that it needs to equip that it's not economically viable to hand out hotshot lasguns and plasma weapons to everybody. Also keep in mind that the standard for the most common Imperial infantryman- a Guardsman- is basically "as simple, cheap, and reliable as is possible". Also keep in mind that the Imperium doesn't have much incentive to equip their Guardsmen as well as the Tau equip Fire Warriors- if there is one resource the Imperium has plenty of, it's manpower.
I disagree. As far as high tech equipment goes, the Imperium is either unable or unwilling to supply high-tech gear in sufficient numbers. I'm not talking about IG, but marines. There's around 1.000.000 of them (1000 chapters of 1000 marines) and yet:
The Mechanicum can't/won't supply them all with the newer marks of Power Armor. Terminator Armor supply is even worse. Iron Hands fir example, despite having a goid relationship to the Mechanicum still have less than normal amount of Terminator Armor 10.000 years after Istvaan.
Stuff like Thunderhawks and Land Raiders are often looked at as chapter relics, hinting that replacing them epuld be quite difficult.Tau never serm to look at Mantas the same way.
But saying that there wouldn't be places to take from that are dangerous enough, it's not like the Empire haven't got Death Worlds, and human armies that are at least veterans of some war-acts.
And, in most circumstances, SM Chapters can recruit from said Death Worlds.
In these circumstances, though, these are renegade SM. The kind that, should an IN Battlegroup roll through the system, there's going to be a shoot-out above the planet (with the SM caught between the Navy and the planet's own gravity well). Highly risky; the sort of scenario that may end (less a matter of "if" than "when") with more losses to the Chapter than it gains. Remember that, once they've broken away from the Imperium, the Marines are cut-off from the supply lines of the Mechanicus, and any vehicles they lose are going to be near-unrecoverable. Lose a Strike Cruiser or a Battle Barge, and there's no replacing that. The Tau don't really have an equivalent.
Human veterans who are already in the Tau Empire are most-likely too old to begin Space Marine training. We haven't seen that being done since the GC/Heresy era.
ETA: And since "purity above all else" and "unquestioning devotion to the Emperor alone" are the hallmarks of the Red Scorpions, I think it safe to assume that the Red Scorpions are not going to be the Chapter joining up with heretical Xenos, so their recruitment practices (an exception that proves the rule) are not a factor here.
Renegades recruit from imperial worlds regularly. That is definitely a thing. All their labor is cultist or slave and they do slave raids just like the Dark Eldar. They also raid military outposts for supplies. What exactly do you think chaos marines do? They are hit and run missions and that is a huge part of the fluff.
LordBlades wrote: I disagree. As far as high tech equipment goes, the Imperium is either unable or unwilling to supply high-tech gear in sufficient numbers. I'm not talking about IG, but marines. There's around 1.000.000 of them (1000 chapters of 1000 marines) and yet:
The Mechanicum can't/won't supply them all with the newer marks of Power Armor. Terminator Armor supply is even worse. Iron Hands fir example, despite having a goid relationship to the Mechanicum still have less than normal amount of Terminator Armor 10.000 years after Istvaan.
Stuff like Thunderhawks and Land Raiders are often looked at as chapter relics, hinting that replacing them epuld be quite difficult.Tau never serm to look at Mantas the same way.
Marines are the elite, and so they get the best basic equipment the Imperium can provide- power armor and bolters. WRT newer marks of Power Armor, it's entirely likely that there isn't much impetus to supply it because whatever is currently in circulation among the Astartes is still sufficient.
Also, the thing to remember about Istvaan, is that the Dropsite Massacre crippled the Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard to the point that they weren't just pushed out of the Heresy because they lacked the manpower to actually fight at the scales involved, but to the point that it was a serious consideration that these Legions would actually go extinct- while there is some evidence to suggest the Iron Hands may have been a slightly above-average strength (statistically speaking) Legion, they also ran straight into the guns of the Traitor forces, suffering heavy losses all the while, and tended to not retreat, thus leading to them being wiped out- oh, and the Iron Hands lost their Primarch at Istvaan V, while Vulkan went missing and Corax is the only one who managed to run away.
It's also to be remembered that the Mechanicus (post-Heresy AdMech is actually an "s" on the end, and not an "m") is by far not a monolithic power bloc, like everything else in the Imperium, and so the issues of supply are one of "it depends"- how close is a Chapter to a Forge World, are they on good terms with that Forge World, are they on good terms with the AdMech at all, do they have their own sufficiently equipped Chapter Forge that they don't ask for anything from the local Forge Worlds; things like that.
Oh, and Terminator armor's should iconography, the Crux Terminatus, supposedly has a fragment of the Emperor's armor shoved in it, so presumably that would actually put a hard limit on how many Terminator suits can actually be produced- assuming that there is some kind of traditional requirement that Terminator armor contain such a fragment, and that the Astartes chapters will generally pass on suits without such.
Edreynaline wrote: I like that idea that they could carry crisis suit weaponry. Do you think they would use it as a squad special weapons, eg melta/fusion gun heavy bolter/burst cannons type thing or would the whole squad be toting tau weaponry like a 30k support squad?
On the vehicles side of things what would your ultimate tau/SM predator load out be?
Considering the Tau appears much more able to mass-produce (or perhaps more willing to issue) their heavier armaments to fully equip squads with them (such as whole Crisis units being armed with dual plasma rifles, for example), I would expect small individual units of marines with dedicated roles and weapons to match.
So you'd have 5 marines with plasma rifles to hunt heavy infantry, 5 marines with fusion blasters to hunt tanks, small units of scouts with rail rifles/ion rifles etc.
I think the tau would use a laspred to work out lascannon tech, then have a Railhead with Lascannon secondary systems (in place of burst cannons/SMS) as a tank hunter. Would be very scary to face, 1 S10 AP1 shot and 2 S9 AP2 shots from a Skimmer with heavy armour and able to make use of markerlight support? Ouch
Not really; the Imperium simply has so many guys that it needs to equip that it's not economically viable to hand out hotshot lasguns and plasma weapons to everybody. Also keep in mind that the standard for the most common Imperial infantryman- a Guardsman- is basically "as simple, cheap, and reliable as is possible". Also keep in mind that the Imperium doesn't have much incentive to equip their Guardsmen as well as the Tau equip Fire Warriors- if there is one resource the Imperium has plenty of, it's manpower.
I disagree. As far as high tech equipment goes, the Imperium is either unable or unwilling to supply high-tech gear in sufficient numbers. I'm not talking about IG, but marines. There's around 1.000.000 of them (1000 chapters of 1000 marines) and yet:
The Mechanicum can't/won't supply them all with the newer marks of Power Armor. Terminator Armor supply is even worse. Iron Hands fir example, despite having a goid relationship to the Mechanicum still have less than normal amount of Terminator Armor 10.000 years after Istvaan.
Stuff like Thunderhawks and Land Raiders are often looked at as chapter relics, hinting that replacing them epuld be quite difficult.Tau never serm to look at Mantas the same way.
That fluff has been retconned. Originally Terminator Armor was a relic of the past, something the mechanicum was incapable of making in 40k. Now that that has changed, so has the fluff about the iron hands having less of it.
So the Tau could use their fio'vak or whatever its called to make Terminator Armour in significant enough amounts to give to the "Allied" SM. That would be interesting. The Tau don't do well in void combat when it comes to boarding. Now they have boarding specialists in TDA. With access to the combined armouries of the two...
LordBlades wrote: I disagree. As far as high tech equipment goes, the Imperium is either unable or unwilling to supply high-tech gear in sufficient numbers. I'm not talking about IG, but marines. There's around 1.000.000 of them (1000 chapters of 1000 marines) and yet:
The Mechanicum can't/won't supply them all with the newer marks of Power Armor. Terminator Armor supply is even worse. Iron Hands fir example, despite having a goid relationship to the Mechanicum still have less than normal amount of Terminator Armor 10.000 years after Istvaan.
Stuff like Thunderhawks and Land Raiders are often looked at as chapter relics, hinting that replacing them epuld be quite difficult.Tau never serm to look at Mantas the same way.
Marines are the elite, and so they get the best basic equipment the Imperium can provide- power armor and bolters. WRT newer marks of Power Armor, it's entirely likely that there isn't much impetus to supply it because whatever is currently in circulation among the Astartes is still sufficient.
Problem with that is that the Plasma Gun is superior to the bolter in almost every way against any target you would want to aim a bolter at and some stuff you wouldn't. So if the imperium is so big and capable of such awesome scale of manufacture then why don't all the marines have plasma guns?
Either the Imperium is incapable, or it is unwilling. If it is incapable then the marines would be better off with the Tau who can mass-produce a superior weapon (the Pulse Rifle or Pusle Carbine) in possibly larger numbers than the Imperium can produce Bolters (willing to bet there are more Shas'la Fire Warriors than Space Marines). If it is unwilling then the Imperium is sacrificing the ability of its soldiers for no good reason.
The Tau don't arbitrarily restrict weaponry from their elite forces when the weapon that they are holding back would make those forces more effective at their given task. The Imperium, apparently, does.
Edreynaline wrote: It also doesn't exactly help that you probably would hurt yourself 1/6 times using the plasma gun...
Well, 1/18 after you factor in power armour saves. But that is bringing tabletop rules in.
And that slight loss in numbers would be more than made up for by the increased lethality of those left. Or the Imperium could dial back on the power to make their plasma technology safer, like the Tau, even if just for the Space Marine basic Plasma Guns
haha yer you get the jist though. I feel that the power isn't the problem. at least in fluffy terms they are just old tricky technologies while the tau have managed to master a better, less dangerous way of using them. So now you give that to the space marines and boom they can kill marines really well. The thing about bolters thought is they have a powerful shrapnel effect(in fluff terms) that puts guardsmen down in groups of two, three or more at a time. the plasma just doesn't have that rate of fire. although I suppose a squad of half bolter half plasma would combine that effect.
When it comes to plasma guns and Space Marines, 3rd eddition used to be more vocal when it comes to weapons capability compared to others. All armies used to have a page or two dedicated to it and the Imperium had theirs in the main rule book. There you learned that plasma gun have no option for automatic fire unlike bolters, had a limit of about 15 shots compared to the 30 or so of the bolter and while the bolter can be reloaded much like a assault rifle (so in about 4 seconds), the plasma guns takes much much longer. You need to unsrew to flask and srew two new ones carefully before you can fire again. So it can take a minute or two to reload it. If you also compare the efficency of bolter and plasma weapons vs lightly armored human size targets like regular guards, dark eldar, eldar guardien, ork boys or tyranid gaunts, you will realise that there is no noticeable increase in efficency from one type to the other on a per shot basis. Bolters are already overkill against most of these targets and their fire and reload rates makes them clearly superior. Against medium armored targets like Scions, some Aspect Warriors or ork nobz, plasma is significantly more efficient on a per shot basis, but looses when it comes to fire rate. in the end, plasma weapon are specialist weapons designed to take out heavily armored infantry like Space Marines, Tau battlesuit, ork meganobz, heavily armored Aspect warriors or light tanks. Having one or two per squad gives you just the extra punch you might need without over specialising it.
It's a bit better in OW and DW, the plasma gun takes longer to reload, but holds 40 to the bolters 28 shots and can be fired in maximal mode. But, true, it's nothing on the Tau half action reload times for pulse weapons.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Problem with that is that the Plasma Gun is superior to the bolter in almost every way against any target you would want to aim a bolter at and some stuff you wouldn't. So if the imperium is so big and capable of such awesome scale of manufacture then why don't all the marines have plasma guns?
Either the Imperium is incapable, or it is unwilling. If it is incapable then the marines would be better off with the Tau who can mass-produce a superior weapon (the Pulse Rifle or Pusle Carbine) in possibly larger numbers than the Imperium can produce Bolters (willing to bet there are more Shas'la Fire Warriors than Space Marines). If it is unwilling then the Imperium is sacrificing the ability of its soldiers for no good reason.
