I've never understood how people can seriously argue this point. Like I know Mind Control and Sterilization but like have you never met the Inquisition or the Ecclearchy? Yeah sure the Tau control almost every aspect of your life but at least in the Tau your life has value. Your not gonna see any Tau Fire warriors just shoot you for gaks and giggles and your definitely never gonna see any Tau Fleet blow up a bunch of LOYAL Tau planets for the sole sin of having the audacity to be in the general direction a Tyranid Hive Fleet was heading in. (fething Kryptman.) Both empires are incredibly totalitarian and you have litterally no rights or freedoms on either an yeah sure you might have a TINY itty bitty bit more freedom on SOME imperial worlds but is that tiny amount of maybe extra freedom IF ypur lucky enough to be born on the right planet out weight the massive cost in value to your government and massive increase in disposability? I don't think it is. And please for Terras sake don't just reply by screaming Heresy. Im trying to have a actual conversation here.

They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Generally the Imperium makes no pretense about it's ruthlessness where as the Tau may appear to be guided by ideals and morals, but they ultimately act in conflict with said ideals quite often. Many prefer the indiscriminate and open brutality of the Imperium over the more selective and hypocritical ways of Tau, a fairly texbook instance of "better the devil you know".

Admittedly, many of the darker sides of Tau society are implied, and there are enough contradictions in the background material that the true nature of Tau society is largely ambiguous. Generally speaking though most people catch on to the idea that while the Tau appear morally and ethically superior to the Imperium, there is a large 'but' hanging underneath them which generates distrust simply by being an unkown factor.

 godardc wrote:
They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Yeah but the Imperium doesn't HAVE to do what it does. A happy content population is less likely to fall to choas then a beaten and oppressed one. I mean the Eldar had a standard og living surpassing even the Tau and if they had a shorter lifespan theyd still be the dominant species to this day. Even the emperor knew that. You think the emperor dreamt of a despotic imperium that blows up loyal planets for just mearly being in the path of an enemy. The thing that killed the Eldar wasnt some great folley or flaw in there system of goverment. It was pure and simple biology. The fact that the damn knife ears practically live forever is what doomed there species. Cause it meant that eventually theyd get bored and just start murderfucking to get any enjoyment out of there lives. Litterally the ONLY thing that would have been needed to prevent the fall of the Eldar indefinitely would been a finite lifespan. Thats it. There is no rule of the universe that says that you must have 99.99 percent of your population live short miserable meaningless lives. The Eldar even with there inevitable doom pre written into there very DNA maintained a successful galactic empire for far far longer then humanity has even existed with a standard of living that makes even the richest of imperial nobles loom like a poor hive worlder. You can have a galatic empire without beint a dick. The imperium arnt hard men doing what they have to. There just people being dicks when there is no need to be dicks.

coz of this-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptZVtMQIwZ0

"MY FASCISM IS BETTER THAN YOUR FASCISM"

"NO, MY FASCISM IS BETTER THAN YOUR FASCISM!"

Never change dakka.

No no no, both fascim are bad , Sterling. But in universe, the Imperium is objectively stated as the last and only way for humanity to survive. It's like the very first page of 40k...
Why the Tau are in their way to Doom.

The ruthless of the imperium is necessary in universe. People have to be ignorant and to work almost all of their life in order to avoid perilous knowledge and sedition and democracy that could tear apart the Imperium and render worlds vulnerable to aliens attacks.
A single individual can doom a whole world in this universe. What if people knew the devil was real and actually listened to you ? And was willing to give you everything ?
And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Even if the Emperor was objectively a tyrant, sure, he was doing it to guide mankind through it's psychic Awakening. No Emperor ? Death of mankind.

For this story of planets destroyed, yeah sure it's bad to kill innocent people but each one of them would have been eaten by bugs and be made into even more bugs eating even more people. Do you want a few billions innocents dead a several hundred of billion of dead ? And remember Kryptman was excommunicate traitorous after that. So the imperium may share your point of view !

And that the interesting point of the universe: they are bad people, objectively. But they are right to be bad. The universe is such that practice like these one are merely survival

For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

VAYASEN wrote:
coz of this-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptZVtMQIwZ0

Funnily enough I actually had a conversation with Luetin about this very subject and he actually admitted that as bad as the Tau are they are still a paradise compared to most Imperium worlds.

 godardc wrote:
No no no, both fascim are bad , Sterling. But in universe, the Imperium is objectively stated as the last and only way for humanity to survive. It's like the very first page of 40k...

And its a lie.

But please, continue on your apologist tour for interstellar space nazis.

 godardc wrote:

And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Many of those aliens only attack the Imperium because the Imperium attacked them first and the Imperium has xenophobia as law which prevents the possibility of actually coming to terms with the other species in the galaxy and build lasting diplomatic ties.

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

Assuming the need for central authorithy.

Something something rousseau, estimating that power corelates to area and population covered by it, needing power to be more centralized the more people you need to controll, leading to a inherently more tyrannical system.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

The Eldar pull it off just fine. Im sure the current Eldar population is over a trillion. And there entire race is nothing but psykers. Name one Choas Eldar.

chimera0205 wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

Didn't those battles take place really close to Tau territory, where they can quickly reinforce and resupply defending forces? That's not the same problem the Imperium has, where their supply lines are really drawn thin due to the absurd number of planets they have control over.

Also, aren't agri-worlds and pleasure worlds a thing in Imperial Space?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

The Eldar pull it off just fine. Im sure the current Eldar population is over a trillion. And there entire race is nothing but psykers. Name one Choas Eldar.

Pretty sure its less than a trillion. They also get eaten by Slaanesh if they fall to chaos, because apparently Slaanesh has a monopoly on their souls. Hence the whole path system.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

Didn't those battles take place really close to Tau territory, where they can quickly reinforce and resupply defending forces? That's not the same problem the Imperium has, where their supply lines are really drawn thin due to the absurd number of planets they have control over.

Also, aren't agri-worlds and pleasure worlds a thing in Imperial Space?

That's there fault for over stretching themselves. Had they expanded slowly and controllably tjey wouldnt have that problem. Instead they decided to just fly around the galaxy screaming MINE MINE MINE MINE to any vaguely habitable planet they could find like the sea gulls from Nemo. The fact that the Imperium is slowed is not the fault the average hive worlder and said hive worlefer2 shouldnt be left to die.cause his glorious emeporor doesn't understand basic logistics and strategy

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 godardc wrote:

And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Many of those aliens only attack the Imperium because the Imperium attacked them first and the Imperium has xenophobia as law which prevents the possibility of actually coming to terms with the other species in the galaxy and build lasting diplomatic ties.

Because, in universe, the vast majority of the xenos species ARE enemy of mankind. Planet Murder ? Orks ? (Dark) eldars ? Rak'gol ? The tyranids even crossed interstellar void to come and eat them !
Even the nice and gentle Tau are just space invaders who let you no choice but to bend the knee or be destroyed. Ofc one or two species didn't deserve the death sentence, but neither did the Tau when they were first discovered. Look at them now.

 godardc wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 godardc wrote:

And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Many of those aliens only attack the Imperium because the Imperium attacked them first and the Imperium has xenophobia as law which prevents the possibility of actually coming to terms with the other species in the galaxy and build lasting diplomatic ties.

Because, in universe, the vast majority of the xenos species ARE enemy of mankind. Planet Murder ? Orks ? (Dark) eldars ? Rak'gol ? The tyranids even crossed interstellar void to come and eat them !
Even the nice and gentle Tau are just space invaders who let you no choice but to bend the knee or be destroyed. Ofc one or two species didn't deserve the death sentence, but neither did the Tau when they were first discovered. Look at them now.

What about the Eldar? What does the Imperium actually get out of attacking Exodite Worlds and ravaging Maiden Worlds?

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 godardc wrote:

And even without speaking about Chaos, Mankind really is under attack by countless of xenos species. It's a never ending war needing always more men, amunitions, etc.

Many of those aliens only attack the Imperium because the Imperium attacked them first and the Imperium has xenophobia as law which prevents the possibility of actually coming to terms with the other species in the galaxy and build lasting diplomatic ties.

Because, in universe, the vast majority of the xenos species ARE enemy of mankind. Planet Murder ? Orks ? (Dark) eldars ? Rak'gol ? The tyranids even crossed interstellar void to come and eat them !
Even the nice and gentle Tau are just space invaders who let you no choice but to bend the knee or be destroyed. Ofc one or two species didn't deserve the death sentence, but neither did the Tau when they were first discovered. Look at them now.

What about the Eldar? What does the Imperium actually get out of attacking Exodite Worlds and ravaging Maiden Worlds?

Resources? Pretty sure those are great for agri-worlds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

Didn't those battles take place really close to Tau territory, where they can quickly reinforce and resupply defending forces? That's not the same problem the Imperium has, where their supply lines are really drawn thin due to the absurd number of planets they have control over.

Also, aren't agri-worlds and pleasure worlds a thing in Imperial Space?

That's there fault for over stretching themselves. Had they expanded slowly and controllably tjey wouldnt have that problem. Instead they decided to just fly around the galaxy screaming MINE MINE MINE MINE to any vaguely habitable planet they could find like the sea gulls from Nemo. The fact that the Imperium is slowed is not the fault the average hive worlder and said hive worlefer2 shouldnt be left to die.cause his glorious emeporor doesn't understand basic logistics and strategy

They did expand slowly. A lot of those worlds in the Imperium were first colonized during the Age of Technology, which was sometime in the 15th millenium. The Great Crusade was to reclaim human inhabited sectors that were lost during the Age of Strife. The Emperor's plan was to eventually take control of the webway, which would solve all sorts of logistics problems...which was ruined when Magnus had his "I'm HELPING!" moment.
The Tau have only been around for about 6000 years. Which is impressive for a space faring race, hence the fan theories that they had outside help.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
For me at least it is less a "the Imperium is better" and more a "the Tau's argument for being better is not very strong". The main point in my opinion (!) is that the Tau act under completely different circumstances that "shield" them (at least so far) from influences that lead to the worst attrocities of the Imperium:

1. No natural occuring psykers
=> the Imperium has to handle the ongoing birth of millions of psykers on their worlds, which by nature are at risk of being influenced or even possessed by demons. The Tau do not
2. No ability/ low need for warp travel
=> due to its size the Imperium needs FTL travel and has no access to something not involving the warp. The Tau empire is small enough that they do not neccessarily have to enter the warp
3. No intense interaction with chaos.
=> the Imperium has a Warp rift spanning literally all through ist center and due to its history with the traitor legions, and their warp presence the Chaos gods and their worshippers continuously try to invade/perverse parts of the Imperium. The Tau have not encountered that amount of attention yet.
Taken together these three points alone lead to a lot of the darker parts of the Imperiums activities and I sometimes wonder how the Tau would fare if they encountered a similiar ongoing contact with Chaos for 10 Millenia.

One could go on about other forces (Orks, Necrons, Tyranids) also having a lot more contact with the Imperium than with the Tau often arising in situations were the Imperium has to handle multiple big threads at once leading to things like Kryptmans actions which I (again: personal opinion) saw mainly as act to buy the Imperium time to react.
Things are complicated more by the vast size of the empire and their reluctance to develop and invent high end Technology, which is also rooted in their history.

I guess my point could be summarized as:
Are the Tau morally better as the Imperium: A cautious yes at the moment
Would they still be if they had a similar attention of Chaos, Necrons and Orks? I think no
Would they be able to have this moral high ground if they were faced with things like a Psykers, the NEED for warp travel, the Astronomicon? I personally think no.

The Tau also have to deal with a smaller population.
Imaging trying to control over a trillion people, any of which may be a genestealer or a chaos cultist. Try playing gentle then.

Assuming the need for central authorithy.

Something something rousseau, estimating that power corelates to area and population covered by it, needing power to be more centralized the more people you need to controll, leading to a inherently more tyrannical system.

Funnily enough, the Imperium isn't really centralized. As long as a planetary governor pays tithes and obeys the Imperial Creed, the Imperium really doesn't care what happens on that world...which has the unfortunate side effect of planetary governors getting away with all sorts of horrible gak, as long as they make the bureaucrats and accountants happy.

Part of the Imperium's schtick is that it has *forgotten* how not to be crappy. That's a fundamental part of the schtick, the 40k setting is the dark age of a crumbling edifice.

The Imperium is the rickety remnants of the broken dream of a nearly dead god held on eternal tortured life support for 10,000 years. The person in charge is out to lunch and the kiddies have been running amok.

They *could* be better, and that's always been part of the tragedy of the setting, nobody remembers how to be better, and those few that do aren't in any position to do anything about it or have vested interests in seeing the status quo remain.

As for the Eldar, let's remember they're a slowly dwindling dying race that lives in perpetual terror of their souls being devoured and this shapes every facet of their existence, turning to their own death cults just as the Imperium does.

I think it would be hard to argue that the Tau are more "evil" or "tyrannical" than the Imperium, or that the Imperium is morally "superior", the game background really does highlight the positivity and good intentions of the Tau, but in the 40k universe this is graded on a curve...because the universe is so terrible that you really can't have totally good guys, and both the Tau and the Imperium get passes on a lot as a result.

It also doesn't help that people like to project real world political facets onto these factions, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes not so much.

Eh, give the Tau another 20,000 years, an AI uprising, a population numbering in the trillions (apparently the population of the IoM is actually meant to be a few quadrillion. No one really is really sure, just that they have a stupidly huge population, based on the implication that they have over a million worlds under their control) and a galaxy where everything either hates them or wants to eat them. Let's see them try to be better off.

We all know Orks are the true good guys of the setting anyway. They really just want to have a good time.

@ Chimera 0205: just so that you don't get my tone wrong: I also think the imperium is definitly not morally better then the Tau, I just think the Tau should put the things the Imperium does in perspective and reflect a bit more about what they would do if they had been in their place.
To react to your separate points directed at me:

As for no naturally occuring Psykers that just straight up false. While the Tau Species doesnt have any naturally occuring psykers the Tau Empire probably has more per capita then the Imperium given that several minor Tau races are made up of nothing but psykers. Most notably the Niccasar.

The Eldar pull it off just fine. Im sure the current Eldar population is over a trillion. And there entire race is nothing but psykers. Name one Choas Eldar.

fair enough, I realize I formulated my point inconsequently: Neither the Tau nor the Eldar have to handle a large population of Psykers that have a notorious bad history in resisting chaos. The Eldar have born a chaos good in the past and Camoragh is not Sunshine-and-rainbow land but you are totally right, that I cannot name any Chaos Eldar. Simultanously I have read so little about the psychic Tau client species that I also cannot claim to have ever heard about one of them turning to chaos. Not even Orks seem to have that unstable psykers (or better: they blow themselves up before turning to Chaos). But with humans: there are a LOT of examples were unattended or unsanctioned Psykers have fallen to chaos and even the most educated and trained minds are often enough corrupted. Maybe it has something to do with the species, maybe humanity has more attention of the chaos gods than other species. Either way: that is a problem the Tau do not have to face. If they had it would be interesting how much more humane their solution would be (that is not meant sarcastic, I would honestly be interested if they could find a better way).

@ this quote:

As for other forces once again per capita the Tau have gone through more bs on there short time the galactic stage than any similar sized grouping of imperial worlds bar maybe the worlds around Cadia. I mean in just a thousand years theyve had to fight several wars woth the Imperium including a small Crusade. An entire Hive Fleet. At least two necron tomb worlds that I know of, multiple ork Waaghh etc etc etc. And the tau only have like a 100 planets including all the really small colonies and listening posts. You name any grouping of 100 Imperial planets other then Cadia that has had to deal with that much BS in such a short period of time.

I lack background knowledge to have a good answer for that. My guess would be anything around the Eye of Terror should have seen more or less constant action for the last 10.000 years. And the systems and clusters in the vicinity of the various ork empires should also have had a lot of "fun". But I can not estimate if that is more, the same or less than what the Tau went through.


@ the Kryptman thing: I think one important point here is scale... I did not read the book were he did that but lets estimate that back then he exterminated something between 10 and 100 planets (and most probably non of which have been amongst the most populous ones). Looking from the Tau perspective that is enormous. That would be between 10 and 100% of their empire. Putting that in our perspective that would mean sacrificing something between 700 Million and 7 billion human lifes in 20th century earth to slow down an enemy which is horrible.
But now let us look at it from the imperial perspective having 1 Million planets to care for. Than it is between 0.001 and 0.01 % of their planets (and likely less of their population). Applied on our earth we are talking about 70.000 - 700,000 people. Don't take me wrong, it is still unbelievably cruel, but If an army of Killerbugs were about to eat ehmmm... Malta (~500.000) and turn each maltesian into a Killerbug before marching on straight into the heart of Europe within a couple of days (replace example with regions of your liking) and there was no way to evacuate the maltesiand in time... But nukeing Malta would not only stop those 500.000 from becoming Killer bugs but also buy Europe a year of preparation time... I may have a fatalistic view of mankind but I guess there would be various people arguing to do it.


On a similar note: I often read the argument going from the direction of "Yes, but there are also imperial pleasure and Agri worlds, life is good in a lot of parts of the imperium and only sucks on Forgeworlds/Hiveworlds/Fortress Worlds": You can also turn that around. If you live on a Hive or Forgeworld or your planet has another reason to be of highest importance for the imperium they are willing and able to hold on to it with a stupid amount of manpower and force. The imperium will and has already thrown Billions of soldiers on these type of worlds to defend them against Chaos, Orks etc.

The Imperium does not sugar coat their intentions like the Tau do.

Morally superior? I get that. The Tau produce 62.3 trillion Good moral units, where as the IoM produces a mere 17.1 Good Moral Units (GMUs). Conversely, the IoM produces 1111,111 Bad Moral Units. Obviously the tau, pound for moral pound, are better. This is because of the irrefutable moral Sciences. As undeniable as physics and chemistry.

Or morality is just a facet of propaganda. Choose your poison.

Morality is personal, not propaganda.

But 'genocide is bad,' as a general rule, is not propaganda either.

Unless genocide is part of a scorched earth tactic of pure survival to stop a predatory alien species that wants to melt you and your mum for a delicious biomass dinner.. I'm all about genocide ait that point, morality be damned.

Based on my personal acceptable living standards, I'd rather live under tau rule than Imperial rule.

I mean, I'd rather BE an Eldar of all 40k species, as their biology and lifestyle is objectively better. Slannesh is a optional ending not a mandatory one.

I find the 'tau are shielded by the existence of the imperium so it's not real' argument to be facetious.

The imperium loves to talk about using its enemies against each other. Diverting Tyranids into Ork space, the existence of Orks everywhere in general. If the imperium can, it will. The imperium only exists now because of the protective shadow the Eldar empire cast over the galaxy 12,000+ years ago.

The tau are no different. And the imperium is shielded by the tau being in the way of nids in that direction.

Put it this way, any time an army fights anyone not YOU, they are helping you. Because either of them could be fighting you instead.

I think mostly it boils down to a variety of out of character reasons. Primarily, we're told the Imperium is for humans and is thus relatable*, and secondarily, the Tau were introduced later and there's NOTHING nerds like more than to complain about what they think is new**.

*They're not - or, written well, I think the Imperium and it's way of thinking SHOULD be deeply alient to most of us readers.

**I mean, really, Space Marines as warrior monks? That's SO johnny-come-lately 40k. I'm a REAL nerd, and I know that Space Marines are actually brain-wiped convicts with Toughness 3.

chimera0205 wrote:
I've never understood how people can seriously argue this point. Like I know Mind Control and Sterilization but like have you never met the Inquisition or the Ecclearchy? Yeah sure the Tau control almost every aspect of your life but at least in the Tau your life has value. Your not gonna see any Tau Fire warriors just shoot you for gaks and giggles and your definitely never gonna see any Tau Fleet blow up a bunch of LOYAL Tau planets for the sole sin of having the audacity to be in the general direction a Tyranid Hive Fleet was heading in. (fething Kryptman.) Both empires are incredibly totalitarian and you have litterally no rights or freedoms on either an yeah sure you might have a TINY itty bitty bit more freedom on SOME imperial worlds but is that tiny amount of maybe extra freedom IF ypur lucky enough to be born on the right planet out weight the massive cost in value to your government and massive increase in disposability? I don't think it is. And please for Terras sake don't just reply by screaming Heresy. Im trying to have a actual conversation here.

The Imperium of Man has learned it needs to be absolutely ruthless over thousands of years of utter carnage and enemies on all fronts.

The Tau just haven't learned that lesson yet.

Also, in the 40K universe, the God-Emperor is an actual thing (i.e. he's very real). This means loyalty and service to the Emperor has its own moral facets.

Also, the Tau have a caste system which is not exactly egalitarian.

This subject is not as easy as it looks superficially.

I'm reminded of Karl's quote from 'Starship Troopers', when Johnny calls him and his department out for essentially using the Mobile Infantry as bait.

"We're in this for the species, people".

The Imperium of Man simply cannot fit into our common perception of morality, because it's simply too vast.

Millions of planets, untold trillions of men, women and children. All of them at risk in some way or another every minute of every day.

Most of the threats can, with sufficient brutality, be nipped in the bud. And those left to fester and grow become all the more threatening.

Cults spread, Waaaaaghs! get stronger, Tyranids breed in ever greater numbers.

The Imperium simply cannot afford to Play Nice. Because it's not a choice between The Bad Thing and The Good Thing, as one between The Least Awful Things, all of which have drawbacks.

The Imperium will willingly sacrifice tens of millions of lives, because far more often than not, the alternative is to lose billions of lives. Especially when you consider it's overall structure.

If a Hive World falls, that harms the entire sector. If an Agri-World falls, starvation will follow for many other planets. That's made all the worse if they fall, and the enemy continues it's rampage.

Sometimes, you got to cut off the limb to save the body - and the safest way to do that can include cutting away healthy tissue as well as the rotten.

More like removing a patch of cancerous skin.
Losing a single world is nothing like removing a limb for the Imperium. That would be more like losing several sectors.

T'au are morally inferior because they are Xenos. I wonder how someone can't see this obvious thing.

Humans = good
Xenos = bad

smh

Now seriously, this sums it up completely.

Sterling191 wrote:
"MY FASCISM IS BETTER THAN YOUR FASCISM"

"NO, MY FASCISM IS BETTER THAN YOUR FASCISM!"

Although to be a bit more specific, it would be "MY TOTALITARIAN THEOCRATIC OLIGARCHY IS BETTER THAN YOUR TOTALITARIAN THEOCRATIC OLIGARCHY!"

 Darian Aarush wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
I've never understood how people can seriously argue this point. Like I know Mind Control and Sterilization but like have you never met the Inquisition or the Ecclearchy? Yeah sure the Tau control almost every aspect of your life but at least in the Tau your life has value. Your not gonna see any Tau Fire warriors just shoot you for gaks and giggles and your definitely never gonna see any Tau Fleet blow up a bunch of LOYAL Tau planets for the sole sin of having the audacity to be in the general direction a Tyranid Hive Fleet was heading in. (fething Kryptman.) Both empires are incredibly totalitarian and you have litterally no rights or freedoms on either an yeah sure you might have a TINY itty bitty bit more freedom on SOME imperial worlds but is that tiny amount of maybe extra freedom IF ypur lucky enough to be born on the right planet out weight the massive cost in value to your government and massive increase in disposability? I don't think it is. And please for Terras sake don't just reply by screaming Heresy. Im trying to have a actual conversation here.

The Imperium of Man has learned it needs to be absolutely ruthless over thousands of years of utter carnage and enemies on all fronts.

The Tau just haven't learned that lesson yet.

Also, in the 40K universe, the God-Emperor is an actual thing (i.e. he's very real). This means loyalty and service to the Emperor has its own moral facets.

Also, the Tau have a caste system which is not exactly egalitarian.

This subject is not as easy as it looks superficially.

