"I have followed the myriad potential futures of the Tau with great interest. Though barely even striplings compared to us, I feel a strange protectiveness towards them. In time I believe they will exceed even our greatest feats and master the darkness within their souls." - Eldrad Ulthran, Codex Tau, 3rd ed.

Why would an Eldar life be threatened?

On that note, the kroot could be used as messengers between the factions, since they have fought many times for both.

The Tau, contrary to what you seem to believe, DO need more resources. 100 planets isn't much when one has to fend off the IoM, Orks, and Tyranids (I only listed the species they have fought)

A good analogy (though rather random) would be to compare the Tau to a house spider. They come into your house (milky way) long after you first came into your house, and generally are pretty harmless and mind their own business, even killing mosquitos for you (tyranids, orks). However, you are instantly weary of them, and seek to kill them for unexplainable reasons (Damocles Gulf Crusade). However, if you attack, it may bite back. Allthough you, being a human, can survive anything it can do, getting bitten still sucks. If you leave it on your own, it might not bother you.

I had a passage here that said it was a good analogy and then comparing the Imperial Guard to a no-nonsense rolled up newspaper, ah well, seems to have gotten lost.

Essentially, if the Eldar predicted that the Tau would cause the deaths of some Eldar, they would have cause within themselves to act and kill as many Tau as was necessary.

exactly, as you said, the spider would be trying to defend itself. The spider would likely end up dying because the giant arachno(xeno)phobic human would simply not want to dirty it's hands touching the gross(heretic) spider(Tau).

The only conceivable way the spider could kill you would be if it crawled into your mouth (Terra) while you were sleeping (Fending off Black Crusades) and bit you in the top of your mouth, and injected it's venom into your brain.

Obviously the Tau won't take Terra, I just pictured the mouth thing and wanted an analogy. The entire Tau Empire probably couldn't take Terra, even without re-inforcements for Earth.

BaronIveagh wrote:"I have followed the myriad potential futures of the Tau with great interest. Though barely even striplings compared to us, I feel a strange protectiveness towards them. In time I believe they will exceed even our greatest feats and master the darkness within their souls." - Eldrad Ulthran, Codex Tau, 3rd ed.

And? That's the now likely dead Eldrad, and you've pretty much backed up my point to an extent. The Eldar DO prefer the Tau to the Imperium because a massive galaxy spanning empire under the rule of the Tau would be better than the one now. At least like im2randomghgh said, the Tau at the very least offer you the chance to be ruled under the Ethereals, and that's better for every other species than "Die Xenos! For The Emperor!" *Bolters fire*. I'll repeat. The vast majority of other Eldar wouldn't hesitate too much in destroying a great number of Tau if they predicted said Tau will end the lives of some Eldar. When it comes down to the Eldar preserving themselves, they wont discriminate on who they kill to achieve this.

As the Tau do not register in the Warp they are nearly free of any mental or spiritual corruption. Physical is another matter. It's likely that the Tau would control their lusts and emotions and be free of Chaos forever. Eldrad saw this as is in the quote, and had bright hopes for them in the future, which is perfectly reasonable remembering how the Eldar got into their current position.

IIRC Blanks are unaffected by warp fueled diseases, so even physical corruption would be highly difficult in the case of Tau.

Tau actually dismissed Chaos as a "minor threat" (one of their few follies) due to their being nearly incorruptable. The only case I can recall of Tau having cadre members succump to taint is when kroot ate daemonettes.

Also, I re-iterate, why would the Eldar suspect Eldar lives to end at the hands of the Tau?

You know, as soon as you wrote kroot eating daemonettes, 4chan just spawned a new abomination.

im2randomghgh wrote:Tau actually dismissed Chaos as a "minor threat" (one of their few follies) due to their being nearly incorruptable. The only case I can recall of Tau having cadre members succump to taint is when kroot ate daemonettes.

Also, I re-iterate, why would the Eldar suspect Eldar lives to end at the hands of the Tau?

Not suspect, right now they believe the Tau are young but have potential. If one of their Farseers predicted that the Tau would start encroaching on Maiden Worlds for example, or if the Tau decided that even the Eldar weren't exempt from The Greater Good, they would take the necessary action to either stop the Tau from going down that path or defend said Maiden World, slaughtering any Tau that set foot on it.

iproxtaco wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:Tau actually dismissed Chaos as a "minor threat" (one of their few follies) due to their being nearly incorruptable. The only case I can recall of Tau having cadre members succump to taint is when kroot ate daemonettes.

Also, I re-iterate, why would the Eldar suspect Eldar lives to end at the hands of the Tau?

Not suspect, right now they believe the Tau are young but have potential. If one of their Farseers predicted that the Tau would start encroaching on Maiden Worlds for example, or if the Tau decided that even the Eldar weren't exempt from The Greater Good, they would take the necessary action to either stop the Tau from going down that path or defend said Maiden World, slaughtering any Tau that set foot on it.

With the Tau Eldar relationship, it is hard to judge how the Tau would react, as Tau and Eldar have never met in the flesh, the Tau know of the Eldar due to the Gue'vesa's stories, and the Eldar know of the Tau through psychic visons, but that's about it. I find it likely that the Elday would introduce themselves first, and a NAP would likely be formed, if not an alliance. I doubt the Tau would try to assimilate the Eldar, as they have only assimilated aliens in possession of but a single world (kroot-pech, vespids-Vespid) thus far, and would not succeed in partial assimilation like their precious-but-few Gue'vesa auxiliaries, as Eldar, unlike Humans, are rarely neglected by their society, and rarely fail to feel pride at being an Eldar.

This, however, is simply speculation, as the hypothetical meeting's outcome would be at the hands which ever writer took up the challenge. (Please be Andy Hoare, he loves Tau. Please be Andy Hoare, he loves Tau...)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BaronIveagh wrote:You know, as soon as you wrote kroot eating daemonettes, 4chan just spawned a new abomination.

...what?

im2randomghgh wrote:With the Tau Eldar relationship, it is hard to judge how the Tau would react, as Tau and Eldar have never met in the flesh

if Ward writes the meeting the Tau wil kill the Eldar, and Smear their Children's blood all over their Crisis Suits....

AvatarForm wrote:This thread keeps going around... and around... and around...

There we go!

Fighting GEoM style:




Because gods drop worlds on people.