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focusedfire wrote:

Retribution wrote:

Melissia wrote:Probably has something to do the fact that they're enslaved to their leaders by a chemical and biological means.

As opposed to being slaves of the Rotting Cyborg Zombie God

Fixed it for you

Haha, much better

focusedfire wrote:

Retribution wrote:

Melissia wrote:Probably has something to do the fact that they're enslaved to their leaders by a chemical and biological means.

As opposed to being slaves of the Rotting Cyborg Zombie God

Fixed it for you

Haha, much better

agnosto wrote:

1hadhq wrote:What is the obsession with these "designers notes", because nobody except Tau uses such in their respective fluff threads?

How else are you going to understand the reasoning behind their creation? You ask the person/people that made it. Like the Dark Eldar, there's very little fluff so that's what we have to go by. A better question would be, why wouldn't you listen to the people that designed it?

Why wouldn't I read the published codex instead of some scribblings written and maybe dismissed?
Why should I accept a WD interview as canon?

I know you're running dry on fluff.

Did any other faction of 40k ever use "designers notes" in a background thread?
IIRC = NO

Why should others not use their "intended" design as argument ?
Aren't they creative enough to dig out some "designers notes" ?

Maybe design could change if the author of the codex changes?
You know we got wolves on wolves now.....
Guard with skimmers ....

As "intended" could be fine if there was just 1 codex ever.

@1hadhq- your forgetting about the Necrons, Not a lot of solid fluff but of the fluff thats out there a lot of it is contridictory. People bring up their original design concepts when trying to figure out where they are going next.

focusedfire wrote:@1hadhq- your forgetting about the Necrons, Not a lot of solid fluff but of the fluff thats out there a lot of it is contridictory. People bring up their original design concepts when trying to figure out where they are going next.

Contradictonary?

Necrons got a fine codex if youre interested in fluff. I doubt they will keep it.

Necrons will rise and counter the incoming tyranids.
Maybe cut down some sept worlds on their way, just accidentally , too. If the IG or SM doesn't stop them.

Necrons also do not contradict fluff of other codices, but Tau do.
Would call necron fluff rather solid.

The Necron codex is by far the best Fluff-wise.

Two to three different origin stories of how the Necrons came to be would argue other-wise. How was their war started against the old ones? When did it end? What part did the Eldar play in this war? Was the webway closed off to keep the Necrons out or Slanesh? Do they have free will or not?

Different(contradictory) answers to these depending upon the book your reading.

focusedfire wrote:Two to three different origin stories of how the Necrons came to be would argue other-wise. How was their war started against the old ones? When did it end? What part did the Eldar play in this war? Was the webway closed off to keep the Necrons out or Slanesh? Do they have free will or not?

Different(contradictory) answers to these depending upon the book your reading.

The Necrontyr were conscripted/tricked into starting a war with the Old Ones by the Star gods. It ended when they won. The Eldar were created by the Old Ones just like Orks, Humans and Jokiree (sp?) and possibly others. The webway is simply a transportation tech. They do not have free will. Necron lords may have had free will but it has since rotted away into madness. How much sentience your necron lord has is up to you the player. Anything else?

focusedfire wrote:Two to three different origin stories of how the Necrons came to be would argue other-wise. How was their war started against the old ones? When did it end? What part did the Eldar play in this war? Was the webway closed off to keep the Necrons out or Slanesh? Do they have free will or not?

Different(contradictory) answers to these depending upon the book your reading.

Different, no. 1 codex, one story.

Any fluff released after codex necrons agrees with codex necrons.
Fluff in C'tan-free codices agrees also with codex necrons.

If you got questions, why not read this codex for yourself?
Would offer mine, but maybe you're better off if its written in english.

Most Codexes have a lot of unanswered questions to get your imagination going. Codex Necrons straight up tells you the history of the 40k Universe over the last 60 milion years. My favorite codex. Pretty much answered all my questions.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
The Necrontyr were conscripted/tricked into starting a war with the Old Ones by the Star gods.

Actually it was the other way 'round. The Necrontyr discovered the C'Tan only after the Old Ones whooped their bums 6 ways 'til Sunday and relegated them to a tiny corner of the galaxy to sulk. Then after someone thought it'd be a brilliant idea to attract the attention of the Nightbringer, they managed to get him to stop slaughtering them for a minute and help them with an old grudge or two.