Yeah sure being brutal to alot of aliens is the right choice but there are undeniably tons of species of alien out there that can be reasoned with and could bring great boons to the Imperium if allowed to join even as second class citizens or even merely protectorates. The Tau have learned that lesson well. There alliances with the Kroot, Niccasar, Vespids etc have payed off dividends well exceeding there cost. Not every new xeno HAS to be met with a the barrel og a Lasgun. Even in a universe as fethed up as 40k every once in awhile extending a hand in friendship is the objectively better option.

Every side of 40k is morally grey. Every side has the dark of evil yet also the light of good in some ways.

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Yeah but the Imperium doesn't HAVE to do what it does. A happy content population is less likely to fall to choas then a beaten and oppressed one. I mean the Eldar had a standard og living surpassing even the Tau and if they had a shorter lifespan theyd still be the dominant species to this day. Even the emperor knew that. You think the emperor dreamt of a despotic imperium that blows up loyal planets for just mearly being in the path of an enemy. The thing that killed the Eldar wasnt some great folley or flaw in there system of goverment. It was pure and simple biology. The fact that the damn knife ears practically live forever is what doomed there species. Cause it meant that eventually theyd get bored and just start murderfucking to get any enjoyment out of there lives. Litterally the ONLY thing that would have been needed to prevent the fall of the Eldar indefinitely would been a finite lifespan. Thats it. There is no rule of the universe that says that you must have 99.99 percent of your population live short miserable meaningless lives. The Eldar even with there inevitable doom pre written into there very DNA maintained a successful galactic empire for far far longer then humanity has even existed with a standard of living that makes even the richest of imperial nobles loom like a poor hive worlder. You can have a galatic empire without beint a dick. The imperium arnt hard men doing what they have to. There just people being dicks when there is no need to be dicks.

Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

They need to keep their population ignorant, because knowledge of chaos is corrupting in and of itself. They have to be brutal and ruthless because otherwise they could never keep the corruption in check. Yes, it creates new problems. That is the tragedy of the Imperium. They must be a harsh and oppressive and cruel regime because it is the only way to keep humanity from becoming extinct. This is why even Inquisitors almost inevitably get corrupted and fall. They either die heroes or live long enough to become corrupted villains.

You forget that the Emperor wasn't exactly a nice guy himself. He was the worst kind of dictator imaginable while he ruled the Imperium directly. He committed mass genocides, wiped out people for thinking differently than he did, etc... He did it all because he had the goal of keeping humanity from becoming extinct. He didn't care if he had to kill a lot of humans, and a lot more xeno, to make that possible.

Really the only difference between pre-heresy and post-heresy Imperium is the deification of the Emperor. Both versions were just as cruel and tyrannical, because they had to be. The only way to survive in a cruel uncaring universe is to be even more ruthless and uncaring. It is tragic and regrettable, but it needs to be done.

The Eldar are not helping prove your point. The Eldar empire was not roses and sunshine like you imply. The old Eldar Empire was basically the same as the current period Dark Eldar. Craftworld Eldar were the rare individuals who realized what their society would create and managed to escape. Dark Eldar are the survivors of the calamity, and because Slannesh is slowly draining their souls they need to keep up with their old depraved ways and even go beyond to stay alive.

The Eldar Empire was an empire where all the planets were basically Commorragh.

In truth, Dark Eldar is a misleading term. It implies that the base state for the Eldar is the regular Craftworld Eldar while there are just some evil versions called Dark Eldar. The truth is its the opposite. The Craftworld Eldar are the exceptions. The Dark Eldar are the closest to their original baseline. Eldar as a general rule are cruel and depraved, it is the rare individuals who can rise above that nature.

Yeah, the Craftworld Eldar are the exceptions, not the rules. Dark Eldar are closer to how the Eldar were before the fall.

Not that the Craftworld Eldar are nice, mind you; they may be more disciplined and less depraved than the Dark Eldar, but they are still arrogant, racist pricks who consider every not Eldar to be expendable. If their farseers forsee that burning 100 human worlds would save the life of a single Eldar, they would do it, because humans don't matter to them. Like, at all.

Oh sure, they'll work with humans...but only because it ultimately serves their purposes, not for humanity's sake.

TBH during the great crusade the Imperium destroyed a couple of human or human and xeno civilization that were doing just fine for millenia without being like the imperium.

Well yeah, that's the Emperor being a dick there.
The Interex could have been left alone, but I guess they threatened the Emperor's New World Order.
Then again, considering how apparently the Interex's military wasn't that great, they probably would have fallen to Orks, Nids or Necrons at some point.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I think you are misconstruing the goals of the Imperium. Or indeed any dictatorial regime. Their goal is not the comfort of their citizens. The difference between the Imperium and other regimes is that the Imperium doesn't lie and pretend they care about individual citizens.

40k in general is a setting that is beyond any of our 21st century morals. The suffering of your citizens is only a concern insofar as it effects your ability to control them. And since the threats the Imperium has to deal with, xeno, heretics, rebels, and chaos, are so insidious they have to use extreme measures. Yes, this leads to what we would view as evil acts. But in a setting where the only good is survival and the only evil is extinction then it doesn't matter if you cause suffering, as long as it furthers the goal of survival.

Yes, there are people in 40k who would view suffering as bad, but it is something they have to live with. A regrettable truth in a harsh universe. Nothing more.

There is also variance in the Imperium's level of harshness based on the local situation. Not every world has the same circumstances, so different approaches are needed in different places. As harsher areas "better off"? Well, depends on your definition. Do you mean "Better of" as it pertains to individual citizens? Do you mean from the perspective of the authorities? Its all relative. And because the Imperium is quite pragmatic, whichever approach is the best is what they use.

Thats why some planets are relatively tolerable, even by our 21st century standards. And others still are intolerable hellholes. Its whatever works for the given situation without being constrained by petty notions like "thats not nice!"

 Grey Templar wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Yeah but the Imperium doesn't HAVE to do what it does. A happy content population is less likely to fall to choas then a beaten and oppressed one. I mean the Eldar had a standard og living surpassing even the Tau and if they had a shorter lifespan theyd still be the dominant species to this day. Even the emperor knew that. You think the emperor dreamt of a despotic imperium that blows up loyal planets for just mearly being in the path of an enemy. The thing that killed the Eldar wasnt some great folley or flaw in there system of goverment. It was pure and simple biology. The fact that the damn knife ears practically live forever is what doomed there species. Cause it meant that eventually theyd get bored and just start murderfucking to get any enjoyment out of there lives. Litterally the ONLY thing that would have been needed to prevent the fall of the Eldar indefinitely would been a finite lifespan. Thats it. There is no rule of the universe that says that you must have 99.99 percent of your population live short miserable meaningless lives. The Eldar even with there inevitable doom pre written into there very DNA maintained a successful galactic empire for far far longer then humanity has even existed with a standard of living that makes even the richest of imperial nobles loom like a poor hive worlder. You can have a galatic empire without beint a dick. The imperium arnt hard men doing what they have to. There just people being dicks when there is no need to be dicks.

Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

They need to keep their population ignorant, because knowledge of chaos is corrupting in and of itself. They have to be brutal and ruthless because otherwise they could never keep the corruption in check. Yes, it creates new problems. That is the tragedy of the Imperium. They must be a harsh and oppressive and cruel regime because it is the only way to keep humanity from becoming extinct. This is why even Inquisitors almost inevitably get corrupted and fall. They either die heroes or live long enough to become corrupted villains.

You forget that the Emperor wasn't exactly a nice guy himself. He was the worst kind of dictator imaginable while he ruled the Imperium directly. He committed mass genocides, wiped out people for thinking differently than he did, etc... He did it all because he had the goal of keeping humanity from becoming extinct. He didn't care if he had to kill a lot of humans, and a lot more xeno, to make that possible.

Really the only difference between pre-heresy and post-heresy Imperium is the deification of the Emperor. Both versions were just as cruel and tyrannical, because they had to be. The only way to survive in a cruel uncaring universe is to be even more ruthless and uncaring. It is tragic and regrettable, but it needs to be done.

The Eldar are not helping prove your point. The Eldar empire was not roses and sunshine like you imply. The old Eldar Empire was basically the same as the current period Dark Eldar. Craftworld Eldar were the rare individuals who realized what their society would create and managed to escape. Dark Eldar are the survivors of the calamity, and because Slannesh is slowly draining their souls they need to keep up with their old depraved ways and even go beyond to stay alive.

The Eldar Empire was an empire where all the planets were basically Commorragh.

In truth, Dark Eldar is a misleading term. It implies that the base state for the Eldar is the regular Craftworld Eldar while there are just some evil versions called Dark Eldar. The truth is its the opposite. The Craftworld Eldar are the exceptions. The Dark Eldar are the closest to their original baseline. Eldar as a general rule are cruel and depraved, it is the rare individuals who can rise above that nature.

You paint the Eldar with too broad and inaccurate of a brush.

The Eldar Empire went through stages.

In the beginning, the Eldar Empire was more like the Craftworld Eldar. How do we know this? The ancient Eldar artifacts and Webway gates bear more resemblance to the Craftworld Eldar. The Eldar gods, myths, and the images associated with them are what the Craftworld Eldar carry on. The Craftworld Eldar are a specific attempt to return to the glory days of the past, Neo-Classicism if you will, when the Eldar held true to their original gods and values. The Exodites are an attempt to go even further back to a more primitive state of development.

As the Empire declined, it became more decadent and became more like the Dark Eldar. The Dark Eldar are a snapshot of the Empire in its final stages when the old ideals and values had fallen away.

All of the current Eldar are representative of the ancient Eldar, at different stages of development, so it is inaccurate to say all Eldar are cruel and depraved as a base state.

The Eldar Empire is like Atlantis, or Tolkien's Numenor. Noble and dazzling at its height, then falling into decadence and cruelty as it declined.

Iracundus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
They are morally superior because they do what has to be done, not what they want to do or what pleases them, in order to save the whole species while fighting gods of Hell.
While Tau think they are better by doing the exact same errors as the Imperium's ancestors trying to prove how much better they are then everyone else just by being ignorant of the truth of the galaxy.

Yeah but the Imperium doesn't HAVE to do what it does. A happy content population is less likely to fall to choas then a beaten and oppressed one. I mean the Eldar had a standard og living surpassing even the Tau and if they had a shorter lifespan theyd still be the dominant species to this day. Even the emperor knew that. You think the emperor dreamt of a despotic imperium that blows up loyal planets for just mearly being in the path of an enemy. The thing that killed the Eldar wasnt some great folley or flaw in there system of goverment. It was pure and simple biology. The fact that the damn knife ears practically live forever is what doomed there species. Cause it meant that eventually theyd get bored and just start murderfucking to get any enjoyment out of there lives. Litterally the ONLY thing that would have been needed to prevent the fall of the Eldar indefinitely would been a finite lifespan. Thats it. There is no rule of the universe that says that you must have 99.99 percent of your population live short miserable meaningless lives. The Eldar even with there inevitable doom pre written into there very DNA maintained a successful galactic empire for far far longer then humanity has even existed with a standard of living that makes even the richest of imperial nobles loom like a poor hive worlder. You can have a galatic empire without beint a dick. The imperium arnt hard men doing what they have to. There just people being dicks when there is no need to be dicks.

Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

They need to keep their population ignorant, because knowledge of chaos is corrupting in and of itself. They have to be brutal and ruthless because otherwise they could never keep the corruption in check. Yes, it creates new problems. That is the tragedy of the Imperium. They must be a harsh and oppressive and cruel regime because it is the only way to keep humanity from becoming extinct. This is why even Inquisitors almost inevitably get corrupted and fall. They either die heroes or live long enough to become corrupted villains.

You forget that the Emperor wasn't exactly a nice guy himself. He was the worst kind of dictator imaginable while he ruled the Imperium directly. He committed mass genocides, wiped out people for thinking differently than he did, etc... He did it all because he had the goal of keeping humanity from becoming extinct. He didn't care if he had to kill a lot of humans, and a lot more xeno, to make that possible.

Really the only difference between pre-heresy and post-heresy Imperium is the deification of the Emperor. Both versions were just as cruel and tyrannical, because they had to be. The only way to survive in a cruel uncaring universe is to be even more ruthless and uncaring. It is tragic and regrettable, but it needs to be done.

The Eldar are not helping prove your point. The Eldar empire was not roses and sunshine like you imply. The old Eldar Empire was basically the same as the current period Dark Eldar. Craftworld Eldar were the rare individuals who realized what their society would create and managed to escape. Dark Eldar are the survivors of the calamity, and because Slannesh is slowly draining their souls they need to keep up with their old depraved ways and even go beyond to stay alive.

The Eldar Empire was an empire where all the planets were basically Commorragh.

In truth, Dark Eldar is a misleading term. It implies that the base state for the Eldar is the regular Craftworld Eldar while there are just some evil versions called Dark Eldar. The truth is its the opposite. The Craftworld Eldar are the exceptions. The Dark Eldar are the closest to their original baseline. Eldar as a general rule are cruel and depraved, it is the rare individuals who can rise above that nature.

You paint the Eldar with too broad a brush.

The Eldar Empire went through stages.

In the beginning, the Eldar Empire was more like the Craftworld Eldar. How do we know this? The ancient Eldar artifacts and Webway gates bear more resemblance to the Craftworld Eldar. The Craftworld Eldar are a specific attempt to return to the glory days of the past, Neo-Classicism if you will, when the Eldar held true to their original gods and values. The Exodites are an attempt to go even further back to a more primitive state of development.

As the Empire declined, it became more decadent and became more like the Dark Eldar. The Dark Eldar are a snapshot of the Empire in its final stages when the old ideals and values had fallen away.

All of the current Eldar are representative of the ancient Eldar, at different stages of development, so it is inaccurate to say all Eldar are cruel and depraved.

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

Quote and cite your claim of where you read this, and also be sure to note there is a difference between individual views and the views of the faction as a whole.

Now mind you, the Eldar have always been condescending towards other races but that is NOT the same as saying they are cruel and depraved.

The Eldar only view other Eldar as people. They may be kind to other races, but that is the kindness of an animal activist. Just as most people today might regret animals dying, they might accept that if the alternative is people dying. Certainly few would object if the animals in question are causing damage or harm to people. Is that necessarily active cruelty? Not so. All the races in 40K look out for their own first above all, but the Eldar (and the Tau) of all the major factions certainly seem to minimize the amount of cruelty to their own kind. The Craftworld quality of life seems to be the best out of all the races out there, without the internecine fighting of Dark Eldar society.

A key factor that influences how Eldar view other races is the difference in natural lifespan. Eldar live over a thousand years. A human without the benefits of treatment cannot even make 100. This limits to what extent an Eldar can form an emotional or personal connection to a human, in much the same way as many people would have trouble forming a serious relationship of equals to a mouse (lifespan 1-2 years in the wild). Go off and do a few things for a short time (compared to your lifespan) and come back to find the other party has died of old age.

Iracundus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

Quote and cite your claim of where you read this.

Now mind you, the Eldar have always been condescending towards other races but that is NOT the same as saying they are cruel and depraved.

The Eldar only view other Eldar as people. They may be kind to other races, but that is the kindness of an animal activist. Just as most people today might regret animals dying, they might accept that if the alternative is people dying. Is that necessarily active cruelty? Not so. All the races in 40K look out for their own first above all, but the Eldar (and the Tau) of all the major factions certainly seem to minimize the amount of cruelty to their own kind.

A key factor that influences how Eldar view other races is the difference in natural lifespan. Eldar live over a thousand years. A human without the benefits of treatment cannot even make 100. This limits to what extent an Eldar can form an emotional or personal connection to a human, in much the same way as many people would have trouble forming a serious relationship of equals to a mouse (lifespan 1-2 years in the wild). Go off and do a few things for a short time (compared to your lifespan) and come back to find the other party has died of old age.

Well, we have this Eldar calling for complete genocide and admitting to have started the whole Armageddon thing

Eldrad is the greatest among us. He is the sun which eclipses the light of our stars. He is Ulthwé and the fate of our kind rests in his hands. His eyes are the keenest, no detail goes unnoticed. Four thousand runes can he cast, guiding our path through torment and war, death and salvation. He is the pathfinder, the seeker, the true guide. Even your race has trembled before his might, though you may not have known it. It was he who guided us to the Ork known as Ghazghkull, and commanded us to steer his path to your world of Armageddon. Ten thousand Eldar lives would have been lost if he had not done so. What sacrifice is a million humans for such a cause?
He knows your affairs better than you do yourself. He warned that weakling seer you call Emperor of the treachery of Horus and the strife which would engulf us, just as it engulfed the rest of the galaxy, but your arrogance deafened you to his words. Your stupidity almost destroyed the galaxy, yet you never knew how close the forces of light were to our ultimate defeat. He saw the Great Devourer and warned our kin on Iyanden, even before they had neared our galaxy.

To him all futures are laid out, just as your crude implements of torture are laid out on the cold metal of that shelf. You say we are random and capricious, we say you are vulgar and idiotic. Some of you call us your enemies. All races are our enemy in time. Some of you call us your allies. You are not allies, any more than a butcher’s knife is his ally. You are tools, nothing more. To be used and expended to protect our race, that is your fate.

Your kind think you are so magnificent, yet even now, at the nadir of our power, we can manipulate you, turn you to our ends, as easily as you might pull a trigger and fire a gun. Our time will come again, Eldrad has promised us. Once more you upstart Mon-keigh [subject spits] shall kneel before our power! This time we will not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!

You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth.

Much kindness, wow. Totally don't see humans as expendable tools to be cast aside once they've exhausted their usefulness.
I mean, humans are donkey-caves, but Eldar are even bigger donkey-caves.

You do know that people keep mice as pets, right? And that they can still form an emotional connection to them?

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I would also say the existence of rediscovered human worlds and pocket empires dating from before the Imperium shows there are alternative ways to the Imperium. If they can also survive for 10,000 years then their way of life is just as effective.

Iracundus wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I would also say the existence of rediscovered human worlds and pocket empires dating from before the Imperium shows there are alternative ways to the Imperium. If they can also survive for 10,000 years then their way of life is just as effective.

Not really. How big are these Empires compared to the Imperium? Are they being assaulted on all fronts night and day from many multitudes of sources? It’s apples and oranges. Small sector or subsector protected by the warp is not equal to the galaxy spanning Imperium, and its idiotic to compare them so.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

Quote and cite your claim of where you read this.

Now mind you, the Eldar have always been condescending towards other races but that is NOT the same as saying they are cruel and depraved.

The Eldar only view other Eldar as people. They may be kind to other races, but that is the kindness of an animal activist. Just as most people today might regret animals dying, they might accept that if the alternative is people dying. Is that necessarily active cruelty? Not so. All the races in 40K look out for their own first above all, but the Eldar (and the Tau) of all the major factions certainly seem to minimize the amount of cruelty to their own kind.

A key factor that influences how Eldar view other races is the difference in natural lifespan. Eldar live over a thousand years. A human without the benefits of treatment cannot even make 100. This limits to what extent an Eldar can form an emotional or personal connection to a human, in much the same way as many people would have trouble forming a serious relationship of equals to a mouse (lifespan 1-2 years in the wild). Go off and do a few things for a short time (compared to your lifespan) and come back to find the other party has died of old age.

Well, we have this Eldar calling for complete genocide and admitting to have started the whole Armageddon thing

Eldrad is the greatest among us. He is the sun which eclipses the light of our stars. He is Ulthwé and the fate of our kind rests in his hands. His eyes are the keenest, no detail goes unnoticed. Four thousand runes can he cast, guiding our path through torment and war, death and salvation. He is the pathfinder, the seeker, the true guide. Even your race has trembled before his might, though you may not have known it. It was he who guided us to the Ork known as Ghazghkull, and commanded us to steer his path to your world of Armageddon. Ten thousand Eldar lives would have been lost if he had not done so. What sacrifice is a million humans for such a cause?
He knows your affairs better than you do yourself. He warned that weakling seer you call Emperor of the treachery of Horus and the strife which would engulf us, just as it engulfed the rest of the galaxy, but your arrogance deafened you to his words. Your stupidity almost destroyed the galaxy, yet you never knew how close the forces of light were to our ultimate defeat. He saw the Great Devourer and warned our kin on Iyanden, even before they had neared our galaxy.

To him all futures are laid out, just as your crude implements of torture are laid out on the cold metal of that shelf. You say we are random and capricious, we say you are vulgar and idiotic. Some of you call us your enemies. All races are our enemy in time. Some of you call us your allies. You are not allies, any more than a butcher’s knife is his ally. You are tools, nothing more. To be used and expended to protect our race, that is your fate.

Your kind think you are so magnificent, yet even now, at the nadir of our power, we can manipulate you, turn you to our ends, as easily as you might pull a trigger and fire a gun. Our time will come again, Eldrad has promised us. Once more you upstart Mon-keigh [subject spits] shall kneel before our power! This time we will not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!

You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth.

Much kindness, wow. Totally don't see humans as expendable tools to be cast aside once they've exhausted their usefulness.

Considering the individual in question is a prisoner being tortured and is presumably due for death, a hostile viewpoint towards his captors is hardly unexpected.

As I made mention in the previous post, the individual's views have to be taken into account.

As a counterpoint:

Yet sometimes an Eldar Corsair may display the greatest compassion to their defeated enemies if it pleases them to do so. The so-called Duke of Asteri Reach, Avele Swifteye, commands a cOrsair fleet out of Biel-Tan craftworld, and has continued Biel-Tan's pledge to protect the Maiden worlds from settlement by lesser races. On the world of Yrthal (a Maiden world), Avele destroyed half a dozen Human settlements before the fledgling Imperial colony surrendered. He took the surviving forty thousand colonists to a nearby habitable moon, keeping them in stasis aboard his ships while they shuttled back and forth in short warp jumps, and romised that no further hostilities would be taken against them if they did not stray back to Yrthal.

-p. 53, 4th edition Eldar Codex

So we have a Corsair from the most xenophobic Craftworld, who accepts a surrender from humans and then takes the time and risk of doing warp jumps to carry them all to a habitable moon. Remember doing warp jumps is a far bigger deal for Eldar due to the risk of the bright Eldar souls attracting daemons. You'd be hard pressed to find an equivalent example of mercy and personal risk for the sake of aliens by an Imperial.

 Apple Peel wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I would also say the existence of rediscovered human worlds and pocket empires dating from before the Imperium shows there are alternative ways to the Imperium. If they can also survive for 10,000 years then their way of life is just as effective.

Not really. How big are these Empires compared to the Imperium? Are they being assaulted on all fronts night and day from many multitudes of sources? It’s apples and oranges. Small sector or subsector protected by the warp is not equal to the galaxy spanning Imperium, and its idiotic to compare them so.

Yeah, how do we know the Interex weren't constantly under Ork attack? I'd say no, because apparently the Interex's military wasn't that well developed as the Imperium's, despite their relatively superior tech, and you'd want a developed military when fighting against the Orks.

 Apple Peel wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Incorrect. The Imperium very must HAS to do what they do. It is the only reason the Imperium has lasted the 10,000 years since the Heresy.

Dubious at best. The absolute soul crushing worlds of the Imperium aren't any better off than the ones that are only mildly tyrannized- usually worse (see Ultramar)
Many of the problems of the Imperium are magnified by their ignorance and brutality.

I would also say the existence of rediscovered human worlds and pocket empires dating from before the Imperium shows there are alternative ways to the Imperium. If they can also survive for 10,000 years then their way of life is just as effective.

Not really. How big are these Empires compared to the Imperium? Are they being assaulted on all fronts night and day from many multitudes of sources? It’s apples and oranges. Small sector or subsector protected by the warp is not equal to the galaxy spanning Imperium, and its idiotic to compare them so.

Can it on the ad hominem. Just because a view is different from yours does not make it "idiotic."

If they survive for 10,000 years in a hostile galaxy, whether by stealth, arms, or whatever other means, then their way of life is as effective as the Imperium, and punctures the oft trotted excuse of the Imperium's brutality being necessary for survival. The metric that gets trotted out is survival. If they survived, then they have succeeded just as much.

