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This comes up from time to time but with new sources, like the Jericho Reach information from Deathwatch, it seemed like a good time to bring it up once again. I'm here for Tau physiology 101. Educate me -- with sources please! (4chan does not count)

(1) What color is Tau blood?

(2) Are there physical differences between the castes (aside from height)?

(3) In what ways are Tau sexually dimorphic? (We know there are males and females.)

(4) Do Tau have hooves or toes?

(5) What are the slits on their faces?

Manchu wrote:(3) In what ways are Tau sexually dimorphic? (We know there are males and females.)

I'm fairly sure this was never defined in GW material, but Xenology goes by the idea of there being little difference aside from primary genitals (meaning: no breasts). The Fandom seems to prefer the idea of BreasTau, however. The only female miniature, Commander Shadowsun, is clad in a huge mecha-suit concealing the studio's opinion on the subject. Shadowsun's Codex artwork also suggests a long trail of hair, however, which seems to be an oddity amongst the otherwise baldheaded Tau - could be gender-based, could be personal choice and just coincidence. Unfortunately, we lack a sufficient number of examples from each gender for a proper analysis.

Manchu wrote:(4) Do Tau have hooves or toes?

Depends on where you look.
According to Black Library's Xenology: Toes.
According to the actual Ethereal miniature(s) from GW and various Codex artworks: Hooves.

Manchu wrote:(5) What are the slits on their faces?

Again depends on where you look.
According to Black Library's Xenology, on the Ethereals this "slit" houses some sort of mind control pheromone gland.
FFG's Deathwatch RPG on the other hand poked fun at Xenology by having its own Ethereal dissection and commenting with: "lol there ain't nothing like this, the other report is BS"

I seem to remember the slits on Tau males' faces being vertical and the ones on Tau females' faces being Y-shaped. Any information on that?

Can't check sources ATM, so this is from memory.
Sources are scarce on this and the source with the most information includes contradictory and/or daring info: Xenology.

1.) I think a novel says cyan. Most people would agree it being blueish red.
2.) There certainly is a difference in build, earth caste being stockier, air caste lean and thin. Air caste, living in space mostly, also has thinner bones, better tolerance for G forces (acceleration) and better reaction times (should be in Aeronautica). All castes seem to still be one species, otherwise the rules against crossbreeding of castes makes no sense.
3.) Not much known. In the novel Fire Warrior, Tau can clearly distinguish between sexes, but doesn't mention why IIRC. Xenology says, anatomy is basically human. Only Shadowsun miniature shows different y-formed nose slit, no other source or explanation for that. No final say on breasts as Xenology only shows one female specimen already dissected.
4.) "Technically" hooves are specially formed toes. All art and miniatures show hooves, only the Xenology pic shows toes. The text doesn't mention toes IIRC.
5.) I assume a nose. The mind bending thing Xenology speculates only applies to ethereals.

The slit in their face is obviously their nose. Shadowsun has Y-shape nose for some reason, and many people assume that this is how all Tau females look, but I prefer to think that Shadowsun is just a mutant or something because the Y-nose looks stupid.

The Fire Caste although only about human sized are giants amongst their kind I believe. The other castes are pretty small. Check out these scrawny Air Caste:

Manchu wrote:I seem to remember the slits on Tau males' faces being vertical and the ones on Tau females' faces being Y-shaped. Any information on that?

I thought that was more or less accepted as fact. Before getting finecasted, Commander Shadowsun had an Y-shaped slit in her face...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ow. Crimson already got it

Agent_Tremolo wrote:Before getting finecasted

So she doesn't have one now?

Manchu wrote:

Agent_Tremolo wrote:Before getting finecasted

So she doesn't have one now?

She is an FtM transsexual apparently.

LOL, that will be the joke if there actually is a resculpt. As things stand, I don't think any of us have seen the Finecast O'Shaserra. The only pic GW has up is of her with the helmet on and she's still on advance order.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Fire Caste although only about human sized are giants amongst their kind I believe. The other castes are pretty small. Check out these scrawny Air Caste

Bad idea to claim, Fire Warriors are giants among Tau, then show even larger Air caste members

I think he meant overall (girth not just length ). I believe Codex: Tau Empire agrees with him.

Manchu wrote:I think he meant overall (girth not just length ). I believe Codex: Tau Empire agrees with him.