Gotta agree with you on Codex: Necrons. That's a really fun read!

@1hadhq- I have copies of all codice and there are fluff blurbs that contradict.

It is like Kamicanuk's statement about how the war started. One of the books that I have says that they started the war prior to discovery of the star vampires/gods. That was because they were created where solar radiation killed them.

differing stories from differing codices

Retribution wrote:

Melissia wrote:Probably has something to do the fact that they're enslaved to their leaders by a chemical and biological means.

As opposed to being slaves of the god emperor

Most humans are not "slaves" in the strictest definition of the term. There are some worlds where the population pretty much IS enslaved, but those are not the norm. Most humans are poor, living in poor conditions with gakky jobs, and turn to religion to uplift their spirits, and/or crime to fill their pockets. But that's not too much different from the real world, now is it?

Mind you, I don't claim the Imperium is necessarily good, either... they're just the ones I sympathize most with.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:People throw around term like communist and fascist to vilify things they don't like without knowing what they really mean. The Tau are the complete opposite of communists. Not having a caste system is the core tenet of communism.
Tau are an Aristocracy.

You have a point that the Tau arent quite the definition of a Communist culture, but what do you expect from an alien race?
However, since one caste is not viewed as superior to another (at least not by the Tau) they are not an Aristocracy either. If anything they are more akin to a hippie commune! Only with guns. And giant armoured suits. And bird-man friends.

Gearhead wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
The Necrontyr were conscripted/tricked into starting a war with the Old Ones by the Star gods.

Actually it was the other way 'round. The Necrontyr discovered the C'Tan only after the Old Ones whooped their bums 6 ways 'til Sunday and relegated them to a tiny corner of the galaxy to sulk. Then after someone thought it'd be a brilliant idea to attract the attention of the Nightbringer, they managed to get him to stop slaughtering them for a minute and help them with an old grudge or two.

Gotta agree with you on Codex: Necrons. That's a really fun read!

focusedfire wrote:@1hadhq- I have copies of all codice and there are fluff blurbs that contradict.

It is like Kamicanuk's statement about how the war started. One of the books that I have says that they started the war prior to discovery of the star vampires/gods. That iw was because they were created where solar radiation killed them.

differing stories from differing codices

I misremembered. Gearhead is right. The Necrontyr fought the Old Ones and it didn't go so well, so they asked the Star Gods for help. The Star gods did trick the Necrontyr into becoming the Necrons though. They lived short miserable lives and the Star gods said they could give them immortality. They forgot to mention it was as mindless automotons.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyvern wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:People throw around term like communist and fascist to vilify things they don't like without knowing what they really mean. The Tau are the complete opposite of communists. Not having a caste system is the core tenet of communism.
Tau are an Aristocracy.

You have a point that the Tau arent quite the definition of a Communist culture, but what do you expect from an alien race?
However, since one caste is not viewed as superior to another (at least not by the Tau) they are not an Aristocracy either. If anything they are more akin to a hippie commune! Only with guns. And giant armoured suits. And bird-man friends.

The Celestial Caste is definately superior to the others.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyvern wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:People throw around term like communist and fascist to vilify things they don't like without knowing what they really mean. The Tau are the complete opposite of communists. Not having a caste system is the core tenet of communism.
Tau are an Aristocracy.

You have a point that the Tau arent quite the definition of a Communist culture, but what do you expect from an alien race?
However, since one caste is not viewed as superior to another (at least not by the Tau) they are not an Aristocracy either. If anything they are more akin to a hippie commune! Only with guns. And giant armoured suits. And bird-man friends.

The Celestial Caste is definately superior to the others.

Again, good point. But the 4 main casts are seen as equal, I believe.
Basically, they are going to have entirely different psychological and cultural makeup to us, so whatever we try to extrapolate about their culture wont necessarily make perfect sense from a human perspective.

Melissia wrote:

Retribution wrote:

Melissia wrote:Probably has something to do the fact that they're enslaved to their leaders by a chemical and biological means.