Trying to then add "but they were not all powerful in the galaxy" is shifting the goalposts beyond survival to being on top. Then that's an issue more of pride.

Iracundus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

They are if you are human. I recall reading that they generally consider humans to be dumb beasts, basically vermin.

Quote and cite your claim of where you read this.

Now mind you, the Eldar have always been condescending towards other races but that is NOT the same as saying they are cruel and depraved.

The Eldar only view other Eldar as people. They may be kind to other races, but that is the kindness of an animal activist. Just as most people today might regret animals dying, they might accept that if the alternative is people dying. Is that necessarily active cruelty? Not so. All the races in 40K look out for their own first above all, but the Eldar (and the Tau) of all the major factions certainly seem to minimize the amount of cruelty to their own kind.

A key factor that influences how Eldar view other races is the difference in natural lifespan. Eldar live over a thousand years. A human without the benefits of treatment cannot even make 100. This limits to what extent an Eldar can form an emotional or personal connection to a human, in much the same way as many people would have trouble forming a serious relationship of equals to a mouse (lifespan 1-2 years in the wild). Go off and do a few things for a short time (compared to your lifespan) and come back to find the other party has died of old age.

Well, we have this Eldar calling for complete genocide and admitting to have started the whole Armageddon thing

Eldrad is the greatest among us. He is the sun which eclipses the light of our stars. He is Ulthwé and the fate of our kind rests in his hands. His eyes are the keenest, no detail goes unnoticed. Four thousand runes can he cast, guiding our path through torment and war, death and salvation. He is the pathfinder, the seeker, the true guide. Even your race has trembled before his might, though you may not have known it. It was he who guided us to the Ork known as Ghazghkull, and commanded us to steer his path to your world of Armageddon. Ten thousand Eldar lives would have been lost if he had not done so. What sacrifice is a million humans for such a cause?
He knows your affairs better than you do yourself. He warned that weakling seer you call Emperor of the treachery of Horus and the strife which would engulf us, just as it engulfed the rest of the galaxy, but your arrogance deafened you to his words. Your stupidity almost destroyed the galaxy, yet you never knew how close the forces of light were to our ultimate defeat. He saw the Great Devourer and warned our kin on Iyanden, even before they had neared our galaxy.

To him all futures are laid out, just as your crude implements of torture are laid out on the cold metal of that shelf. You say we are random and capricious, we say you are vulgar and idiotic. Some of you call us your enemies. All races are our enemy in time. Some of you call us your allies. You are not allies, any more than a butcher’s knife is his ally. You are tools, nothing more. To be used and expended to protect our race, that is your fate.

Your kind think you are so magnificent, yet even now, at the nadir of our power, we can manipulate you, turn you to our ends, as easily as you might pull a trigger and fire a gun. Our time will come again, Eldrad has promised us. Once more you upstart Mon-keigh [subject spits] shall kneel before our power! This time we will not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!

You think us weak, but we will be your doom, children of Earth.

Much kindness, wow. Totally don't see humans as expendable tools to be cast aside once they've exhausted their usefulness.

Considering the individual in question is a prisoner being tortured and is presumably due for death, a hostile viewpoint towards his captors is hardly unexpected.

As I made mention in the previous post, the individual's views have to be taken into account.

As a counterpoint:

Yet sometimes an Eldar Corsair may display the greatest compassion to their defeated enemies if it pleases them to do so. The so-called Duke of Asteri Reach, Avele Swifteye, commands a cOrsair fleet out of Biel-Tan craftworld, and has continued Biel-Tan's pledge to protect the Maiden worlds from settlement by lesser races. On the world of Yrthal (a Maiden world), Avele destroyed half a dozen Human settlements before the fledgling Imperial colony surrendered. He took the surviving forty thousand colonists to a nearby habitable moon, keeping them in stasis aboard his ships while they shuttled back and forth in short warp jumps, and romised that no further hostilities would be taken against them if they did not stray back to Yrthal.

-p. 53, 4th edition Eldar Codex

So we have a Corsair from the most xenophobic Craftworld, who accepts a surrender from humans and then takes the time and risk of doing warp jumps to carry them all to a habitable moon. Remember doing warp jumps is a far bigger deal for Eldar due to the risk of the bright Eldar souls attracting daemons. You'd be hard pressed to find an equivalent example of mercy and personal risk for the sake of aliens by an Imperial.

Alright fair enough. So they aren't all donkey-caves then. Just most of them

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Well yeah, that's the Emperor being a dick there.
The Interex could have been left alone, but I guess they threatened the Emperor's New World Order.
Then again, considering how apparently the Interex's military wasn't that great, they probably would have fallen to Orks, Nids or Necrons at some point.

I always see this argument made "Well, they were destroyed by the imperium, so they would end up destroyed anyway".
But in reality, the Imperium during the great crusade conquered the Galaxy, they were unstopable. Even the biggest empire the Orks have ever built was destroyed by a fraction of the Great Crusade army. And even in modern times, the rotten carcass of that empire can face ALL treats at once and survive.
So no, those civilizations could have survived just fine, just like they did for millenia. Is dishonest to say that the imperium faces ALL ENEMIES ALL THE TIME because in reality most systems only face one enemy, and with many years between attacks. How does Ultramar cares abou what happens in Baal? Does their survival have less merit? Those pocket civilizatoons should be compared with a sector or a couple of sistems, in relation to the threads they face, not the whole imperium.
Also, just because the Roman Empire felt, it doesnt make it irrelevant.

if your sole contribution to the debate is to insult other posters it's better you do not post at all.

Sterling191 wrote:
And its a lie.

I feel like if people could accept that at least half of the fluff is lies and/or propaganda they'd start to understand the joke of the setting and have a far more difficult time taking it seriously.

Even now, it's still a parody, as no one in their right mind could look at this universe and embrace it straight on. It's horrifying, so, poke fun at it.

And then remember at the end of the day, this is the kind of universe that would be required for someone who says their way is the only way to even have the chance of being right, and even in this universe, we're not really sure of that.


That said, the little blue bastards have a horrible wake up call in their future, there is no one who is morally superior in this universe.

The Tau are not Good Guys.

The Eldar are not good guys.

I think the argument is, or should be more about governance. The means by which labour and resources are collected and used. I'd say the IoM is a medieval feudal style government, with a tacked on theocratic element. The Tau appear to be a communist collective with a caste system. I'm not sure what the poli sci term is for their social structures effect on their government. The Eldar are...communist with some tribal leadership elements.

In terms of "goodness " I'd go with the Eldar. However their government interacts with humanity is more of a genocidal pogrom attempting to annihilate the human race. At best the eldar trying to reduce the human race to a pack of primates at a iron age level of sophistication, as if locked in a permanent zoo exhibit. The tau would treat humanity as a conquered vassal state akin to ancient Romes hegemony. As long as they pay their taxes and venerate the Etherals they'd allow humans to live relatively peacefully. The IoM would allow humans to thrive. The means by which they would accomplish that IS objectionable. However the galaxy IS a VERY BAD place.

Because they have to rationalize their affinity with space-fascists, however frantically they can.

The Tau are not Communist. In the slightest.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Because they have to rationalize their affinity with space-fascists, however frantically they can.

The Tau are not Communist. In the slightest.

What is their basic financial unit? Dollars? Something more convoluted? Are Tau allowed to own property as individuals? Are Tau assigned work based on their preferences or skill set? As I understand the tau don't get to choose their vocation, it's based on their caste. I assume their compensation is equally based on their communal society's prerogatives.

The IoM is not Facist. They do not have a single leader. Facist is just a word misused by people who presume a totalitarian state is automatically facist.

I don't know what a facist is.

Presuming you meant fascist, yes it is and yes it does. ALmost every regime in 40K is totalitarian, I only make the fascist allegation about the IoM, because it's the only one that holds.

The things you flag about the Tau have zero impact on whether they are Communist or not. Personal property vs. private property, old bean. Meritocracy does not disappear under Communism. The CCCP went from a feudal, agrarian society to putting a man in space inside fifty years - while also defeating the Nazis. Because they were unmotivated and innovation died, I guess?

They're much closer to fascist than they are Communist, when you consider the totality of their top-down, Imperialist, expansionist circumstances. You could maybe argue that the Tau are Stalinists/Maoists, but there's a reason nobody takes tankies seriously, even on my side of the aisle.

They definitely are not Marxist-Leninists, or Trots.

EDIT - For avoidance of doubt, nothing I have said here is meant to give the impression that the IoM is therefore morally inferior to the Tau. Objective morality is a myth and I take no position as to what is 'moral'.

If they survive for 10,000 years in a hostile galaxy, whether by stealth, arms, or whatever other means, then their way of life is as effective as the Imperium, and punctures the oft trotted excuse of the Imperium's brutality being necessary for survival. The metric that gets trotted out is survival. If they survived, then they have succeeded just as much

Agreed with a caveat - if a culture has survived by stealth in some active manner - it's 'hiding' or been 'hidden', fine. But if there are out-of-context extinction-level forces out there that it's just not encountered yet, then that culture is basically sat on a time bomb with an unreasonably long fuse - however viable it might be internally that's not the same as survivable on a long-term galactic scale, it's the Mesoamerican cultures looking out to sea and saying "what wired looking boats. I do hope they don't have any interesting new diseases..."

Thing is, there are extinction-level forces out there - things like big hive fleets or the Beast's Waaaggh! which can only be stopped by another force operating at a galactic scale.

locarno24 wrote:

If they survive for 10,000 years in a hostile galaxy, whether by stealth, arms, or whatever other means, then their way of life is as effective as the Imperium, and punctures the oft trotted excuse of the Imperium's brutality being necessary for survival. The metric that gets trotted out is survival. If they survived, then they have succeeded just as much

Agreed with a caveat - if a culture has survived by stealth in some active manner - it's 'hiding' or been 'hidden', fine. But if there are out-of-context extinction-level forces out there that it's just not encountered yet, then that culture is basically sat on a time bomb with an unreasonably long fuse - however viable it might be internally that's not the same as survivable on a long-term galactic scale, it's the Mesoamerican cultures looking out to sea and saying "what wired looking boats. I do hope they don't have any interesting new diseases..."

Thing is, there are extinction-level forces out there - things like big hive fleets or the Beast's Waaaggh! which can only be stopped by another force operating at a galactic scale.

TBH the same will happen to the Imperium. Is doomed to fail. They just haven't failed yet. Be it by Chaos, or Tyranids, or other mega thread. That doesn't make their 10.000 and counting years of history less worth.

Obviously, the morally superior race in the galaxy are the Orkz. Prove me wrong.:p

 flandarz wrote:
Obviously, the morally superior race in the galaxy are the Orkz. Prove me wrong.:p

Really just depends on what you believe about forces of nature being evil and perhaps what constitutes nature.

I think people are forgetting that humanity did try the whole “play nice with Xenos” thing during their golden age, and it is implied that there was a sort of federation style alliance system they had going with a lot of the xeno species out there. However, one of the major reasons modern humanity in the setting is so anti-Xenos is because the moment that golden age humanity stumbled, due to their conflict with the men of iron and the loss of cohesion via the Warp storms after slaaneshs birth, their former xeno allies on a massive scale began attacking, massacring and enslaving human population across the galaxy. Perhaps not all formerly friendly Xenos were involved but many were and certainly for humanity it would have seemed to be a horrifying wake up call that they had to look out for themselves first.

About the same, although the Tau are younger and maturing faster than the Imperium. And they do have those sweet japanese anime mechs...gotta give'em points for those.

But the Tyranid...I admire its purity. A survivor...unclouded by conscience, remorse...or delusions of morality.

 flandarz wrote:
Obviously, the morally superior race in the galaxy are the Orkz. Prove me wrong.:p

Orks are best. This is hard to dispute. But how good are they at football? Eh?

Life on an Imperial world does not have to be brutal. "The Imperium" does not dictate that it needs to be so. See Ultramar. Life on individual worlds can be happy or awful, and that's really just up to the local government or circumstances. The caveats are that you must worship the Emperor (or at least not worship something NOT the Emperor) and that the world must meet it's tithe.

It CAN be awful and oppressive. But it can also be the opposite. The Imperium as a whole doesn't care, as long as you pay your taxes.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Life on an Imperial world does not have to be brutal. "The Imperium" does not dictate that it needs to be so. See Ultramar. Life on individual worlds can be happy or awful, and that's really just up to the local government or circumstances. The caveats are that you must worship the Emperor (or at least not worship something NOT the Emperor) and that the world must meet it's tithe.

It CAN be awful and oppressive. But it can also be the opposite. The Imperium as a whole doesn't care, as long as you pay your taxes.

The Imperium may not directly dictate certain things but it might effectively indirectly select for them. For example, it may set tithe rates at a level that only harsh oppressive governments can reliably meet, which in effect selects for harsh oppressive governments since any government that did not tighten the screws on the population would eventually fail to meet its tithe requirements and get replaced.

Similarly, if the Administratum notices a world seems to be having a good quality of life for all concerned, it might raise the tithe level, concluding the world has more to give and therefore should contribute more.

Apple Peel wrote:Really just depends on what you believe about forces of nature being evil and perhaps what constitutes nature.

I believe that, for something to be "good" or "evil", it has to have an understanding of the difference between good and evil, and choose to do one or the other. My original statement was just a joke, but applying this logic to the various Races, I can make a list of "most evil" to "least evil".

1) a tie between the Drukhari and Chaos. I don't think I really need to explain this one.

2) Necrons. These guys are just the worst. Put God-like entities into robots to murder everyone else, and are still trying to do just that.

3) a tie between the Tau and the Imperium. Just because you're doing gakky things "for the greater good" doesn't make them any less gakky. But, on an individual level, you can see people choose the better path. Both Factions have a bad case of "mostly decent people who are part of a gakky collective".

4) Orkz. These guy don't really view what they're doing as bad. Even the most beaten Grot just understands that this is how things are done, even if they resent their "superiors" for it. Still not exactly paragons of virtue, but not necessarily "evil".

5) Eldar. They aren't "good guys" per se (their "standard" view on other sapients is, frankly, appalling), but their "evil" doesn't seem to be out of malice. Just indifference. They also seem to be trying to "mend their ways", so I can respect that.

Disqualified) Tyranids. Let's be real: these guys aren't good. They aren't evil. They're effectively just mindless beasts, doing what their nature dictates. They're no more evil than a hurricane is evil.

Red Marine wrote:Orks are best. This is hard to dispute. But how good are they at football? Eh?

I feel like Orkz would take better to Rugby, or a rousing game of "Face Punch".

Tyranids, as a whole race, are not mindless though the lesser individual organisms might be. However the Hive Mind's view of things is on a vast scale beyond that of the individuals it consumes.

To the bacteria on your food, you might seem an monstrous uncaring entity, arguably "evil" from their point of view if they were conscious. You wouldn't even spend time considering the views of these bacteria though. You just want to eat your lunch.

I suppose I should explain a bit on my view of "mindless". Basically, a "mindless" creature, to me, is one that acts entirely on instinct. Even the Hive Mind falls under this "umbrella", as it hasn't even considered the possibility that it may end up devouring all organic life in the universe one day. I don't even know if it has the capacity for such introspection. It exists solely to feed and reproduce, and while it may seem to be intelligent in how it fulfills those goals, I believe this is just us anthropomorphizing it.

Of course, at this point we could go into a philosophical debate over whether or not we are, ourselves, simply beings of pure instinct that have "put on airs", but that's probably best set to the side. I'll just say that, in my opinion, the Hive Mind and Tyranids aren't sapient on the same level as the other thinking races of the galaxy. Rather, they are more akin to an extremely complex ant, termite, or bee colony, which can appear to be guided "intelligently" even when acting on pure instinct.

 flandarz wrote:
I suppose I should explain a bit on my view of "mindless". Basically, a "mindless" creature, to me, is one that acts entirely on instinct. Even the Hive Mind falls under this "umbrella", as it hasn't even considered the possibility that it may end up devouring all organic life in the universe one day. I don't even know if it has the capacity for such introspection. It exists solely to feed and reproduce, and while it may seem to be intelligent in how it fulfills those goals, I believe this is just us anthropomorphizing it.

Of course, at this point we could go into a philosophical debate over whether or not we are, ourselves, simply beings of pure instinct that have "put on airs", but that's probably best set to the side. I'll just say that, in my opinion, the Hive Mind and Tyranids aren't sapient on the same level as the other thinking races of the galaxy. Rather, they are more akin to an extremely complex ant, termite, or bee colony, which can appear to be guided "intelligently" even when acting on pure instinct.

Except we have direct fluff confirmation that there's an thinking, sapient intelligence driving the Tyranid fleets beyond instinct and hunger. It's not anthropomorphizing, Imperium characters canonically have had psychic conversations with it.

In the background about the Tyranids over the RL years, there have been 2 competing themes by authors. One portrays the Hive Mind as a warp entity, arising from the collective of all Tyranids (articulated from about Epic Hive War and 2nd edition onwards). The other that it is "merely" a communication network or static generated by the communication activity of the Tyranids (first articulated in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, as this viewpoint was Sherman Bishop's). Over the years the fluff has see-sawed between these two depending on the author. More recently it seems we are heading back to the first one.

The following is from the short story Wraithflight by Guy Haley. The POV is Iyanna using her psychic senses while fighting a hive fleet. While an in-character POV and thus potentially fallible, it does pretty strongly point towards the Hive Mind as an entity:

Beyond the shield she saw the Great Dragon’s true form. Not the hideous intrusions into the mortal realm that swam the black star sea, nor as a Farseer might see it, as a great and braided cable of malicious fate dominating all the skein. The first was merely a part of the whole, the second psychic abstraction. What Iyanna instead saw was the reality of its soul.

It was a great shadow when seen from afar, a wave of dread and psychic blindness that preceded the hive fleet’s arrival. But the greatest shadows are cast by the brightest lights, and seen closely, the soul of the hive mind shone brighter than any sun.
She was so close now that she perceived the ridged topography of its mind, larger than star systems, an entity bigger than a god. It contemplated thoughts as large as continents, and spun plans more complex than worlds. It dreamed dreams that could not be fathomed. She felt small and afraid before it, but she did not let her fear cow her defiance.

Against this vista flickered the souls of eldar, their jewel-brightness dimmed by the incomparable glare of the Great Dragon. And this was but a tendril of the creature. The bulk of it stretched away, coils wrapped tight about the higher dimensions, joining in the distance to others, and then others again, until at a great confluence of the parts sat the terrible truth of the whole. She stared at its brilliance. Unlike her passionless dead warriors, who felt nought but the echoes of wrath at the sight, she was fascinated by the beauty on display. She thought, if only such a thing could be tamed it would drive out She Who Thirsts forever. If only its hunger was for things other than the meat and blood of worlds…

She ceased her speculation. Such an entity was entirely other, inimical to all life but its own, a giant animal intent only on its prey. There was no thought to its doings, no intellect. It was cunning. It exhibited signs of an emergent, mechanical intelligence, as evolution might appear to possess if sped to the rate of change the hive mind evinced. But there was no true intelligence to it. The hive mind was non-sentient.

...

She had the sense of an eye, slave to a great power. An intellect that dwarfed the Great Wheel of the galaxy. She opened her second sense, to find the Dragon looking at her with terrible regard. For aeons it seemed it held her in its gaze. And there was fury in that examination. The Dragon was angry, and it was angry with her. Not with the galaxy, or this sector, or her species. But with her personally. The promise of endless torment came from it, her very being enslaved to its ends and used against others, her body rebuilt over and again so that it might suffer the Dragon’s revenge.

So from this story, it seems Iyanna was mistaken in thinking the Hive Mind had no true intelligence or sentience. Though the Hive Mind normally does not seem to concern itself with individual enemies, it seems to have noticed and formed a particular vendetta (or so Iyanna at least perceives) after Iyanna scores yet another victory against the Tyranids.

It is frustrating to read these threads. 40K was created as an explciitly dark parody universe, following in the best traditions of stuff like 2000AD with Judge Dredd.
The Imperium has lots in common with real world fascist regimes, on purpose. Genocide, xenophobia, intolerance of difference, heavy use of propaganda, obsession with war. It also has lots in common with communist regimes- seizure of private property, unending bureaucracy, heavy use of propaganda, obsesssion with deviant thought from outside. The creators no doubt figured that the heavy, heavy brushstrokes would be enough for people not to consider the Imperium the "good guys", but I guess they overestimated people. There are no good guys in original 40K.

Of course the Imperium, in it's propaganda, claims what it does it "justified". That is what every such regime does, it is fundamental. Needing an external threat to hate is also fundamental to these regimes. (Edit to add: And yes, I know, the Imperium is ALSO inspired by the Holy Roman Empire. It has a lot of inspirations, from all over the place. That is what makes it such a good setting!)

Of course, the setting is now being written by people who grew up as fans of the original dark satire and some of them do not seem to understand how it was originally intended. Space Marines are unironically written as heroes rather than the lobotomised murderers they were originally. The setting is now written to justify the Imperium's POV rather than to poke fun at it. The writers seem pretty comfortable writing fascist fan fiction, and a lot of the fans seem pretty comfortable lapping it up. It is that hyper masculine "Only I will do what needs to be done" fantasy stripped of all empathy. Simple, brawny answers to complex questions.

Very disappointing.

In that regard, the Tau are somewhat odd. Added later than most, they had a specifically optimistic outlook. But the grimdark was self consciously built into them, with the mysteries surrounding the Ethereals and so on. And later writers had to make them "just as bad" as the Imperium so that people could "both sides" the fiction and not reflect on the fact that their mandollies fictional background is pretty horrific, and cheering them on is pretty horrific too.

 agurus1 wrote:
I think people are forgetting that humanity did try the whole “play nice with Xenos” thing during their golden age, and it is implied that there was a sort of federation style alliance system they had going with a lot of the xeno species out there. However, one of the major reasons modern humanity in the setting is so anti-Xenos is because the moment that golden age humanity stumbled, due to their conflict with the men of iron and the loss of cohesion via the Warp storms after slaaneshs birth, their former xeno allies on a massive scale began attacking, massacring and enslaving human population across the galaxy. Perhaps not all formerly friendly Xenos were involved but many were and certainly for humanity it would have seemed to be a horrifying wake up call that they had to look out for themselves first.

That's just not true. Plenty of humans lived peacefully with their xenos friends and humanity wasn't close to a unified viewpoint on things. There were tyrant humans, peaceful humans, horrifying psykers, awful aliens and lovely aliens. The reason the Imperium is so anti Xenos is because the person who built it was a horrible xeno hating jackass.

Edit: The Tyranids definitely seem to be moving towards the Hive Mind having an awareness beyond just a communication thing. When Yriel stabs a Tyrant with the Spear of Twilight it tries to devour the Hive Mind and it hurts. Apparently for the first time in millenia.

That's kind of disappointing, to be honest. To me, the most interesting thing about Nids was that they weren't like sapient races. They were a force of nature; a swarm of locusts eating and destroying for no reason other than instinct. If there's some overarching intelligence guiding them, then (in my opinion) there's not a lot of difference between them and, say, Daemons, other than motivation.

The trend in the game background at the moment is entirely toward super characters and so they will of course personify the Hive Mind to facillitate that.

I just ignore anything like that I don't like.

 flandarz wrote:
That's kind of disappointing, to be honest. To me, the most interesting thing about Nids was that they weren't like sapient races. They were a force of nature; a swarm of locusts eating and destroying for no reason other than instinct. If there's some overarching intelligence guiding them, then (in my opinion) there's not a lot of difference between them and, say, Daemons, other than motivation.

There's always been an overall intelligence though. Tyranids aren't a natural thing, they use living things as weapons but they aren't natural because of that.

From what I understand, the lore has always kinda been vague on Tyranid origins, so I can't really agree that they aren't "natural". At least not until it's verified that they are artificially created.