When i moused over this topic, this was the last post that popped up, and i will admit that out of context it had me worried.

In my personal opinion the author of the Black Library's Xenology is an idiot. Not only did he obviously fail to read any Tau fluff, he didn't even look at the models from the game... He also apparently lacks any knowledge of evolutionary biology. If he had any familiarity with the subject he would know that the tau gene pool would become immune to that type of mind control really fast. I am very pleased to see other books calling that out, because frankly words are a much more effective form of mind control, one only needs to look outside to confirm that. The Tau serve those of the Aun out of pride and duty, these people did save their whole civilization after all...

FR33Kandy wrote:In my personal opinion the author of the Black Library's Xenology is an idiot. Not only did he obviously fail to read any Tau fluff, he didn't even look at the models from the game... He also apparently lacks any knowledge of evolutionary biology. If he had any familiarity with the subject he would know that the tau gene pool would become immune to that type of mind control really fast. I am very pleased to see other books calling that out, because frankly words are a much more effective form of mind control, one only needs to look outside to confirm that. The Tau serve those of the Aun out of pride and duty, these people did save their whole civilization after all...

Eh... In what way modern Darwinism predicates that hormonal mind-control would be weeded out? Because, you know, it's currently not...

If a creature develops a way to mind control all of a species eventually a member of that species will be born immune. That member will reproduce, and its children will be immune. Eventually a large portion of the gene pool will have an immunity. This will happen over and over again given time. Although this could beautifully explain the Farsight Enclaves, though I doubt highly such a mutation would remain so localized amongst members of a space faring people.

FR33Kandy wrote:If a creature develops a way to mind control all of a species eventually a member of that species will be born immune. That member will reproduce, and its children will be immune. Eventually a large portion of the gene pool will have an immunity. This will happen over and over again given time. Although this could beautifully explain the Farsight Enclaves, though I doubt highly such a mutation would remain so localized amongst members of a space faring people.

right, barring the possibility of elimination from the entire species that remembers what had happened last time they weren't controlled, or the fact that being immune might actually be a disadvantage toward natural selection...

FR33Kandy wrote:If a creature develops a way to mind control all of a species eventually a member of that species will be born immune. That member will reproduce, and its children will be immune. Eventually a large portion of the gene pool will have an immunity. This will happen over and over again given time. Although this could beautifully explain the Farsight Enclaves, though I doubt highly such a mutation would remain so localized amongst members of a space faring people.

You're assigning a biased set of values to the concept of mind control. While most humans (especially western civilizations) find an external domination of one's will to be abhorrent, that may not necessarily be true for the Tau or any other species. There's nothing to suggest that a mind-control immune Tau would have better odds of reproducing. To the contrary, such a specimen may be reviled by potential mates for maintaining such a departure from it's culture's thinking, if not outright executed/ostracized for going against "the greater good" before it has any chance to mate.


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Manchu wrote:This comes up from time to time but with new sources, like the Jericho Reach information from Deathwatch, it seemed like a good time to bring it up once again. I'm here for Tau physiology 101. Educate me -- with sources please! (4chan does not count)

(1) What color is Tau blood?
Unknown.

(2) Are there physical differences between the castes (aside from height)?
Again, unknown. We've observed Ethereal, Fire and Air Castes. Air castes are lankier, but there appears to be no real external difference between Fires and Ethreals. Some of the earlier DoW games have an earth cast builder, but he seems to be encased in armor.

(3) In what ways are Tau sexually dimorphic? (We know there are males and females.)
This one's been well covered.

(4) Do Tau have hooves or toes?
Hooves.

(5) What are the slits on their faces?
True purpose seems to be as of yet unknown.

Hm, if you find my musings insufficient I will explain in more detail, but I fear it will derail the conversation some. I do hold a Psychology degree, and admit to having no formal schooling on evolution or it's many sub-schools. In fact my only real biology experience has been from my many anatomy and neurophisiology courses, as well as my current research into behavioral neurobiology as i work towards my doctorate. I will give a few insights as to why I believe what I do on the subject, but sadly as i have no Tau brain to direct to confirm what I say, my theories remain conjecture.