As opposed to being slaves of the god emperor

Most humans are not "slaves" in the strictest definition of the term. There are some worlds where the population pretty much IS enslaved, but those are not the norm. Most humans are poor, living in poor conditions with gakky jobs, and turn to religion to uplift their spirits, and/or crime to fill their pockets. But that's not too much different from the real world, now is it?

Mind you, I don't claim the Imperium is necessarily good, either... they're just the ones I sympathize most with.

Yes, every world has a different goverment. Some are brutal Fascist states. Some are Communist Utopias. Some are Democracies, Oligarcies, Theocracies. Any type of 'cracy you can think of. As long as you pay your taxes (tithes) the Imperium cares little of what happens on your world.

Wyvern wrote:Again, good point. But the 4 main casts are seen as equal, I believe.

Yes they are all equal.

They are all slaves to the Ethereal Caste

Melissia wrote:

Wyvern wrote:Again, good point. But the 4 main casts are seen as equal, I believe.

Yes they are all equal.

They are all slaves to the Ethereal Caste

Equal slaves that kill for the greater good. Doesn't the greter good remind you of something? The Imperial truth perhaps? That's the point of the Tau: they're young and hopeful. Give 'em a million worlds and 40,000 years and they'll have all the same problems as the Imperium. Running a galaxy ain't easy; just ask the Eldar.

It's a pity the Imperial Truth isn't believed in anymore isn't it?

Melissia wrote:It's a pity the Imperial Truth isn't believed in anymore isn't it?

Don't worry: religon fixes everything!

I've always liked the Necrons' Codex due to its aboundance of pre-everything fluff, imo it forms the 'foundation' on which the Universe then evolved, with the Old Ones gone and the Eldar becomming the 'masters' until... well I don't know for sure what happened to them. Something about Slaanesh and something about a ton of them just dropping dead suddenly. *shrug*

The only reason I don't want to continue on my Necron army is because of the lack of vehicles, Monolith in all glory but I want APC's and such.

As for the four Tau Castes, I believe the Etherals see them all as important bitz for their schemes, but the Fire Caste seems to me to think themselves to be better than the others due to their size and power, which has been there since the Tau evulotion began more or less.

I've atleast decided that I'll write my own Fluff for my own army, based on the Tau fluff there is in the codex. To me there's no doubt about the Tau's great technology, I find the Devilfishes to be the nr. 1 most awsome APC's there are, and their weapons really make it easier to kill MEQ's compared to the IG's lasguns and other such weapons.

So basicly, I don't care for what the Etherals are uptoes with those following them, I'll pull a Farsight and abandon the Greater Good on my own crusade to slay all that gets in my way!

focusedfire wrote:Nazi Germany had non-aryans that were included as a part of the nation as a whole and these individuals participated of there own free will, while knowing the long term goal was to breed out their "mongrel traits". These Non-Aryans were often honored for their contributions to the Fatherland.

Are you talking about the 100.000s of prisoners of war, that were forced to slave labour in Germany?
Are you talking about the jews in the concentration camps that were forced to dig the graves for their fellow prisoners?
Are you deliberately being offensive or are you just uninformed?

focusedfire wrote:I have, I even looked into them before the current revisionist histories and definitions diluted and obscured their meanings.

Have you ever thought about the fact that there were no communist states in 1840?
Have you ever thought that there were no fascist states in 1921?
Have you ever thought that the existence of states run by that ideology might be a good reason to update these definitions?

focusedfire wrote:^Your right, but it is fun to speculate.

To me (and all victims of said regimes) this form of false historical statements is offensive and no fun.

Melissia wrote:*wanders in, looking to see if people are going to try and claim Tau are the good guys, becuase as we all know, the good guys serilize their opponents' populations so that future generations don't outnumber the Tau*

*wanders in and sees another one who doesn't check statements already proven false (or spreads false statements just for the fun of flaming)*

Karon wrote:Tau are pretty much Nazi's, but so is the Imperium (to a lesser extent)
The Ethereals are the Nazi Socialist party, the Aryans if you will. Each one of them is basically a vision of hitler.
They really do follow the belief of "We are better, we know better, and your not as good as us, join us, or die"

These three lines are so full of errors, that I don't know where to start. Deserves a doublefacepalm.

Melissia wrote:Probably has something to do the fact that they're enslaved to their leaders by a chemical and biological means.

