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Just wondering about this.

Now we know that a genestealer cna create a cult by implanting DNA into a human and they then go on to impregnante other humans, but does that count?

The other idea I was wondering about, is the Human's and Tau.

Because Tau offer Humans the ability to join the greater good, keep their religon (minus the "kill all aliens!" thing) and partcipate in
the Greater Good, wouldn't it be possible, just by the number of humans and tau that exist, that it could happen?

So, lets say that Human A, a male, is in love with Tau B, a female.. The two have the bonding ceremony, and share some happy years with each other (taking into account Tau have very short life spans.)
Now, on the night after the bonding ceremony, Human A consumates the relationship with Tau B.

Would the Tau then become pregnant with a Human/Tau hybrid?
And if so, what would the child most likely look like? Would it be susceptible to certain disease that a Tau isn't, but a human is? Would they have an imunity to some disease?
Would they hvae average eyesight, or be like a Tau who requires help focusing?

The second most likely, in my opinion, is that of Human and Eldar/Dark Eldar.
They appear to be close enough in physical features, so the child would most likely have slightly pointy ear and a leaner, taller build then most.
Once again, what would be their strengths/weaknesses, and would they be able to contract disease they wouldn't have before, or would they have an imunity to some?

Any ideas?

Limited vvidence from human populations indicates that out-crosses (such as Japanese/European) tend to be genetically healthier than crosses within the local population -- so-called hybrid vigour, if you will.

This makes sense scientifically considering that the evolutionary advantage of sexual reproduction is the shuffling and mixing of genes.

I'm not sure if humans and Tau are compatible. The latter aren't even mammals, I think. (I could be wrong, I'm not a Tau expert)

As for human/Eldar, I believe there are a few accounts in canon where a member of each species have "propagated" with each other. In fact, I recall reading a bit of older (and probably non-canon now) fluff of an Astartes Librarian being of human/Eldar descent. Then there's the mention of a male Inquisitor having a relationship with an Eldar woman in one of the books (I'm thinking "Faith and Fire"). It was stated to just be a fairytale of some sort, but was hinted to be based on some truth.

Tau are mammals, according to all of the tiny amount of fluff published

If we use real world evidence we could guess that humans and eldar being (possibly) similar could prduce something but it could have all kinds of weird side affects from being half one species half another, e.g. being sterile.

Tau and humans would be more unlikely as they are not so similar, at least in appearance.

However as this is 40k so it's realistic. There used to be a half eldar Ultramarine but I believe thats gone now.

It is highly unlikely that it would be even possible for the species to interbreed.

For the Tau there is the added problem that each Caste is genetically distinct and they never interbreed so for them to even consider such a thing with a none Tau is highly unlikely.

Eldar consider humans, or any other species for that matter, to be little better than animals, Dark Eldar are even more arrogant. For an Eldar to consider a human as a possible mate is as likely as a human considering a chimp as a mate and even if that did happen the chances for procreation are slim to none.


Games Workshop have thankfully moved away from interspecies breeding and it isn't part of the current background anymore.


It is worth noting however that, from Xenology, we can see that the Tau and Eldar are significantly different biologically (it would seem that Eldar require mutliple, 'visits', to get the job done with various organs at work) that any offspring betwixt either one and a human would certainly die very early on.

What about orks and humans, they looka lot alike.

Breeding with Xenos, aside from being HERESY, would likely produce horrible abomination children. According to fluff, this is the case with Human/Eldar offspring. I imagine a Tau/Human baby would look none-too-pretty either.

cormz wrote:What about orks and humans, they looka lot alike.

Orks do not have reproductive organs. Besides, they're fungi.

I'd have to start questioning him about what sorts of Ork-to-butt related dreams he's been having lately if that -was- a serious inquiry.

Ork/human offspring thankfully wouldn't happen. As stated they are technically both genders. Throughout their lives they cast fungal spores that given the right environment will grow into new orks and related species. With a massive release of these spores on death and following it.

And that kids is where orks come from.

I don't know any of the fluff about the "old ones" and the creators of life, and all that fluff, but scientifically speaking, if a species grows up on the other side of a galaxy in a completely different environment, there is VERY little chance of the DNA being compatible. Also, (I hope GW hasn't published anything on this subject....) we don't know very much about Tau reproductive systems (killkrazy said they were mammals), and the human DNA that deals with gestation would most likely harm the Tau mother or create a miscarriage in a Human mother. Sorry.