As for an "overall intelligence", from what Iracundus said, that's always been kind of inconsistent between writers. That said, I agree that the Hive Mind has always acted as both a communication system and a "guiding force" for the Tyrannids. But, for me, it has been before (and should be) more akin to the systems that eusocial insects have: a driving force without "intelligence" behind it. The ultimate form of natural selection and instinct. But, to each their own.

the Imperium falls into the "Heroes" category for one easy reason.

They (collectively) are the Human faction, and thus the more relatable (and the one which the most fluff is written about). The Empire of the Old World were not the good guys either, but still labelled as such.

The IoM has nothing at all in common with any real-world Communist regimes, beyond the entirely superficial.

Not even Stalinism.

pm713 wrote:

 agurus1 wrote:
I think people are forgetting that humanity did try the whole “play nice with Xenos” thing during their golden age, and it is implied that there was a sort of federation style alliance system they had going with a lot of the xeno species out there. However, one of the major reasons modern humanity in the setting is so anti-Xenos is because the moment that golden age humanity stumbled, due to their conflict with the men of iron and the loss of cohesion via the Warp storms after slaaneshs birth, their former xeno allies on a massive scale began attacking, massacring and enslaving human population across the galaxy. Perhaps not all formerly friendly Xenos were involved but many were and certainly for humanity it would have seemed to be a horrifying wake up call that they had to look out for themselves first.

That's just not true. Plenty of humans lived peacefully with their xenos friends and humanity wasn't close to a unified viewpoint on things. There were tyrant humans, peaceful humans, horrifying psykers, awful aliens and lovely aliens. The reason the Imperium is so anti Xenos is because the person who built it was a horrible xeno hating jackass.

Edit: The Tyranids definitely seem to be moving towards the Hive Mind having an awareness beyond just a communication thing. When Yriel stabs a Tyrant with the Spear of Twilight it tries to devour the Hive Mind and it hurts. Apparently for the first time in millenia.

I think we have only two examples in the lore of human+Xenos civilizations that survived to the great crusade time period in the galaxy that’s not a ringing endorsement of how well humans and Xenos got along during old night.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
The IoM has nothing at all in common with any real-world Communist regimes, beyond the entirely superficial.

Not even Stalinism.

Pfft okay. That statement is way too over the top and categorical to take seriously. My Romanian boss who grew up under Communism would disagree.

Iracundus wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Life on an Imperial world does not have to be brutal. "The Imperium" does not dictate that it needs to be so. See Ultramar. Life on individual worlds can be happy or awful, and that's really just up to the local government or circumstances. The caveats are that you must worship the Emperor (or at least not worship something NOT the Emperor) and that the world must meet it's tithe.

It CAN be awful and oppressive. But it can also be the opposite. The Imperium as a whole doesn't care, as long as you pay your taxes.

The Imperium may not directly dictate certain things but it might effectively indirectly select for them. For example, it may set tithe rates at a level that only harsh oppressive governments can reliably meet, which in effect selects for harsh oppressive governments since any government that did not tighten the screws on the population would eventually fail to meet its tithe requirements and get replaced.

Similarly, if the Administratum notices a world seems to be having a good quality of life for all concerned, it might raise the tithe level, concluding the world has more to give and therefore should contribute more.

Sure, but again we have the example of Ultramar. the Imperium is a supremely powerful regime, but it doesn't dictate horrible oppression and living circumstances per se. Inidividuals or institutions with power within the Imperial apparatus have the authority whether or not to oppress. The sin of the Imperium is more that it doesn't protect the rights of citizens, generally speaking, and therefore citizens are unprotected against horrible corruption and oppression. "The Imperium" doesn't really care. Which can be twisted and awful in it's own way, but weirdly indirect. In terms of fictional power bases it's sort of unique, to my knowledge.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 flandarz wrote:
Obviously, the morally superior race in the galaxy are the Orkz. Prove me wrong.:p

Really just depends on what you believe about forces of nature being evil and perhaps what constitutes nature.

If anything its the most neutral of races in the 40k universe. that and the nids.

Da Boss wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
The IoM has nothing at all in common with any real-world Communist regimes, beyond the entirely superficial.

Not even Stalinism.

Pfft okay. That statement is way too over the top and categorical to take seriously. My Romanian boss who grew up under Communism would disagree.

I don't care. They're wrong too.

And apparently I only have to find two people from the Bloc or CCCP to agree with me to 'win'. Or cite the ca. 80% of the electorate who voted AGAINST the dissolution of the CCCP in March, '91.

The IoM, beyond the entirely superficial, has nothing at all to do with any real-life Communist regime.

Does that wording work better for you?

 Excommunicatus wrote:
The IoM has nothing at all in common with any real-world Communist regimes, beyond the entirely superficial.

Not even Stalinism.

This. The Imperium of Man does not have any sort of real equivalency with the Soviet Union, nor even the most totalitarian of the People's Democracies/Socialist States (i.e., even the DPRK or Ceausescu's Romania are tremendously liberal compared to much of the Imperium of Man. Its economy, its military, its government structure, it basic ideology are vastly different from any country running under a brand of Marxist Leninism. If you unironically think otherwise, read Is the Red Flag Flying.

Anyone who cites 'Commissars' btw is revealing their lack of education.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Life on an Imperial world does not have to be brutal. "The Imperium" does not dictate that it needs to be so. See Ultramar. Life on individual worlds can be happy or awful, and that's really just up to the local government or circumstances. The caveats are that you must worship the Emperor (or at least not worship something NOT the Emperor) and that the world must meet it's tithe.

It CAN be awful and oppressive. But it can also be the opposite. The Imperium as a whole doesn't care, as long as you pay your taxes.

The Imperium may not directly dictate certain things but it might effectively indirectly select for them. For example, it may set tithe rates at a level that only harsh oppressive governments can reliably meet, which in effect selects for harsh oppressive governments since any government that did not tighten the screws on the population would eventually fail to meet its tithe requirements and get replaced.

Similarly, if the Administratum notices a world seems to be having a good quality of life for all concerned, it might raise the tithe level, concluding the world has more to give and therefore should contribute more.

Sure, but again we have the example of Ultramar. the Imperium is a supremely powerful regime, but it doesn't dictate horrible oppression and living circumstances per se. Inidividuals or institutions with power within the Imperial apparatus have the authority whether or not to oppress. The sin of the Imperium is more that it doesn't protect the rights of citizens, generally speaking, and therefore citizens are unprotected against horrible corruption and oppression. "The Imperium" doesn't really care. Which can be twisted and awful in it's own way, but weirdly indirect. In terms of fictional power bases it's sort of unique, to my knowledge.

Ultramar is a Space Marine domain and thus not under direct control of the Administratum and has no specific tithe requirements. The governments of the planets under the Ultramarines do not have the proverbial gun next to their head with respect to having to pay heavy tithes. The Ultramarines can set whatever levels of resource or personnel extraction they want, and which appear to be far more sustainable and lenient than what the Administratum would do.

 flandarz wrote:
From what I understand, the lore has always kinda been vague on Tyranid origins, so I can't really agree that they aren't "natural". At least not until it's verified that they are artificially created.

As for an "overall intelligence", from what Iracundus said, that's always been kind of inconsistent between writers. That said, I agree that the Hive Mind has always acted as both a communication system and a "guiding force" for the Tyrannids. But, for me, it has been before (and should be) more akin to the systems that eusocial insects have: a driving force without "intelligence" behind it. The ultimate form of natural selection and instinct. But, to each their own.

You want to explain how Tyranids would appear naturally then? It's not exactly common for a species to have absolutely no regard for its own life and live to serve its own predator.

I'm not really sure which "predator" the Nids are serving, but there are lots of examples of species which sacrifice individuals for the good of the whole. Bees, for example, have evolved to literally eviscerate themselves in defense of the colony. This sort of behavior is most prevalent in eusocial insects, which share many similarities with Tyranids.

But, even if you ignore the natural instances of this behavior on Earth, you have to remember that Tyranids aren't even from our galaxy. The pressures of natural selection on their homeworld could have been quite different from the (relatively) idyllic world that we know. There's simply no evidence in the lore to suggest that Tyranids are an artificially created race, and until there is, any argument that suggests such is just speculation.

Except for all of the many, many, many, many insect species who do have members who have utterly no regard for (or concept of) their own life and who live and die to serve their colony/queen/whatever.

Who all evolved naturally.

Because the Imperium is doing what must be done for the survival of mankind, not because it's amusing. There is no better moral option.

Tau are tiny and still arrange breeding. Good luck, Gue'vesa. Your spouse might be bred to better stock.

Read the Guants Ghosts novels for a good example of the varied levels different worlds of the imperium exist at. Sure you have you horrible totalitarian type planets, but you also have your relatively idyllic settled worlds, or even planets that exist as paradise worlds. Reading through some of the rpg books reveals some neat lore as well about they types of worlds that exist and their relative living conditions.

 Desubot wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

 flandarz wrote:
Obviously, the morally superior race in the galaxy are the Orkz. Prove me wrong.:p

Really just depends on what you believe about forces of nature being evil and perhaps what constitutes nature.

If anything its the most neutral of races in the 40k universe. that and the nids.

Maybe only tangentially related, but do we consider species created by the Old Ones as nature in the same way as Tyranids are assumed to be?

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Because the Imperium is doing what must be done for the survival of mankind, not because it's amusing. There is no better moral option.

According to... *checks notes* yep, the Imperium of Man.

Who have no vested interest, obviously.

Stalin's Purges? The Holodomor? Just doing what must be done for the survival of the CCCP, not because it was amusing. There was no better moral option.

According to Stalin.

Who had no vested interest, obviously.

I'd say any species that was directly created by an outside force isn't natural. Species that would be incidentally created though the influence of an outside force (like Daemons) are natural. And anything with less influence than that would also be natural.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also: I think it's important to make the distinction between a "tyranny" and "communism". You can be the former without being the latter and vice versa.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Life on an Imperial world does not have to be brutal. "The Imperium" does not dictate that it needs to be so. See Ultramar. Life on individual worlds can be happy or awful, and that's really just up to the local government or circumstances. The caveats are that you must worship the Emperor (or at least not worship something NOT the Emperor) and that the world must meet it's tithe.

It CAN be awful and oppressive. But it can also be the opposite. The Imperium as a whole doesn't care, as long as you pay your taxes.

The Imperium may not directly dictate certain things but it might effectively indirectly select for them. For example, it may set tithe rates at a level that only harsh oppressive governments can reliably meet, which in effect selects for harsh oppressive governments since any government that did not tighten the screws on the population would eventually fail to meet its tithe requirements and get replaced.

Similarly, if the Administratum notices a world seems to be having a good quality of life for all concerned, it might raise the tithe level, concluding the world has more to give and therefore should contribute more.

Sure, but again we have the example of Ultramar. the Imperium is a supremely powerful regime, but it doesn't dictate horrible oppression and living circumstances per se. Inidividuals or institutions with power within the Imperial apparatus have the authority whether or not to oppress. The sin of the Imperium is more that it doesn't protect the rights of citizens, generally speaking, and therefore citizens are unprotected against horrible corruption and oppression. "The Imperium" doesn't really care. Which can be twisted and awful in it's own way, but weirdly indirect. In terms of fictional power bases it's sort of unique, to my knowledge.

Ultramar is nice, relatively speaking. Decent standards of living, better than usual enough to be of note. However, it is no less of a despotic regime than the rest of the Imperium. maybe with a little more velvet on the iron glove. But its because that it what works in Ultramar. Other places can't afford such a light hand.

 agurus1 wrote:
Read the Guants Ghosts novels for a good example of the varied levels different worlds of the imperium exist at. Sure you have you horrible totalitarian type planets, but you also have your relatively idyllic settled worlds, or even planets that exist as paradise worlds. Reading through some of the rpg books reveals some neat lore as well about they types of worlds that exist and their relative living conditions.

Ah yeah Guants Ghost the ultimate proof of ANOTHER one of the imperiums failings. There complete and utter lack of respect for the men and women that fight to protect it. Remember that time after the first Battle Of Armaggadon when the inquisition decided to just fething murder millions of loyal gaurdsmen for basically no fething reason. A move so utterly dumb and Immoral that the Space Wolves deicided to fight a mini civil war with the Inquisition to stop it. Honestly one of the mist nonsensical things about 40K is that the Salamanders arnt ina perpetual state of war with the Inquistion given how often the inquistion pulls BS like what they tried to do on Armageddon

And yet there's a good reason for them to try in a lot of cases.
The Tau do exactly the same - in War of Secrets, there's a quid pro quo between Imperium and Tau to massacre one another's allied worlds to contain a daemonic infection whilst keeping respective hands publically clean.

Whilst in A Dream Of War, you see some of the consequences of Armageddon - and, yes, the Imperium has lost worlds to cults and demonic incursion because of the wolves actions.

One regiment which was spared as a result of their actions, which if it wasnt for creed and kell could easily have turned the whole 'cadia stands' meme into 'cadia went down like a punk with a completely decapitated command structure', was the Volscani Cataphracts...

locarno24 wrote:
And yet there's a good reason for them to try in a lot of cases.
The Tau do exactly the same - in War of Secrets, there's a quid pro quo between Imperium and Tau to massacre one another's allied worlds to contain a daemonic infection whilst keeping respective hands publically clean.

Whilst in A Dream Of War, you see some of the consequences of Armageddon - and, yes, the Imperium has lost worlds to cults and demonic incursion because of the wolves actions.

One regiment which was spared as a result of their actions, which if it wasnt for creed and kell could easily have turned the whole 'cadia stands' meme into 'cadia went down like a punk with a completely decapitated command structure', was the Volscani Cataphracts...

So your Seriosuly gonna agree with the Grey Knights that any Guardsmen who comes in contact with a Deamon should be killed No matter the circumstances? Tjat they should have killed all those guardsmen during Armageddon?

Tau use insidious mind manipulation to enslave their own people, whilst pretending to be a guiding light of logic and reason.

chimera0205 wrote:

locarno24 wrote:
And yet there's a good reason for them to try in a lot of cases.
The Tau do exactly the same - in War of Secrets, there's a quid pro quo between Imperium and Tau to massacre one another's allied worlds to contain a daemonic infection whilst keeping respective hands publically clean.

Whilst in A Dream Of War, you see some of the consequences of Armageddon - and, yes, the Imperium has lost worlds to cults and demonic incursion because of the wolves actions.

One regiment which was spared as a result of their actions, which if it wasnt for creed and kell could easily have turned the whole 'cadia stands' meme into 'cadia went down like a punk with a completely decapitated command structure', was the Volscani Cataphracts...

So your Seriosuly gonna agree with the Grey Knights that any Guardsmen who comes in contact with a Deamon should be killed No matter the circumstances? Tjat they should have killed all those guardsmen during Armageddon?

Yes? You are aware that demonic corruption is a serious problem for humans, and can spread like an infection?
The Inquisition isn't taking any chances. Is it cruel? Yes. Is it unfortunate? It is necessary, yes, because all it takes is for a handful of chaos corrupted guardsmen to return to their home worlds and damn them through cults.
Its the same problem with Genestealer cults, except with less blood sacrifices and more fething.
The Inquisition may be dicks, but they pretty much have to be in order to protect the Imperium as a whole.

Necessary according to... *checks notes* ah yes, a repressive state apparatus of the Imperium of Man.

Well yeah, its still necessary. That's kind of the point - the Imperium is on the decline, things are bad and going to get worse, and humanity's days are numbered unless some sort of miracle happens.
The Imperium is the epitome of "desperate times call for desperate measures". If they didn't take desperate measures, the consequences might be more dire than if they didn't take whatever horrible precaution that situation called for.
The Imperium is basically XCOM (the 1994 game, not the newer one) on Superhuman difficulty with Ironman mode enabled (assuming you have OpenXCOM. Which you should have if you are playing the old XCOM games). Everything is FUBAR.

As I said, the Inquisition are certainly dicks, but they have to be in order for humanity's survival and independence as a species. If that doesn't succinctly demonstrate just how bad things are, then I don't know what will.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Necessary according to... *checks notes* ah yes, a repressive state apparatus of the Imperium of Man.

What is the more humane solution that you propose?

Keep in mind that the mere knowledge that Chaos exists can be enough to form a wellspring of corruption.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Necessary according to... *checks notes* ah yes, a repressive state apparatus of the Imperium of Man.

What is the more humane solution that you propose?

Keep in mind that the mere knowledge that Chaos exists can be enough to form a wellspring of corruption.

Quarantines coupled with introducing actual countermeasures beyond shooting people in the head. Widespread corruption is only a problem for the Imperium, everyone else manages fine.

Oh, I agree with you all. The IoM never does anything wrong or unnecessary, if you base that on what the IoM tells you.

I don't propose a different solution. I suggest that fundamentally you cannot trust ANYTHING the IoM tells you. Literally everything you just said is 'true' because the =][= say so. End of inquiry.

You shouldn't believe the press releases that Factions write for themselves.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Oh, I agree with you all. The IoM never does anything wrong or unnecessary, if you base that on what the IoM tells you.

I don't propose a different solution. I suggest that fundamentally you cannot trust ANYTHING the IoM tells you. Literally everything you just said is 'true' because the =][= say so. End of inquiry.

You shouldn't believe the press releases that Factions write for themselves.

Well, where are you getting information that the Imperium's oppression is unnecessary?

You're probably getting it from the T'au and other faction source books. Which by your previous standards should be equally unreliable. Their criticisms of the Imperium's methods are just as much propaganda as the Imperium claiming they need to be harsh.

The existence of a human population under Tau rule for several centuries (since at least the end of the Damocles Crusade) without them succumbing to daemonic possession/infestation suggests that whatever the Tau may be doing with those humans, it seems to be working in its own way.

That is interesting. Could be due to a lack of psykers, overall better living conditions (apparently Chaos is attracted to suffering), Tau acting as a smoke screen because of their weak warp signatures (think of a bunch of a clouds over a light, compared to Los Angeles. The demons would be more interested in Los Angeles), or simply narrative oversight. GW aren't the greatest or most consistent of writers.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Oh, I agree with you all. The IoM never does anything wrong or unnecessary, if you base that on what the IoM tells you.

I don't propose a different solution. I suggest that fundamentally you cannot trust ANYTHING the IoM tells you. Literally everything you just said is 'true' because the =][= say so. End of inquiry.

You shouldn't believe the press releases that Factions write for themselves.

Well, where are you getting information that the Imperium's oppression is unnecessary?

You're probably getting it from the T'au and other faction source books. Which by your previous standards should be equally unreliable. Their criticisms of the Imperium's methods are just as much propaganda as the Imperium claiming they need to be harsh.

Did you just 'run the 40K version of calling me a Russian bot? Did you miss the part where I said "[y]ou shouldn't believe the press releases that Factions write for themselves"?.

I am not alleging that they necessarily are unnecessary. I am pointing out that everything we know about the IoM comes from pressers released by the IoM.

It may well be necessary. It may well not be. The point is, you can't trust repressive state apparatus. They are designed only to perpetuate and justify themselves. The =][= is a repressive state apparatus and you cannot trust anything it says. You cannot trust anything the IoM says. You cannot trust anything the Tau say. It is all naked agitprop.

Stalin's opinion on forced deportations aren't considered by many. For obvious reasons.

There was a human empire that fighted the corruption of Chaos by... Educating his population about it and how to avoid it.
The Chaos Gods couldnt corrupt it so they used Khor Phaeron and Erebus to trick a not yet corrupted Horus to destroy them.
The Inquisition solution to Chaos is the same one the Emperor had, and it is worthless since the first second it was tried. Thats why is Grimdark. It is not a solution, cruelty is just a temporary but futile deterent. But they are too blinded in their method to see the true solution.

Dont you people see that if the Imperium way was the only and true way, it stops being grimdark? It is dark because all reason has been abandoned millenia ago. The introduction of the universe tells it clearly. Theres only madness left.
(And feth that retcon about Vulkan being sad, written by people that has forsaken the theme of the universe by corporate orders to sell marines as super heroes)

 Galas wrote:
There was a human empire that fighted the corruption of Chaos by... Educating his population about it and how to avoid it.
The Chaos Gods couldnt corrupt it so they used Khor Phaeron and Erebus to trick a not yet corrupted Horus to destroy them.
The Inquisition solution to Chaos is the same one the Emperor had, and it is worthless since the first second it was tried. Thats why is Grimdark. It is not a solution, cruelty is just a temporary but futile deterent. But they are too blinded in their method to see the true solution.

Dont you people see that if the Imperium way was the only and true way, it stops being grimdark? It is dark because all reason has been abandoned millenia ago. The introduction of the universe tells it clearly. Theres only madness left.
(And feth that retcon about Vulkan being sad, written by people that has forsaken the theme of the universe by corporate orders to sell marines as super heroes)

That is the better solution, yes. Which is why its grimdark that the Inquisition has to do it the messy way.
Would the Interex way even work with how the Imperium is set up? All those people, living in such horrible conditions, many of them afraid and uneducated.
The Interex had a much smaller population, didn't they? Weren't a lot of them well off and well educated? I'd say the criteria for the Interex way working is different from what the Imperium can achieve.
How do you know that if the Inquisition were to do it the "right" way, it wouldn't just cause a bunch of chaos uprisings? You don't know, I don't know, they wouldn't know. That's why they do it the "wrong" way, because they can't afford to try anything better.

The right solution to the problem not being obtainable because of a series of conditions is also pretty grimdark. It really is like a failing XCOM or Total War game, where you are pretty much stuck in a perpetual stalemate, unable to really do anything because of a bunch of variables.

Keep in mind the Interex faced a weaker, wayyyy weaker, Chaos that the Imperium is facing at the end of the 41st millennium. The Emperor and His strategy weakened the Chaos, that called Him the "Anathema" and worked hard for His fall, for a reason.

The thing is its clearly and objectively a problem specifically with the IoMs style of governance. Tau Human Words have no problems with Chaos, Interex had no problems with Chaos. The Golden Age of Technology Humanity didnt have any major problems with Choas for the vast majority of there rule. There are entire races made up of NOTHING but psykers like the Niccasar that have no problems with Chaos. All evidence points to the Imperiums Choas problem bieng largely self inflicted. Its not a issue with galaxy at large. Its a problem almost umique to the Imperium. Hell if you factor in the several client races made up of nothing but psykers the Tau probably have MORE psykers per capita then the Imperium. And they only started have problems with Choas really really recently.

I agree with the above. The warp and chaos are mirrors of the emotions of humanity. The suffering inflicted by the imperium fuels chaos. Besides, the whole point of the setting is satire. The imperium is supposed to be the good guy when by all measures they’re actually the baddies. And most of their problems are originally self inflicted.

Also the tau don’t mind control, and they’ve only sterilized rebellious human populations (whereas the imperium would gladly kill everyone on the planet)

chimera0205 wrote:
The thing is its clearly and objectively a problem specifically with the IoMs style of governance. Tau Human Words have no problems with Chaos, Interex had no problems with Chaos. The Golden Age of Technology Humanity didnt have any major problems with Choas for the vast majority of there rule. There are entire races made up of NOTHING but psykers like the Niccasar that have no problems with Chaos. All evidence points to the Imperiums Choas problem bieng largely self inflicted. Its not a issue with galaxy at large. Its a problem almost umique to the Imperium. Hell if you factor in the several client races made up of nothing but psykers the Tau probably have MORE psykers per capita then the Imperium. And they only started have problems with Choas really really recently.

Tau human worlds? You mean "slave colonies". There are very, very few Tau "human worlds" and the Tau are isolated to one part of the Galaxy. Reminder: The Black Templars ALONE could gather up and exterminate the Tau in a single brief crusade. IF there were problems with the human slaves to the Tau, well... do you REALLY think they'd do anything other than exterminate them?

IoM's "style of governance"? Which one? Because any way people can be governed, there are MULTIPLE worlds within the Imperium like that. Communism, fascism, Monarchy, Democracy, Republic, Libertarian... you name it, if it can run that way- it runs that way, and all the Imperium asks is "pay your damned tithe and be loyal to the Emperor and Imperium".