Before the ethereals arrived, the Tau races were busy in a free and happy bloodshed among themselves. The ethereals stopped this constitutional right to mass murder your fellow citizens and brought peace. How utterly cruel! How Hitleresque! How oppressive! Who will free the Tau races to have a happy massacre again?

1hadhq wrote:Why wouldn't I read the published codex instead of some scribblings written and maybe dismissed?
Why should I accept a WD interview as canon?

Yes, please read the two Codices, please read the BFG background texts on Tau, please read the novel "For the Emperor". Then it is easy for you to see that most statements in this thread have absolutely no basis in official fluff and are actually the exact opposite of it. The designer notes just bring this to the point.

4M2A wrote:How can you see tham as equally evil to a group that want to exterminate everything else.

Also Tau aren't communist but they do share some similarites however as mentioned earlier this isn't a bad thing. So far in our history communism has failed. For the Tau it has worked perfectly. There are no wars, evryone has a good standard of life, and they are constantly advancing.

Did you notice that noone claiming those Nazi/communist/sterilization things is interested in providing evidence for their claims? Or even comment on obvious counter examples and counter arguments? It is not meant as a rational statement on the Tau background, it is just an emotional response of hate to the Tau not being another "aaargh ... must kill everything in sight" army with a grimdark design full of skulls. People hate them for being different, and everything hated is called Nazis or communists, depending on where you come from.

Brother SRM wrote:I think it's best not to look into the politics of 40k too much. Pretty much everyone has wretched ideals, and there is nowhere in the universe I would want to live. To be honest, the only folks who are happy in the 41st millennium are the Orks!

Not true bloodletters are happy when they're bloodletting and then Khorne is happy when they're bloodletting. So there's two people happy.

Nurgle is happy when people are sick.

Slaanesh lives on being happy.....kind of.

and Tzeentch.....well nevermind 3/4 isn't bad is it?

Riffzor wrote:I've always liked the Necrons' Codex due to its aboundance of pre-everything fluff, imo it forms the 'foundation' on which the Universe then evolved, with the Old Ones gone and the Eldar becomming the 'masters' until... well I don't know for sure what happened to them. Something about Slaanesh and something about a ton of them just dropping dead suddenly. *shrug*

quote]

Took me a while to figure it out but the eldar of The Fall are actually: Dark Eldar! Yes, the super-evil more evil than evil race. People often forget the craftworld eldar are actually just long-haul truckers. Yes, that's right they're hicks. The most beautiful, elegant hicks ever but still just a bunch o truckers.
People think of the Dark kin as some weird off-shoot that went crazy. in fact they are the true eldar!! If you've read their codex you can see how an entire galaxy of people practising their brand of super-evil (which is so evil that the other three chaos gods at the time were like "man those guys are evil"!) mixed with their very warp attuned souls created a new god and actually swallowed a part of the Galaxy (The eye of terror). Craftworld Eldar are the offshoot.
In fact I believe Commorragh to be the capital of the Ancient Eldar Empire.

Well Commorragh is in the webway apparently so maybe not. But you get the point.

Kroothawk I cannot immagine what it would be like to be a citizen of a Communist/Nazist state, I can only read in the history books and see what either of those are. Sweden may not be communistic yet, but we're well on our way thanks to lies and deciet from our politicians and that makes me feel severe hatred towards anything leaning towards communism.

You have to agree that the Tau with their Etherals in several aspects have some resemblance to the ideologies, and in lack of a better word I understand very well why people would call them Commies or Nazi's (although I'd say they're more like commies.)

And look at the world history, we too fought one another for land and wealth, we still do at times. Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Stalin and Lenin were just Etheral failures that instead of creating peace and wealth, created war and poverty.

Sure, Communism could work if everyone would agree to it. So would Anarchy, if everyone had the individual morale for it. And National Scosialism could have worked in one aspect, although only for those selected few that would be accepted by the state, the others would be no more.