The Tau don't arbitrarily restrict weaponry from their elite forces when the weapon that they are holding back would make those forces more effective at their given task. The Imperium, apparently, does.
It's arguable that the Plasma Gun is flat out "superior" to the bolter because there are things that bolters can be used for that Plasma Guns simply can't. Stealth, for example- a Bolter with Stalker silenced shells is quiet. The specific Stalker-pattern Bolter, when combined with said shells, is generally described as being almost completely silent, and has a longer barrel for better long-distance performance.
Bolters can also use AoE munitions, such as the Heresy-era Tempest and current 40K-era Metal Storm bolts (functionally they're pretty much identical). The main advantage of the Bolter is that you can easily adapt it to numerous roles and/or taskings, just by changing the ammo. Plasma Guns, however, cannot do so. Further, Plasma Guns are not particularly suitable for sustained fire applications, are somewhat volatile, and presumably require much more specific- not necessarily just "more"- maintenance and/or expertise to maintain.
Brother Genericus the generic Space Marine can be taught to maintain his bolter in the field. It's questionable whether Plasma Guns can even be maintained in the field, IMO; if they can, it likely requires more expertise than is likely to be invested into Brother Genericus.
There is also the fact that:
-Imperial manufacturing is done almost entirely by the Adeptus Mechanicus, who are as mentioned far from a monolithic entity
-the Imperium is still beset on all sides by enemies
-the Imperium has had no reprieve from the previous condition for 10,000 years
Consider, for example, Heresy-era Volkite weapons. As a general purpose weapon system, they were far above the Bolter, and generally could be considered better than a Plasma Gun as a general purpose weapon. They were eventually phased out to "special weapon" status as the Great Crusade marched on, due to the rapidly increasing number of Marines necessary to equip thusly, and the difficulty of manufacture and maintenance of Volkite weaponry. And that's with Heresy-era Mars, when the AdMech was arguably at its peak, and which hadn't suffered through the destruction and loss of knowledge and information that the Heresy inflicted upon the Red Planet.
And again, it must be remembered that supply lines in the Imperium are somewhat more fluid than the logistics infrastructure used by the Tau; not only that, but the Tau have access to fairly abundant resources that are, figuratively speaking, in their own backyard. The Imperium is, due to 10,000 of war-footing industrialism, forced to go many dozens, if not hundreds of miles, to get their milk, flour, and eggs- to continue the previous analogy, at least.
Edreynaline wrote: haha yer you get the jist though. I feel that the power isn't the problem. at least in fluffy terms they are just old tricky technologies while the tau have managed to master a better, less dangerous way of using them. So now you give that to the space marines and boom they can kill marines really well. The thing about bolters thought is they have a powerful shrapnel effect(in fluff terms) that puts guardsmen down in groups of two, three or more at a time. the plasma just doesn't have that rate of fire. although I suppose a squad of half bolter half plasma would combine that effect.
I would disagree; keep in mind that Tau plasma weapons that are comparable to their Imperial counterparts are also mounted on generally larger platforms that have greater ability to carry cooling systems. For example, in FFG's Deathwatch system, Tau plasma weapons can maintain higher yield with great stability, doing 2D10+9 damage and 8 Penetration, while an Astartes Plasma Gun does 1D10+9 and Pen 8. However, the Astartes Plasma Gun is an infantry-portable weapon, can charge up to 2D10+9 damage, and is probably more economical to supply- due to its portability, it can be carried by a man-sized (or in this instance, Astartes-sized) person.
That's kind of the thing- the Imperium can manufacture small high-yield plasma weapons, that can easily be carried around by a regular Guardsman. I'm somewhat doubtful that the Tau can do so; though I don't think that the Tau particularly care, as their combat doctrine somewhat removes the need to have man-portable heavy weaponry, of which the Plasma Gun, can, realistically, be considered.
Also remember that the Bolter can load specialty armor-piercing rounds, some of which are designed to be and very effective against power-armored targets.
BaronIveagh wrote: I might point out that 'best' quality Imperial plasmaguns do not overload.
Which makes me wonder why they've been giving the SM plasmaguns with quality ratings lower than 'best' all this time. IG i can understand, but...
Looking at FFG's rules for Deathwatch and Only War, you'll notice that Astartes-pattern Plasma Guns do 1D10+9, Pen 8, and can choose to go to Maximal mode where they become 2D10+9, Pen 10, Overheats. In contrast, the Only War plasma guns are 1D10+7, Pen 6, and Overheats; in the Only War plasma gun's maximal mode, it's 2D10+7, Pen 8, Overheats. So we see that in the rules that could be considered more "fluff accurate" the Marines actually do get better Plasma Guns than their IG counterparts.
Co'tor Shas wrote: If your talking about re-load times, plasma gun reload times are ridiculously long in DH compared to other guns. Not a minute long, but still long.
This is an excellent point; I'll provide some rough points of comparison:
A typical longarm in most FFG systems (I haven't checked all of them) takes one Action to reload- the Bolter, the Lasgun, the Autogun. Any kind of general-purpose "basic" infantry weapon takes just one Action to reload. A typical Heavy Weapon, such as a Heavy Stubber, Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Lascannon, Multilasers, or Missile Launcher, will take 1-2 Actions to reload.
A Plasma Gun takes between 4 and 8 Actions to reload- generally 2-4 times as long. It depends a bit on the particular system- DH players actually get the lowest-end Imperial Plasma Guns, with the lowest capacity/damage/penetration and the longest reloads; though I would say that DH reload times are also intended to take into account that not all Acolytes are likely to be grizzled combat veterans of a dozen warzones.
BaronIveagh wrote: It's a bit better in OW and DW, the plasma gun takes longer to reload, but holds 40 to the bolters 28 shots and can be fired in maximal mode. But, true, it's nothing on the Tau half action reload times for pulse weapons.
That's true, but the Bolter has a higher RoF ceiling, and will deal more consistent damage to lighter enemies. I once made a 2D10 probability table; generally speaking, you've got a 44% chance to get somewhere between 13 and 18 damage at Pen 5 for an Astartes Boltgun, and that's not considering that Bolters have Tearing so that they can roll three dice and pick the 2 highest results.
Plasma Guns will end up anywhere between 10 and 19 damage, but it'll be a bit all over the place unless you go to Maximal, in which case the real problem you'll face isn't Overheat but actually the Recharge penalty. Bolters can also use Kraken rounds to get Pen 8 and more range, at no penalty.
Looking at FFG's rules for Deathwatch and Only War, you'll notice that Astartes-pattern Plasma Guns do 1D10+9, Pen 8, and can choose to go to Maximal mode where they become 2D10+9, Pen 10, Overheats. In contrast, the Only War plasma guns are 1D10+7, Pen 6, and Overheats; in the Only War plasma gun's maximal mode, it's 2D10+7, Pen 8, Overheats. So we see that in the rules that could be considered more "fluff accurate" the Marines actually do get better Plasma Guns than their IG counterparts.
Check the craftsmanship rules for plasma weapons. They automatically lose overheats at 'best' quality'.
Whiskey144 wrote: Bolters can also use Kraken rounds to get Pen 8 and more range, at no penalty.
Plasma guns have an ammo that does something similar, you lose Maximal mode, but also lose overheating and increase range and pen. IIRC it has a lower rarity for the ammunition than Kraken rounds do.
And the Tau pulse rifle still spanks both, with the autostabilized trait and the fast reload.
Wow. Fair enough, you are obviously far more well versed in the rules and lore than I. Back to original question though, do you think this means the Tau systems are able to port to power amour or do you think the Marines would keep their personal weapons and perhaps increase the number of plasma weapons available in specific squads to deal with heavier armoured infantry.
As for anti tank weaponry, the possibility of a terminator or Centurion suit wielding crisis suit weaponry and perhaps broadside level kit on a Centurion would be interesting.
BaronIveagh wrote: Plasma guns have an ammo that does something similar, you lose Maximal mode, but also lose overheating and increase range and pen. IIRC it has a lower rarity for the ammunition than Kraken rounds do.
And the Tau pulse rifle still spanks both, with the autostabilized trait and the fast reload.
I can't quite find the publication that has the specialty Plasma Gun ammunition... is it specific to Only War? Also, I'd argue that the Pulse Rifle isn't actually better- Bolters have the benefit of supreme flexibility due to their widely varied ammunition types.
Edreynaline wrote: Wow. Fair enough, you are obviously far more well versed in the rules and lore than I. Back to original question though, do you think this means the Tau systems are able to port to power amour or do you think the Marines would keep their personal weapons and perhaps increase the number of plasma weapons available in specific squads to deal with heavier armoured infantry.
As for anti tank weaponry, the possibility of a terminator or Centurion suit wielding crisis suit weaponry and perhaps broadside level kit on a Centurion would be interesting.
For the most part, I wouldn't see any Marines leveraging Tau armaments unless under extreme duress; for the most part they'll retain their own armaments, and in the particular case of Terminator armor/Centurion warsuits, they'll generally be keeping the armaments that they currently use instead of changing to the Tau equivalents- at present, the Centurions, in TT terms, are armed with relatively comparable weapon systems. Tau infantry armaments are... of limited tactical utility- the Tau do not seem to have any interest in squad-level organic support weapons except for specialty units (like Pathfinders, for example), or as part of a battlesuit team.
Which is actually kind of weird given the emphasis that Tau seem to place on small-unit tactics and the initiative of small unit leaders; having the option to incorporate organic squad-level support weapons actually does a lot for promoting such things- at least, IMO.
I can't quite find the publication that has the specialty Plasma Gun ammunition... is it specific to Only War? Also, I'd argue that the Pulse Rifle isn't actually better- Bolters have the benefit of supreme flexibility due to their widely varied ammunition types.
It's from Into the Storm. +2 pen, +2 damage, +10 meters range -overheats, - Maximal mode.
By that arguments, shotguns are as good as bolters (since shotguns can be modified into boltguns [albeit it's a BIG no no with the admech]).
As far as Tau squad support weapons, it's because on the TT a rail rifle or two in every platoon would be too much.
Edreynaline wrote: Back to original question though, do you think this means the Tau systems are able to port to power amour...
Well, according to Stars of Inequity, the answer is technically yes. (though this is due to how the game handles integrated weapons, etc.)
What will really melt your mind is there's nothing mechanical RAW to prevent Xenotech from also being Holy. To call this HERESY would be an understatement, but it would still make daemons into a fresh, pine-scented, vapor.
Edreynaline wrote: Back to original question though, do you think this means the Tau systems are able to port to power amour...
Well, according to Stars of Inequity, the answer is technically yes. (though this is due to how the game handles integrated weapons, etc.)
What will really melt your mind is there's nothing mechanical RAW to prevent Xenotech from also being Holy. To call this HERESY would be an understatement, but it would still make daemons into a fresh, pine-scented, vapor.
Madness! But also great! I'd also wager that while the marines themselves may or may not use Tau guns, I'm sure they wouldn't mind a few extra drones perhaps to soak bullets and carry extra gear/bullets/spare guns for them.
Time to reload the plasma gun? give it to the drone and grab a new one for 1 action. Drone reloads in 4 actions and rinse / repeat if we're totally going down the mass production road. I mean that's how they do it for big games hunters in the old days. give it to the gun caddy guy and have him reload it for you.
Edreynaline wrote: Wow. Fair enough, you are obviously far more well versed in the rules and lore than I. Back to original question though, do you think this means the Tau systems are able to port to power amour or do you think the Marines would keep their personal weapons and perhaps increase the number of plasma weapons available in specific squads to deal with heavier armoured infantry.
Burst cannons for anywhere close-in would be fantastic.
Why not? Superior-quality firepower is an important tenet of the Greater Good.
