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How often would some tau go 'stuff the Ethereals we do things our own way'?
pretty much like Fassight but would the be other Tau do the same thing yet not join Farsights cause?
this is something i want to base my tau around
Cheers

Who knows....from the current Tau lore it really seems like only Farsight and his bunch have managed to slip the feel good aura. But anything is possible

Keep in mind that it is not only the etheral caste's aura which keeps the other castes in line but also a fair amount of indoctrination/ faith in the Greater Good, which was demonstrated nicely by Commander Flamewing's ability to ressist falling into barbarity after his cadre lost their Etheral.

***REAPER INDOCTRINATION***

You have to be indoctrinated by something else to break it: C'tan, the gods (includes the Emperor, the Powers, and everyone else in the Warp) or just plain disillusion.

I suppose it could happen if you built fluff around it to support the idea. For example, let's say a small(ish) Tau force gets caught in a warp storm or anomaly and emerges halfway across the galaxy with little or no contact with the Ethereals. They could maintain their Greater Good idea for a while, but after getting to grips with a part of the galaxy where they can't call for more reinforcements, maybe they would give up on that idea.

You could day that a leader belives he or she is.better suited to leading the tau race, throws off the shackles of the ethereals and moves to take over. This could then lead to a civil war with both sides believing.in their own "true greater good"

kitch102 wrote:You could day that a leader belives he or she is.better suited to leading the tau race, throws off the shackles of the ethereals and moves to take over. This could then lead to a civil war with both sides believing.in their own "true greater good"

Could happen if Farsight or someone else gets ambitious...unfortunately, GW's never going to let it happen. If it did, the Imperium, the Tyranids, the Dark Eldar, and the Orks wouldn't resist the temptation - the carnage would be glorious.

It only has to be a splinter cell, it could fit the fluff if the op so desired

Basically, it doesn't happen often, and if Farsight is an example, it probably has more to do with "we think the Ethereals screwed up, so we'll bugger off and protect the Greater Good in our own way without them" than it does with "we think the Ethereals are evil and bad and will fight them."

kitch102 wrote:It only has to be a splinter cell, it could fit the fluff if the op so desired

Like an insurgency? Could work I suppose.

Absolutely; a disagreement over what the greater good actually is, or who's best to lead the Tau in their act of enforcing the greater good. Could be a commander that thinks the ethereals take too much time discussing and not enough action. Could be the ethereals thinking that a commander acts too quickly (not giving a race enough time to consider joining the Tau and invades a wee bit early). This latter point may tie in a little too much with some of the HH stuff though, otherwise I think the theory would work.

kitch102 wrote:Absolutely; a disagreement over what the greater good actually is, or who's best to lead the Tau in their act of enforcing the greater good. Could be a commander that thinks the ethereals take too much time discussing and not enough action. Could be the ethereals thinking that a commander acts too quickly (not giving a race enough time to consider joining the Tau and invades a wee bit early). This latter point may tie in a little too much with some of the HH stuff though, otherwise I think the theory would work.

Especially if the Ordo Xenos "assists" the insurgents to keep the Tau busy at home so the Imperium can focus on other threats while the Tau are busy weeding out the garden. And just to add the cherry, the insurgents have absolutely no idea who is really helping them.

Yeah man, a callidus could.be.behind the whole thing! The thick plottens!

There is commander bright-sword, but he didn't get away. I also think that farsight gets most of his battlesuits from commanders that defect.

Farsight probably isn't the only example, he was just the biggest and most important. You could have a small Tau fleet whose Ethereals met an unfortunate end and decided to go rogue/were forced to adapt to a galaxy where The Greater Good won't help you.

It only happened once, and that wasn't even an insurrection originally. Farsight's ethereals all died and left his group without them. It was only later they decided to just go rogue.

So practically impossible.

What about a breakaway group that is led by an ethereal who turned on his own? You could even do your Commander with an ethereal head poking out of his battlesuit. It would be pretty sweet.

1.) The Tau society works and the people are happy with it. It certainly works better than the bloody Mont'au civil war that was standard before ethereals arrived.
2.) Only a few people must have their weekly massacre to feel okay, among them Farsight and his pupil Brightsword.