But then again, if we are going to believe that there are other races out in the universe that look suspiciously like humans, believe in technology that is declared impossible right now by scientists, and believe in an alternate dimension called the "Warp" filled with angry demons that fit the image of Christo-Judaic demons, why shouldn't we say that this could happen?

In literary terms this is known as the "suspension of belief".

In Xenology it is theorised that the Tau have evolved from some kind of ruminant and that they have an eye with a 'mammalian' structure analogous to a human eye. It also says reproductive anatomy looked similar.

There are various aspects which seem totally incompatible with humans though, no bone marrow, the heart doubles as a liver and just the one lung.

Since the Tau's evolution was also artificially accelerated some of their organs are less evolved than others.

Even if some kind of freakish hybrid were created it would have many serious defects and it seems highly unlikely that it would survive for long.

Humans can't reproduce with Eldar as Eldar have 12 Cromosomes(or at least it would take 6 visits to do so)


T'au and humans is highly unlikely. it really depends on weather T'au have the same number of Cromosomes and weather the X or the Y is the Male. in avian and many reptile species the Y cromosome is the Female, meaning it is the Female that determines the gender.

weather T'au are like this is not explained.


now if its a question of the ability to preform the actions of reproduction, well, that depends on the plumbing

It's nothing to do with the number of chromosomes.

There are various examples from real life of different species cross-fertilizing, such as hexaploid wheat, rye grasses.

Also, though fertility is reduced, it is not impossible for Down's Syndrome people to have children.

So, if we see examples from real genetics which can justify similar situations in fiction, why not?

In the 40K universe the humanoid races seem to have been 'designed' by the Old Ones who had a highly developed science of genetic engineering. There could easily be some fundamental level of compatibility.

I think that human/eldar hybrid got retconned out of existence as soon as GW started to treat 40k as more than WFB in space. Besides, if females are genetically incompatible with geneseed implantation then half human hybrids definitely would be.

I don't think human and t'au could fertilize each other, never mind producing young. Too much variation in the species; I recall reading somewhere that branches of the ruminants can't interbreed (no cowxgoats for example) and phylogenetically they aren't too far apart. 'They both might be mammals' doesn't really hold up. If someone can show me a half dog half cat I'll retract that (and that's being generous )

Now, 'can they have sex together' is a completely different story. Not sure about the anatomy of male t'au, so male t'au to human might not be plausible in the conventional sense, but I think any other permutation of human, t'au and eldar is possible. Whether they'd actually do it is something else entirely.

Kilkrazy wrote:Limited vvidence from human populations indicates that out-crosses (such as Japanese/European) tend to be genetically healthier than crosses within the local population -- so-called hybrid vigour, if you will.

This makes sense scientifically considering that the evolutionary advantage of sexual reproduction is the shuffling and mixing of genes.

That's only half of it. The other half is that mixing of genes creates weaker offspring which inherit the inferior genes from both parents. Hybrid vigour exists in controlled environments where traits can be selected by genetic engineering. Otherwise whether you get something better or something worse is random. If just slapping different breeds together would produce something better then the bloodstock industry would be a waste of time and people could get champion horses from any mix of farm nags.

As for human-eldar crosses, they existed in the old fluff but there seems no reason to think that this is possible just because of superficial similarities in appearance. Humans can't reproduce with apes on our planet and apes are our closest living relatives, eldar are something that existed long before our earliest ancestors crawled out of the sea onto land.

Im gonna say no. For an organism to reproduce it must share the same genus (our genus is "Homo"). For an organism to produce fertile offspring it must come from the same species AND genus (our species is "Sapiens"). Therefore I believe if a human and an eldar were to breed they would produce a sterile offspring but a human and a tau would not conceive at all. Eldar and humans probably share the "Homo" genus, due to their similarities but I doubt tau do, due to their differences.

In short, no.

To Quote Cracked.com (censored for your family viewing pleasure) on the Alien from Alien:

Alien tries to bs its way around this by saying that the Alien's DNA merges with the host; this becomes totally ridiculous when you realize that, despite sharing a good 99.9 percent of our DNA with chimps, we're still genetically incompatible with the feckers. Since the Alien is way, way less like us than the chimp, this would be like saying a Komodo Dragon could successfully impregnate a human.

