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If the warp drive depended on a psychic talent to make it work, it would not have been possible for the Tau to use an abandoned warp drive to copy and make their own warp drives.

As always with GW fluff, it is best not to examine things too closely, since they fail to maintain internal logic.

Case in point...

Additionally, the assumption that the Tau may not make full use of their asserts is not a poor one. In fact, it's not even an assumption at all. The Tau have been described as "utterly determined that their own methods are the correct methods. As a consequence, they tend to seek out those qualities that best complement their own over those that run counter to them". Hence the savage Kroot are not valued for their skills in close combat, but for the similarities between their talent at stealth and the pathfinders or stealthsuits of the Tau.

This is exactly what the Tau fluff says, however it's stupid and meaningless.

Firstly, there is no point in recruiting talents which duplicate what you can already do. Secondly, the various allied species in the Tau Federation do exhibit new technologies and capabilities which the Tau themselves lack.

Nothing wrong with a little inconsistency. Indeed, that's where probing the background becomes interesting because it creates a problem that needs to be resolved.

Like the comment that transition to warp space requires more than technology, which is a bizarre non sequitor in the first place since technology is precisely that which is employed to achieve an end.

Nonetheless the Tau Gravitic-drive is clearly their version of the Warp-drive, using it to sink the ship into the real-warp interface.

Kilkrazy wrote:Firstly, there is no point in recruiting talents which duplicate what you can already do. Secondly, the various allied species in the Tau Federation do exhibit new technologies and capabilities which the Tau themselves lack.

Any new technologies and capabilities are a side effect of inviting each and every alien species they encounter into the Empire. But the Tau always put their own spin on things, Kroot rifles were adapted to fire pulse rounds, the technology allowing the neutron blasters was produced by the Tau for use by the Vespid, that sort of thing.
That the aliens are used in areas the Tau already specialise is just a sign of the Tau's hubris. They "harbour an unquenchable confidence in their own manifest destiny, they are utterly determined that their own methods are the correct methods". It's meant to be a failing of the Tau, so it's not really "stupid and meaningless".

Nurglitch wrote:Like the comment that transition to warp space requires more than technology, which is a bizarre non sequitor in the first place since technology is precisely that which is employed to achieve an end.

That it requires more than technology has always been a given. Summoning rituals or psychically attuned creatures such as Enslavers can breach the fabric of realspace without any technological assistance. Warp drives are partly used to propel a craft once in the warp, and partly to make the transition. But they cannot make that transistion without psychic assistance, whether that be a Navigator or just a crew of mildly psi-active individuals.

Nurglitch wrote:Nonetheless the Tau Gravitic-drive is clearly their version of the Warp-drive, using it to sink the ship into the real-warp interface.

It don't see how they're "clearly" the same. To me it's clear that the two drives are separate. If it is just the gravitic drive then why did the Tau need to find and duplicate the alien warp drive at all? Why didn't they manage to use their gravitic drives for warp travel in the two hundred years they were confined to their own system?

Æscholt:

I noticed that you missed my point about how stuff like summoning rituals and psychic attunement are technologies. If you enact a ritual to summon something, that ritual is a technology.

According to the Battlefleet Gothic background the Tau were certainly able to make the transition between Warp-space and Real-space, it was just disastrous to do so. I'd imagine it would be like placing a coma patience in the pilot seat of an F-18 fighter, except more immediately explosive. I'm moreso inclined to believe that it was the Tau's lack of gellar-shielding that caused a reality-bubble implosion rather than any lack of psychic talent.

But going back to why it should be clear to you that the Tau Gravitic-drive is clearly their version of the Warp-drive. You imagine that I said they are the same, which explains why it is not clear to you. The Gravitic-drive is clearly not the same thing as the Warp-drive. It works differently, produces different effects, and is referred to separately in the background material. However, as it works differently, it means that the Tau can have safe FTL travel instead of instantaneous death or semi-safe FTL like the Warp-drive provides to Tau or Human, respectively. It produces different effects, as the Gravitic-drive will not allow a ship to be immersed in the Warp even as it holds the ship in the discontinuity, but fortunately similarly speeds travel.