I'm sorry if I'm being blunt, but as some have stated earlier, this is not a political discussion, this is about the Tau and there aren't any words for it, so we draw examples from simular ideologies. Take what you read with a pinch of salt, this is in no way intended to start a flaming discussion to insult anyone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Riffzor wrote:I've always liked the Necrons' Codex due to its aboundance of pre-everything fluff, imo it forms the 'foundation' on which the Universe then evolved, with the Old Ones gone and the Eldar becomming the 'masters' until... well I don't know for sure what happened to them. Something about Slaanesh and something about a ton of them just dropping dead suddenly. *shrug*

Took me a while to figure it out but the eldar of The Fall are actually: Dark Eldar! Yes, the super-evil more evil than evil race. People often forget the craftworld eldar are actually just long-haul truckers. Yes, that's right they're hicks. The most beautiful, elegant hicks ever but still just a bunch o truckers.
People think of the Dark kin as some weird off-shoot that went crazy. in fact they are the true eldar!! If you've read their codex you can see how an entire galaxy of people practising their brand of super-evil (which is so evil that the other three chaos gods at the time were like "man those guys are evil"!) mixed with their very warp attuned souls created a new god and actually swallowed a part of the Galaxy (The eye of terror). Craftworld Eldar are the offshoot.
In fact I believe Commorragh to be the capital of the Ancient Eldar Empire.

Well Commorragh is in the webway apparently so maybe not. But you get the point.

I guess I'll have to read the Eldar and Dark Eldar codices' fluff then. =P

Riffzor wrote:Kroothawk I cannot immagine what it would be like to be a citizen of a Communist/Nazist state, I can only read in the history books and see what either of those are. Sweden may not be communistic yet, but we're well on our way thanks to lies and deciet from our politicians and that makes me feel severe hatred towards anything leaning towards communism.

You have to agree that the Tau with their Etherals in several aspects have some resemblance to the ideologies, and in lack of a better word I understand very well why people would call them Commies or Nazi's (although I'd say they're more like commies.)

Actually I don't agree, as I know the background of the Tau too well (and the history of fascist and communist states). I was drawn back to 40k BECAUSE the Tau are a rational, peace loving, life valueing and non-subjugating race inspired by several Asian societies.

And you probably have no idea how lucky Sweden is to have a deep social democratic tradition since the 1930s that lead to one of the best social infrastructures in the world.

Kroothawk wrote:

Riffzor wrote:Kroothawk I cannot immagine what it would be like to be a citizen of a Communist/Nazist state, I can only read in the history books and see what either of those are. Sweden may not be communistic yet, but we're well on our way thanks to lies and deciet from our politicians and that makes me feel severe hatred towards anything leaning towards communism.

You have to agree that the Tau with their Etherals in several aspects have some resemblance to the ideologies, and in lack of a better word I understand very well why people would call them Commies or Nazi's (although I'd say they're more like commies.)

Actually I don't agree, as I know the background of the Tau too well (and the history of fascist and communist states). I was drawn back to 40k BECAUSE the Tau are a rational, peace loving, life valueing and non-subjugating race inspired by several Asian societies.

And you probably have no idea how lucky Sweden is to have a deep social democratic tradition since the 1930s that lead to one of the best social infrastructures in the world.

Agreed. Scandinavia is envied all around the world for its social polices and quality of life. But it's like Canada. All the people who have the worst things to say about Canada are Canadian. Don't forget Riffzor, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Well now you're stepping into a subject in which I'm certain that I know more of than you.

Sweden may look very good from the outside, and yes I know that those who live in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmer and other large cities have it pretty well compared to many other European and even American cities, but that's just fragments of our population.

Our socialistic state have been throwing rocks on just about all those living north of Dalarna, puting in ethnic laws in favor of the Lapis immigrants blindly, forcing swedes to move and sell their land to the goverment to then be given freely to others. Sure, we didn't get sent to death camps, but we had to leave our family properties behind to see another ethnic group get them, just like the jews in Germany.

And now you see how easy it is to accidently insult someone when discussing politics, so let's stop doing that and get back to the topic.

Edit: Oh, and don't forget. Nothing is free. We actually pay sky-high taxes to keep what we have.

I guess with Lapis you mean "Samerna", the indigenous population of Sweden, that got some land back that was taken from them, which is not comparable to the Holocaust IMHO. And I once had a summer language course near Östersund and later applied for a job in Jokkmokk (a small village with an impressive infrastructure and its own official website), so I am not totally ignrorant of Northern Sweden. And BTW the high taxes led to one of the least differences between rich and poor in the world.