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I just finished reading the backstory behind Commander Farsight. And I'm starting to think there's a big reason his forces broke away from the Tau Empire. He hails from a planet known for warriors that fight with great ferocity, one of his titles are Mont'yr (Blooded), He encourages his units to use melee combat, and his main bases are set up within the Damocles Gulf.

If you ask me, I think he's either been influenced, or is worshipping, Khorne.

Thoughts?

so training for melee is worshipping khorne?

just no

Well when you consider how the Tau feel about melee combat, how it's totally barbaric, and uncivilized, you'll get where I'm coming from.

He learned about the Big Bad Ethereals and their Mind Control.

Bloodied and Skilled are common names to anyone in the Fire Caste.

Just humor me for a second.

Farsight was supposed to be leading Tau reclaimation forces to recolonize worlds the Imperium took during the Damocles Crusade. Instead, he goes off to fight a ton of Orks in a ten year campaign. Granted the Orks would've threatened the Tau Empire if left there, but Farsight went Exterminatus on them, and pressed into their systems, destroying several of their worlds. He should've just returned to the empire when the Etheral caste leaders were killed, but instead, he pressed on into forbidden territories, and then fortified a few main systems, and severed communications with his command.

There's no doubt he's broken away, but I'm just offering a theory that might fit well with what he's done, and might explain why he made the decisions he did.

I really don't think that is the case. Chaos has little to no interest in Tau (remember reading that somewhere but forget where) They are not psychic at all and are almost impossible to taint.

I think it is more like while he was on mission he learned that the people giving orders were nor as good as he thought so he went rogue with his own ideas for helping the empire. He is still a good guy, just doesn't believe in the chain o command anymore.

And here I was thinking there'd be a chance for a good Chaos conversion.

I question, however, the belief that Tau are not psychic. Indeed, the codex speculates that the Etherals have some psychic control over the other castes. Why would GW put something like that in there, then turn around and say they're not psychic?

That led me to question. What if Farsight was born with psychic powers, and Chaos got a whiff of him? Of course, this is my theory, but you gotta admit, it looks like (at least to me) GW might have bigger plans for the Tau in the future.

Ethereals are not psychic. Want to point out the codex page that says they are?

They exude pheromones. Are pheromones indicative of psychic ability? If so, about 95% of life on Earth is psychic.

Tau are explicitly stated in their codex as not a psychic race, with zero psykers and almost no Warp signature.

It's page 9. It's under the Etherals entry.

It is speculated that they exert some kind of pheromone based or latent psychic control over the other castes, as loyalty to the Etherals is absolute and unswerving.

I think GW wants us to think that there are no psychic Tau, so they can turn around and surprise us somehow.

Notice the "or."

I'd say the general statement that "Tau are not psychic" pretty much clears that one up.

It helps that that piece right there is written from the POV of an Imperial, whereas the rest of the codex is not.

True.

Still, if the Etheral caste's control over the other castes is Pheromone based, why don't all Tau produce those pheromones? It could very well be they just trust the Etherals that much, but that's a subject for another thread.

Back to the topic at hand. There are ways that Chaos can get to those without psychic abilities. For example, what if the Dawn Blade is actually heavily infused with Chaotic energies? Farsight carries it into every battle, and with it's size, I would conjecture that it's made for a Daemon Prince. What if the forces of Chaos took an interest in Farsight for being overly aggressive against the Orks, and for having a great amount of influence over the fire warriors? Remember, before the rise of Shadowsun, he held sway over a lot of the Fire caste, and if nothing was done about the warrior's loyalties, there would be a Mont'au, or civil war. And if I were a Daemon, that's how I would try to cause bloodshed against a race I couldn't directly influence.

Maybe influenced by Khorne but not controlled. The chaos gods often influence things but not to a great extent, even Khorne though not very subtley.

I doubt he's been influenced by chaos since he has never attacked etheral controlled tau worlds. The worst thing he's done not talk to them. That's not very khorne crazy

They don't have to attack Tau controlled worlds for them to be influenced by him/it. It doesn't have to be obvious influence either he won't be mad or anything but he may be more violent than others.

If he is influenced by chaos its bechause of his big sword, not because of his psychic presence in the warp. I don't see anything wrong with this theory as the taint of chaos would be less prominent in a member of the Tau race.

It's just a stupid GW fluff idea to have an excuse to make a melee oriented Tau faction.

If they really want to do it, they will just retcon everything in the next codex.

Anything to do with Tau and hitting things is a stupid idea...

I'm more willing to believe the theory its an old C'tan/necrontyr artefact. Plus it might not be the actual Farsight. That could possibly just be the title of the current enclave leader. The Blade being a sign of office. Tau also as fire warriors do a knife bonding ceremony that involves drawing blood between the group of them. It doesn't mean their on the slow road to chaos. But could Tau be being used as unwitting pawns in the gods games? definitely.

Although, if I found a giant sword, I'd like close combat too.

Lexx wrote:I'm more willing to believe the theory its an old C'tan/necrontyr artefact. Plus it might not be the actual Farsight. That could possibly just be the title of the current enclave leader. The Blade being a sign of office. Tau also as fire warriors do a knife bonding ceremony that involves drawing blood between the group of them. It doesn't mean their on the slow road to chaos. But could Tau be being used as unwitting pawns in the gods games? definitely.

How can it be a slow road to Chaos when Slaanesh is all about life in the fast lane?

Mr Nobody wrote:Although, if I found a giant sword, I'd like close combat too.

This is why Farsight left the Empire.

/thread

First time I read about Farsight's big ol' sword, I thought to myself "Wow, Tau boy's got himself a Daemon Blade." The whole breakaway thing made sense after that...

Having a Daemon Blade doesn't mean always 'corrupted by chaos', it could mean 'I found a random giant sword that's really cool'. Or maybe he's making a point while he separates himself from the empire. Maybe the ethereal control pheromones wore off after they died, and he realized what was happening. And just adding Farsight doesn't make the Tau good in CC. Nothing will ever make the Tau good in CC. He's just one commander who happens to be good in CC, and actually seems pretty out of place in the tau codex.

SaintHazard wrote:He learned about the Big Bad Ethereals and their Mind Control.

Specifically, he learned about it by becoming nulled to their psychic influence by a Necrontyr weapon, which is anathema to any psychic interference

Sorry to disappoint, but this is hardly a new theory, stemming formt he fact that he travels with a bodyguard of 8 (Khorne's faavorite number) wears red (Khorne's favorite color) and emphasizes melee combat. On the other hand this argument is uasually beat down by the fact taht Tau have little to no psychic presence and due to this it's thought unlikely chaos would take an interest in them, the domain of Chaos is the warp and it's so much harder to influence individuals that don't really show up there.

aun'shi good. farsight bad. lmao....i just figured id say something 2 get a WTF response


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but i think farsight is tryin 2 compensate....i mean, that is a BFS....

I always thought that if he was a Khorne worshipper he would also be attacking his old empire. But at the moment he has just separated from them so I lean more towards the idea that he was abused by an Ethereal as a child.

You could also view this the same way as religious organizations. Whenever a group disagrees with their church, they eventually branch off, usually leading to neither side ever communicating with the other, pretending they don't exist. When the ethereals died, farsight was free to diagree with the tau empire, leaving to form his own branch. Picture him as a more kick ass version of Paul Luther.

Except that the Tau are one of the few races in 40k WITHOUT any religious or spiritual overtones, and I think it should stay that way.