Why they did not use their Gravitic-drive for two hundred years until they discovered and disastrously duplicated a Warp-drive is easily explicable if you pause to consider history. The Chinese had gun-powder for hundreds of years before Europe, and yet did not themselves invent the machine-gun.

The interesting thing about technology is that we often require novelty to enable us to apply old technology in new and innovative ways. The Tau couldn't make the Warp-drive work safetly, but managed to achieve a similar effect using their own existing Gravitic-drive technology once they understood the principles of Warp-drive. Which might go some distance to understanding why they're such smug little blue bastards.

Nurglitch wrote:I noticed that you missed my point about how stuff like summoning rituals and psychic attunement are technologies. If you enact a ritual to summon something, that ritual is a technology.

Hmm. That would probably be because I don't consider a summoning ritual technology. Following a literal definition of "technology" it might be considered one, but I strongly suspect that the author simply meant it to mean "machinery".

Nurglitch wrote:According to the Battlefleet Gothic background the Tau were certainly able to make the transition between Warp-space and Real-space, it was just disastrous to do so. I'd imagine it would be like placing a coma patience in the pilot seat of an F-18 fighter, except more immediately explosive. I'm moreso inclined to believe that it was the Tau's lack of gellar-shielding that caused a reality-bubble implosion rather than any lack of psychic talent.

According to the Battlefleet Gothic background on the Tau, they were unable to make the transition the full transition to Warpspace. "No amount of power could breach the dimensional barrier", "the best the Tau could do was make a partial transition, forcing themselves into the void between Warpspace and realspace" and so on. This was "disastrous" because "they were hurled out [of this void] again like a ball held under water". Without psychic assistance, they had failed to use the warp drive to it's full potential. This was a disaster, as they would still be confined to their home system, and the ships were ejected back into realspace at "staggering" speeds.

Nurglitch wrote:But going back to why it should be clear to you that the Tau Gravitic-drive is clearly their version of the Warp-drive. You imagine that I said they are the same, which explains why it is not clear to you. The Gravitic-drive is clearly not the same thing as the Warp-drive. It works differently, produces different effects, and is referred to separately in the background material. However, as it works differently, it means that the Tau can have safe FTL travel instead of instantaneous death or semi-safe FTL like the Warp-drive provides to Tau or Human, respectively. It produces different effects, as the Gravitic-drive will not allow a ship to be immersed in the Warp even as it holds the ship in the discontinuity, but fortunately similarly speeds travel.

A drive that allows travel through the dimension known as the warp is a warp drive, is it not? Hence my conclusion that if it were the gravitic drive alone that allowed the Tau to skim along the edge of Warpspace, it would be a warp drive. And the gravitic drive's effect's are described, it projects a gravitic 'sheath' around and before the vessel, pulling the vessel along like a sail. When this field is shaped like a wing it can hold the Tau vessel in voidspace for longer, but it is not described as allowing them to make the transition to the void. Meanwhile, the alien warp drive is described as allowing the Tau to enter voidspace, although they are ejected from it rapidly. With the two drives working together the warp drive forces the Tau vessel into voidspace and the gravitic drive keeps it there for longer.
This is further supported when the Tau vessels are described as "carefully angling their descent toward the Warp and extending the field generated by the gravitic drive" (emphasis mine).

Kilkrazy wrote:For clarity, if you put a letter in a ship which goes faster then light, you have a method of sending messages faster than light.

The question is whether this is fast enough for the communications needed to hold together a large organisation.

Communication isn't simply a matter of sending it quickly. The message must be composed, transmitted, received, understood and acted on. These things can often go wrong, delaying the effect of a message.

Case in point, I am working on a project with the PR department.

A couple of weeks ago I completed some stuff, sent it to them and requested a meeting to discuss it, which they agreed to. They then sent me an email asking for some changes.

I didn't read the email because it was buried in a mass of other emails, and because they had already told me they would present their requests at the already agreed meeting, so I wasn't really expecting a message from them.

The Monday of the meeting arrived and I found out the PR people had gone to a trade show for the whole week, so I put the entire project on hold.

I only found out about their email when they came down for another meeting on the project. By this time the whole project was delayed by two weeks.