While special ammo is an advantage for the bolter, the Empire can't (or won't) supply it to rank and file marines. WWithout special ammo, pulse rifles are smaller and lighter while providing better range, firepower and reload speed.
LordBlades wrote: While special ammo is an advantage for the bolter, the Empire can't (or won't) supply it to rank and file marines. WWithout special ammo, pulse rifles are smaller and lighter while providing better range, firepower and reload speed.
They're also easier to maintain and replace when damaged.
LordBlades wrote: While special ammo is an advantage for the bolter, the Empire can't (or won't) supply it to rank and file marines. WWithout special ammo, pulse rifles are smaller and lighter while providing better range, firepower and reload speed.
They're also easier to maintain and replace when damaged.
LordBlades wrote: While special ammo is an advantage for the bolter, the Empire can't (or won't) supply it to rank and file marines. WWithout special ammo, pulse rifles are smaller and lighter while providing better range, firepower and reload speed.
They're also easier to maintain and replace when damaged.
Got a source for that?
The CONSTANT praying and maintenance in fluff that bolters require.
Also, since pulse weapons are everywhere in the Tau Empire, and only special humans get bolters, it's obviously easier to produce than a bolter. otherwise, everyone would have a bolter.
LordBlades wrote: While special ammo is an advantage for the bolter, the Empire can't (or won't) supply it to rank and file marines. WWithout special ammo, pulse rifles are smaller and lighter while providing better range, firepower and reload speed.
They're also easier to maintain and replace when damaged.
Got a source for that?
The CONSTANT praying and maintenance in fluff that bolters require.
Also, since pulse weapons are everywhere in the Tau Empire, and only special humans get bolters, it's obviously easier to produce than a bolter. otherwise, everyone would have a bolter.
LordBlades wrote: While special ammo is an advantage for the bolter, the Empire can't (or won't) supply it to rank and file marines. WWithout special ammo, pulse rifles are smaller and lighter while providing better range, firepower and reload speed.
They're also easier to maintain and replace when damaged.
Got a source for that?
The CONSTANT praying and maintenance in fluff that bolters require.
Also, since pulse weapons are everywhere in the Tau Empire, and only special humans get bolters, it's obviously easier to produce than a bolter. otherwise, everyone would have a bolter.
So you have no answer. ok .
He did give you an answer, just not the one you asked for. Personally, I don't see how asking for a source is relevant in a 40k-fluff thread, since you cannot use solid statements in fluff OR crunch for anything, given the aproach the universe has to canon (which is to say, "anything is canon").
What EmpNorton wrote seem reasonable, given what I've read on the subject.
He did give you an answer, just not the one you asked for. Personally, I don't see how asking for a source is relevant in a 40k-fluff thread, since you cannot use solid statements in fluff OR crunch for anything, given the aproach the universe has to canon (which is to say, "anything is canon").
What EmpNorton wrote seem reasonable, given what I've read on the subject.
I wouldn't have an issue if there was some sort of example stating that Tau equipment is "easier" to maintain and repair. but just blatantly stating that "magic" is hardly an answer or any sort of use to any sort of discussion so i called him out on it.
Reasonable is subjective though. i respectfully disagree.
LordBlades wrote: I disagree. As far as high tech equipment goes, the Imperium is either unable or unwilling to supply high-tech gear in sufficient numbers. I'm not talking about IG, but marines. There's around 1.000.000 of them (1000 chapters of 1000 marines) and yet:
The Mechanicum can't/won't supply them all with the newer marks of Power Armor. Terminator Armor supply is even worse. Iron Hands fir example, despite having a goid relationship to the Mechanicum still have less than normal amount of Terminator Armor 10.000 years after Istvaan.
Stuff like Thunderhawks and Land Raiders are often looked at as chapter relics, hinting that replacing them epuld be quite difficult.Tau never serm to look at Mantas the same way.
Marines are the elite, and so they get the best basic equipment the Imperium can provide- power armor and bolters. WRT newer marks of Power Armor, it's entirely likely that there isn't much impetus to supply it because whatever is currently in circulation among the Astartes is still sufficient.
Also, the thing to remember about Istvaan, is that the Dropsite Massacre crippled the Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard to the point that they weren't just pushed out of the Heresy because they lacked the manpower to actually fight at the scales involved, but to the point that it was a serious consideration that these Legions would actually go extinct- while there is some evidence to suggest the Iron Hands may have been a slightly above-average strength (statistically speaking) Legion, they also ran straight into the guns of the Traitor forces, suffering heavy losses all the while, and tended to not retreat, thus leading to them being wiped out- oh, and the Iron Hands lost their Primarch at Istvaan V, while Vulkan went missing and Corax is the only one who managed to run away.
It's also to be remembered that the Mechanicus (post-Heresy AdMech is actually an "s" on the end, and not an "m") is by far not a monolithic power bloc, like everything else in the Imperium, and so the issues of supply are one of "it depends"- how close is a Chapter to a Forge World, are they on good terms with that Forge World, are they on good terms with the AdMech at all, do they have their own sufficiently equipped Chapter Forge that they don't ask for anything from the local Forge Worlds; things like that.
Oh, and Terminator armor's should iconography, the Crux Terminatus, supposedly has a fragment of the Emperor's armor shoved in it, so presumably that would actually put a hard limit on how many Terminator suits can actually be produced- assuming that there is some kind of traditional requirement that Terminator armor contain such a fragment, and that the Astartes chapters will generally pass on suits without such.
I'd forgotten that odd bit of trivia. Do you think this trend continued in earnest through all foundings or did it just become apocryphal fact?
He did give you an answer, just not the one you asked for. Personally, I don't see how asking for a source is relevant in a 40k-fluff thread, since you cannot use solid statements in fluff OR crunch for anything, given the aproach the universe has to canon (which is to say, "anything is canon").
What EmpNorton wrote seem reasonable, given what I've read on the subject.
I wouldn't have an issue if there was some sort of example stating that Tau equipment is "easier" to maintain and repair. but just blatantly stating that "magic" is hardly an answer or any sort of use to any sort of discussion so i called him out on it.
Reasonable is subjective though. i respectfully disagree.
... is the constant attention that bolters require in fluff merely mindless nonsense Space marines go through?
... do you think that Guardsmen are issued lasguns because no one in the AM has figured out that the bolter is a stronger weapon?
He did give you an answer, just not the one you asked for. Personally, I don't see how asking for a source is relevant in a 40k-fluff thread, since you cannot use solid statements in fluff OR crunch for anything, given the aproach the universe has to canon (which is to say, "anything is canon").
What EmpNorton wrote seem reasonable, given what I've read on the subject.
I wouldn't have an issue if there was some sort of example stating that Tau equipment is "easier" to maintain and repair. but just blatantly stating that "magic" is hardly an answer or any sort of use to any sort of discussion so i called him out on it.
Reasonable is subjective though. i respectfully disagree.
... is the constant attention that bolters require in fluff merely mindless nonsense Space marines go through?
... do you think that Guardsmen are issued lasguns because no one in the AM has figured out that the bolter is a stronger weapon?
What is your point we are talking about how Pulse weapons are supposedly easier to maintain and repair.
He did give you an answer, just not the one you asked for. Personally, I don't see how asking for a source is relevant in a 40k-fluff thread, since you cannot use solid statements in fluff OR crunch for anything, given the aproach the universe has to canon (which is to say, "anything is canon").
What EmpNorton wrote seem reasonable, given what I've read on the subject.
I wouldn't have an issue if there was some sort of example stating that Tau equipment is "easier" to maintain and repair. but just blatantly stating that "magic" is hardly an answer or any sort of use to any sort of discussion so i called him out on it.
Reasonable is subjective though. i respectfully disagree.
... is the constant attention that bolters require in fluff merely mindless nonsense Space marines go through?
... do you think that Guardsmen are issued lasguns because no one in the AM has figured out that the bolter is a stronger weapon?
What is your point we are talking about how Pulse weapons are supposedly easier to maintain and repair.
Maintain and REPLACE were my exact words.
"How easy is x to make" obviously sits at the center of how easy it is to replace something. As we've stated, every Fire Warrior carries one of two weapons and it isn't often a pulse carbine. In the IoM, only a handful of elite organizations get bolters. Obviously, the Tau are better at making pulse rifles than the IoM is at making bolters, otherwise their rank and file would have bolters instead of flashlights.
As for maintenance, bolters seem to require a lot of regular work to keep them functional.
I'm unaware of any place indicating Tau need a similar amount of time to keep their pulse rifles operational.
"How easy is x to make" obviously sits at the center of how easy it is to replace something. As we've stated, every Fire Warrior carries one of two weapons and it isn't often a pulse carbine. In the IoM, only a handful of elite organizations get bolters. Obviously, the Tau are better at making pulse rifles than the IoM is at making bolters, otherwise their rank and file would have bolters instead of flashlights.
As for maintenance, bolters seem to require a lot of regular work to keep them functional.
I'm unaware of any place indicating Tau need a similar amount of time to keep their pulse rifles operational.
Oh sorry then to replace.
As to IoMs capacity for making bolters. you do realize the scopes we are talking about? Every fire warrior may have a Pulse weapon but How many fire warriors are there? compared to the full grunt of the imperial meat shields. You give your Standard troop a Basic Renewable weapons because there job isnt to run up and kill all the things. the guardsmen are there to sit hold and fortify objectives till they are told to move to the next one. its why only marines have bolters. because they are the ones that are doing in feet first behind enemy lines to get gak done.
Otherwise if every guardsmen had a bolter, think of the logistics and raw material it would take to produce all that.
Edit: Quote fail Edit2: As well IF we are talking about Ease of Maintaining and replacing damaged Pulse weapons. do you have some sort of quote of there actual manufacturing practices? turn out and materials consumption? because if all of that is so superior why dont they hand over a butt load of better pulse equipment to the kroot and take over the sector already? they seem like they would be the best with carbine weapons considering they are able to infiltrate into areas and do fantastic hit and run maneuvers.
"How easy is x to make" obviously sits at the center of how easy it is to replace something. As we've stated, every Fire Warrior carries one of two weapons and it isn't often a pulse carbine. In the IoM, only a handful of elite organizations get bolters. Obviously, the Tau are better at making pulse rifles than the IoM is at making bolters, otherwise their rank and file would have bolters instead of flashlights.
As for maintenance, bolters seem to require a lot of regular work to keep them functional.
I'm unaware of any place indicating Tau need a similar amount of time to keep their pulse rifles operational.
Oh sorry then to replace.
As to IoMs capacity for making bolters. you do realize the scopes we are talking about? Every fire warrior may have a Pulse weapon but How many fire warriors are there? compared to the full grunt of the imperial meat shields.
You give your Standard troop a Basic Renewable weapons because there job isnt to run up and kill all the things. the guardsmen are there to sit hold and fortify objectives till they are told to move to the next one. its why only marines have bolters. because they are the ones that are doing in feet first behind enemy lines to get gak done.
Otherwise if every guardsmen had a bolter, think of the logistics and raw material it would take to produce all that.
Edit: Quote fail
It happens to everyone.
I'm guessing that somewhere between .1% and .01% of the IoM is in the Guard, based on modern numbers and the random lack of automation in some areas (and the number of ferral worlds, etc) and the large amount of automation in others.
The Tau, based on their very high level of automation across all areas of society, field at least 1% and maybe as high as 20-25% of their society as troops.
What we know absolutely for certain is that the Tau field a larger % of their population as soldiers.
While doing so, they provide the base-line grunt, the Fire Warrior, with a weapon superior to that issued to the IoM's elite forces.
Given the decentralized nature of Septs compared to the Imperium's Forge World-based production system, it seems fair to say the Tau will maintain their ability to equip their soldiers as well as they acquire more worlds.