But even that analogy breaks down when you realize that the Alien was not only completely different from humans, it was completely different from every living creature on the planet. Yes, unlike carbon-based life (a.k.a. fething everything), the Alien was a silicon-based creature: At one point in the movie, we see it replacing its exoskeleton with polarized silicon, which would be like if you replaced your skin with glass.

To update our comparison, the Facehugger's reproductive method would be like if your window came to life and made passionate love to you, and then a week later you gave birth to shot glasses.

This is Grimdark we are talking about right?

40K?

Pauldrons?

Driving closer to the enemy so you can stab them with your sword?

Prior fluff having showing association between humans and Xenos filth and the results?

I say they can and long may it continue. The Tau and humans should be getting it on to form a race of myopically challenged daemon hosts.

We're talking about a fiction in which fungus has the genes not only to be intelligent but also to magically create working machinery, star drives and so on out of junk because they believe in it telepathically, in a way which doesn't let their minds be eaten by the magic telepathic space demons.

So, while I agree with vodo40k's strict scientific analysis, I see no reason why humans/Tau/Eldar and the others couldn't interbreed if it was fun and interesting for the story.

The threat of Cross breeding is why the Orks wear pants.

cadbren wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Limited vvidence from human populations indicates that out-crosses (such as Japanese/European) tend to be genetically healthier than crosses within the local population -- so-called hybrid vigour, if you will.

This makes sense scientifically considering that the evolutionary advantage of sexual reproduction is the shuffling and mixing of genes.

That's only half of it. The other half is that mixing of genes creates weaker offspring which inherit the inferior genes from both parents. Hybrid vigour exists in controlled environments where traits can be selected by genetic engineering. Otherwise whether you get something better or something worse is random. If just slapping different breeds together would produce something better then the bloodstock industry would be a waste of time and people could get champion horses from any mix of farm nags.

As for human-eldar crosses, they existed in the old fluff but there seems no reason to think that this is possible just because of superficial similarities in appearance. Humans can't reproduce with apes on our planet and apes are our closest living relatives, eldar are something that existed long before our earliest ancestors crawled out of the sea onto land.

@ cadbren: Let me start by saying +1 sir, you are a brave soul for posting that. But since I understand what you meant I will continue by saying according to Darwinism that weaker offspring dies off leaving the stronger sibling to propagate further. The bloodstock industry is a highley controlled effort to emphasis certain already known and desierable traits among a population under the assumption that if something better does come along through the already mentioned random recombination of DNA, they will hear about it and will be able to 'buy it' at that time. It represents, at least in my opinion, a market failure on the side of "innovation" and certainly a failure for evolution.

Human + Tau: No, Tau are ugly and don't live very long so could not commit to a relationship (whatever that means).
Human + Ork: No, an Ork is a plant that is called Dendrophillia.
Human + Eldar: Maybe? But how would you feel about hooking up with a 200+ yr old Cougar?
Human + Necron: I won't go there.
Human + Tyranids: This is not reproduction as we define it since the Nid's just consume genetic material and morph it into something useful or otherwise implant a parasite into a host. Neither of which results in an offspring that is a combination of its parents DNA.

Actually, it is strongly speculated that humans and chimps might be able to breed (humans being pretty pathetic on the fertility scale and crossbreeds being worse, it might take a while), although the offspring would certainly be sterile. Obviously there are many cultural and ethical reasons why this hypothesis has never actually been tested.

What if that Assassin and that Farseer have a baby?

Would it be sterile?

Shadowbrand wrote:What if that Assassin and that Farseer have a baby?

Would it be sterile?

What would be the most interesting plot development?

I think it would be interesting if a Daemonette was the result. You know how Slannesh basically feeds off of the Eldar's emotions.

Sounds like something Goto would write too.

Tau have their sexual organs on their knees, if you wanted to mate with one you'd end up getting kneed in your crotch the whole time. Good luck getting THAT preggers.

drukawski wrote:Tau have their sexual organs on their knees, if you wanted to mate with one you'd end up getting kneed in your crotch the whole time. Good luck getting THAT preggers.

Are you......are you serious?

^Look at his post count and avatar. Then ask your self if he looks legit.