The point about this screed is that the email from PR to me, took only a couple of minutes for them to write, and a couple of milliseconds to arrive at my computer. In other words, speed of message transmission is no guarantee of speed of communication.

We already know that the Imperium, despite its possession of psyker based interstellar comms, suffers desperate delays caused by bureaucracy. We might suppose that the Tau are much more efficient at bureaucracy, and this offsets the slower speed of message transmission.

I guess so.....Nonetheless, I would say The Imperium's Super-Byzantine-crippling bureaucracy and The Tau's use of Postal Service make them about tied in message speed right now. Difference is Tau have about 100 worlds Imperials have 1,000,000. I would seem the Tau Empire is reaching it's upper limit of size unless these techno-minded fellows find some way to go down the route of psychic witchcraft.

p.s. Read your emails! What if that had been about a Tyranid invasion? That's how planets get eaten people!

As said for the tau empire to get much larger it will need a more efficient manner of communication. Bet it technological or warp based via another race. I guess the same would go for space travel. It will be interesting to see what happens on this issue with the next codex.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:For clarity, if you put a letter in a ship which goes faster then light, you have a method of sending messages faster than light.

The question is whether this is fast enough for the communications needed to hold together a large organisation.

Communication isn't simply a matter of sending it quickly. The message must be composed, transmitted, received, understood and acted on. These things can often go wrong, delaying the effect of a message.

Case in point, I am working on a project with the PR department.

A couple of weeks ago I completed some stuff, sent it to them and requested a meeting to discuss it, which they agreed to. They then sent me an email asking for some changes.

I didn't read the email because it was buried in a mass of other emails, and because they had already told me they would present their requests at the already agreed meeting, so I wasn't really expecting a message from them.

The Monday of the meeting arrived and I found out the PR people had gone to a trade show for the whole week, so I put the entire project on hold.

I only found out about their email when they came down for another meeting on the project. By this time the whole project was delayed by two weeks.

The point about this screed is that the email from PR to me, took only a couple of minutes for them to write, and a couple of milliseconds to arrive at my computer. In other words, speed of message transmission is no guarantee of speed of communication.

We already know that the Imperium, despite its possession of psyker based interstellar comms, suffers desperate delays caused by bureaucracy. We might suppose that the Tau are much more efficient at bureaucracy, and this offsets the slower speed of message transmission.

I guess so.....Nonetheless, I would say The Imperium's Super-Byzantine-crippling bureaucracy and The Tau's use of Postal Service make them about tied in message speed right now. Difference is Tau have about 100 worlds Imperials have 1,000,000. I would seem the Tau Empire is reaching it's upper limit of size unless these techno-minded fellows find some way to go down the route of psychic witchcraft.

p.s. Read your emails! What if that had been about a Tyranid invasion? That's how planets get eaten people!

Actually communication in the Empire is much slower than in the Federation. It often takes the Empire several hundred years to put together a reaction to a new threat such as for example the emergence of the Tau Federation. In the same several hundred years the Federation expanded from one or two planets to dozens, partly by grabbing them off the Empire, who were so slow to react.

Kilkrazy wrote:
..... the Federation. It often takes the Empire several hundred years to put together a reaction to a new threat such as for example the emergence of the Tau Federation. In the same several hundred years the Federation expanded from one or two planets to dozens, partly by grabbing them off the Empire, who were so slow to react.

When did this gathering of T'au change to Federation?

I decided a couple of months ago.

It describes them a lot better, I think.

Kilkrazy wrote:I decided a couple of months ago.

It describes them a lot better, I think.

Star Trek XP the other generation.....now with more grimdark?

Wouldn't a federation be independent equals, not a 'empire' and 'expansion spheres' and ....................................................................................wait. Russia has this federation thing going on too...

It's kinda a federation but its definately an empire too. Their imperialistic policies cannot be denied. If they had called it Codex: Tau Federation that would have been fine by me. Gives them a more unique sounding name in a galaxy of empires.

1hadhq wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I decided a couple of months ago.

It describes them a lot better, I think.

Star Trek XP the other generation.....now with more grimdark?