If you are arguing that the Tau equip themselves so well because the Imperium is grossly inefficient ("As to IoMs capacity for making bolters. you do realize the scopes we are talking about?") then you probably have a point. The Imperial bureaucracy is beyond incompetent. The Tau Empire isn't. In theory, economy of scale is something that should be working in the Imperium's favor, is it not? Bolters aren't exactly made of unobtanium, are they?
What i am saying is that Just because you can equip every single person with Bolters and super special ammunition doesn't mean its always going to be worth it or effective in any sense.
By scope Im saying its easier to ship replacements from only a few sectors away rather than a few star systems.
Economy of scale means bubkis when they have an equal scale of enemies constantly attacking.
Edit: As well note that if we are going by fluff. Bolt weapons would be doing FAR more damage to its current 4/5. at least as far as the HH is concerned.
Edit: As well note that if we are going by fluff. Bolt weapons would be doing FAR more damage to its current 4/5. at least as far as the HH is concerned.
I don't think so. 4/5 seems about right since hardly anything but a SM is better than T3 Sv 5+
Edit: As well note that if we are going by fluff. Bolt weapons would be doing FAR more damage to its current 4/5. at least as far as the HH is concerned.
I don't think so. 4/5 seems about right since hardly anything but a SM is better than T3 Sv 5+
HH has bolters rip through rowboat girlyman like its no biggy as well he even stated that a single shot to or near his head would of killed him
da primerib girlyman him self while wearing his armor. edit: (unremembered empire)
Desubot wrote: What i am saying is that Just because you can equip every single person with Bolters and super special ammunition doesn't mean its always going to be worth it or effective in any sense.
By scope Im saying its easier to ship replacements from only a few sectors away rather than a few star systems.
Economy of scale means bubkis when they have an equal scale of enemies constantly attacking.
Actually, it should still mean something. After all, the wars the IoM fights do have fronts. It's difficult for most enemies to show up in the middle of a peaceful Imperial world with enough force to start sacking other worlds after the first.
... and I'm pretty sure a bolter is always more effective than a lasgun. The only time where they're equally bad is against things that are T8+ or AV11+.
Edit: As well note that if we are going by fluff. Bolt weapons would be doing FAR more damage to its current 4/5. at least as far as the HH is concerned.
I don't think so. 4/5 seems about right since hardly anything but a SM is better than T3 Sv 5+
HH has bolters rip through rowboat girlyman like its no biggy as well he even stated that a single shot to or near his head would of killed him
da primerib girlyman him self while wearing his armor. edit: (unremembered empire)
As has been stated, Eternal Warrior means that regardless of how much sense it makes, single shots can't kill primarchs. If you sat Girlyman in a chair, put a bolter to his head and fired, it'd jam, every single time.
Why? EW.
Nevermind it doesn't make sense, it just happens, no matter how many bolters you shoot at him. They'll keep jamming until he escapes or is rescued.
In 30k, there is no such thing as a direct hit that is direct enough to kill a primarch.
Shidank wrote: I'd forgotten that odd bit of trivia. Do you think this trend continued in earnest through all foundings or did it just become apocryphal fact?
No idea; I'm not entirely sure if it's still part of the fluff that that's actually a "true fact", or if its an apocryphal detail that came out of the aftermath of the Heresy and the Scouring.
"How easy is x to make" obviously sits at the center of how easy it is to replace something. As we've stated, every Fire Warrior carries one of two weapons and it isn't often a pulse carbine. In the IoM, only a handful of elite organizations get bolters. Obviously, the Tau are better at making pulse rifles than the IoM is at making bolters, otherwise their rank and file would have bolters instead of flashlights.
As for maintenance, bolters seem to require a lot of regular work to keep them functional.
I'm unaware of any place indicating Tau need a similar amount of time to keep their pulse rifles operational.
Oh sorry then to replace.
As to IoMs capacity for making bolters. you do realize the scopes we are talking about? Every fire warrior may have a Pulse weapon but How many fire warriors are there? compared to the full grunt of the imperial meat shields.
You give your Standard troop a Basic Renewable weapons because there job isnt to run up and kill all the things. the guardsmen are there to sit hold and fortify objectives till they are told to move to the next one. its why only marines have bolters. because they are the ones that are doing in feet first behind enemy lines to get gak done.
Otherwise if every guardsmen had a bolter, think of the logistics and raw material it would take to produce all that.
Edit: Quote fail
It happens to everyone.
I'm guessing that somewhere between .1% and .01% of the IoM is in the Guard, based on modern numbers and the random lack of automation in some areas (and the number of ferral worlds, etc) and the large amount of automation in others.
The Tau, based on their very high level of automation across all areas of society, field at least 1% and maybe as high as 20-25% of their society as troops.
What we know absolutely for certain is that the Tau field a larger % of their population as soldiers.
While doing so, they provide the base-line grunt, the Fire Warrior, with a weapon superior to that issued to the IoM's elite forces.
Given the decentralized nature of Septs compared to the Imperium's Forge World-based production system, it seems fair to say the Tau will maintain their ability to equip their soldiers as well as they acquire more worlds.
If you are arguing that the Tau equip themselves so well because the Imperium is grossly inefficient ("As to IoMs capacity for making bolters. you do realize the scopes we are talking about?") then you probably have a point. The Imperial bureaucracy is beyond incompetent. The Tau Empire isn't. In theory, economy of scale is something that should be working in the Imperium's favor, is it not? Bolters aren't exactly made of unobtanium, are they?
Okay, let's play the number game again:
Imperium is often quoted as a "million worlds". Let's take that as a factual statement, even though the Imperium is very likely a few orders of magnitude larger. Let's say that each world has a population of 1 billion people (a quite conservative average, in fact)
This is a total empire-wide population of 1,000,000,000,000,000; or 1 quadrillion people. We'll lowball things and say that Imperial Guard conscription is 0.01%, or ~1 Guardsman per 100 citizens.
This is still 10 trillion soldiers (!).
The Lasgun is in fact the superior weapon for that many soldiers, because the supply train for the Lasguns consists primarily of "sunlight and/or campfires"- the powerpacks for a Lasgun are field rechargeable by leaving them in the sun! For a force of 10 trillion soldiers spread across a million worlds, the removal of the requirement of supplying ammunition to their basic service rifles is a huge deal.
There's a reason why that thread about "one thing that the modern military would mass-produce from 40K" has established a consensus that it would be the lasgun. Not Power Armor, not Pulse weapons, not Bolters, not Stealthsuits.
Lasguns.
There's an old saying about that- amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. Or at least something to that effect.
Desubot wrote: What i am saying is that Just because you can equip every single person with Bolters and super special ammunition doesn't mean its always going to be worth it or effective in any sense.
By scope Im saying its easier to ship replacements from only a few sectors away rather than a few star systems.
Economy of scale means bubkis when they have an equal scale of enemies constantly attacking.
Actually, it should still mean something. After all, the wars the IoM fights do have fronts. It's difficult for most enemies to show up in the middle of a peaceful Imperial world with enough force to start sacking other worlds after the first.
... and I'm pretty sure a bolter is always more effective than a lasgun. The only time where they're equally bad is against things that are T8+ or AV11+.
Edit: As well note that if we are going by fluff. Bolt weapons would be doing FAR more damage to its current 4/5. at least as far as the HH is concerned.
I don't think so. 4/5 seems about right since hardly anything but a SM is better than T3 Sv 5+
HH has bolters rip through rowboat girlyman like its no biggy as well he even stated that a single shot to or near his head would of killed him
da primerib girlyman him self while wearing his armor. edit: (unremembered empire)
As has been stated, Eternal Warrior means that regardless of how much sense it makes, single shots can't kill primarchs. If you sat Girlyman in a chair, put a bolter to his head and fired, it'd jam, every single time.
Why? EW.
Nevermind it doesn't make sense, it just happens, no matter how many bolters you shoot at him. They'll keep jamming until he escapes or is rescued.
In 30k, there is no such thing as a direct hit that is direct enough to kill a primarch.
? Why do you keep equating tabletop stats to fluff? I thought it was fairly obvious that the model rules were an abstraction of what they're actually like in the fluff, not direct equivalents. By your logic a Lord Commissar would survive a headshot fluffwise (assuming his refractor field fails) from a pulse fire round because he has 3 wounds and S5 isn't enough to insta-kill him on the TT.
The other thing to remember is that the Imperium follows hide-bound traditions as holy writ. Guardsmen are not equipped with boltguns because those weapons were reserved for the Emperor's Angels of Death, by the words of the Emperor, Himself. The lowly Guardsman doesn't deserve such a weapon, because the Emperor did not say that the Imperial Army was also going to be armed with the mightiest of weapons and gird in the strongest of armor.
Imperium is often quoted as a "million worlds". Let's take that as a factual statement, even though the Imperium is very likely a few orders of magnitude larger. Let's say that each world has a population of 1 billion people (a quite conservative average, in fact)
This is a total empire-wide population of 1,000,000,000,000,000; or 1 quadrillion people. We'll lowball things and say that Imperial Guard conscription is 0.01%, or ~1 Guardsman per 100 citizens.
This is still 10 trillion soldiers (!).
The Lasgun is in fact the superior weapon for that many soldiers, because the supply train for the Lasguns consists primarily of "sunlight and/or campfires"- the powerpacks for a Lasgun are field rechargeable by leaving them in the sun! For a force of 10 trillion soldiers spread across a million worlds, the removal of the requirement of supplying ammunition to their basic service rifles is a huge deal.
There's a reason why that thread about "one thing that the modern military would mass-produce from 40K" has established a consensus that it would be the lasgun. Not Power Armor, not Pulse weapons, not Bolters, not Stealthsuits.
Lasguns.
There's an old saying about that- amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. Or at least something to that effect.
In theory, with a number of worlds that large, don't the manufacturing capabilities and raw resources scale up as well?
The Tau are obviously able to supply their smaller army- which constitutes a larger % of its population- with a smaller industrial base and fewer resources- very well.
Because of the square-cube law, the Imperium should also have less space it has to defend, since a larger portion of it is on the inside, away from fronts like the Eye of Terror, the Damocles Gulf, etc.
? Why do you keep equating tabletop stats to fluff? I thought it was fairly obvious that the model rules were an abstraction of what they're actually like in the fluff, not direct equivalents. By your logic a Lord Commissar would survive a headshot fluffwise (assuming his refractor field fails) from a pulse fire round because he has 3 wounds and S5 isn't enough to insta-kill him on the TT.
Can you cite a single example in fluff where an unarmed character with EW was killed by a headshot?
Desubot wrote: [
Edit2: As well IF we are talking about Ease of Maintaining and replacing damaged Pulse weapons. do you have some sort of quote of there actual manufacturing practices? turn out and materials consumption? because if all of that is so superior why dont they hand over a butt load of better pulse equipment to the kroot and take over the sector already? they seem like they would be the best with carbine weapons considering they are able to infiltrate into areas and do fantastic hit and run maneuvers.
Kroot deliberately keep themselves low-tech so.it's highly likely they flat out refused pulse carbines, but were persuaded to accept some upgrades to their rifle.
The engineer in me finds higjly unlikely that the bastardized hybrid that kroot rifle currently is (used to be solid shot, now fires pulse, but presumably can still chamber solid sniper rounds) is easier to manufacture than a pulse carbine.
"How easy is x to make" obviously sits at the center of how easy it is to replace something. As we've stated, every Fire Warrior carries one of two weapons and it isn't often a pulse carbine. In the IoM, only a handful of elite organizations get bolters. Obviously, the Tau are better at making pulse rifles than the IoM is at making bolters, otherwise their rank and file would have bolters instead of flashlights.
As for maintenance, bolters seem to require a lot of regular work to keep them functional.
I'm unaware of any place indicating Tau need a similar amount of time to keep their pulse rifles operational.
Oh sorry then to replace.