When exposed to foreign nerotransmitters such as THC or other hallucinigens our synapses develop a slow immunity. Over time more and more of the nerotransmitter is required to achieve the desired effect. Tau would inevitably develop a slow immunity to the pheromone as a result.

Another explanation as to why this form of control would inevitably fail is proximity. Tau far from the aunt would seem rather puzzled by the behavior of Tau close to them. Given ranged weapons, I can only make one prediction as to what would inevitably result from this.

Finally we reach genetic sustainability. Given humans inhabit only one planet, and that there is no one pheromone all humans respond to, it seems unlikely that all the Tau would have been susceptible to this pheromone when they were first introduced to the Ethereals.

These factors combined mean a perfect storm of insanely unlikely events would have to occur for the Ethereals to have maintained power for as long as they have.

This coupled with the fact that a GW publication directly conflicts with the theory puts the proverbial nail in the coffin for this theory as far as i am concerned. Though If you disagree I do see where you are coming from. I imagin some fans enjoyed Xenology, I however did not.

1.) Xenology is mostly written from the perspective of a mad inquisitor, so his deductions have to be taken with caution.
2.) There might be a person immune to those pheromones, but you imply that this is an advantage in the Tau society, but it isn't. So an anti social tau might not reproduce in a social society.
3.) Implanting a mind control organ in one specimen does not influence his genetics and offspring, this is what a.o. is wrong with the inquisitor's theory. BTW the graphics (with the toes) were not done by the author.

I agree, hm I may have been to quick to assume that a Taut with free will would have an advantage. Though I find it had to believe a race capable of both language and mathematics would be so eager to be mind controlled, it does seem like it could be possible... I fear I am too caught up in the dna of our world to imagin that it could be done so terribly differently.

Did not know the artist and writer were different. Thank you for that, this explains a lot.

Even if being mind controlled was an evolutionary disadvantage to the Tau (which given the fact that they'd be, y'know, extinct without it seems unlikely) for them to evolve an immunity to it, they'd have to do it REALLY FAST - the Ethereals only turned up a couple of thousand years ago, which is a very short timespan for evolution.

I rather like Xenology, except for the silly Tau toes rather than hooves.

I never liked the prheromone explanation. It is silly and unnecessary. Ethereals are spiritual leaders and the Tau follow them. There's no mind control involved, sans old fashioned indoctrination.

This is a cropped image of what I'm after, the non cropped imagine is a lot better as it shows the colour of Tau blood being a kind of dark red with hints of purple/blue. You can kind of see it in the impaled Tau helmet near the bottom of the image.

I was also looking for the Artwork of various castes being evacuated into a ship or building as the Imperial Guard advances. It's black and white and shows the cases in various states of motion and gives a nice impression of scale. I'd love to see the Tau Fire Warriors re-sculpted to match the artwork size, smaller than the guard, but fairly stocky.

The air caste (I read somewhere, don't remember where) are much taller than the other castes, but less bulky this is partially because they are born like that but also because many of them don't come out of their ships and so have altered slightly due to the gravitational differences...

In this pic you can see official versions of the 5 castes (from left: Fire, Ethereal, Earth, Water, Air) :

FR33Kandy wrote:I agree, hm I may have been to quick to assume that a Taut with free will would have an advantage.

The ethereals subdue the urge to kill everybody around you in a bloody civil war, which in Europe is seen as an advantage

It is certainly the belief of Ethereal-led society that self-annihilation is the natural inclination of the Tau race. Do you think that is true? Even during the Mont'au, it didn't seem to me that extinction would be the result of that siege. There have been plenty of sieges in human history and here we still are. I tend to think of that as Ethereal propaganda. Farsight is surely disillusioned by it: "each must find their own way."

Farsight is just pissed that he can't massacre Xenos at will. Funny that all posters that equal permission to massacre with free will, come from USA

And it is official background that ethereals saved the Tau race from extinction through bloody civil war. And it fits my view of historical Tau society.

It's official background as far as the Ethereals are concerned. But otherwise it's just what we call in the real world a counter-factual claim. Also, I never equated slaughtering xenos with free will ... and aren't you an American living in Germany? I don't think you've laid out a very accurate portrayal of Farsight ...

Well it's probable The Etherals saved some of the castes from extinction. One side would have triumphed eventually and probably hunted the other ones to extinction. So either the Fire Caste or all the other castes.