Wouldn't a federation be independent equals, not a 'empire' and 'expansion spheres' and ....................................................................................wait. Russia has this federation thing going on too...

It is independent equals.

When the USA expanded, did the new states come in as subjugated colonies?

The only exception is planets where the majority of the human population holds loyal to Imperial rule.

Kilkrazy wrote:Actually communication in the Imperium is much slower than in the Empire. It often takes the Imperium several hundred years to put together a reaction to a new threat such as for example the emergence of the Tau Empire. In the same several hundred years the Empire expanded from one or two planets to dozens, partly by grabbing them off the Imperium, who were so slow to react.

Y'know that the Damocles Gulf Crusade took less than a single century to mobilise, not several? And remember, until the Tau started 'grabbing' worlds the Imperium didn't consider them a threat.
And yeah, bureaucracy in the Imperium slows things down a lot. That happens when instead of having a few dozen worlds in a region a few hundred light years across, you have a million worlds in a galaxy a hundred thousand light years across.

Kilkrazy wrote:It describes them a lot better, I think.

'Empire' suits the Tau fine. They fit the OED's definition of "a group of states or countries [in this case, worlds] ruled over by an oligarchy [the Ethereals]".

Kilkrazy wrote:It is independent equals.

Kilkrazy wrote:Actually communication in the Empire is much slower than in the Federation. It often takes the Empire several hundred years to put together a reaction to a new threat such as for example the emergence of the Tau Federation. In the same several hundred years the Federation expanded from one or two planets to dozens, partly by grabbing them off the Empire, who were so slow to react.

Which is fairly pale in comparison to the great crusade, which conquered millions of worlds in about two hundred years. Or the Macharian Crusade which conquered a thousand in seven years.

Kilkrazy wrote:

1hadhq wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I decided a couple of months ago.

It describes them a lot better, I think.

Star Trek XP the other generation.....now with more grimdark?

Wouldn't a federation be independent equals, not a 'empire' and 'expansion spheres' and ....................................................................................wait. Russia has this federation thing going on too...

It is independent equals.

When the USA expanded, did the new states come in as subjugated colonies?

The only exception is planets where the majority of the human population holds loyal to Imperial rule.

Would those new states have a different status if their population wasn't Humans? You know, the US met Humans in its history
( as far as we are told ), not 'aliens'. And those speaking a different native tongue ( spanish, etc ) are they considered equals or
is their place a 'citizen 2nd class' in the views of ( some, not trying to accuse all of you ) americans?

The codex 'T'au Empire' moved on from the small enclave of xenos ( not exterminated yet ) to a growing 'empire' and this
wasn't unintended.
The 'first among equals' take of this codex does sound a bit like US, but IMO the approach of T'au to strangers fit old Russia more.

And a planet where the population is loyal to the Imperium will fight any Invader, no matter the cost. Humans tend to be unforgiving
and will never capitulate to vile evil xenos scum attempting to rule them. I think Humans are N°2 of the most likely to start uprisings.

This might have already been said but in an advanced socity like the tau i think that they would have worked out something similar to quatum entanglment communications, which we currently have therios about, so its reasonable to belive that the impurium might have lost is, but the tau could have refound it (pardon the spelling this was done from a phone)(

Nope. They use a postal service. Your thinking of Cerberus. They're even more advanced than the Tau.

Ok, because people post lot of stuff I will keep it simple.

For a signal to travel faster then light it must be transferred to another dimension ( FTL comms from various SCi-Fi travel trough warp-space, not space itself ), exept for Star Wars. There, everywhere is in real time...
Anyway, Tau may not have problems now since their territory is not large ( according to Tau fans 1 sept is around 300 light years of space. While one Imperial Segmentum is 1/4 of the galaxy ), but as they expand they will encounter problems that troubled the primitive Humans.

hmm I thought had read this before...

Interstellar communication, in 40K, is a right bitch. It means that, under most circumstances, the guy in charge of a planet is the guy in charge if something goes wrong. He can send a message to the higher-ups, but he's going to have to handle the situation until they can send someone to help, and it's not going to be in the form of step-by-step instructions from above. It might be in the form of someone who shows up and announces that he's in charge of the situation.