As to IoMs capacity for making bolters. you do realize the scopes we are talking about? Every fire warrior may have a Pulse weapon but How many fire warriors are there? compared to the full grunt of the imperial meat shields.
You give your Standard troop a Basic Renewable weapons because there job isnt to run up and kill all the things. the guardsmen are there to sit hold and fortify objectives till they are told to move to the next one. its why only marines have bolters. because they are the ones that are doing in feet first behind enemy lines to get gak done.
Otherwise if every guardsmen had a bolter, think of the logistics and raw material it would take to produce all that.
Edit: Quote fail
It happens to everyone.
I'm guessing that somewhere between .1% and .01% of the IoM is in the Guard, based on modern numbers and the random lack of automation in some areas (and the number of ferral worlds, etc) and the large amount of automation in others.
Your numbers are way off. Every planet in the Imperium, even the feral ones, has to supply a tithe of manpower (unless they are ranked as Aptus Non, such as SM homeworlds and Forgeworlds) to the Imperial Guard. A tithe being one-tenth of something, implies that every world is supposed to supply one-tenth of its population for the Imperial Guard. This was even mentioned directly in one of the IG codices (5th or 6th iirc)
EmpNortonII wrote: The Tau, based on their very high level of automation across all areas of society, field at least 1% and maybe as high as 20-25% of their society as troops.
What we know absolutely for certain is that the Tau field a larger % of their population as soldiers.
So what?
Look at the size of the Tau Empire:
Compare this to the 500 worlds of Ultramar, or galaxy-spanning Imperium of a million worlds. Even if the Tau had 100% of their population as troops, their forces would still be insignificant next to those of the Imperium.
EmpNortonII wrote: If you are arguing that the Tau equip themselves so well because the Imperium is grossly inefficient ("As to IoMs capacity for making bolters. you do realize the scopes we are talking about?") then you probably have a point. The Imperial bureaucracy is beyond incompetent. The Tau Empire isn't. In theory, economy of scale is something that should be working in the Imperium's favor, is it not? Bolters aren't exactly made of unobtanium, are they?
Give the Tau a galaxy-spanning empire with distances so huge as to be inconceivable, 10,000 years of bureaucracy and constant existential threats, a huge civil war that devastates most of the Tau Empire, takes away the Ethereal caste and destroys much of the technological knowledge the Tau have. Let us see how effective the Tau Empire still is after that. The Imperium has been through all that and still manages to not only keep itself together but even dominate the galaxy. I highly wonder whether the Tau would be just as succesful.
Give the Tau a galaxy-spanning empire with distances so huge as to be inconceivable, 10,000 years of bureaucracy and constant existential threats, a huge civil war that devastates most of the Tau Empire, takes away the Ethereal caste and destroys much of the technological knowledge the Tau have. Let us see how effective the Tau Empire still is after that. The Imperium has been through all that and still manages to not only keep itself together but even dominate the galaxy. I highly wonder whether the Tau would be just as succesful.
They probably would, as Tau society as a whole is a lot more solidly built than the Imperial one. Tau thrive through cooperation. Imperium thrives through fear of a ruling elite and their means of enforcement (Inquisiton and Space Marines mainly).
Tau is also largely unburdened by counterproductive beliefs like 'thou shalt not innovate' and 'different is bad just because, mkay?'
Edit: The loss of the technologucal knowledge of the Imperium was also due to the inefficient model that had a handful of individuals hoard most of it. To cause significant loss of Tau knowledge you would have to kill off most of the Earth Caste (so the majority of Tau population).
One. Bolters DO require more maintenance than pulse rifles. Aside from the obvious (they contain many moving parts where as Pulse rifles have few) Tau fire warriors spend less time per day in maintenance than SM do.
We know this because it's explained many times in fluff that Tau technology is designed so that parts may be quickly and easily swapped. Thus, unlike a bolter, if a pulse rifle breaks, you don't have to manufacture a whole new pulse rifle, you just remove the broken component. Thus, by nature, less maintenance and a lightened load on your manufacturing capabilities.
Two: there have been pieces of fluff that have litterally said that "The greatest advantage of a boltgun is that it is recoiless, and because of this tremendous recoil and weight, only space marines may use it."
No, seriously, GW contradicts in the same sentence.
One of the few constants is that boltgun ammo of any type is fairly rare, and the manufacture is heavily regulated. ('Blind rounds' is the correct, IIRC, term for an unapproved boltgun round, referring to the fact that each authorized round is hand stamped with an aquilla by a magos or above) . Most specialist boltgun rounds are only made on a few forgeworlds in the entire imperium, and some of those are no longer producing, or require materials esoteric even by 40k standards (psykannon anyone?).
Plasmagun ammunition can be made by any starship fitted with the right equipment. This includes non-warp capable starships.
In theory, this means that it can be produced in amounts greater than the Imperium's capacity to transport it.
Which brings us to 'Why the Lasgun for the guard instead of bolters'?
Simple, it's rechargeable and reasonable dependable. You don't need to transport billions of them to every front, the guardsman can simply recharge the power packs he has on his person.
Give the Tau a galaxy-spanning empire with distances so huge as to be inconceivable, 10,000 years of bureaucracy and constant existential threats, a huge civil war that devastates most of the Tau Empire, takes away the Ethereal caste and destroys much of the technological knowledge the Tau have. Let us see how effective the Tau Empire still is after that. The Imperium has been through all that and still manages to not only keep itself together but even dominate the galaxy. I highly wonder whether the Tau would be just as succesful.
They probably would, as Tau society as a whole is a lot more solidly built than the Imperial one. Tau thrive through cooperation. Imperium thrives through fear of a ruling elite and their means of enforcement (Inquisiton and Space Marines mainly).
Tau is also largely unburdened by counterproductive beliefs like 'thou shalt not innovate' and 'different is bad just because, mkay?'
Edit: The loss of the technologucal knowledge of the Imperium was also due to the inefficient model that had a handful of individuals hoard most of it. To cause significant loss of Tau knowledge you would have to kill off most of the Earth Caste (so the majority of Tau population).
The loss of technological knowledge has nothing to do with Imperial policy, and everything to do with the Age of Strife/Long Night and then the not-that-long-after Horus Heresy.
Keep in mind that the Crusade-Era Imperium was very secular- this whole "no innovate" and "different is bad" thing you're spouting off didn't exist (and really still doesn't). Also keep in mind that the Imperium isn't really a "ruling elite are scary bastards" thing; it's a (surprisingly clever) feudal system. More-or-less, you send goodies up the chain to the bosspeople, and the bosspeople send protection down the chain when you need it. Or they send punishment if you don't send the goodies.
That's not "rule by fear". That's feudalism.
Also, the Earth Caste isn't just scientists/researchers/engineers. The majority of the Earth Caste isn't much different from a manufactorum worker in terms of technical literacy- they probably understand a little bit better the actions they take on the assembly line, but you don't have to understand the theoretical underpinnings of a technical device in order to put it together. So no, having to kill "the majority" of the Earth Caste isn't required to destroy significant amounts of Tau technical aptitude.
So here, have this excellent explanation of Imperial science, and why it doesn't look like modern science (which Tau science resembles a lot more closely). It's not mine, but it's an excellent (if rather long and expletive-laden) explanation:
Spoiler:
The Mechanicus does NOT have the technology. They haven't been living on some fancy paradise planet since pre-Fall. Mars is an anarchic nightmare shithole the moment you leave the safe zones into the kilometres of labyrinthine corridors beneath it full of rogue machinery, self-aware and malevolent AI from before the Fall, and the daemon programs of the Heresy. EVERYTHING in the databases is fethed. The databases are fragmented over the entire surface to the extent that it would be impossible to see one tenth of the total files in the ludicrously extended life of a Magos even assuming that they are completely safe to visit. And they are not.
The files have been corrupted into madness by the Fall, and the unleashing of the most potent informational warfare systems ever to exist to defeat the Iron Men. Nearly all of Mars was rendered uninhabitable, what they live in now is built on the top of the ruins. They send archeotech expeditions in to find gak, nearly all of them never come back. The sheer number of rogue war machine running around in there is sufficient to rape the mind. Then came the Heresy, which was not earth-exclusive. Mars as the second most critical planet in the Imperium was the site of fighting nearly as ferocious as on Terra, with Mechanicus loyalists and Hereteks fighting tooth, nail, and mechadendrite everywhere. Ancient machines were unleashed, viruses both normal and daemonic unleashed into all the computer systems. Nearly every single stored record on Mars was rendered unusable, and those that survived are half the time self-aware and don't like you, or daemonic and actively try to kill you.
If you come back with a schematic, it is almost certainly gibberish, and if it isn't, it's probably corrupted into uselessness. If it does come back whole it was probably malevolently fethed with so that instead of a Lasgun power cell it's a fething grenade set to detonate the second you finish building it. Why do you think they want off-world STCs so damned much if they had them all here? The fething Heresy is why. Off-world they only have to contend with the Fall's war and its effects on the machinery plus twenty thousand years of degradation with no maintenance. But at least off-world it'll probably just not work instead of actively seeking to kill you.
Why do you think they seek to placate the Machine Spirit? It's because it exists. The fragments of trillions of self-aware programs, flourishing during the Dark Age of Technology and shattered by Man in his war with the Iron men, imprisoning the few who had not set themselves irrevocably into the machinery, a prison smashed wide open by the Heresy. Everything that can hold programming in the Imperium has a shard of a program in it. EVERYTHING. And you'd better fething please it or it will do everything in its power to make your day gak. Sure, if it's a Lasgun it'll just not work or start shooting off rounds by itself, but if you piss off a Land Raider you can say bye-bye to half a continent. They apply these principles to things without spirits by habit, since they're so used to dealing with tanks that if not talked to just right might go rogue and annihilate the Manufactorum before they can be killed.
This is why they do not like ANYONE fething with technology, because it is so rare to find anything that just works it is critical it not be compromised. That, and they do not have the actual knowledge to feth with it intelligently, just through experimentation, which inevitably leads to slaughter. Pressing buttons to see what works is fine in a 21st century computer, but it is a very stupid thing to do at the helm of a 410th century starship with the destructive power to end solar systems. The entire knowledge base of humanity was lost. Not forgotten, but outright lost. Everything at all, poof. Nobody knows anything because the Fall fethed everything up and the Heresy double-fethed it. To rebuild the theoretical framework needed to design new technologies that don't kill everyone near them would require starting from the ground up. They don't have the time, they never have, and they never will.
This gets on to the point of war and what it does to technology. Someone will parrot that it makes it go much faster. Yes, it makes practical applications of technology go much faster. It also utterly stops all research on the scientific theories behind those technologies. This means that when war chugs along for a decade or two things get done. It means when it goes on too long you run out of theories to turn into technologies, and then you run out of technologies to apply. You stagnate. When you have been fighting in a war for survival in a drastically overextended empire, this is what happens. You are desperate for any extra materiel that can possibly be produced. Half your entire fething military might went rogue, smashed the half that stayed, leaving you with the tattered shreds of a war machine to keep hold of an empire that was reaching straining point with an army far larger. There is no time for the sort of applied research programs that took Man twenty five thousand years to develop, in a time of unprecedented growth and prosperity.
This is also why the Adeptus Mechanicus insists on cargo cultism. It's because when you are dealing with things you barely understand because everything you knew about them was destroyed it is the safest and most reliable option. The rituals do not exists for mysticism, they exist because they are the most practical means of building, repairing and maintaining the equipment they have with the knowledge surviving. You don't understand why pressing that button makes it go, because the manual tried to take over your brain and the copies are all unreadable and the research base that would let you reverse-engineer it does not exist and cannot be built.
Why are the Tau doing so well with their technology? Because they had peace. Eight thousand years unmolested by any enemy and they were helped the entire time by the most advanced biological race in the galaxy. Give the Imperium eight thousand years of peace and I can guarantee you it will be harder than it was during the Great Crusade.
