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How big are they?

And I just read that Tau allow the Human that join them to continue believing in Imperial Creed. Don't they fear that some new religion will become dominant over the grater good?

Brother Coa wrote:And I just read that Tau allow the Human that join them to continue believing in Imperial Creed.

That seems weird, for the very reason you mentioned...* Is that from an actual GW book or just some BL stuff?

*: or rather, perhaps not "becoming dominant" but surely causing tension when a Tau colony populated with humans believing in the Imperial Creed gets besieged by Imperial forces, basically creating a 5th column within the Sept.
Not to mention that the Imperial Creed also teaches that all xenos = evil. Which wouldn't work very well in the multi-species Tau Empire, imo.

If I remember, they're allowed to 'follow' the Creed as long as the Greater Good comes first. What that entails, I don't know.

it's not a religion. the greater good is when everyone is united and there is galactic peace

Nerivant wrote:If I remember, they're allowed to 'follow' the Creed as long as the Greater Good comes first. What that entails, I don't know.

I think that has been dismissed by GW when they realized you can't serve two masters.
The imperial creed is like ancient religions of our earth, putting the political power and the religious power into the same hands.
The greater good is an ideology. A all encompassing one, so you don't divert any effort from the greater good.
Having both, imperial creed and greater good would mean they have to share.
Won't happen. Either the reliogous bunch kills you as heretic or the ideologists kill you as 5th column of the unbelievers.

So if the Greater good is what they live by then they wouldn't need religion i assume, there seems more purpose here than the Imperial Creed.
Did the Tau have religion before the Ethereals ended the civil war?

It was the Chapter Approved Gue'vesa rules that mentioned the ex-IoM settlers on Tau worlds were allowed to continue worship of the Emporer.

I don't know if that would be considered canon still.

If the Imperial Creed prevents humans co-existing with Xenians, perhaps the humans have adapted and submerged that part of the belief. Much like Italians using a lot of condoms, although they are mostly Roman Catholics.

There was never any mention of religions within pre-Ethereal Tau society. Who knows if they existed?

My own belief is that belief in religions is part of the human capacity for imagination and abstract thought. Since Tau clearly have the same capacity, it seems possible they also have religious feelings. Perhaps those are now subsumed within the Greater Good philosophy. We may suppose that Kroot, Tarellians, Nicassar, Vespids, Demiurge and other as-yet un-named Tau allies also have religions.

The Greater Good is a fairly Benthamite utilitarian philosophy probably closer to humanism than a religion. It's basically a social and political belief.

There shouldn't be a problem with an alien or a new religion unless it strongly militated against the Greater Good.

There is no reason why worshipping the Emperor as a god without following the Imperial Creed shouldn't be possible.
Sure, they would still be considered apostates by the Imperial church, but unless their Tau Sept gets conquered they most likely don't give a damn
about some corrupt cardinal's opinion of them. Holidays and the idea that a distant god on terra will judge you upon death would remain while those aspects which do not comply with
the Tau ideology would vanish.

For the Tau this will haves everal advantages. The average human in the sept won't become unruly because he isn't allowed to pray to his god while the Tau get the chance
to direct this faith into a direction which complies with the Greater Good ( and his perhaps eventualy fully replaced by the greater good ideology ).

Holidays?
YOUR WHOLE LIFETIME BELONGS TO THE GRETAR GOOD!



Sure, those under the greater good have kept their former religion.....did they?
How about an example for the races killkrazy mentioned?

oh wait... there is ONLY the greater good. Ideologies like these won't accept religion. Any competition for the hearts and minds is undone.
Faith as a concept is alien to Tau. Their realm is logic and the present. I doubt they like decisions made, "because the Emperor demands it".

Kilkrazy wrote:
There was never any mention of religions within pre-Ethereal Tau society. Who knows if they existed?

Religions never existed for the Tau. This was all but stated in an WD short story when the Tau faced a Slaanesh warband(the first time they had ever encountered Chaos) and couldn't comprehend the idea of a god(they believed this Slaanesh thing was simply the leader of the Warband). They couldn't understand the concept of daemons or corruption back then, either, as they allowed some Kroot to consume Daemonette bodies then were surprised when those Kroot suddenly mutated and turned on them.

We really haven't seen enough information to come to an informed conclusion. My assumption would be that some among the humans subsumed by the Tau Sphere would might enthusiastically adopt Tau beliefs, and indeed a Tau way of life, others might cling (in secret or openly) to the cult of the Emperor, even if they acknowledge the temporal superiority of their new blue-skinned overlords. It's worth remembering that most of the former Imperials now ruled-over by the Tau are, for want of a better term, ordinary people, who, history tells us, will commonly follow the path of least resistance. Given that the character of rule of the Tau does not seem, particularly compared with that of the Imperium, especially brutal or tyrannical, one would expect only either those who had lost out in the change of regime, or the most devout and/or xenophobic to preserve the Imperial cult. It would be a remarkably interesting story - and one rather different from the usual Black Library fare - to explore.

Another question occurs: one wonders how the Tau deal with the inevitable incidence of psykers among their human populations? It would be ironic (in a very Warhammer 40,000 way) for the Tau, or their human subjects, to find themselves obliged to create an Inquisition of their own...

Yeah, that's what they want us to believe. But forced sterilization programs, work camps, and etc aren't exactly nice.

I doubt Tau would know how to deal with psykers. Heh! Just imagine if an alpha+ level psyker was born on a Tau sept world! That would be epic.

Melissia wrote:Yeah, that's what they want us to believe. But forced sterilization programs, work camps, and etc aren't exactly nice.

I doubt Tau would know how to deal with psykers. Heh! Just imagine if an alpha+ level psyker was born on a Tau sept world! That would be epic.

Epic yes, but would most likely make the Tau a bigger threat, either because they now have an Alpha+ Psyker, or because they are now slaves to said Psyker

It's okay, we'd just send a culexis to assassinate the psyker...


... AFTER the damage was done.

And so another Tau thread spirals off to oblivion.