"Everyone else"- let's review.

Tau: Have a tiny, tiny presence in the warp. Oh, and Farsight IS being influenced by Chaos, in a subtle and subversive way by the Daemon weapon he's using (Ironic, isn't it?)

All Aeldari instantly kill anyone even remotely touched by Chaos and go WAAAAY out of their way to avoid it. Vect has one of the more effective policies.

Orks are going to kill anything that isn't Ork, unless there's nothing around but Ork. Orks aren't like humans at all.

Tyranids isolate and quarantine and purge chaos-contaminated splinters of a hive fleet.

Necrons can't even be Chaos'd that we know, but if they could they'd be deleting the hell out of anything that did.

So, that "everyone else" doesn't mean anything. It's like saying, "No one else needs tampons, I don't see a reason to stop" when there's ONE CHICK in the group on the road trip.

Now, tell me what "actual countermeasures" do you prefer? Maybe "pray the heresy away" camps? Or perhaps some kind of magic "chaos taint, here you ain't" medicine? Some good soap? A stern lecture on the naughtiness of Chaos?

Chaos isn't a lifestyle choice or a misguided decision process. It's an actual taint- a disease, a cognito-hazard that sets in and creates irredeemable monsters out of sentient beings. Its influence can be subtle, soft and creeping into one's mind over decades- or sudden and overwhelming.

There. Is. No. Other. Option.

The whole "TaU aRe ThE gOoD gUyS" is something that people who don't understand the 40k setting always say. The Imperium has its fair share of jerks and oppressive megalomaniacs, just like literally any other group of people in a massive number. So do the Tau. And both have their own share of people who are genuinely good people, trying to do the best they can and not be a jerk. For every Marine Malevolent you have a bro-tier Salamander, Lamenter, and Raptor. For every psychotic radical Inquisitor, you've got a Eisenhorn and more like him. For every trigger-happy Commissar, you have a Gaunt and more like him.

Morality isn't "Good guys and bad guys" in 40k. That's not the entire point. A "good guy" in 40k is that Inquisitor that regretfully authorizes an Exterminatus on a world, knowing that's the only way to redirect the Tyranids headed that way. It's that Arbites Judge that leads the Enforcer squad through a Hab-block and violently shoots everyone, because he knows the cult's heretical taint is running rampant through there and it must be stopped. These are not noble-bright Star Trek decisions with the best possible outcomes. These are dark, horrible problems and there's no easier way to deal with them. 40k is very much there to reinforce the point about fighting monsters and becoming them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dandelion wrote:
Also the tau don’t mind control, and they’ve only sterilized rebellious human populations (whereas the imperium would gladly kill everyone on the planet)

Show me where exterminatus or a widespread purge was enacted on a planet that turned away from the Imperium.

Not Chaos, not Xeno-tainted, but actual 'turned away'. And how they gleefully exterminated people there and this was okay, and no one batted an eye.

Exterminatus is NOT something done lightly, or willy-nilly.

Dandelion wrote:

Also the tau don’t mind control

The Vespids might have something to say about that.
Or at least they might if the 'communication helmets' thoughtfully given to them immediately prior to their calm acceptance of total annexation were removed.

This is still, by far and large, part of a greater quote that best explains Warhammer 40k and the Imperium:

"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." -Baron Von Evilsatan

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
The thing is its clearly and objectively a problem specifically with the IoMs style of governance. Tau Human Words have no problems with Chaos, Interex had no problems with Chaos. The Golden Age of Technology Humanity didnt have any major problems with Choas for the vast majority of there rule. There are entire races made up of NOTHING but psykers like the Niccasar that have no problems with Chaos. All evidence points to the Imperiums Choas problem bieng largely self inflicted. Its not a issue with galaxy at large. Its a problem almost umique to the Imperium. Hell if you factor in the several client races made up of nothing but psykers the Tau probably have MORE psykers per capita then the Imperium. And they only started have problems with Choas really really recently.

Tau human worlds? You mean "slave colonies". There are very, very few Tau "human worlds" and the Tau are isolated to one part of the Galaxy. Reminder: The Black Templars ALONE could gather up and exterminate the Tau in a single brief crusade. IF there were problems with the human slaves to the Tau, well... do you REALLY think they'd do anything other than exterminate them?

IoM's "style of governance"? Which one? Because any way people can be governed, there are MULTIPLE worlds within the Imperium like that. Communism, fascism, Monarchy, Democracy, Republic, Libertarian... you name it, if it can run that way- it runs that way, and all the Imperium asks is "pay your damned tithe and be loyal to the Emperor and Imperium".

"Everyone else"- let's review.

Tau: Have a tiny, tiny presence in the warp. Oh, and Farsight IS being influenced by Chaos, in a subtle and subversive way by the Daemon weapon he's using (Ironic, isn't it?)

All Aeldari instantly kill anyone even remotely touched by Chaos and go WAAAAY out of their way to avoid it. Vect has one of the more effective policies.

Orks are going to kill anything that isn't Ork, unless there's nothing around but Ork. Orks aren't like humans at all.

Tyranids isolate and quarantine and purge chaos-contaminated splinters of a hive fleet.

Necrons can't even be Chaos'd that we know, but if they could they'd be deleting the hell out of anything that did.

So, that "everyone else" doesn't mean anything. It's like saying, "No one else needs tampons, I don't see a reason to stop" when there's ONE CHICK in the group on the road trip.

Now, tell me what "actual countermeasures" do you prefer? Maybe "pray the heresy away" camps? Or perhaps some kind of magic "chaos taint, here you ain't" medicine? Some good soap? A stern lecture on the naughtiness of Chaos?

Chaos isn't a lifestyle choice or a misguided decision process. It's an actual taint- a disease, a cognito-hazard that sets in and creates irredeemable monsters out of sentient beings. Its influence can be subtle, soft and creeping into one's mind over decades- or sudden and overwhelming.

There. Is. No. Other. Option.

The whole "TaU aRe ThE gOoD gUyS" is something that people who don't understand the 40k setting always say. The Imperium has its fair share of jerks and oppressive megalomaniacs, just like literally any other group of people in a massive number. So do the Tau. And both have their own share of people who are genuinely good people, trying to do the best they can and not be a jerk. For every Marine Malevolent you have a bro-tier Salamander, Lamenter, and Raptor. For every psychotic radical Inquisitor, you've got a Eisenhorn and more like him. For every trigger-happy Commissar, you have a Gaunt and more like him.

Morality isn't "Good guys and bad guys" in 40k. That's not the entire point. A "good guy" in 40k is that Inquisitor that regretfully authorizes an Exterminatus on a world, knowing that's the only way to redirect the Tyranids headed that way. It's that Arbites Judge that leads the Enforcer squad through a Hab-block and violently shoots everyone, because he knows the cult's heretical taint is running rampant through there and it must be stopped. These are not noble-bright Star Trek decisions with the best possible outcomes. These are dark, horrible problems and there's no easier way to deal with them. 40k is very much there to reinforce the point about fighting monsters and becoming them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dandelion wrote:
Also the tau don’t mind control, and they’ve only sterilized rebellious human populations (whereas the imperium would gladly kill everyone on the planet)

Show me where exterminatus or a widespread purge was enacted on a planet that turned away from the Imperium.

Not Chaos, not Xeno-tainted, but actual 'turned away'. And how they gleefully exterminated people there and this was okay, and no one batted an eye.

Exterminatus is NOT something done lightly, or willy-nilly.

Ok first of all the Tau human worlds arnt Slave colonys. By all accounts they are treated BETTER under the Tau then they were under the Imperium. And have more freedom to boot. The tau allow you to worship whoever the feth you want as long as it doesnt contradict the greator good. There are humans in thr Tau empire who still worships the God Emperor.

As for the Black Templars being Able to wipe out the Tau thats also inaccurate. Thr tau while small in number have a average quality surpassing that of every faction bar the Eldar and Necrons. A Crisis battlesuit is often depicted as on par with a space marine and the tau have far more Crisis battlesuits then the Black Templars have Space Marines.

And even alot of the "good" people in the imperium that you mentioned arnt actually all that good. Guant for instance. The Tanith First and Only STILL havnt gotten that planet they were promised despite there achievements list rivaling that of a Space Marine Chapter.

As for a better solution. Inproved living conditions, education. Suffering and ignorance attract choas. Interex avoided choas entirely by just yknow Informing its population about the dangers of choas and making sure there populations needs were taken care of. Healthy continent happy people dont feel the NEED to sacrifice there children to the blood god.

As for Exterminatuses a planet that turned away from the Imperium ill do you one better. Inquisitor Kryptman Exterminatus dozens if not hundreds if LOYAL imperium planets. Not choas infected, not genestealer infected, not even turned away. Planets that were still wholly and entirely LOYAL.

chimera0205 wrote:
Ok first of all the Tau human worlds arnt Slave colonys. By all accounts they are treated BETTER under the Tau then they were under the Imperium. And have more freedom to boot. The tau allow you to worship whoever the feth you want as long as it doesnt contradict the greator good. There are humans in thr Tau empire who still worships the God Emperor.

By all accounts, Comrade Stalin treats us all very well and Soviet Union is happy place, yes!

Who's going and conducting in-depth interviews with the Gue'vesa?

chimera0205 wrote:
As for the Black Templars being Able to wipe out the Tau thats also inaccurate. Thr tau while small in number have a average quality surpassing that of every faction bar the Eldar and Necrons. A Crisis battlesuit is often depicted as on par with a space marine and the tau have far more Crisis battlesuits then the Black Templars have Space Marines.

Ah, I see the Tau have a propaganda book with BS on par with the Imperial Guardsman's Uplifting Primer.

Tell me, do you know how many Black Templars there are?

Because I don't even think the Black Templars know how many Black Templars there are. That's what makes them a bit scary.

chimera0205 wrote:
As for a better solution. Inproved living conditions, education. Suffering and ignorance attract choas. Interex avoided choas entirely by just yknow Informing its population about the dangers of choas and making sure there populations needs were taken care of. Healthy continent happy people dont feel the NEED to sacrifice there children to the blood god.

By all means, tell me how you're going to do this.

Also, nobility in luxurious and comfortable lifestyles never fall to Chaos, right? It's only the poor and pissed off.

chimera0205 wrote:
As for Exterminatuses a planet that turned away from the Imperium ill do you one better. Inquisitor Kryptman Exterminatus dozens if not hundreds if LOYAL imperium planets. Not choas infected, not genestealer infected, not even turned away. Planets that were still wholly and entirely LOYAL.

I'd like a citation for this, because Inquisitors don't get to waste the Emperor's Currency- other Inquisitors will EAGERLY bring them to heel for this.

Yes, Kryptman did exterminatus a bunch of planets. Planets that were in the path of the Tyranids. he did it to deny the hive mind biomass. Much like firefighters will burn a strip of forest to deny a forest fire fuel, or how chemotherapy kills a whole bunch of cells so that the cancer will die.

And it worked. The Hive fleets were forced to turn away as there was no biomass to consume. Killing billions to save trillions. That is the tragedy of the Imperium.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
As for Exterminatuses a planet that turned away from the Imperium ill do you one better. Inquisitor Kryptman Exterminatus dozens if not hundreds if LOYAL imperium planets. Not choas infected, not genestealer infected, not even turned away. Planets that were still wholly and entirely LOYAL.

I'd like a citation for this, because Inquisitors don't get to waste the Emperor's Currency- other Inquisitors will EAGERLY bring them to heel for this.

That was a thing. But he was basically creating a firebreak to redirect a tendril of hive fleet leviathan away from the core of the imperium, and into the ork empire of Octavius.

He was also excommunicated for it. Showing that even the other inquisitors thought it was a bit much, and indeed did bring him to heel for it.

i just looked at a list of human rebellions and the meritech wars show the imperium destroying everyone involved despite not being chaos or Xenos related. Then there’s the logicians who apparently are under attack for being reasonable. Something about logic and free thinking being heresy (despite having no chaos influence).
Also krieg happened

As for the vespid, it’s speculation that the helmets mind control them. Sure it’s possible, but it’s also possible that they work exactly as advertised. GW has left this ambiguous so that players can decide for themselves.
Regardless, my point was more aimed at ethereal controlling other tau, which has not been stated to be the case. There’s been insinuation that the ethereals are unusually charismatic and calming but that’s pretty much it.

Dandelion wrote:
Also krieg happened

And the end result was a damned fine regiment, you're welcome for their service.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yes, Kryptman did exterminatus a bunch of planets. Planets that were in the path of the Tyranids. he did it to deny the hive mind biomass. Much like firefighters will burn a strip of forest to deny a forest fire fuel, or how chemotherapy kills a whole bunch of cells so that the cancer will die.

And it worked. The Hive fleets were forced to turn away as there was no biomass to consume. Killing billions to save trillions. That is the tragedy of the Imperium.

Yeah except he coulda just know EVACUATED THE fething PLANETS!!! You know that is a thing you can do right?

If krieg is your example of the imperium being good then I don’t know what to say. You’d make an excellent inquisitor I guess.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
Ok first of all the Tau human worlds arnt Slave colonys. By all accounts they are treated BETTER under the Tau then they were under the Imperium. And have more freedom to boot. The tau allow you to worship whoever the feth you want as long as it doesnt contradict the greator good. There are humans in thr Tau empire who still worships the God Emperor.

By all accounts, Comrade Stalin treats us all very well and Soviet Union is happy place, yes!

Who's going and conducting in-depth interviews with the Gue'vesa?

chimera0205 wrote:
As for the Black Templars being Able to wipe out the Tau thats also inaccurate. Thr tau while small in number have a average quality surpassing that of every faction bar the Eldar and Necrons. A Crisis battlesuit is often depicted as on par with a space marine and the tau have far more Crisis battlesuits then the Black Templars have Space Marines.

Ah, I see the Tau have a propaganda book with BS on par with the Imperial Guardsman's Uplifting Primer.

Tell me, do you know how many Black Templars there are?

Because I don't even think the Black Templars know how many Black Templars there are. That's what makes them a bit scary.

chimera0205 wrote:
As for a better solution. Inproved living conditions, education. Suffering and ignorance attract choas. Interex avoided choas entirely by just yknow Informing its population about the dangers of choas and making sure there populations needs were taken care of. Healthy continent happy people dont feel the NEED to sacrifice there children to the blood god.

By all means, tell me how you're going to do this.

Also, nobility in luxurious and comfortable lifestyles never fall to Chaos, right? It's only the poor and pissed off.

chimera0205 wrote:
As for Exterminatuses a planet that turned away from the Imperium ill do you one better. Inquisitor Kryptman Exterminatus dozens if not hundreds if LOYAL imperium planets. Not choas infected, not genestealer infected, not even turned away. Planets that were still wholly and entirely LOYAL.

I'd like a citation for this, because Inquisitors don't get to waste the Emperor's Currency- other Inquisitors will EAGERLY bring them to heel for this.

All the lore backs up Guevasa having a higher standard of living then your average imperium citizen. Tjats not Tau propaganda. Thats just the lore. Same with the Crisis battlesuits being at least innthe same general league as your average spacemarine. Every single depiction of Tau Imperium battles has crisis suits going toe to toe with Space Marines. Yeah there are some exceptions here and there. Every once in awhile youll have a single named space marine rip apart a dozen Battle Suits like its nothing and every once and a while youll have a Tau battle suit commander by some named tau commander chew a whole squad of space marines up but the general impression of the lore is that Crisis battlesuit more or less equal to a Space marine.

40k is a universe of different brands of awful. Just pick the flavour you like best. I suggest Ork, as it may be brutal, short, and violent, but at least you'll have fun with it.

As for the Tau, I don't know if I'd say they're the "good guys". Even aside from Farsight figuring out "this gak is screwed up" and dipping (or not wanting to "taint" the Tau with his nonconformity, depending on your interpretation), there's also canonical reference to "reeducation camps", which is a real nice way to say they're brainwashing people.

Again: in 40k, all the Factions kinda blow. That's the point.

And yeah, Kryptman DID exterminatus a bunch of planets.

It was the RIGHT thing to do.

Excommunicating him was a knee-jerk reaction, the man should have been made a hero. (I have a theory that what he did made him lose it a little and traumatized him, and so they excommunicated him for that)

What was the other option... evacuate the hive worlds? Put up a "detour" sign in front of the Hive Fleet like Wile E. Coyote? Dedicate billions more to fighting an enemy that wasn't even fully understood, and waste not only lives by materiel and make the Tyranids even STRONGER?

Guys, I'll level with you here.

40k is absurd in a lot of ways. But there's a lot of 'meme lore' for 40k that tends to be inaccurate representations of the actual lore, and people tend to lean on that. You should really dig into more of the books.

Tau are a small little naive race. Yes, in some ways- they might make better allies to mankind than enemies. The Emperor Himself might have said "just ignore them unless they mess with us" if he were around. But considering that the Great Crusade involved finding what was once MASSIVE human civilizations reduced to nothing but ashes with some Xenos pricks standing over the remains... it's hard to blame the Imperium for Xenophobia.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:
All the lore backs up Guevasa having a higher standard of living then your average imperium citizen. Tjats not Tau propaganda. Thats just the lore. Same with the Crisis battlesuits being at least innthe same general league as your average spacemarine. Every single depiction of Tau Imperium battles has crisis suits going toe to toe with Space Marines. Yeah there are some exceptions here and there. Every once in awhile youll have a single named space marine rip apart a dozen Battle Suits like its nothing and every once and a while youll have a Tau battle suit commander by some named tau commander chew a whole squad of space marines up but the general impression of the lore is that Crisis battlesuit more or less equal to a Space marine.

"all of the lore" except that part about them going into re-education camps, diminishing their individual rights, and using them until their usefulness has diminished and then disposing of them. Maybe that weird meme lore on the internet says different, I don't know.

So, how many crisis battlesuits are in each Tau... what do they call their Companies... infestations? Herds? Coagulations? Whatever their units are broken down as.

Unless your answer is "All of them", then they're pretty much screwed when going up against thousands of Marines, especially the really pissed off ones that like get close and ram chainswords into that stupid little tau head-slot.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
And yeah, Kryptman DID exterminatus a bunch of planets.

It was the RIGHT thing to do.

Excommunicating him was a knee-jerk reaction, the man should have been made a hero. (I have a theory that what he did made him lose it a little and traumatized him, and so they excommunicated him for that)

What was the other option... evacuate the hive worlds? Put up a "detour" sign in front of the Hive Fleet like Wile E. Coyote? Dedicate billions more to fighting an enemy that wasn't even fully understood, and waste not only lives by materiel and make the Tyranids even STRONGER?

Guys, I'll level with you here.

40k is absurd in a lot of ways. But there's a lot of 'meme lore' for 40k that tends to be inaccurate representations of the actual lore, and people tend to lean on that. You should really dig into more of the books.

Tau are a small little naive race. Yes, in some ways- they might make better allies to mankind than enemies. The Emperor Himself might have said "just ignore them unless they mess with us" if he were around. But considering that the Great Crusade involved finding what was once MASSIVE human civilizations reduced to nothing but ashes with some Xenos pricks standing over the remains... it's hard to blame the Imperium for Xenophobia.

YES EVACUATE THE PLANETS! Thats a thing you can do. Yeah sure youd never ever be able to even get close to evacuating everyone but there is litterally no reason whatsoever you cant have on going planetary evacuations until litterally the moment the Tyranids jump in system THEN nuke the planet. The fact that not even an ATTEMPT at evacuation was made is whats fuckef up. Evacuating planets is like standard operatiing procedure for other scifi civilizations in much much more dire straights then the Imperium. Like the UNSC from halo. Hell the UNSC doesnt even have the luxury of a couple days warning as unlike in 40k ships dont have to appear in the outskirts of system then trabel sub light to the planet like in 40k. Tjey van just jump right inyo the planets orbit yet the UNSC still manages somewhat succusful evacuations on the regular. There is NO excuse for Kyrptman not even ATTEMPTING to evacuate any of the LOYAL planets he blew up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
And yeah, Kryptman DID exterminatus a bunch of planets.

It was the RIGHT thing to do.

Excommunicating him was a knee-jerk reaction, the man should have been made a hero. (I have a theory that what he did made him lose it a little and traumatized him, and so they excommunicated him for that)

What was the other option... evacuate the hive worlds? Put up a "detour" sign in front of the Hive Fleet like Wile E. Coyote? Dedicate billions more to fighting an enemy that wasn't even fully understood, and waste not only lives by materiel and make the Tyranids even STRONGER?

Guys, I'll level with you here.

40k is absurd in a lot of ways. But there's a lot of 'meme lore' for 40k that tends to be inaccurate representations of the actual lore, and people tend to lean on that. You should really dig into more of the books.

Tau are a small little naive race. Yes, in some ways- they might make better allies to mankind than enemies. The Emperor Himself might have said "just ignore them unless they mess with us" if he were around. But considering that the Great Crusade involved finding what was once MASSIVE human civilizations reduced to nothing but ashes with some Xenos pricks standing over the remains... it's hard to blame the Imperium for Xenophobia.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:
All the lore backs up Guevasa having a higher standard of living then your average imperium citizen. Tjats not Tau propaganda. Thats just the lore. Same with the Crisis battlesuits being at least innthe same general league as your average spacemarine. Every single depiction of Tau Imperium battles has crisis suits going toe to toe with Space Marines. Yeah there are some exceptions here and there. Every once in awhile youll have a single named space marine rip apart a dozen Battle Suits like its nothing and every once and a while youll have a Tau battle suit commander by some named tau commander chew a whole squad of space marines up but the general impression of the lore is that Crisis battlesuit more or less equal to a Space marine.

"all of the lore" except that part about them going into re-education camps, diminishing their individual rights, and using them until their usefulness has diminished and then disposing of them. Maybe that weird meme lore on the internet says different, I don't know.

So, how many crisis battlesuits are in each Tau... what do they call their Companies... infestations? Herds? Coagulations? Whatever their units are broken down as.

Unless your answer is "All of them", then they're pretty much screwed when going up against thousands of Marines, especially the really pissed off ones that like get close and ram chainswords into that stupid little tau head-slot.

Are reeducation camps really worse then what the inquisti9nonon gets up to sometimes? Have you never heard of a Servitor? Id rather go to the absolute worst of Tau Reeducation camps then get turned into a fething Servitor. Also what the feth do yoy mean the Tau use then dispose of Guevesa? Where the hell are you pulling that from? The Tau frequently evac human worlds in there empire that are under threat and have recently begun to purposefully move Humans away from the imperium cause they know the Imperium has a bad habit of attacking worlds that turn against it. That's far far more effort then the imperium puts into protecting its civilians.

chimera0205 wrote:
YES EVACUATE THE PLANETS! Thats a thing you can do. Yeah sure youd never ever be able to even get close to evacuating everyone but there is litterally no reason whatsoever you cant have on going planetary evacuations until litterally the moment the Tyranids jump in system THEN nuke the planet. The fact that not even an ATTEMPT at evacuation was made is whats fuckef up. Evacuating planets is like standard operatiing procedure for other scifi civilizations in much much more dire straights then the Imperium. Like the UNSC from halo. Hell the UNSC doesnt even have the luxury of a couple days warning as unlike in 40k ships dont have to appear in the outskirts of system then trabel sub light to the planet like in 40k. Tjey van just jump right inyo the planets orbit yet the UNSC still manages somewhat succusful evacuations on the regular. There is NO excuse for Kyrptman not even ATTEMPTING to evacuate any of the LOYAL planets he blew up.

With what massive vessels will you do that?

Oh, too late. While you were waiting on them to get into the system, there were massive riots when people learned they'd be left behind and now that entire planet is erupting into....

Well, Chaos.

And that's figuratively at first, then literally.

But, at least your heart was in the right place, Governor. But because of that bad decision, you killed billions more and wasted priceless, irreplacable ships. So your heart is in the right place, and your brains are going to be all over the wall.

chimera0205 wrote:
Are reeducation camps really worse then what the inquisti9nonon gets up to sometimes? Have you never heard of a Servitor? Id rather go to the absolute worst of Tau Reeducation camps then get turned into a fething Servitor.