Since some still don't get the idea, try this:
Build a library, fill it with all human knowledge. You take it elsewhere when you need a book from it, but the book is only a simplified copy. You don't understand the real book, and you don't need to. Nobody takes the real books anywhere because why would you, when there's a whole library there?
Now that library goes rogue and the maintenance machinery starts killing everyone any-fething-where near it. Where the feth did they all come from, you swear to god there weren't this many, and there weren't because they're using the library's information to fight their war. The government fights a battle that destroys the planet against these robots and tears apart the library to stop them using it, only to be destroyed in the process. The library is leveled, cast into flames, every book burned and every computer virus-laden.
Then comes a man who worked there. He talks to the few surviving library workers, assembles their information, and starts rebuilding a city around the library and expanding it as the librarians find little scraps of paper and fragmented bits of files that stuck together just right read something. They rebuild a library from scrap on the ashes of the old. It isn't a shadow on the glory of the old, but it is all they have.
Then the city turns on itself, kills its master, and the librarians turn to rage. Half of them kill the other half and destroy the remnants of the library because where they're going they won't need science. Everything burns, and the city is left to a scattered few survivors, walls open to the world, with the hungry predators circling.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is the sole surviving librarian, desperately scrabbling through the ashes of paper and splinters of hard drives for anything to help him and the city he needs to survive just a second longer.
The Imperium isn't grim because things suck by choice and could be fine if a sensible person came along. That sensible person wouldn't survive fifty seconds of the reality. The Imperium is grim because every single gak decision, every single sacrifice, every single death, every single man woman and child suffering a gak life in the worst conditions imaginable, is the absolute best that can be done. It is a study of the worst happening to everyone and what part of your humanity must be sacrificed today just to stand a chance of survival, and all it asks is whether or not it would have perhaps been better to die.
And here's one that explains Mechanicus religion (shorter but also expletive-laden):
Spoiler:
Children, I'm fething fed up with your gak. Cult Mechanicus IS NOT a replacement of rational thought with religion for the sake of operating machines.It's a (in-universe) developed philosophy of collective rationalism. AdMechs don't throw their critical thinking out of the window. They just already took this thinking, put it on a pedestal, brought it to it's apex (Dark Age), suffered for it, suffered for it again (HorusHeresy, Schism of Mars), then looked at it and asked : "What do we do now?" Every Mechanicum is a rationalist, in a meaning that when he goes through all the critical thinking to the basic reason of his existence, he takes on the dogma of Quest for Knowledge. That he exists to Rationalize the Universe, move towards learning and understanding the Universe and it's laws. It's also a collective quest - adept doesn't seek knowledge just for himself, he sees all the Adeptus Mechanicus as one single huge Gnostical Engine, a Machine of Comprehension designed to learn. He's just a single little gear in the heart of enormous Over-Intellect gathering and producing knowledge.
For what sake? AdMechs thought a lot about this question, and took one answer.
For the sake of Mankind.
Now THIS is where gak gets religious.
As of it now, humanity utilizes science for egoistical purposes of survival (scientists need something to eat) and/or domination, which can be understood by every human through his instincts. Society of Mars, however, got devoid of this motivators, as they dropped their human instincts, so they had to find new goals. This is where the Schism takes roots, as well as the "Cult" part. Every rational human can tell you that objectively life has no meaning. Accepting that fact is what brought the galaxy Necrons and Iron Men. AdMechs knew that this is what they wish to avoid. And the most effective way to avoid that is to walk the irrational way and put a sense for your existence through Faith.
This is what they did.
They are the fanatics in the sense that they BELIEVE that Universe CAN be comprehended, while they have 0 proof of that. They BELIEVE that critical thinking works, while living in a Galaxy that laughs at any attempts of rationalization. They BELIEVE that Quest for Knowledge can be completed. And it this faith, they are being paradoxical and irrational. And they know it. Lets have a look at Universal Laws, that Mechanicum use as the foundation of their philosophy.
The Mysteries
01. Life is directed motion.
This gives a definition to "life", as existence of individual. A definition that basically says "Only that thing which irrationally takes a (faith) direction for it's way can be called a Living Thing".
02. The spirit is the spark of life.
Here they recognize the illogical existence of Souls and Warp, and their defining roles in being representation of one's beliefs.
03. Sentience is the ability to learn the value of knowledge.
04. Intellect is the understanding of knowledge.
05. Sentience is the basest form of Intellect.
Here they define ability for rational thinking.
06. Understanding is the True Path to Comprehension.
07. Comprehension is the key to all things.
And HERE they put this thinking as their Way to exist.
08. The Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all.
And establish an ideal, to which they are heading.
At which point we see that there's a lot of very good reasons as to why the AdMech does the things that it does.
One. Bolters DO require more maintenance than pulse rifles. Aside from the obvious (they contain many moving parts where as Pulse rifles have few) Tau fire warriors spend less time per day in maintenance than SM do.
We know this because it's explained many times in fluff that Tau technology is designed so that parts may be quickly and easily swapped. Thus, unlike a bolter, if a pulse rifle breaks, you don't have to manufacture a whole new pulse rifle, you just remove the broken component. Thus, by nature, less maintenance and a lightened load on your manufacturing capabilities.
Two: there have been pieces of fluff that have litterally said that "The greatest advantage of a boltgun is that it is recoiless, and because of this tremendous recoil and weight, only space marines may use it."
No, seriously, GW contradicts in the same sentence.
One of the few constants is that boltgun ammo of any type is fairly rare, and the manufacture is heavily regulated. ('Blind rounds' is the correct, IIRC, term for an unapproved boltgun round, referring to the fact that each authorized round is hand stamped with an aquilla by a magos or above) . Most specialist boltgun rounds are only made on a few forgeworlds in the entire imperium, and some of those are no longer producing, or require materials esoteric even by 40k standards (psykannon anyone?).
Plasmagun ammunition can be made by any starship fitted with the right equipment. This includes non-warp capable starships.
In theory, this means that it can be produced in amounts greater than the Imperium's capacity to transport it.
Which brings us to 'Why the Lasgun for the guard instead of bolters'?
Simple, it's rechargeable and reasonable dependable. You don't need to transport billions of them to every front, the guardsman can simply recharge the power packs he has on his person.
GeeDubs inconsistency aside, Bolters are also not a weapon that consists of "if it breaks, replace it". If anything, it'd probably be the other way around- Astartes Bolters have to be sturdy enough to handle the 7-8' tall posthuman supersoldiers manhandling them into things that aren't necessarily part of the user's manual.
Moreover, part of the reason that an Astartes spends a lot of time maintaining his own bolter, is because that's basically most of his day. Remember, Space Marines have only one job: kill things. So they spend most-to-all of their times getting really good at that. That includes a lot of time on a shooting range, which would in turn require a lot of weapon maintenance. There's also the slight tidbit that Brother Genericus the Generic Marine maintains his own gun. Fire Warriors... AFAIK Fire Warrior's don't maintain their own weapons to nearly the same degree that a Marine would.
GeeDubs inconsistency aside, Bolters are also not a weapon that consists of "if it breaks, replace it". If anything, it'd probably be the other way around- Astartes Bolters have to be sturdy enough to handle the 7-8' tall posthuman supersoldiers manhandling them into things that aren't necessarily part of the user's manual.
My point about it breaking still stands though. Example, A Tiger can take a bigger beating from bigger guns than a Sherman can and remain functional. But a Sherman can have the transmission blown entirely out of the tank and be operational again in four or five hours, depending on how far you are from the nearest supply dump that has the parts. A Sherman is four bolts from a transmission transplant.
The Tiger taking a similar hit is done. You'd have to put it on a train to someplace that can rebuild the tank, because the same repair requires that the tank be totally torn down and rebuilt. As in totally disassembled.
Moreover, part of the reason that an Astartes spends a lot of time maintaining his own bolter, is because that's basically most of his day. Remember, Space Marines have only one job: kill things. So they spend most-to-all of their times getting really good at that. That includes a lot of time on a shooting range, which would in turn require a lot of weapon maintenance. There's also the slight tidbit that Brother Genericus the Generic Marine maintains his own gun. Fire Warriors... AFAIK Fire Warrior's don't maintain their own weapons to nearly the same degree that a Marine would.
Nor would they have to. And quite a few chapters might contest that first supposition, that the only purpose of Space Marines is to kill things. Mind you, they're really, really good at it. but they do have other roles. (much like real special forces do things besides kill).
Killing, capture, psychological warfare, recon, guard duty, it's all war in the end. And that's what they are made for. Which is why they are so good at it.
Give the Tau a galaxy-spanning empire with distances so huge as to be inconceivable, 10,000 years of bureaucracy and constant existential threats, a huge civil war that devastates most of the Tau Empire, takes away the Ethereal caste and destroys much of the technological knowledge the Tau have. Let us see how effective the Tau Empire still is after that. The Imperium has been through all that and still manages to not only keep itself together but even dominate the galaxy. I highly wonder whether the Tau would be just as succesful.
They probably would, as Tau society as a whole is a lot more solidly built than the Imperial one. Tau thrive through cooperation. Imperium thrives through fear of a ruling elite and their means of enforcement (Inquisiton and Space Marines mainly).
Tau is also largely unburdened by counterproductive beliefs like 'thou shalt not innovate' and 'different is bad just because, mkay?'
Edit: The loss of the technologucal knowledge of the Imperium was also due to the inefficient model that had a handful of individuals hoard most of it. To cause significant loss of Tau knowledge you would have to kill off most of the Earth Caste (so the majority of Tau population).
The loss of technological knowledge has nothing to do with Imperial policy, and everything to do with the Age of Strife/Long Night and then the not-that-long-after Horus Heresy.
Keep in mind that the Crusade-Era Imperium was very secular- this whole "no innovate" and "different is bad" thing you're spouting off didn't exist (and really still doesn't). Also keep in mind that the Imperium isn't really a "ruling elite are scary bastards" thing; it's a (surprisingly clever) feudal system. More-or-less, you send goodies up the chain to the bosspeople, and the bosspeople send protection down the chain when you need it. Or they send punishment if you don't send the goodies.
That's not "rule by fear". That's feudalism.
The no.innovation thing was definitely in effect during the Great Crusade, although less enforced. In 'Mechanicum', Dalia Cythera was about to be executed for improving a Cogitator and the book explicitly states a law against that (Law of Divine Purity or something like that).
'Different is bad' was also a.thing during the Great Crusade, at least in regard to xenos and psykers. Oddly enough I've yet to find a mutant in a Horus Heresy novel.
You're right about the Imperium being somewhat feudal (not entirely though), which still means it's based on a system that history has proven ineffective and highly oppressive on the people.
LordBlades wrote: The no.innovation thing was definitely in effect during the Great Crusade, although less enforced. In 'Mechanicum', Dalia Cythera was about to be executed for improving a Cogitator and the book explicitly states a law against that (Law of Divine Purity or something like that).
Did you read the excerpts about why the AdMech is the way it is? The sort of thing where they're basically stuck with an apparatus that works, and they're not entirely sure why it works, but all the usual ways to find out tend to result in really bad things happening? As in, "that chair is actually a murderbot that hates all the things and also got possessed by a daemon that wants to eat out souls" kind of bad.
Dalia Cythera's improvements were going to get her executed because the Martian Priesthood does not possess the interest or apparatus to figure out if the improvement is actually beneficial. Which goes back to the whole "Age of Strife/Old Night (really bad)-> Great Crusade (pretty good) ->Horus Heresy (all the bad ever) ->Scouring & Post-Heresy (scrabbling to hold together in the wake of all the bad)".
LordBlades wrote: 'Different is bad' was also a.thing during the Great Crusade, at least in regard to xenos and psykers. Oddly enough I've yet to find a mutant in a Horus Heresy novel.
The anti-xenos sentiment is primarily due to the Imperial ideology being centralized around the concept that Man has the manifest destiny of ruling the stars; many xeno species were also overtly hostile to humanity, and most/all of the xeno species humans worked with ended up enslaving and/or killing the humans.
LordBlades wrote: You're right about the Imperium being somewhat feudal (not entirely though), which still means it's based on a system that history has proven ineffective and highly oppressive on the people.
Feudalism failed historically because empires got "smaller" even though they were geographically bigger. A central mechanism of why feudalism worked was due to the highly distributed, slow and not necessarily reliable communications and mass transit of the time. Because of that slow, semi-unreliable communications, it was necessary for a ruler to invest authority in vassals who could extend the ruler's authority over a larger area, without said ruler spreading their assets too thinly. Not only did the ruler gain an increased amount of subjects (and thus a larger taxable population and a larger group of individuals from which to levy troops), but also access to more resources and the aforementioned potential for larger bodies of troops. In exchange, a vassal often received the support of the better-equipped military forces of the central rule.
Oh, and the quality of life of feudal nations also has more to do with the fact that the era in which feudalism dominated was one in which everything was pretty gakky all around.
40K Imperial feudalism works because it's the only system that works. There's too many people for even a republic method of government, and it's far too big to manage in a dictatorial/autocratic fashion. The feudal system of what is more or less delegated authority is what works... and so it's what the Imperium is.
I do understand why the Mechanicus and Imperium at large is the way it is. I just don't consider it 'successful', merely slowing down the.unavoidable descent into darkness. Mankind is only going in one direction: down, while their competition is either going up ( Tau) or staying the same (everybody else).
The catastrophic loss of knowledge is also IMO the effect of some unknown underlying flaw in Mankind's technology and/or social structure, as other races have endured far bigger ordeals with less effects (technology-wise).
Necrons awoke after 40 million years and in a time when most of their race is still sleeping/has been destroyed they are still the most technologically advanced species in the galaxy.
Eldar survived the almost total annihilation of their race in much better shape (from a technological standpoint) than Mankind.
Also, Tau never enjoyed much peace in their history. Even after they stopped fighting among themselves past thelearly expansion they were more or less constantly fighting off orks, and more recently Tyranids and IoM.
Als, at the core, feudalism is ruled by fear, because it's not really beneficial for those very low on the totem pole (which do form the majority of population).
The only real benefit that a peasant could gain from his lord was protection. Protection was only worthwile if there was a real or perceived outside threat for the peasants to fear.
The rest of it was fear: fear of retribution (the lord had laws, prifessional soldiers and knights to reinforce them if the peasant didn't do his part) and fear of divine punishment (the king was presented as God's emmissary on Earth after all). When these constant sources of fear could not be maintained, the regime would collapse.
This is how Imperium works too. Systems stay loyal mainly because:
- They feel they need protection from real or perceived Xeno threats
- They believe turning away from the Emperor is heresy
- They fear the Imperium's retribution
«Feudalism failed historically because empires got "smaller" even though they were geographically bigger. A central mechanism of why feudalism worked was due to the highly distributed, slow and not necessarily reliable communications and mass transit of the time. Because of that slow, semi-unreliable communications, it was necessary for a ruler to invest authority in vassals who could extend the ruler's authority over a larger area, without said ruler spreading their assets too thinly. Not only did the ruler gain an increased amount of subjects (and thus a larger taxable population and a larger group of individuals from which to levy troops), but also access to more resources and the aforementioned potential for larger bodies of troops. In exchange, a vassal often received the support of the better-equipped military forces of the central rule.
Oh, and the quality of life of feudal nations also has more to do with the fact that the era in which feudalism dominated was one in which everything was pretty gakky all around.»
This analysis of the failing and structure of the Feudal system is, in my opinion, completly false and filled with historical innacuracy and myths. Thow I agree with your vision of the Imperium political structure.
So here, have this excellent explanation of Imperial science, and why it doesn't look like modern science (which Tau science resembles a lot more closely). It's not mine, but it's an excellent (if rather long and expletive-laden) explanation:
Spoiler:
The Mechanicus does NOT have the technology. They haven't been living on some fancy paradise planet since pre-Fall. Mars is an anarchic nightmare shithole the moment you leave the safe zones into the kilometres of labyrinthine corridors beneath it full of rogue machinery, self-aware and malevolent AI from before the Fall, and the daemon programs of the Heresy. EVERYTHING in the databases is fethed. The databases are fragmented over the entire surface to the extent that it would be impossible to see one tenth of the total files in the ludicrously extended life of a Magos even assuming that they are completely safe to visit. And they are not.
The files have been corrupted into madness by the Fall, and the unleashing of the most potent informational warfare systems ever to exist to defeat the Iron Men. Nearly all of Mars was rendered uninhabitable, what they live in now is built on the top of the ruins. They send archeotech expeditions in to find gak, nearly all of them never come back. The sheer number of rogue war machine running around in there is sufficient to rape the mind. Then came the Heresy, which was not earth-exclusive. Mars as the second most critical planet in the Imperium was the site of fighting nearly as ferocious as on Terra, with Mechanicus loyalists and Hereteks fighting tooth, nail, and mechadendrite everywhere. Ancient machines were unleashed, viruses both normal and daemonic unleashed into all the computer systems. Nearly every single stored record on Mars was rendered unusable, and those that survived are half the time self-aware and don't like you, or daemonic and actively try to kill you.
If you come back with a schematic, it is almost certainly gibberish, and if it isn't, it's probably corrupted into uselessness. If it does come back whole it was probably malevolently fethed with so that instead of a Lasgun power cell it's a fething grenade set to detonate the second you finish building it. Why do you think they want off-world STCs so damned much if they had them all here? The fething Heresy is why. Off-world they only have to contend with the Fall's war and its effects on the machinery plus twenty thousand years of degradation with no maintenance. But at least off-world it'll probably just not work instead of actively seeking to kill you.
Why do you think they seek to placate the Machine Spirit? It's because it exists. The fragments of trillions of self-aware programs, flourishing during the Dark Age of Technology and shattered by Man in his war with the Iron men, imprisoning the few who had not set themselves irrevocably into the machinery, a prison smashed wide open by the Heresy. Everything that can hold programming in the Imperium has a shard of a program in it. EVERYTHING. And you'd better fething please it or it will do everything in its power to make your day gak. Sure, if it's a Lasgun it'll just not work or start shooting off rounds by itself, but if you piss off a Land Raider you can say bye-bye to half a continent. They apply these principles to things without spirits by habit, since they're so used to dealing with tanks that if not talked to just right might go rogue and annihilate the Manufactorum before they can be killed.
This is why they do not like ANYONE fething with technology, because it is so rare to find anything that just works it is critical it not be compromised. That, and they do not have the actual knowledge to feth with it intelligently, just through experimentation, which inevitably leads to slaughter. Pressing buttons to see what works is fine in a 21st century computer, but it is a very stupid thing to do at the helm of a 410th century starship with the destructive power to end solar systems. The entire knowledge base of humanity was lost. Not forgotten, but outright lost. Everything at all, poof. Nobody knows anything because the Fall fethed everything up and the Heresy double-fethed it. To rebuild the theoretical framework needed to design new technologies that don't kill everyone near them would require starting from the ground up. They don't have the time, they never have, and they never will.
This gets on to the point of war and what it does to technology. Someone will parrot that it makes it go much faster. Yes, it makes practical applications of technology go much faster. It also utterly stops all research on the scientific theories behind those technologies. This means that when war chugs along for a decade or two things get done. It means when it goes on too long you run out of theories to turn into technologies, and then you run out of technologies to apply. You stagnate. When you have been fighting in a war for survival in a drastically overextended empire, this is what happens. You are desperate for any extra materiel that can possibly be produced. Half your entire fething military might went rogue, smashed the half that stayed, leaving you with the tattered shreds of a war machine to keep hold of an empire that was reaching straining point with an army far larger. There is no time for the sort of applied research programs that took Man twenty five thousand years to develop, in a time of unprecedented growth and prosperity.
This is also why the Adeptus Mechanicus insists on cargo cultism. It's because when you are dealing with things you barely understand because everything you knew about them was destroyed it is the safest and most reliable option. The rituals do not exists for mysticism, they exist because they are the most practical means of building, repairing and maintaining the equipment they have with the knowledge surviving. You don't understand why pressing that button makes it go, because the manual tried to take over your brain and the copies are all unreadable and the research base that would let you reverse-engineer it does not exist and cannot be built.
Why are the Tau doing so well with their technology? Because they had peace. Eight thousand years unmolested by any enemy and they were helped the entire time by the most advanced biological race in the galaxy. Give the Imperium eight thousand years of peace and I can guarantee you it will be harder than it was during the Great Crusade.
Since some still don't get the idea, try this:
Build a library, fill it with all human knowledge. You take it elsewhere when you need a book from it, but the book is only a simplified copy. You don't understand the real book, and you don't need to. Nobody takes the real books anywhere because why would you, when there's a whole library there?
Now that library goes rogue and the maintenance machinery starts killing everyone any-fething-where near it. Where the feth did they all come from, you swear to god there weren't this many, and there weren't because they're using the library's information to fight their war. The government fights a battle that destroys the planet against these robots and tears apart the library to stop them using it, only to be destroyed in the process. The library is leveled, cast into flames, every book burned and every computer virus-laden.
Then comes a man who worked there. He talks to the few surviving library workers, assembles their information, and starts rebuilding a city around the library and expanding it as the librarians find little scraps of paper and fragmented bits of files that stuck together just right read something. They rebuild a library from scrap on the ashes of the old. It isn't a shadow on the glory of the old, but it is all they have.
Then the city turns on itself, kills its master, and the librarians turn to rage. Half of them kill the other half and destroy the remnants of the library because where they're going they won't need science. Everything burns, and the city is left to a scattered few survivors, walls open to the world, with the hungry predators circling.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is the sole surviving librarian, desperately scrabbling through the ashes of paper and splinters of hard drives for anything to help him and the city he needs to survive just a second longer.
The Imperium isn't grim because things suck by choice and could be fine if a sensible person came along. That sensible person wouldn't survive fifty seconds of the reality. The Imperium is grim because every single gak decision, every single sacrifice, every single death, every single man woman and child suffering a gak life in the worst conditions imaginable, is the absolute best that can be done. It is a study of the worst happening to everyone and what part of your humanity must be sacrificed today just to stand a chance of survival, and all it asks is whether or not it would have perhaps been better to die.
And here's one that explains Mechanicus religion (shorter but also expletive-laden):
Spoiler:
Children, I'm fething fed up with your gak. Cult Mechanicus IS NOT a replacement of rational thought with religion for the sake of operating machines.It's a (in-universe) developed philosophy of collective rationalism. AdMechs don't throw their critical thinking out of the window. They just already took this thinking, put it on a pedestal, brought it to it's apex (Dark Age), suffered for it, suffered for it again (HorusHeresy, Schism of Mars), then looked at it and asked : "What do we do now?" Every Mechanicum is a rationalist, in a meaning that when he goes through all the critical thinking to the basic reason of his existence, he takes on the dogma of Quest for Knowledge. That he exists to Rationalize the Universe, move towards learning and understanding the Universe and it's laws. It's also a collective quest - adept doesn't seek knowledge just for himself, he sees all the Adeptus Mechanicus as one single huge Gnostical Engine, a Machine of Comprehension designed to learn. He's just a single little gear in the heart of enormous Over-Intellect gathering and producing knowledge.
For what sake? AdMechs thought a lot about this question, and took one answer.
For the sake of Mankind.
Now THIS is where gak gets religious.