You know, you don't just make someone a servitor because you woke up and saw them and thought their face looked dumb. You -do- realize that they do that to criminals, right?

The things that would get you turned into a servitor, the Tau would just shoot you for. So, that's slightly nicer.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
YES EVACUATE THE PLANETS! Thats a thing you can do. Yeah sure youd never ever be able to even get close to evacuating everyone but there is litterally no reason whatsoever you cant have on going planetary evacuations until litterally the moment the Tyranids jump in system THEN nuke the planet. The fact that not even an ATTEMPT at evacuation was made is whats fuckef up. Evacuating planets is like standard operatiing procedure for other scifi civilizations in much much more dire straights then the Imperium. Like the UNSC from halo. Hell the UNSC doesnt even have the luxury of a couple days warning as unlike in 40k ships dont have to appear in the outskirts of system then trabel sub light to the planet like in 40k. Tjey van just jump right inyo the planets orbit yet the UNSC still manages somewhat succusful evacuations on the regular. There is NO excuse for Kyrptman not even ATTEMPTING to evacuate any of the LOYAL planets he blew up.

With what massive vessels will you do that?

Oh, too late. While you were waiting on them to get into the system, there were massive riots when people learned they'd be left behind and now that entire planet is erupting into....

Well, Chaos.

And that's figuratively at first, then literally.

But, at least your heart was in the right place, Governor. But because of that bad decision, you killed billions more and wasted priceless, irreplacable ships. So your heart is in the right place, and your brains are going to be all over the wall.

chimera0205 wrote:
Are reeducation camps really worse then what the inquisti9nonon gets up to sometimes? Have you never heard of a Servitor? Id rather go to the absolute worst of Tau Reeducation camps then get turned into a fething Servitor.

You know, you don't just make someone a servitor because you woke up and saw them and thought their face looked dumb. You -do- realize that they do that to criminals, right?

The things that would get you turned into a servitor, the Tau would just shoot you for. So, that's slightly nicer.

But thats pure and toltal bs. The tau evacuted SEVERAL planets when they were fighting Hive Fleet Gorgon without any riots or chaos. Everything you say is pure conjecture not basef off the facts at all. Also plenty of people get turned into servitors for litterally no reason. Happens all the fething time.

Tau companies are called cadres with 200 or so troops and supporting vehicles/suits. Each one contains a dozen or more suits of varying sizes. 6 crisis suits seems to be a general minimum but there are also stealth suits, commanders broadsides and riptides. Some cadres are nothing but crisis suits. The number of cadres the tau can deploy is unspecified, so the comparison is unspecified marines vs unspecified tau. But since the tau repelled a crusade without losing a single sept, I’d say the black templars would be hard pressed to take them out.

Also, your unfamiliarity with tau cadres makes me question your authority on the topic of tau.

Edit: to add to this the tau are currently fighting the death guard on the fringe of their territory and haven’t lost yet, so why would the black Templars be more of a threat?

chimera0205 wrote:
But thats pure and toltal bs. The tau evacuted SEVERAL planets when they were fighting Hive Fleet Gorgon without any riots or chaos. Everything you say is pure conjecture not basef off the facts at all. Also plenty of people get turned into servitors for litterally no reason. Happens all the fething time.

The Tau evacuated Hive Cities, or recently-colonized worlds?

There's a huge difference there.

And show me where people get turned into servitors for "literally no reason" (it's actually probably something that requires AT LEAST some falsified charges on paper somewhere).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dandelion wrote:
Also, your unfamiliarity with tau cadres makes me question your authority on the topic of tau.

Well, in the RPG- my Deathwatch Character never bothered to ask the ones that were dead at his feet.

On the actual tabletop, I never bothered to ask the guy what they were called when he realized that I could still kill his stuff without getting into melee and deep-striking. For a long time, I just thought tau units were called "On Ebay as of 8th Edition, want to play Guard instead"

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
But thats pure and toltal bs. The tau evacuted SEVERAL planets when they were fighting Hive Fleet Gorgon without any riots or chaos. Everything you say is pure conjecture not basef off the facts at all. Also plenty of people get turned into servitors for litterally no reason. Happens all the fething time.

The Tau evacuated Hive Cities, or recently-colonized worlds?

There's a huge difference there.

And show me where people get turned into servitors for "literally no reason" (it's actually probably something that requires AT LEAST some falsified charges on paper somewhere).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dandelion wrote:
Also, your unfamiliarity with tau cadres makes me question your authority on the topic of tau.

Well, in the RPG- my Deathwatch Character never bothered to ask the ones that were dead at his feet.

On the actual tabletop, I never bothered to ask the guy what they were called when he realized that I could still kill his stuff without getting into melee and deep-striking. For a long time, I just thought tau units were called "On Ebay as of 8th Edition, want to play Guard instead"

Im starting to think you might not no what the feth your talking about. Your grasp on the lore seems tenious at best given you had no idea what a Tau Fire Warrior Cadre is and you didnt know who Inqusitor Kryptman was.

I do recall someone on att mentioning that the tau did in fact evacuate a hive planet, though he brought it up more to just mock the idea than anything else. Another good one I heard was when the tau apparently took an entire hive planet with just 20 cadres (ie 4000 troops), which is also silly, unless the planet really didn’t care I guess. I want to say it was a Phil Kelly book but I can’t be sure. It’s also just hearsay so take that as you will.

chimera0205 wrote:
Im starting to think you might not no what the feth your talking about. Your grasp on the lore seems tenious at best given you had no idea what a Tau Fire Warrior Cadre is and you didnt know who Inqusitor Kryptman was.

Yeah, I missed the name when you dropped it. For some reason, I thought Karimazov (who would probably exterminatus worlds for no reason, if he could- he seems a bit off).

And I know quite a bit of what I'm talking about, and I'm sorry you don't seem to think I do. Never really spent much time looking at Tau codexes, just understanding them from the FFG RPG's and what other I know about them. I've never lost to them at the tabletop, and they were all the rage a few years ago.

I'd say that your own grasp on the lore might be tenuous, but it's probably more accurate to say that I don't think you're really thinking things through. You do a lot of comparing apples to oranges here.

Evacuating a colony world and evacuating a hive world- or Emperor forbid, a Forge World- is a MUCH different scenario.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
As for a better solution. Inproved living conditions, education. Suffering and ignorance attract choas. Interex avoided choas entirely by just yknow Informing its population about the dangers of choas and making sure there populations needs were taken care of. Healthy continent happy people dont feel the NEED to sacrifice there children to the blood god.

By all means, tell me how you're going to do this.

Also, nobility in luxurious and comfortable lifestyles never fall to Chaos, right? It's only the poor and pissed off.

I think one of central themes of chaos in 40k is that it puts heavy emphasis on the choices we make, the idea that we are ultimately responsible for our actions and if we're not careful, even those considered the greatest can and will be humbled by their flaws. The stories of the primarchs show exactly this, that no matter how great someone may seem we are all flawed and all susceptible to our inner daemons. With this in mind, I feel as though the argument of Tau vs Imperium, who's better is ultimately a misguided question. Humanity are ultimately the only race that is properly fleshed out with emotion, complexity and contradictions in the game, as they're made to represent us how we are in reality.

The chaos gods are all literally manifestations of humanity's worst qualities, the emperor tried to defeat them by suppressing humanity's base and nasty traits, but ultimately failed because these things are an intrinsic part of human nature. The Tau on the other hand are a caricature of Japanese robot pseudo-communists, they're completely divorced from our own reality and are just there to be cool. For human beings this kind of thing is an inapplicable fantasy, as it holds no grounding in the world we actually exist within. To argue if their system is better is a moot point, as the moral given by the imperium of man is that we can be nasty, hypocritical and selfish, yet are also capable of the complete opposite. The Tau empire is full of 2D characters, who're there to be a cool army, their ideology flat out would not work for human beings in the 40k universe

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
Im starting to think you might not no what the feth your talking about. Your grasp on the lore seems tenious at best given you had no idea what a Tau Fire Warrior Cadre is and you didnt know who Inqusitor Kryptman was.

Yeah, I missed the name when you dropped it. For some reason, I thought Karimazov (who would probably exterminatus worlds for no reason, if he could- he seems a bit off).

And I know quite a bit of what I'm talking about, and I'm sorry you don't seem to think I do. Never really spent much time looking at Tau codexes, just understanding them from the FFG RPG's and what other I know about them. I've never lost to them at the tabletop, and they were all the rage a few years ago.

I'd say that your own grasp on the lore might be tenuous, but it's probably more accurate to say that I don't think you're really thinking things through. You do a lot of comparing apples to oranges here.

Evacuating a colony world and evacuating a hive world- or Emperor forbid, a Forge World- is a MUCH different scenario.

Kryptman didnt evacuate ANY of the worlds he blew up. I highly doubt every single one of the dozens or hundreds of worlds he blew up were Hive Worlds. So your point is still moot. The diffrence in difficulty doesnt matter when Kryptman didnt evacuate EITHER.

Also you genuinely believe a SINGLE chapter of space marines can fight off the tau who faught off both an entire Imperial Crusade AND an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet without losing a single one of there major worlds. Are you serisouly gonna suggest that the Black Templars are stronger then an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet?

 thetallestgiraffe wrote:
I think one of central themes of chaos in 40k is that it puts heavy emphasis on the choices we make, the idea that we are ultimately responsible for our actions and if we're not careful, even those considered the greatest can and will be humbled by their flaws. The stories of the primarchs show exactly this, that no matter how great someone may seem we are all flawed and all susceptible to our inner daemons. With this in mind, I feel as though the argument of Tau vs Imperium, who's better is ultimately a misguided question. Humanity are ultimately the only race that is properly fleshed out with emotion, complexity and contradictions in the game, as they're made to represent us how we are in reality.

I have heard that Chaos is a bit like the Dark Side of the Force- it tends to amplify the worst of our emotions/ideas, it doesn't really place them in our heads. Someone who's obsessed with curing the sick, to the point where he'll harm someone to test it; a freedom fighter who wants to stop oppression, to the point where civilian casualties might be acceptable; a man who loves his wife so much, he'll even steal to ensure she gets what she wants... these people might not be truly evil at first, but they have that little bit of them that'll flex, that one little gap in their 'moral armor' that Chaos can slip into. It's very Lovecraftian in that it needs something to latch onto, in order to take root... and literally no one, no sentient being, can possible be immune to that.

 thetallestgiraffe wrote:
The Tau on the other hand are a caricature of Japanese robot pseudo-communists, they're completely divorced from our own reality and are just there to be cool. For human beings this kind of thing is an inapplicable fantasy, as it holds no grounding in the world we actually exist within. To argue if their system is better is a moot point, as the moral given by the imperium of man is that we can be nasty, hypocritical and selfish, yet are also capable of the complete opposite. The Tau empire is full of 2D characters, who're there to be a cool army, their ideology flat out would not work for human beings in the 40k universe

I always saw the Tau as kind of a jab at people who snub their nose at the Imperium and say, "Why don't they x, y, z"- because when the Tau encounter actual Chaos, the Tyranids, and meet the Haemonculi- they tend to be slack-jawed and utterly terrified and they're doing everything except saying, "Well, that's why the Imperium are like that, makes perfect sense". Personally, I'd like to see them grow to be a bit more pragmatic and get a bit more of a ruthless streak, based upon their experiences because that naive streak is gonna fade.

chimera0205 wrote:
Kryptman didnt evacuate ANY of the worlds he blew up. I highly doubt every single one of the dozens or hundreds of worlds he blew up were Hive Worlds. So your point is still moot. The diffrence in difficulty doesnt matter when Kryptman didnt evacuate EITHER.

I don't think it was an option, dude. Apples to oranges.

chimera0205 wrote:
Also you genuinely believe a SINGLE chapter of space marines can fight off the tau who faught off both an entire Imperial Crusade AND an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet without losing a single one of there major worlds. Are you serisouly gonna suggest that the Black Templars are stronger then an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet?

Yes.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 thetallestgiraffe wrote:
I think one of central themes of chaos in 40k is that it puts heavy emphasis on the choices we make, the idea that we are ultimately responsible for our actions and if we're not careful, even those considered the greatest can and will be humbled by their flaws. The stories of the primarchs show exactly this, that no matter how great someone may seem we are all flawed and all susceptible to our inner daemons. With this in mind, I feel as though the argument of Tau vs Imperium, who's better is ultimately a misguided question. Humanity are ultimately the only race that is properly fleshed out with emotion, complexity and contradictions in the game, as they're made to represent us how we are in reality.

I have heard that Chaos is a bit like the Dark Side of the Force- it tends to amplify the worst of our emotions/ideas, it doesn't really place them in our heads. Someone who's obsessed with curing the sick, to the point where he'll harm someone to test it; a freedom fighter who wants to stop oppression, to the point where civilian casualties might be acceptable; a man who loves his wife so much, he'll even steal to ensure she gets what she wants... these people might not be truly evil at first, but they have that little bit of them that'll flex, that one little gap in their 'moral armor' that Chaos can slip into. It's very Lovecraftian in that it needs something to latch onto, in order to take root... and literally no one, no sentient being, can possible be immune to that.

 thetallestgiraffe wrote:
The Tau on the other hand are a caricature of Japanese robot pseudo-communists, they're completely divorced from our own reality and are just there to be cool. For human beings this kind of thing is an inapplicable fantasy, as it holds no grounding in the world we actually exist within. To argue if their system is better is a moot point, as the moral given by the imperium of man is that we can be nasty, hypocritical and selfish, yet are also capable of the complete opposite. The Tau empire is full of 2D characters, who're there to be a cool army, their ideology flat out would not work for human beings in the 40k universe

I always saw the Tau as kind of a jab at people who snub their nose at the Imperium and say, "Why don't they x, y, z"- because when the Tau encounter actual Chaos, the Tyranids, and meet the Haemonculi- they tend to be slack-jawed and utterly terrified and they're doing everything except saying, "Well, that's why the Imperium are like that, makes perfect sense". Personally, I'd like to see them grow to be a bit more pragmatic and get a bit more of a ruthless streak, based upon their experiences because that naive streak is gonna fade.

chimera0205 wrote:
Kryptman didnt evacuate ANY of the worlds he blew up. I highly doubt every single one of the dozens or hundreds of worlds he blew up were Hive Worlds. So your point is still moot. The diffrence in difficulty doesnt matter when Kryptman didnt evacuate EITHER.

I don't think it was an option, dude. Apples to oranges.

chimera0205 wrote:
Also you genuinely believe a SINGLE chapter of space marines can fight off the tau who faught off both an entire Imperial Crusade AND an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet without losing a single one of there major worlds. Are you serisouly gonna suggest that the Black Templars are stronger then an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet?

Yes.

Why wouldn't it be an option?

Also if a single SpaceMarine Chaprer is equal to a Hive Fleet like you claim then WHY THE feth DID TJEY EVEN NEED TO EXTERMINATUS DOZENS OF PLANETS WHEN THEY COULFADA JUST THROWN THE BLACK TEMPLARS AT THE HIVE FLEET? HUH? Your statements are self contradicting!

chimera0205 wrote:
Why wouldn't it be an option?

Find ships that can do this.

Convince them to come to a system about to be eaten by angry bugs.

Magically filter out any potential Genestealer-tainted evacuees.

Load these people in an orderly manner without absolute chaos (literal and figurative) breaking out

Dedicate military manpower to ensuring this happens safely

Do this in time

chimera0205 wrote:
Also if a single SpaceMarine Chaprer is equal to a Hive Fleet like you claim then WHY THE feth DID TJEY EVEN NEED TO EXTERMINATUS DOZENS OF PLANETS WHEN THEY COULFADA JUST THROWN THE BLACK TEMPLARS AT THE HIVE FLEET? HUH? Your statements are self contradicting!

Calling the Black Templars "a single space marine chapter" is like calling Gazprom's Fund for Supporting Social Initiatives (an 8,000+ member Russian Orchestra, the largest in recorded history) just "a band".

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
Why wouldn't it be an option?

Find ships that can do this.

Convince them to come to a system about to be eaten by angry bugs.

Magically filter out any potential Genestealer-tainted evacuees.

Load these people in an orderly manner without absolute chaos (literal and figurative) breaking out

Dedicate military manpower to ensuring this happens safely

Do this in time

chimera0205 wrote:
Also if a single SpaceMarine Chaprer is equal to a Hive Fleet like you claim then WHY THE feth DID TJEY EVEN NEED TO EXTERMINATUS DOZENS OF PLANETS WHEN THEY COULFADA JUST THROWN THE BLACK TEMPLARS AT THE HIVE FLEET? HUH? Your statements are self contradicting!

Calling the Black Templars "a single space marine chapter" is like calling Gazprom's Fund for Supporting Social Initiatives (an 8,000+ member Russian Orchestra, the largest in recorded history) just "a band".

Oh you mean all those things that a a much smaller empire with much less resources managed just fine? Cause once again the tau have evacuated numerous worlds succusfully against a variety if threats in the lore.

No matter how big a chapter they still arnt as a strong as an entre Tyranid Hive Fleet. Your showing utterly rediclous levels of imperium waank. Id bet even an entire Space Marine LEGION of the days of old would struggle agaist a hive fleet.

How many BT do you think there are? I’ve heard they’re somewhere in the range of 6000 total, but it’s not specified. The Damocles gulf crusade had 5 marine companies 19 regiments and a titan legion and was stopped at the first major tau sept. The tau had only mobilized the local Dal’yth forces too.

chimera0205 wrote:
Oh you mean all those things that a a much smaller empire with much less resources managed just fine? Cause once again the tau have evacuated numerous worlds succusfully against a variety if threats in the lore.

Okay, let me patiently help you. I can tell that you REALLY like your faction a lot, and nearly all of us do. But part of being a 40k lore/game/hobby fan is knowing where your own faction can be absurd. You're being extremely rude, to the point where I feel like I need to remind you that these are plastic space war toys and not real people, events, or organizations. I know that sounds harsh, but you need to tone it down. And to put it more bluntly, many Tau players already have a negative stereotype about them- so don't make it worse for the other guys, okay?

To engage this:

Size of the empire is irrelevant. Remember that the Tau are more consolidated into a smaller area, and support is much closer. And the population density of those worlds is MUCH smaller than an Imperial hive world.

Also, reminder that Genestealer Cults on a hive world are connected to a hive fleet. The Patriarch can communicate with that big swarm. Evacuations would take possibly decades, so the Patriarch would be aware. Why would you risk them tipping off the hive fleet so it redirects, when you can bring it in and force them to be 'stranded' without biomass? You're baiting them in closer, and then taking away the very resource they need to continue- to force them down a more desired path.

chimera0205 wrote:
No matter how big a chapter they still arnt as a strong as an entre Tyranid Hive Fleet. Your showing utterly rediclous levels of imperium spank next. Id bet even an entire Space Marine LEGION of the days of old would struggle agaist a hive fleet.

LOL okay sure. Two Regiments of the Imperial Guard, the Ultramarines and Mortifactors Chapters of Astartes, and a Deathwatch Kill-team managed to beat a good half of that hive fleet. Now, when we're talking ~5000 Astartes that now know much more about the Tyranids? Yeah, the odds are looking pretty solid.

You don't have to wipe out the hive fleet. You just have to attrit them to the point where they expend more biomass than they can accumulate during the invasion. This worked on the Necrons/C'Tan, in a way.

Also, Grimaldus once at a Hive Tyrant. Later on, he walked right up to an Etherial and pooped out an Ambull at his feet.

To be fair, the Legions of Olde had a significant amount of plot armor. According to fluff, the Imperium was basically unstoppable in its heyday. I'm not really an expert at 40k lore, but I'm pretty sure a Golden Age Legion would be able to "wipe the floor" with a Hive Fleet.

Dandelion wrote:
How many BT do you think there are? I’ve heard they’re somewhere in the range of 6000 total, but it’s not specified. The Damocles gulf crusade had 5 marine companies 19 regiments and a titan legion and was stopped at the first major tau sept. The tau had only mobilized the local Dal’yth forces too.

I have no idea how many Black Templars there are, and I don't think anyone does. The truth is, they spread themselves out doing multiple crusades, so the number could be absurd but it'd be irrelevant because their Fighting Companies are roughly the size of a Chapter.

And if I'm not mistaken, wasn't the Damocles Gulf crusade where things abruptly halted because an actual threat (Tyranids) showed up and the Imperium decided to stop playing with the blueberries to go squash bugs?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 flandarz wrote:
To be fair, the Legions of Olde had a significant amount of plot armor. According to fluff, the Imperium was basically unstoppable in its heyday. I'm not really an expert at 40k lore, but I'm pretty sure a Golden Age Legion would be able to "wipe the floor" with a Hive Fleet.

I wouldn't even say that the Imperium's Legiones Astartes would be the only factor. Remember, the Mechanicum was digging up some pretty nasty archeotech and throwing it around, the Knights and other titans were in greater numbers and had crazier weapons, and even the Solar Auxilla troops were better armed and equipped.

Also, there was an Angron around.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
How many BT do you think there are? I’ve heard they’re somewhere in the range of 6000 total, but it’s not specified. The Damocles gulf crusade had 5 marine companies 19 regiments and a titan legion and was stopped at the first major tau sept. The tau had only mobilized the local Dal’yth forces too.

I have no idea how many Black Templars there are, and I don't think anyone does. The truth is, they spread themselves out doing multiple crusades, so the number could be absurd but it'd be irrelevant because their Fighting Companies are roughly the size of a Chapter.

And if I'm not mistaken, wasn't the Damocles Gulf crusade where things abruptly halted because an actual threat (Tyranids) showed up and the Imperium decided to stop playing with the blueberries to go squash bugs?

Yes and no. The Tau were basically Stalling the Imperium completely on the ground and if they had decided to fight to the end that battle lilely would have gone on in definitely but the imperium decided thag fighting the Tau in an enending forever battle wasnt fething worth it and just fethed off to go fight bugs.

TBH I think the sides in this debate come down to this: some people would rather their masters be the same species as them no matter how badly they are treated as long as their species remained dominant over all others while others would be willing to be a slaves to another species so long as their individual lives were relatively safe and comfortable.

 Manchu wrote:
TBH I think the sides in this debate come down to this: some people would rather their masters be the same species as them no matter how badly they are treated as long as their species remained dominant over all others while others would be willing to be a slaves to another species so long as their individual lives were relatively safe and comfortable.

You say this but I'm okay being a sex slave to a big-tiddied alien lady. She can even call me names and hit me sometimes, I'll even pretend it bothers me in front of the other aliens.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:
Yes and no. The Tau were basically Stalling the Imperium completely on the ground and if they had decided to fight to the end that battle lilely would have gone on in definitely but the imperium decided thag fighting the Tau in an enending forever battle wasnt fething worth it and just fethed off to go fight bugs.

Basically, this is the 40k lore equivalent of "if coach would have put me in, we could have gone all the way to the State Championships and i could be in the NFL right now". Speculation, and we may never know.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
TBH I think the sides in this debate come down to this: some people would rather their masters be the same species as them no matter how badly they are treated as long as their species remained dominant over all others while others would be willing to be a slaves to another species so long as their individual lives were relatively safe and comfortable.

You say this but I'm okay being a sex slave to a big-tiddied alien lady. She can even call me names and hit me sometimes, I'll even pretend it bothers me in front of the other aliens.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:
Yes and no. The Tau were basically Stalling the Imperium completely on the ground and if they had decided to fight to the end that battle lilely would have gone on in definitely but the imperium decided thag fighting the Tau in an enending forever battle wasnt fething worth it and just fethed off to go fight bugs.

Basically, this is the 40k lore equivalent of "if coach would have put me in, we could have gone all the way to the State Championships and i could be in the NFL right now". Speculation, and we may never know.