As of it now, humanity utilizes science for egoistical purposes of survival (scientists need something to eat) and/or domination, which can be understood by every human through his instincts. Society of Mars, however, got devoid of this motivators, as they dropped their human instincts, so they had to find new goals. This is where the Schism takes roots, as well as the "Cult" part. Every rational human can tell you that objectively life has no meaning. Accepting that fact is what brought the galaxy Necrons and Iron Men. AdMechs knew that this is what they wish to avoid. And the most effective way to avoid that is to walk the irrational way and put a sense for your existence through Faith.
This is what they did.
They are the fanatics in the sense that they BELIEVE that Universe CAN be comprehended, while they have 0 proof of that. They BELIEVE that critical thinking works, while living in a Galaxy that laughs at any attempts of rationalization. They BELIEVE that Quest for Knowledge can be completed. And it this faith, they are being paradoxical and irrational. And they know it. Lets have a look at Universal Laws, that Mechanicum use as the foundation of their philosophy.
The Mysteries
01. Life is directed motion.
This gives a definition to "life", as existence of individual. A definition that basically says "Only that thing which irrationally takes a (faith) direction for it's way can be called a Living Thing".
02. The spirit is the spark of life.
Here they recognize the illogical existence of Souls and Warp, and their defining roles in being representation of one's beliefs.
03. Sentience is the ability to learn the value of knowledge.
04. Intellect is the understanding of knowledge.
05. Sentience is the basest form of Intellect.
Here they define ability for rational thinking.
06. Understanding is the True Path to Comprehension.
07. Comprehension is the key to all things.
And HERE they put this thinking as their Way to exist.
08. The Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all.
And establish an ideal, to which they are heading.
Are we seriously at the point where we're copy/pasting from 1d4chan?
... because that's where that explanation is from.
So here, have this excellent explanation of Imperial science, and why it doesn't look like modern science (which Tau science resembles a lot more closely). It's not mine, but it's an excellent (if rather long and expletive-laden) explanation:
Spoiler:
The Mechanicus does NOT have the technology. They haven't been living on some fancy paradise planet since pre-Fall. Mars is an anarchic nightmare shithole the moment you leave the safe zones into the kilometres of labyrinthine corridors beneath it full of rogue machinery, self-aware and malevolent AI from before the Fall, and the daemon programs of the Heresy. EVERYTHING in the databases is fethed. The databases are fragmented over the entire surface to the extent that it would be impossible to see one tenth of the total files in the ludicrously extended life of a Magos even assuming that they are completely safe to visit. And they are not.
The files have been corrupted into madness by the Fall, and the unleashing of the most potent informational warfare systems ever to exist to defeat the Iron Men. Nearly all of Mars was rendered uninhabitable, what they live in now is built on the top of the ruins. They send archeotech expeditions in to find gak, nearly all of them never come back. The sheer number of rogue war machine running around in there is sufficient to rape the mind. Then came the Heresy, which was not earth-exclusive. Mars as the second most critical planet in the Imperium was the site of fighting nearly as ferocious as on Terra, with Mechanicus loyalists and Hereteks fighting tooth, nail, and mechadendrite everywhere. Ancient machines were unleashed, viruses both normal and daemonic unleashed into all the computer systems. Nearly every single stored record on Mars was rendered unusable, and those that survived are half the time self-aware and don't like you, or daemonic and actively try to kill you.
If you come back with a schematic, it is almost certainly gibberish, and if it isn't, it's probably corrupted into uselessness. If it does come back whole it was probably malevolently fethed with so that instead of a Lasgun power cell it's a fething grenade set to detonate the second you finish building it. Why do you think they want off-world STCs so damned much if they had them all here? The fething Heresy is why. Off-world they only have to contend with the Fall's war and its effects on the machinery plus twenty thousand years of degradation with no maintenance. But at least off-world it'll probably just not work instead of actively seeking to kill you.
Why do you think they seek to placate the Machine Spirit? It's because it exists. The fragments of trillions of self-aware programs, flourishing during the Dark Age of Technology and shattered by Man in his war with the Iron men, imprisoning the few who had not set themselves irrevocably into the machinery, a prison smashed wide open by the Heresy. Everything that can hold programming in the Imperium has a shard of a program in it. EVERYTHING. And you'd better fething please it or it will do everything in its power to make your day gak. Sure, if it's a Lasgun it'll just not work or start shooting off rounds by itself, but if you piss off a Land Raider you can say bye-bye to half a continent. They apply these principles to things without spirits by habit, since they're so used to dealing with tanks that if not talked to just right might go rogue and annihilate the Manufactorum before they can be killed.
This is why they do not like ANYONE fething with technology, because it is so rare to find anything that just works it is critical it not be compromised. That, and they do not have the actual knowledge to feth with it intelligently, just through experimentation, which inevitably leads to slaughter. Pressing buttons to see what works is fine in a 21st century computer, but it is a very stupid thing to do at the helm of a 410th century starship with the destructive power to end solar systems. The entire knowledge base of humanity was lost. Not forgotten, but outright lost. Everything at all, poof. Nobody knows anything because the Fall fethed everything up and the Heresy double-fethed it. To rebuild the theoretical framework needed to design new technologies that don't kill everyone near them would require starting from the ground up. They don't have the time, they never have, and they never will.
This gets on to the point of war and what it does to technology. Someone will parrot that it makes it go much faster. Yes, it makes practical applications of technology go much faster. It also utterly stops all research on the scientific theories behind those technologies. This means that when war chugs along for a decade or two things get done. It means when it goes on too long you run out of theories to turn into technologies, and then you run out of technologies to apply. You stagnate. When you have been fighting in a war for survival in a drastically overextended empire, this is what happens. You are desperate for any extra materiel that can possibly be produced. Half your entire fething military might went rogue, smashed the half that stayed, leaving you with the tattered shreds of a war machine to keep hold of an empire that was reaching straining point with an army far larger. There is no time for the sort of applied research programs that took Man twenty five thousand years to develop, in a time of unprecedented growth and prosperity.
This is also why the Adeptus Mechanicus insists on cargo cultism. It's because when you are dealing with things you barely understand because everything you knew about them was destroyed it is the safest and most reliable option. The rituals do not exists for mysticism, they exist because they are the most practical means of building, repairing and maintaining the equipment they have with the knowledge surviving. You don't understand why pressing that button makes it go, because the manual tried to take over your brain and the copies are all unreadable and the research base that would let you reverse-engineer it does not exist and cannot be built.
Why are the Tau doing so well with their technology? Because they had peace. Eight thousand years unmolested by any enemy and they were helped the entire time by the most advanced biological race in the galaxy. Give the Imperium eight thousand years of peace and I can guarantee you it will be harder than it was during the Great Crusade.
Since some still don't get the idea, try this:
Build a library, fill it with all human knowledge. You take it elsewhere when you need a book from it, but the book is only a simplified copy. You don't understand the real book, and you don't need to. Nobody takes the real books anywhere because why would you, when there's a whole library there?
Now that library goes rogue and the maintenance machinery starts killing everyone any-fething-where near it. Where the feth did they all come from, you swear to god there weren't this many, and there weren't because they're using the library's information to fight their war. The government fights a battle that destroys the planet against these robots and tears apart the library to stop them using it, only to be destroyed in the process. The library is leveled, cast into flames, every book burned and every computer virus-laden.
Then comes a man who worked there. He talks to the few surviving library workers, assembles their information, and starts rebuilding a city around the library and expanding it as the librarians find little scraps of paper and fragmented bits of files that stuck together just right read something. They rebuild a library from scrap on the ashes of the old. It isn't a shadow on the glory of the old, but it is all they have.
Then the city turns on itself, kills its master, and the librarians turn to rage. Half of them kill the other half and destroy the remnants of the library because where they're going they won't need science. Everything burns, and the city is left to a scattered few survivors, walls open to the world, with the hungry predators circling.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is the sole surviving librarian, desperately scrabbling through the ashes of paper and splinters of hard drives for anything to help him and the city he needs to survive just a second longer.
The Imperium isn't grim because things suck by choice and could be fine if a sensible person came along. That sensible person wouldn't survive fifty seconds of the reality. The Imperium is grim because every single gak decision, every single sacrifice, every single death, every single man woman and child suffering a gak life in the worst conditions imaginable, is the absolute best that can be done. It is a study of the worst happening to everyone and what part of your humanity must be sacrificed today just to stand a chance of survival, and all it asks is whether or not it would have perhaps been better to die.
And here's one that explains Mechanicus religion (shorter but also expletive-laden):
Spoiler:
Children, I'm fething fed up with your gak. Cult Mechanicus IS NOT a replacement of rational thought with religion for the sake of operating machines.It's a (in-universe) developed philosophy of collective rationalism. AdMechs don't throw their critical thinking out of the window. They just already took this thinking, put it on a pedestal, brought it to it's apex (Dark Age), suffered for it, suffered for it again (HorusHeresy, Schism of Mars), then looked at it and asked : "What do we do now?" Every Mechanicum is a rationalist, in a meaning that when he goes through all the critical thinking to the basic reason of his existence, he takes on the dogma of Quest for Knowledge. That he exists to Rationalize the Universe, move towards learning and understanding the Universe and it's laws. It's also a collective quest - adept doesn't seek knowledge just for himself, he sees all the Adeptus Mechanicus as one single huge Gnostical Engine, a Machine of Comprehension designed to learn. He's just a single little gear in the heart of enormous Over-Intellect gathering and producing knowledge.
For what sake? AdMechs thought a lot about this question, and took one answer.
For the sake of Mankind.
Now THIS is where gak gets religious.
As of it now, humanity utilizes science for egoistical purposes of survival (scientists need something to eat) and/or domination, which can be understood by every human through his instincts. Society of Mars, however, got devoid of this motivators, as they dropped their human instincts, so they had to find new goals. This is where the Schism takes roots, as well as the "Cult" part. Every rational human can tell you that objectively life has no meaning. Accepting that fact is what brought the galaxy Necrons and Iron Men. AdMechs knew that this is what they wish to avoid. And the most effective way to avoid that is to walk the irrational way and put a sense for your existence through Faith.
This is what they did.
They are the fanatics in the sense that they BELIEVE that Universe CAN be comprehended, while they have 0 proof of that. They BELIEVE that critical thinking works, while living in a Galaxy that laughs at any attempts of rationalization. They BELIEVE that Quest for Knowledge can be completed. And it this faith, they are being paradoxical and irrational. And they know it. Lets have a look at Universal Laws, that Mechanicum use as the foundation of their philosophy.
The Mysteries
01. Life is directed motion.
This gives a definition to "life", as existence of individual. A definition that basically says "Only that thing which irrationally takes a (faith) direction for it's way can be called a Living Thing".
02. The spirit is the spark of life.
Here they recognize the illogical existence of Souls and Warp, and their defining roles in being representation of one's beliefs.
03. Sentience is the ability to learn the value of knowledge.
04. Intellect is the understanding of knowledge.
05. Sentience is the basest form of Intellect.
Here they define ability for rational thinking.
06. Understanding is the True Path to Comprehension.
07. Comprehension is the key to all things.
And HERE they put this thinking as their Way to exist.
08. The Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all.
And establish an ideal, to which they are heading.
Are we seriously at the point where we're copy/pasting from 1d4chan?
... because that's where that explanation is from.
No... but I think there're some lines other posters'd do well to take to heart.
The files have been corrupted into madness by the Fall, and the unleashing of the most potent informational warfare systems ever to exist to defeat the Iron Men. Nearly all of Mars was rendered uninhabitable, what they live in now is built on the top of the ruins. They send archeotech expeditions in to find gak, nearly all of them never come back. The sheer number of rogue war machine running around in there is sufficient to rape the mind. Then came the Heresy
Even during the Great Crusade, Imperium "understanding" of technology was already next to non-existent.
You don't understand why pressing that button makes it go, because the manual tried to take over your brain and the copies are all unreadable and the research base that would let you reverse-engineer it does not exist and cannot be built.
There is no human understanding of most of its technology.
Or, why not create female space marines? 
.