Not speculation. They litteralyl were objectively kicking the Imperiums ass on the ground. Thats a fact. They stalled the Crusade out entirely with just the local forces of a single major world.

chimera0205 wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
TBH I think the sides in this debate come down to this: some people would rather their masters be the same species as them no matter how badly they are treated as long as their species remained dominant over all others while others would be willing to be a slaves to another species so long as their individual lives were relatively safe and comfortable.

You say this but I'm okay being a sex slave to a big-tiddied alien lady. She can even call me names and hit me sometimes, I'll even pretend it bothers me in front of the other aliens.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:
Yes and no. The Tau were basically Stalling the Imperium completely on the ground and if they had decided to fight to the end that battle lilely would have gone on in definitely but the imperium decided thag fighting the Tau in an enending forever battle wasnt fething worth it and just fethed off to go fight bugs.

Basically, this is the 40k lore equivalent of "if coach would have put me in, we could have gone all the way to the State Championships and i could be in the NFL right now". Speculation, and we may never know.

Not speculation. They litteralyl were objectively kicking the Imperiums ass on the ground. Thats a fact. They stalled the Crusade out entirely with just the local forces of a single major world.

Can you tell me about any books in which the Tau get their gak utterly kicked in? I’ve never heard of anything bad happening to the Tau in a conflict, and my suspicions are that it is because of author’s pet faction.
Remember when that Execution Force of Assassins was sent against Tau leadership? Only one of the Honcho targets was killed, and the worst thing that happened to anybody else was injury? From my understanding, a Callidus was somehow found out, the Eversor ripped through hundreds of people and several Battle suits but Character Farsight narrowly manages to live, the Vindicare is noticed and tracked by the Darkstrider fellow, and only the Culexus ghosts his way to the target.

I don't think it's very productive to 'argue' about fictional factions in earnest with people who take them way too seriously. The most polite way I can put this, is that it comes off like a disturbing obsession and that unnerves me.

I don’t buy your alien dominatrix queen hypothetical, Doritos. The Tau are just gross. No matter how ample Shadowsun’s bosom, they are still disgusting blue alien milkers totally unsuitable for human enjoyment. That’s the thing about aliens; they are alien. You can anthropormorphize them (including Rule 34 style fetishization) but you’re just kidding yourself.

Submitting as a slave to aliens is never going to be psychologically or morally acceptable to a species that comes up with a philosophy like Monodominat Puritanism. It’d be the ultimate genetic and cultural cuckoldry. I can’t think of any coherent rationalization where the imperium are morally superior to the Tau but neither can I imagine submission to the Tau as anything but the pathetic abdication of humanity, which has to be counted as the worst moral transgression of all in the 40k setting.

Do the Tau have a morally superior way of life? I mean, maybe for the Tau themselves. Maybe the Tau are living their best lives. But the idea of humans willingly embracing the so-called Greater Good is a vomit inducing betrayal.

Monodominant Puritanism is a harsh but honest account of humanity, at least in the setting.

 Manchu wrote:
I don’t buy your alien dominatrix queen hypothetical, Doritos. The Tau are just gross. No matter how ample Shadowsun’s bosom, they are still disgusting blue alien milkers totally unsuitable for human enjoyment. That’s the thing about aliens; they are alien. You can anthropormorphize them (including Rule 34 style fetishization) but you’re just kidding yourself.

I never said 'Tau', those are nasty and the females are just males with two slits instead of one.

Personally, I'm more down for something from Star Trek or Star Wars, basically "A hot chick with weird skin and some piece of rubber on her forehead because we got a budget".

Didn't the Tau recently get "outfoxed" by a group of Orkz (basically, the green skins tricked them into walking into an ambush)? Dunno if that qualifies as "getting your gak kicked in", but it probably ain't a proud moment anyway.

Only other instance I can think of is when the Tau were having issues dealing with some Nidz, so the DE offered to help em out. Once again, that turned out pretty badly...

 flandarz wrote:
Only other instance I can think of is when the Tau were having issues dealing with some Nidz, so the DE offered to help em out. Once again, that turned out pretty badly...

At the point where you're willing to believe that the guys with spikes and severed appendages hanging off their belts are "here to help", you have demonstrated that your species is doomed.

The sad part is that "spikes and severed appendages" is an apt description more than one Faction in 40k.

 flandarz wrote:
The sad part is that "spikes and severed appendages" is an apt description more than one Faction in 40k.

Well, true.

The rule is, if it's just the bones they're probably less of a psychopath.

Slightly.

Star Trek and Star Wars are like fantasy settings in that non-humans are just proxy humans.

The space elves in 40k, however, are meant to be totally inhuman to the point of, upon any kind of in-person examination, being inherently horrific to humans. How much more so the slit-faced, hooved blue skins? Ugh.

Living with/among Tau would be endlessly traumatic for humans. If they aren’t heavily sedated, mass hypnotized, or covertly lobotomized, it’s hard to see how such captives would not simply die of stress. Maybe that’s what happens. What is the mortality rate of humans domesticated by Tau captors, I wonder? Probably higher than hive gangers but compared to the peasantry of Macragge, I bet it is quite low.

Whether some alien philosophy is superior to the black satire of human civilization in 40k is IMO a totally moot point simply because alien philosophy is ultimately not applicable to human psychology.

I mean, try imagining the reverse. Imagine expecting a Tau to try and see the Imperium as a superior system. They just couldn’t even begin to, because their alien brains would not even be able to grasp the fundamental assumptions of a society that is, to them, utterly alien.

I think Tau philosophy seems tempting because we understand it metaphorically rather than directly. We say, oh it like X or Y when X and Y are actually human analogs for something that in some way superficially resembles Tau ways, but of course every metaphor is just totally wanting. It’s like saying Cthulhu “looks like” a winged squid dude. That’s actually just the best the human brain can do, right before snapping completely. It’s not actually what the Great Old One “looks like.”

chimera0205 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yes, Kryptman did exterminatus a bunch of planets. Planets that were in the path of the Tyranids. he did it to deny the hive mind biomass. Much like firefighters will burn a strip of forest to deny a forest fire fuel, or how chemotherapy kills a whole bunch of cells so that the cancer will die.

And it worked. The Hive fleets were forced to turn away as there was no biomass to consume. Killing billions to save trillions. That is the tragedy of the Imperium.

Yeah except he coulda just know EVACUATED THE fething PLANETS!!! You know that is a thing you can do right?

Nope. You're never going to find enough ships to evacuate many hundreds of billions of people on short notice. Human lives are the one thing the Imperium has an endless supply of. It would simply not be worth the expenditure of fuel, food, and ships to evacuate the planets.

There’s no point even pretending to weigh the value of human lives against the cost of an evacuation and relocation. Evacuation and relocation are simply non-options. The infrastructure of the Imperium is not built to accomplish such things. Best approximation would conscripting some Guard regiments before abandoning their homeworlds to their fates.

TBH theres Kroot and other aliens living in imperial space or with humans just fine. Look at blackstone fortress.
I believe you are hard analizing this in a way no GW author has ever done.
Also, please, no more big tiddy alien dominatrix shaming,. Is rude.

 Galas wrote:
TBH theres Kroot and other aliens living in imperial space or with humans just fine. Look at blackstone fortress.

That's more a thing done on the sly. And where the Blackstone Fortress is, it's pretty much 'the Imperium but only because the Imperium says so', it's not like there's a real presence out there to actually enforce the standards.

Dude Blackstone is the ultimate corner case. Humans don’t live with aliens, at least not the kind of humans other human are willing to tolerate, as a matter of IoM society.

Also your alien kink deserves maximum shaming, heretic!

Well, the Jokaero are (I believe) pretty prevalent within the Imperium. Though (to be fair) I suppose the Imps probably consider them to be little more than trained monkeys rather than actual rival species.

 Galas wrote:
I believe you are hard analizing this in a way no GW author has ever done.

Throne forbid!

 Manchu wrote:
Also your alien kink deserves maximum shaming, heretic!

Don't talk to me or my hatchling ever again, bigot.

 flandarz wrote:
Well, the Jokaero are (I believe) pretty prevalent within the Imperium. Though (to be fair) I suppose the Imps probably consider them to be little more than trained monkeys rather than actual rival species.

Yeah, note that the IoM seems to be ok with non-sentient xeno fauna. So Yvraine’s lynx is probably fine but Bobby can’t bring her home for dinner.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Also your alien kink deserves maximum shaming, heretic!

Don't talk to me or my hatchling ever again, bigot.

I will not tolerate the lack of intolerance.

Are Jokaero actually non-sentient, or is it one of those "don't ask, don't tell" situations where they're useful and docile enough that no one cares if they can think or not?

 flandarz wrote:
Are Jokaero actually non-sentient, or is it one of those "don't ask, don't tell" situations where they're useful and docile enough that no one cares if they can think or not?

It's on par with a pet that does interesting tricks that are useful.

As far as anyone is concerned when it comes to the Inquisitors using them.

Apart from "who is morally superior?" I also think that evacuating planets in a sensible timeframe is realistically nearly impossible. I know there are examples in the fluff where it was managed (as Chimera mentioned the Tau also did it), but that's the usual "if the author wants it, it will work".

Just to put that into perspective, take our 2019 earth with its roughly 7.7 Billion people. Its would be far from being a hive world, more like a single hive maybe. Roughly in the range of a civilized world.
If you could somehow manage to evacuate 1 million people a day (which is rather ambitious) you would need 21 years to evacuate them - IF they stop reproducing while you do it.
If you could manage to make it 1 million per HOUR (which would be crazy) you could maybe go down to 10 months
If you could drop it to 1 Million a minute (seriously?): 5 days

And remember: evacuating is not just "loading up". It means
1. load evacuation ships with enough food and water for some weeks of travel for the passengers
2. getting into the system
3. fly from the mandeville point to the planet in sublight speed (which might take weeks)
4. land on the planet, what most large, warp capable transports will not be able to. Therefore you need ferries or shuttles to land
5. load and refuel the shuttles
6. fly back through the atmosphere to the warp capable transports
7. transfer people from shuttles to Transports
8. fly back to the Mandeville point, jump to the evacuation systems Mandeville point, fly in sublight speed to those planets
9. distribute people to evacuation systems, as you cannot just drop some billion people on one replacement planet. They need food, water etc., so you have to split them up
10. refuel your big transports, also get new water and food (you might have to fly to the next agriworld for that).
11. as your ships and shuttles fly like crazy to manage 1 million evacuees per day or even hour, you will have to repair and replace them in time.

Its just... not really possible I think. Even if you look at settings like stargate where you can drop most of the problems listed above, getting 1 Million people per hour to arrive at the gate, pass through it onto another planet and distribute there fast enough to not clog it up is... rather ambitious. And I have not even taken into account the mentioned necessity to filter for Genestealer infestation etc.


Don't get me wrong: its still cruel when an evacuation is not even tried. Its just that I find it hard to believe that evacuations of hive planets are managed at all in the fluff

Couple of points. They are rare. They look like terran apes. The humans that tolerate having them around are radical Inquisitors. So I’d say this is deep into the grey area.

Fair enough on both counts.

 Manchu wrote:
Star Trek and Star Wars are like fantasy settings in that non-humans are just proxy humans.

The space elves in 40k, however, are meant to be totally inhuman to the point of, upon any kind of in-person examination, being inherently horrific to humans. How much more so the slit-faced, hooved blue skins? Ugh.

Living with/among Tau would be endlessly traumatic for humans. If they aren’t heavily sedated, mass hypnotized, or covertly lobotomized, it’s hard to see how such captives would not simply die of stress. Maybe that’s what happens. What is the mortality rate of humans domesticated by Tau captors, I wonder? Probably higher than hive gangers but compared to the peasantry of Macragge, I bet it is quite low.

Whether some alien philosophy is superior to the black satire of human civilization in 40k is IMO a totally moot point simply because alien philosophy is ultimately not applicable to human psychology.

I mean, try imagining the reverse. Imagine expecting a Tau to try and see the Imperium as a superior system. They just couldn’t even begin to, because their alien brains would not even be able to grasp the fundamental assumptions of a society that is, to them, utterly alien.

I think Tau philosophy seems tempting because we understand it metaphorically rather than directly. We say, oh it like X or Y when X and Y are actually human analogs for something that in some way superficially resembles Tau ways, but of course every metaphor is just totally wanting. It’s like saying Cthulhu “looks like” a winged squid dude. That’s actually just the best the human brain can do, right before snapping completely. It’s not actually what the Great Old One “looks like.”

What the feth are you talking about? Often times the only thing that truly changes when the Tau take over a human planet is that the Human now have wide assess to really good civilian technology that improves there standard of living across the board. Theres no evidence of Tau lobotomizing there human citizens. Or sedating them, or hypnotizing them. Like at all. Like seriosuly the only major diffrence being a human living on a Tau World and Human world is that the Tau actually make an attempt to better your life and give a gak about you. There is no domesticion. There not slaves. At absolute WORST there second class citizens but even as second class citizens they still have far more rights and privileges then imperial citizens have. Every single depiction of battles involving the Tau show the Tau doing everything in there power to evacuate civilians no matter if there Kroot, Human, Tau or any other client race. Yeah sure they may give slight preferential trestment to Tau and if the only choice is between evacing a Human and Evacing a Tau theyll obviously choose the Tau but if its at all possible to evac both then theyll do so. Honestly just the fact that there actually willing to evac civvies at all ane put any effort into actually protecting the lives of there civilians should AUTOMATICALLY put them above the Imperium.

It's not that the Imperium isn't willing. If they could magically transport them away, they would. But they can't.

It's that the second and third order effects of even trying would cause more catastrophic loss of life than just doing an exterminatus.

You're obviously very angry that your favorite faction was criticized and you're not being rational at all. I'm just gonna let the mods wrangle you.

Okay... firstly, not true - the Imperium did try where possible:

"Every world within the reach of the Leviathan's advance was to be evacuated and undergo immediate Exterminatus wherever possible, so that its biomass could not become new grist for the Tyranids' production of new bioforms"

Secondly there are several cases, especially on larger worlds, where the Imperium did exactly as you suggest - deploy enough ground forces to make the hive commit to a large-scale sybdual swarm deployment, *then* bomb the crap out of the surface. One such is documented in BFG Armada.

As to the tau having no problems, also not true - there are at least two cases of chaos cults popping up on tau gue colonies, one starting with the earth cast indulging the indigenous tribe in a 'fertility magic ritual' alongside their efforts to stem a plague/famine which resulted in a snuggle incursion, and one where a cadre was hunting down insurgents on a newly compliant human world, in particular an off worlder warlord called 'slaanesh'. The latter resulted in the 'O having to execute basically his entire kroot auxiliary after they went wibbly mutant insane when they ended up agreeing with something they ate...

This is not even a genuine moral issue. Rather, it is purely a matter of resource management. As other have pointed out, human life is a practically infinite resource for the Imperium. Billions of lost lives are of purely local consequence. For the puny, galactically insignificant Tau Empire, such losses would be a staggering setback.

As to the rest, here’s where you get to pick an interpretation.

On one hand, maybe the Tau are just narrative proxies for humanity and they are just another joke in the satire of 40k (“even the aliens are more “humane” than humans har har!). In that case, we can say, morality is universal and the Imperium and the Tau Empire can be judged by the same measuring stick. (Along with Necrons and Orks and even Chaos, I guess? Seems pretty dumb to me.)

On the other hand, maybe the Tau are actually aliens. In that case, there is no bridging the gap between the psychology of the two species and morality as such is a matter purely internal to each.

The implication of the latter is that co-existence would at minimum be severely stressful.

locarno24 wrote:
which resulted in a snuggle incursion

Throne preserve us.

People also tend to forget what is gonna happen when you try to evacuate a hive world.

Billions of people. Information exchange and distribution is limited.

Suddenly a rumor starts about there being not enough room on the ships, or that diseases are spreading. There isn't enough food on the ships, etc.

Now you have panic, disorder, riots... outright rebellion.

People start attacking the evacuation overseers and security personnel. Mobs rush the ramps, children are trampled, people are already dying in droves.

I don't care who you are, no amount of armed personnel and intimidation is going to keep back this tidal wave of terrified people.

Now a ship- an irreplaceable one, and an important one, is in danger. Maybe it crashes into a hive. Millions more die.

More panic. Food hasn't come in. And the other captains do not want to lose their ships.

Then there's the matter of where these people will go... if you can get a portion of them out. Another hive? More poverty, more mouths to feed? No jobs? Absolute ruin.

The evacuation en masse seems like a great solution, until you look at the next group of problems that will pop up and be even worse. And the solutions to these problems can't be just handwaved and solved.

Earlier it was said, what would push Chaos away- better living conditions, better treatment, and education... LOL

Where will you get these things from, is the Emperor going to just warp-fart them out?

Do you think there are ever food riots in Tau cities?

Or are there never even shortages?

I mean, if Tau society is as great as assumed then Tau are not just morally superior they are purest utopian delusion. Which is another way of agreeing with the people who say Tau don’t belong in 40k.

I’m not one of those people. I think Tau belong in 40k. I think their society has all kinds of problems that are solved by brutal application of force that is marketed via their religion as necessary. I mean, that’s obvious right? That the “greater good” is a clear dystopian irony?

AFAIK there is no canonical GW source attesting to any food shortages within Tau society. Without positive evidence we cannot conclude there are such problems.

However there is suggestion that the Tau control reproduction at least to some degree between Tau as castes are forbidden from having offspring with others outside their caste. So one possible speculative conclusion could be that the Tau genuinely do not have food shortages because they regulate reproduction to avoid outstripping the food or other resource supply. Of course that might seem a dystopian solution for readers that have been brought up to view reproduction as an individual right.

If the Imperium is 1984, the Tau can be a Brave New World. The promises of the Greater Good do not have to be outright lies. They may be truthful about there being material abundance and higher quality of life. It's just at the trade off of other things as compared to the Imperium's deal.

To be fair, you don't hear about the Iron Warriors slave-serfs running short on food, but that doesn't mean their life is grand.

The thing is, the Tau are just as grim and dark as the Imperium. And part of what makes them grim and dark is that nice appeal they have with that darker secret...

There's enough food for everyone, and places to rest....

...but you and your spouse have been sterilized.

There's no Oppressive Authority...

...but there's chemicals in our food that are making us docile.

Everyone is working together for the Greater Good...

...and you have no idea what that is or whether or not it requires/involves your survival, and the Kroot may need to be fed more than you need to be alive.

They have cool mech suits...

...you don't get one, here's a Kroot rifle.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

...but you and your spouse have been sterilized.

Mind you there is no canonical GW evidence for this specific nugget that keeps being raised. The only circumstantial source is the computer game Dawn of War Soulstorm for the hypothetical Tau victory in the Kaurava system. The canon of the computer games is always a bit suspect, and even more so when even within the Dawn of War series continuity, it never happened as it was not the canonical ending. Dawn of War III indicates that the Orks won the Kaurava system.

As for that hypothetical victory where the Tau secretly sterilizing the humans until they died out naturally, the existence of centuries old human populations within the Tau Empire argues against such a reservation until they go extinct policy, at least at a Tau Empire wide level.

I am not arguing for the Tau as being goody goody white hats, but some of the points raised against them have little or no grounding in the actual evidence from GW sources.

Iracundus wrote:
Mind you there is no canonical GW evidence for this specific nugget that keeps being raised. The only circumstantial source is the computer game Dawn of War Soulstorm for the hypothetical Tau victory in the Kaurava system. The canon of the computer games is always a bit suspect, and even more so when even within the Dawn of War series continuity, it never happened as it was not the canonical ending. Dawn of War III indicates that the Orks won the Kaurava system.

As for that hypothetical victory where the Tau secretly sterilizing the humans until they died out naturally, the existence of centuries old human populations within the Tau Empire argues against such a reservation until they go extinct policy, at least at a Tau Empire wide level.

You disgust me. You're less concerned about breeding, but what about not getting a cool mech and getting stuck with a break-action Kroot gun made from a corroded metal pipe and some gardening tools?

Mechs with big lasers > Babies

Until you show me a baby that can explode a tank, I'm standing by that.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
To be fair, you don't hear about the Iron Warriors slave-serfs running short on food, but that doesn't mean their life is grand.

The thing is, the Tau are just as grim and dark as the Imperium. And part of what makes them grim and dark is that nice appeal they have with that darker secret...

There's enough food for everyone, and places to rest....

...but you and your spouse have been sterilized.

There's no Oppressive Authority...

...but there's chemicals in our food that are making us docile.

Everyone is working together for the Greater Good...

...and you have no idea what that is or whether or not it requires/involves your survival, and the Kroot may need to be fed more than you need to be alive.

They have cool mech suits...

...you don't get one, here's a Kroot rifle.

But only one of those things actually ever happens. Sterilization is only ever mentioned in Dawn Of War witch is of.Questionable cannonity to say the least. And even then only on a Rebellious human pop. They don't sterilize loyal humans.

Theres no mention ANYWHERE of chemicals in the food that make you docile.

The Greater good is far more likely to require your survival then the Imperial Creed given that every single defensive battle weve ever seen the Tau engaged in theve made at least some effort to evac civilians and often make it a top priority. Regardless of said Civilians race. Meanwhile the most if the Imperiums commanders haven't even heard of the word Evacuation and most of the ones who have probably think its heretical.


And there certainly dont feed people to the Kroot.

Also they hand out Pulse rifles like fething candy to Guevesa. The only reason the Kroot dont also use Pulse Rifles us cause they specifically choose not to. At absolute worst a Guevesa might have to use a Lasgun.

chimera0205 wrote:
But only one of those things actually ever happens. ....

My dude, your rabid defense of the Tau has calmed down, so... those were just odd examples, "ifs". I don't know what they put in their food, it's probably poop.

...I think if you're looking at them as the optimistic "good guys", then that's equally part of the grim dark aspect.

Because if that's the case, the Tau are a toad frog sleeping on a highway.... and when their presence in the warp gets a bit bigger, and they start to realize what else is out there, how much is out there, and how small they are...

...they're going to be asking "How do you exterminatus the best" to the next Imperial official they encounter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:
Meanwhile the most if the Imperiums commanders haven't even heard of the word Evacuation and most of the ones who have probably think its heretical.

Except they've done it before, my dude.

It's like you're basing your knowledge of the Imperium on bad memes.

Which is heresy.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
But only one of those things actually ever happens. ....

My dude, your rabid defense of the Tau has calmed down, so... those were just odd examples, "ifs". I don't know what they put in their food, it's probably poop.

...I think if you're looking at them as the optimistic "good guys", then that's equally part of the grim dark aspect.

Because if that's the case, the Tau are a toad frog sleeping on a highway.... and when their presence in the warp gets a bit bigger, and they start to realize what else is out there, how much is out there, and how small they are...

...they're going to be asking "How do you exterminatus the best" to the next Imperial official they encounter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:
Meanwhile the most if the Imperiums commanders haven't even heard of the word Evacuation and most of the ones who have probably think its heretical.

Except they've done it before, my dude.

It's like you're basing your knowledge of the Imperium on bad memes.

Which is heresy.

Says the one basing all there knowledge of the Tau on memes. Seems a bit hypocritical doesnt it?

chimera0205 wrote:
Says the one basing all there knowledge of the Tau on memes. Seems a bit hypocritical doesnt it?

I think I told you already where I drew my knowledge from, and honestly- you could argue the FFG RPG's are debatably canon. And the games? Well, I don't know how accurate their canon is or whatever, I played 2 of them and got bored.

I'm sorry I haven't pored into the Tau books as hard as you have, I've personally never found them interesting or worth investing money into. I dunno, I kinda think they look silly and most of their color schemes look like bad bathroom floor tiles to me.

And I can honestly say I've met very few fans of the faction that make me interested in them. Take that for what it's worth.

Believe as you like, think as you like. But yeah, I think we're done here, me and you. It's been... well, not fun. But it certainly happened.

I wish people were as passionate about parking correctly and picking up their own litter as you are about Tau, I can at least say that.

Honestly, are the Imperium and the T'au empire ideologies that different? I mean, the Imperium justifies anything it does with its own version of the "greater good". It's just that in their case, the greater good means "humanity runs the galaxy its own way" while the T'au are willing to invite other species to the party. But if at some point genocide was necessary for the greater good, the empire would do it, wouldn't it?

For a random citizen, in both cases you're part of an empire that doesn't care about what you want or think, only what is best for the empire.

If you're going to have a debate people, please quote and cite your sources specifically. In-character POVs are also suspect and fallible.

All too often the evidence based on "I seem to remember" or "I read somewhere" turns out to be totally false.

I admit I am probably not up to date on the Tau background, but do we actually get much portrayal of Tau everyday life from the perspective of the Tau themselves in say the Black Library sources? Much of the negatives raised against the Tau seem to either be from Imperial sources, or innuendo/speculation rather than direct confirmatory evidence.

 Tiennos wrote:
Honestly, are the Imperium and the T'au empire ideologies that different? I mean, the Imperium justifies anything it does with its own version of the "greater good". It's just that in their case, the greater good means "humanity runs the galaxy its own way" while the T'au are willing to invite other species to the party. But if at some point genocide was necessary for the greater good, the empire would do it, wouldn't it?

For a random citizen, in both cases you're part of an empire that doesn't care about what you want or think, only what is best for the empire.

The Tau Codices have alluded to basically gunboat diplomacy. Join peacefully, and maybe negotiate some sort of deal via the Water caste diplomats, or they attack and take by force. Maybe there is first an entangling of economic interests before they present their ultimatum, such as on Taros.

For the random human within the Tau Empire, their relative value is probably still higher than if they were in the Imperium simply due to the Tau Empire not having such near limitless manpower. The Tau would probably find some use for them whereas in a hive for example, there is urban anarchy below a certain level and the Imperium doesn't care as the population is so large that sections of it are beyond direct administrative control.

Iracundus wrote:
whereas in a hive for example, there is urban anarchy below a certain level and the Imperium doesn't care as the population is so large that sections of it are beyond direct administrative control.

The Necromundan word for "anarchy" also means "freedom".

It also means killing you in your sleep but you can't expect the dialect to be all positive.

TBH one of the prime reasons Tau society is much better for the common people is their general use of AI. You don't need to have hundreds of people living in subhuman conditions to produce weapons, food, etc... when you have drones doing it.

At the same time we know how AI ended up to the old humans. And theres hints in Tau lore about drones and other Tau AI starting to gain """"conscience"""", so is basically a disaster waiting to happen.

As the in-universe Eldar put it, Tau, Humans and Eldar represent three states of the galactic civilization cicle in 40k. Tau are "better" because they are still in the first pase of discovery, but they'll end up like the Imperium. Maybe not exactly as them, not doing the same horrible things in some aspect, but doing equally despicable things in other ways. At least, if they really want to expand and conquer most of the galaxy. If they are happy with their little corner, they can be much more "good" in a moral sense, like all those smaller human or xenos empires that have existed/exist.

But just like USA, you can't be the top dog being a chihuahua.

 flandarz wrote:
Didn't the Tau recently get "outfoxed" by a group of Orkz (basically, the green skins tricked them into walking into an ambush)? Dunno if that qualifies as "getting your gak kicked in", but it probably ain't a proud moment anyway.

Only other instance I can think of is when the Tau were having issues dealing with some Nidz, so the DE offered to help em out. Once again, that turned out pretty badly...

I dunno about getting out-foxed, but I do know the Tau got outgunned by Orks.
The War of Dakka is a hilarious bit of lore, and just shows that sometimes you don't need a better gun, sometimes you just need more gun.
Christopher Walken would have an excellent Big Mek. "I gotta feva, an' da painboy sed ta use moar dakka"

The interesting thing about that encounter with the Dark Eldar is the Dark Eldar actually upheld their end of the bargain, at least the letter of the bargain. Now the Tau were horrified because they were not aware of the true cost of what the Dark Eldar were really going to do to those "on cultural exchange", but it was the Tau then that technically broke the deal by not offering up additional Tau or an Ethereal in return for the Dark Eldar aid already received.

Iracundus wrote:
The interesting thing about that encounter with the Dark Eldar is the Dark Eldar actually upheld their end of the bargain, at least the letter of the bargain. Now the Tau were horrified because they were not aware of the true cost of what the Dark Eldar were really going to do to those "on cultural exchange", but it was the Tau then that technically broke the deal by not offering up additional Tau or an Ethereal in return for the Dark Eldar aid already received.

Lawful Evil in action.
The Dark Eldar respected the terms of the contract. Its not their fault if the Tau didn't read the small print or asked if they'd be getting their Ethereals back in one piece without having horrible things done to them.

 Manchu wrote:
This is not even a genuine moral issue. Rather, it is purely a matter of resource management. As other have pointed out, human life is a practically infinite resource for the Imperium. Billions of lost lives are of purely local consequence. For the puny, galactically insignificant Tau Empire, such losses would be a staggering setback.

As to the rest, here’s where you get to pick an interpretation.

On one hand, maybe the Tau are just narrative proxies for humanity and they are just another joke in the satire of 40k (“even the aliens are more “humane” than humans har har!). In that case, we can say, morality is universal and the Imperium and the Tau Empire can be judged by the same measuring stick. (Along with Necrons and Orks and even Chaos, I guess? Seems pretty dumb to me.)

On the other hand, maybe the Tau are actually aliens. In that case, there is no bridging the gap between the psychology of the two species and morality as such is a matter purely internal to each.

The implication of the latter is that co-existence would at minimum be severely stressful.

locarno24 wrote:
which resulted in a snuggle incursion

Throne preserve us.

That's autocorrect for 'nurgle' but now I'm picturing an invasion of fluffy daemonic duvets.....

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The interesting thing about that encounter with the Dark Eldar is the Dark Eldar actually upheld their end of the bargain, at least the letter of the bargain. Now the Tau were horrified because they were not aware of the true cost of what the Dark Eldar were really going to do to those "on cultural exchange", but it was the Tau then that technically broke the deal by not offering up additional Tau or an Ethereal in return for the Dark Eldar aid already received.

Lawful Evil in action.
The Dark Eldar respected the terms of the contract. Its not their fault if the Tau didn't read the small print or asked if they'd be getting their Ethereals back in one piece without having horrible things done to them.

Actually from my understanding the dark eldar basically always adhere to at least the letter og any deals they make. Its basically the only good quality of the species. I mean thats probably one of the main reasons Cammeragh is such a massive hub for Mercenarys and Pirates. Your reputation is the only thing that means anything in the world of Pirates and Mercs.

locarno24 wrote:

That's autocorrect for 'nurgle' but now I'm picturing an invasion of fluffy daemonic duvets.....

Fluff Guard worship Grandpa Snuggle, and summon Plushwalkers.

chimera0205 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The interesting thing about that encounter with the Dark Eldar is the Dark Eldar actually upheld their end of the bargain, at least the letter of the bargain. Now the Tau were horrified because they were not aware of the true cost of what the Dark Eldar were really going to do to those "on cultural exchange", but it was the Tau then that technically broke the deal by not offering up additional Tau or an Ethereal in return for the Dark Eldar aid already received.

Lawful Evil in action.
The Dark Eldar respected the terms of the contract. Its not their fault if the Tau didn't read the small print or asked if they'd be getting their Ethereals back in one piece without having horrible things done to them.

Actually from my understanding the dark eldar basically always adhere to at least the letter og any deals they make. Its basically the only good quality of the species. I mean thats probably one of the main reasons Cammeragh is such a massive hub for Mercenarys and Pirates. Your reputation is the only thing that means anything in the world of Pirates and Mercs.

The Haemonculi are also the insurance salesman of the Dark Eldar through their monopoly of the body regeneration business. Nobody will pay them if they aren't seen to deliver on at least most of their promises of resurrection.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

That's autocorrect for 'nurgle' but now I'm picturing an invasion of fluffy daemonic duvets.....

Fluff Guard worship Grandpa Snuggle, and summon Plushwalkers.

And when more hugging power is needed, a Great Fuzzy One.

 Tiennos wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

That's autocorrect for 'nurgle' but now I'm picturing an invasion of fluffy daemonic duvets.....

Fluff Guard worship Grandpa Snuggle, and summon Plushwalkers.

And when more hugging power is needed, a Great Fuzzy One.

I don't know about you, but a demonic teddy bear of Slaanesh sounds terrifying.

Dandelion wrote:
I agree with the above. The warp and chaos are mirrors of the emotions of humanity. The suffering inflicted by the imperium fuels chaos. Besides, the whole point of the setting is satire. The imperium is supposed to be the good guy when by all measures they’re actually the baddies. And most of their problems are originally self inflicted.

Also the tau don’t mind control, and they’ve only sterilized rebellious human populations (whereas the imperium would gladly kill everyone on the planet)

That's a lie that has been adressed recently: the 4th expansion sphere killed ALL its auxiliaries because of the warp.Tau are doing exactly the same now they are in contact with the warp.

 godardc wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
I agree with the above. The warp and chaos are mirrors of the emotions of humanity. The suffering inflicted by the imperium fuels chaos. Besides, the whole point of the setting is satire. The imperium is supposed to be the good guy when by all measures they’re actually the baddies. And most of their problems are originally self inflicted.

Also the tau don’t mind control, and they’ve only sterilized rebellious human populations (whereas the imperium would gladly kill everyone on the planet)

That's a lie that has been adressed recently: the 4th expansion sphere killed ALL its auxiliaries because of the warp.Tau are doing exactly the same now they are in contact with the warp.

And then 5th Sphere Punished them heavily for it. Sidelining almost every officer and out right executing the worst offenders. And that was less your average everyday warp travel and more a small scale warp calamity that caused that kurfuffle.

 Tiennos wrote:
Fluff Guard worship Grandpa Snuggle, and summon Plushwalkers.

And when more hugging power is needed, a Great Fuzzy One.

Yes, because they aren't aware of the Warp. What that show is the way they react when they face the warp, and fortunately for them it rarely happens. If they were in the Imperium of Man situation (the 4th was) they would act the same. The ones who aren't, who don't even think the warp exist, keep the old peaceful ways (and we KNOW how it ended for the human federation before the Imperium. We know this for a fact by the narrator).

 Tiennos wrote:
Honestly, are the Imperium and the T'au empire ideologies that different? I mean, the Imperium justifies anything it does with its own version of the "greater good". It's just that in their case, the greater good means "humanity runs the galaxy its own way" while the T'au are willing to invite other species to the party. But if at some point genocide was necessary for the greater good, the empire would do it, wouldn't it?

For a random citizen, in both cases you're part of an empire that doesn't care about what you want or think, only what is best for the empire.

I agree with this. Obviously, the Tau are presented in a way that is more commensurate with contemporary IRL materialism.

The “greater good” is an obvious reference to IRL totalitarian rhetoric.

 flandarz wrote:
Are Jokaero actually non-sentient, or is it one of those "don't ask, don't tell" situations where they're useful and docile enough that no one cares if they can think or not?

They are a non-sentient species. They also happen to be able to craft advanced technology and even build space ships. But this is technically no different than a Chimp using a stick to pull termites out of the dirt. Their advanced technological knowledge however did cause some confusion with Imperial Xenographers who at first thought they must be sentient creatures. Only after a lot of extensive testing was it discovered they are simply beasts, extremely intelligent beasts, but beasts no less.

I kinda feel like that might just be Imperial Propaganda (like "Orkz are stupid brutes") to "normalize" having them around, but since I doubt there's any conflicting lore about it, I'll buy into it.

In those Warhammer Adventures books Jokaero are fully sapient with names and all, with some chapters told from the resident Jokaero Flegan-Palas POV.

I dunno maybe people involved in finding out whatever the Jokaero are sentient or not were just so unsettled by self aware monkeys capable of making better stuff than the hallowed humans that they just refused to accept them as anything but animals. Or maybe the truth was hushed down because it was convenient for the parties involved. Or maybe the Jokaero just played dumb.

 godardc wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
I agree with the above. The warp and chaos are mirrors of the emotions of humanity. The suffering inflicted by the imperium fuels chaos. Besides, the whole point of the setting is satire. The imperium is supposed to be the good guy when by all measures they’re actually the baddies. And most of their problems are originally self inflicted.

Also the tau don’t mind control, and they’ve only sterilized rebellious human populations (whereas the imperium would gladly kill everyone on the planet)

That's a lie that has been adressed recently: the 4th expansion sphere killed ALL its auxiliaries because of the warp.Tau are doing exactly the same now they are in contact with the warp.

Are you referring to the auxiliaries that all turned into murderous demonspawn? How is that even remotely the same?

To answer the title question, it's mostly because Imperial fanbois are the biggest fanbois.

Yes, the Tau are a colonialist power that practice some fairly shady tactics to ensure victory. But that's what governments do. People seldom want to see how sausage is made, they just want the delicious sausage. The Tau are trying to make the best sausage possible for everyone, including the pork - but that doesn't mean the pig gets to live.

The Imperium is actively, un-necessarily cruel. It's part of the point of the setting, and GW is fully up front about how awful the Imperium really is. The whole point of the Tau is that they are a counterpoint to show how badly the Imperium has failed, not to show the Tau leadership as 'foolish xenos who don't know how the galaxy really works*'. The Imperium's actions can't be justified in most cases, they are just the product of decisions by people not caring how the sausage is made at all (Lords of Terra). In fact, the Imperium's governance is actually generally counterproductive as all the suffering and negative emotions they foster just make the warp more unstable.

Having that little ray of hope makes the grimdark all the more grim and dark. The Tau are supposed to be the blundering, naive good guy wandering around clumsily do-gooding with puppy dog eagerness, creating their empire of peace and love. They're basically the Star Trek Federation, just a bit more aggressive. Some idiot at GW decided they had to throw in sinister overtones because they completely missed the point.

*Nobody really does

 Da Boss wrote:
It is frustrating to read these threads. 40K was created as an explciitly dark parody universe, following in the best traditions of stuff like 2000AD with Judge Dredd.
The Imperium has lots in common with real world fascist regimes, on purpose. Genocide, xenophobia, intolerance of difference, heavy use of propaganda, obsession with war. It also has lots in common with communist regimes- seizure of private property, unending bureaucracy, heavy use of propaganda, obsesssion with deviant thought from outside. The creators no doubt figured that the heavy, heavy brushstrokes would be enough for people not to consider the Imperium the "good guys", but I guess they overestimated people. There are no good guys in original 40K.

Of course the Imperium, in it's propaganda, claims what it does it "justified". That is what every such regime does, it is fundamental. Needing an external threat to hate is also fundamental to these regimes. (Edit to add: And yes, I know, the Imperium is ALSO inspired by the Holy Roman Empire. It has a lot of inspirations, from all over the place. That is what makes it such a good setting!)

Of course, the setting is now being written by people who grew up as fans of the original dark satire and some of them do not seem to understand how it was originally intended. Space Marines are unironically written as heroes rather than the lobotomised murderers they were originally. The setting is now written to justify the Imperium's POV rather than to poke fun at it. The writers seem pretty comfortable writing fascist fan fiction, and a lot of the fans seem pretty comfortable lapping it up. It is that hyper masculine "Only I will do what needs to be done" fantasy stripped of all empathy. Simple, brawny answers to complex questions.

Very disappointing.

Thank you for posting this, I couldn't agree more.

I'd say the Tau fanbois aren't too modest themselves.
Every time its "Tau science is ze greatest in ze world!" or "The Greater Good is for realsies!", even though the Tau have it a lot easier compared to the other factions and haven't really experienced the same circumstances.

They aren't as big as the Imperium, so their logistical network isn't as strained, allowing them to easily defend their worlds when under attack and don't have to worry so much about resource shortages.

They haven't encountered any extinction level events like the Eldar or Necrons. And I mean serious extinction level events, as in, nearly lost their entire species.

They were pretty much allowed to progress in peace, being sheltered by a warp storm and all.

They are a young race, so still haven't quite experienced as many set backs as the other races or have as much baggage.

They are less of a counterpoint to the Imperium, imo, and more of a glimpse of how humanity was as a young, space faring race, full of hope, full of dreams, seeking to colonize the galaxy with some ships, some AI and some pretty advanced tech. They are basically zoomers, who are quickly going to discover why the older races are so crotchety and cynical.

Whether or not the tau become like the imperium is not clear. They may make the decision to not follow in the footsteps of their galactic neighbors, or they may perpetuate the cycle further and become the next imperium, but there’s no definitive evidence that the imperium’s way is the only way.
The imperium is pretty much set in its ways much like the Soviet Union. If they let go just a little everything will fall apart, but that does not mean they were morally right in the first place.

That said I would not consider the tau to be objectively good either. They’re really just a regular imperialist faction by most metrics (complete with a manifest destiny). Not being as bad as the imperium isn’t a high bar.

I don't think the Imperial or the Tau way is the best way either. If it works at keeping the species alive, then it works. Could it be better? Probably. Any change could also wipe out the species though, but if your civilization reached that point then something went horribly wrong beforehand.

The Eldar and Dark Eldar way also isn't great, but it seems to be working. Is it better than the Imperial way? No, but that doesn't mean the Imperial way is better either. It just works.

The Ork way is working perfectly. Does that mean its the best option overall? Of course it is, because Green is Best

My my my, we're already calling people fascists.

I should make a bingo chart for Dakka on these topics.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I'd say the Tau fanbois aren't too modest themselves.

Never said they were - just that Imperium ones are the biggest.

Every time its "Tau science is ze greatest in ze world!" or "The Greater Good is for realsies!", even though the Tau have it a lot easier compared to the other factions and haven't really experienced the same circumstances.

They are less of a counterpoint to the Imperium, imo, and more of a glimpse of how humanity was as a young, space faring race, full of hope, full of dreams, seeking to colonize the galaxy with some ships, some AI and some pretty advanced tech. They are basically zoomers, who are quickly going to discover why the older races are so crotchety and cynical.

I think what makes the Tau a counterpoint - because as you point out, they share a similar initial track - is that the Tau aren't rabid Xenophobes. Humans pretty much were, sweeping all aside except for the Eldar, who were fairly indifferent to humanity. Whether or not this turns out well or poorly for the Tau remains to be seen.

 Da Boss wrote:
'Communist regimes- seizure of private property, unending bureaucracy, heavy use of propaganda, obsesssion with deviant thought from outside.

If these are defining traits of Communism then they aren't very strong definers - bar seizure of private property (which Marx defined as a key part of the transition towards Communism). Bureaucracy is a major issue within effectively any form of totalitarian government (it was a major problem for Nazi Germany), while the issues of Bureaucracy that plagued the AES are distinct in many ways from those which plagued the other autocratic regimes. Heavy use of propaganda and 'obsession with deviant thought' (which is a fairly weak and broad descriptor' was also commonplace in other totalitarian states.

The Imperium does not really share any solid connections with any of the AES (Actually Existing Socialism) states bar being 'totalitarian', which in of itself isn't a very strong description (though probably one Marx would not be adverse to).

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
My my my, we're already calling people fascists.

I should make a bingo chart for Dakka on these topics.

This was destined to happen in a thread where people genuinely attempt to make arguments in favour of a quasi fascist regime.

Furthermore attempting to classify 40k states under real life ideologies is pointless since 40k hasn't been proper political parody since its inception and has the depth of a puddle, as evidenced by people trying to act like the pseudo utopian phraseology of the Tau has any sort of 'deep' political meaning (it doesn't).

At least we haven't had anyone claiming a literal Caste based society is Communist though.

Needless to say, the only moral option in 40k is anti-natalism or some kind of negative utilitarian anti-life bomb. Existence in 40k is pure agony and there is no better option; simply killing everyone would be a superior option to whatever the other races are offering.

 blood reaper wrote:
This was destined to happen in a thread where people genuinely attempt to make arguments in favour of a quasi fascist regime.

That word gets thrown around a lot.

A lot of people don't know what it means.

You can probably lay out the actual definition of it and people would gleefully get behind the idea until you tell them what the name is, because most people just associate it with "bad persons" and that's all they know.

The Imperium is a Tributary Empire. Pretty sure those were around long before some Italians decided to twist some sticks around an axe.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

You can probably lay out the actual definition of it and people would gleefully get behind the idea

Oh, most certainly; it is self evident that many people would! This is not a good thing!

 Crimson wrote:
Oh, most certainly; it is self evident that many people would! This is not a good thing!

You'd be shocked. All sorts. Many you'd least expect it from.

Because like any other idea that gained traction, it's designed to sound good and work well in ideal circumstances (but has really bad consequences).

And most people don't understand history, or context. They just act in accordance with what they're told to believe.

That's terrifying.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Oh, most certainly; it is self evident that many people would! This is not a good thing!

You'd be shocked. All sorts. Many you'd least expect it from.

Because like any other idea that gained traction, it's designed to sound good and work well in ideal circumstances (but has really bad consequences).

And most people don't understand history, or context. They just act in accordance with what they're told to believe.

That's terrifying.

So in theory it works (even though some things aren't accounted for) but in reality it doesn't remotely work.

-------

On topic I do think tau are better in a sense than the imperium but at least the imperium has the balls to show its cruelty whereas the tau are super sneaky about it. The imperium beats you and tells you it's for your own good and then you might believe it because it's all you know. The tau probably do the same but with more mind control and tech. The tau have subtlety in convincing people of their morality (which can be lacking at times) while the imperium has no subtlety whatsoever....in probably anything it does really.

It's basically if you're tau you believe you're free and are a mind slave that must say and do certain things. The imperium is bad just doesn't really lie about it or at least it's not as indirect as the tau.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
This was destined to happen in a thread where people genuinely attempt to make arguments in favour of a quasi fascist regime.

That word gets thrown around a lot.

A lot of people don't know what it means.

You can probably lay out the actual definition of it and people would gleefully get behind the idea until you tell them what the name is, because most people just associate it with "bad persons" and that's all they know.

The Imperium is a Tributary Empire. Pretty sure those were around long before some Italians decided to twist some sticks around an axe.

Fascism: political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition (from merriam Webster)

But there’s leeway for that definition, since no two fascist states have been identical. The imperium can be a tributary empire and still at least be somewhat fascist. That said, the tau would also fall under that definition.

 blood reaper wrote:

At least we haven't had anyone claiming a literal Caste based society is Communist though.

I would believe the whole “Tau are commies” bit comes from the idea of working for the Greater Good style propaganda and how easy it is to lump different authoritarian statism governments into the same pot.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
This was destined to happen in a thread where people genuinely attempt to make arguments in favour of a quasi fascist regime.

That word gets thrown around a lot.

A lot of people don't know what it means.

You can probably lay out the actual definition of it and people would gleefully get behind the idea until you tell them what the name is, because most people just associate it with "bad persons" and that's all they know.

The Imperium is a Tributary Empire. Pretty sure those were around long before some Italians decided to twist some sticks around an axe.

I mean from my perspective Fascism is a reactionary movement opposed to the emergence of a unified workers movement, intent on the maintenance of power of the bourgeois and aristocracy. It is anti-liberal, it is capitalism in decline, and is regularly led by military officer types. The Imperium doesn't match up with a lot of that because it lacks the economic structures to recreate those conditions, but it is undeniable that the Imperium is dominated by traditionalist, xenophobic aristocrats opposed to modernity.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:

At least we haven't had anyone claiming a literal Caste based society is Communist though.

I would believe the whole “Tau are commies” bit comes from the idea of working for the Greater Good style propaganda and how easy it is to lump different authoritarian statism governments into the same pot.

Yeah, which is a sign of how weak a lot of people's political knowledge is, given that these governments were usually pretty distinct in how they operated. Even then the Tau share very little with the Soviet Union or any of the AES states (the myth that these countries promoted some utopian vision of the future is laughable, especially given what Marx wrote).

Though I can't lie, it would be pretty based if the Tau were actual proletarian revolutionaries. Working Men of All Planetary Systems, Unite!