Kroothawk wrote:1.) The Tau society works and the people are happy with it.

That's a half truth. There's no happiness in Tau society. It's not even a concept they care about.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:1.) The Tau society works and the people are happy with it.

That's a half truth. There's no happiness in Tau society. It's not even a concept they care about.

Can you expand on that idea?

DarknessEternal wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:1.) The Tau society works and the people are happy with it.

That's a half truth. There's no happiness in Tau society. It's not even a concept they care about.

So in which case what do they have?

They live a life where they know what is expected of them, where they are 'going' and how they are supposed to reach there.

I suppose the nearest concept would be 'content'

Which in a few peoples views content=happiness.

Cheers

Andrew

You could make an argument that doing your work and being content with your life and not being saddled with worrying about whether or not you're "happy" is, itself, happiness. Perhaps it's preferable to living in a society where you do your work and spend all your time worrying about whether or not you're happy. I've been in both worlds, and I've got to say that I prefer the former.

In other words communism or truly knowing that in the grand scheme of the galaxy, no matter the fate you will not be missed.

Far far I worked out that after a against the imperium they slowly relised that they were fighting a lost cause that the is no 'greater good' and have decieded to do abandon their ethereal (in some rather awful mannor) and wage war against the ethereals.
And anyone who gts in their way.

Why not; they lose all hope and strike out on there own, battling to survive whilst hoping to wipe out the ethereal caste who they see as utilising the Tau to their own ends.

Evil ethereals. Grrrr.

What about if they got mind shackled by so necrons?

How often would some tau go 'stuff the Ethereals we do things our own way'?
If the Ethereals are alive, never, even Farsight who was already bitter when he revolted didn't actually do so until they died. Once the Ethereals are dead it seems like Tau almost instinctively revolt and descend into conflict.
pretty much like Fassight but would the be other Tau do the same thing yet not join Farsights cause?
Potentially, they could form their own state seperate from the other two.

Merc Row wrote:Far far I worked out that after a against the imperium they slowly relised that they were fighting a lost cause that the is no 'greater good' and have decieded to do abandon their ethereal (in some rather awful mannor) and wage war against the ethereals.
And anyone who gts in their way.

So basically: "The advantages of cooperation don't exist, so let's kill everything in sight!" Doesn't make sense to me, but hey ...

How about some other things than "Eff those Etherials! I bet they're really psykers or smelly or something!!!"

How about:

An Etherial senses something is very, very wrong on his Sept world. With the aid of a few trusted Watercaste diplomats, some Fio med techs, and Firewarriors, he comes to realize that the highest echelons of power on his world have been subverted by a Genestealer cult that has somehow grown unnoticed. The cult, in order to sow confusion and increase feelings of isolation, has falsely planted "proof" that the cult is infact rampant across the whole of the Empire, leading the Etherial to take his small, hand picked group away from the septworld to try and strike back against the cancer infecting their society, or maybe just escape...

A watercaste diplomat finds some tremendous advantages to a new deal he is brokering with some aliens (Humans perhaps, or Eldar of either type.) The Etherial forbids him from making the deal, and the Por, thinking that the Etherial is actually acting COUNTER to the greater good, has him assasinated. The Por finds a way to rule in the Etherial's stead, preventing the colony from getting another high ranking Etherial and keeping the lower ranked Aun's busy with other matters.

A virus wipes out all of the Air Caste members of a Septworld, forcing other castes to fill in to prevent the sudden immobility of their culture. As it takes time to relay this information to a nearby Sept (given that the colony is suddenly deprived of its pilots and messengers) once contact is re-established the world is looked down upon for its flagrant violation to the tenets of the Caste System.

This way the fluff can be altered slightly, but still fit in the basic paradigm of the Tau mindset, these strange exceptions possible given the mentality of individuals and very odd (yet IMO beliveable if not overused) circumstances.

I don't think there are any 'renegade' Tau in the sense they completely abandon the Greater Good.

Farsight and Flamewing are examples of what happens when there are no nearby Ethereals to keep the Fire Warriors calm - they get extremely aggressive and don't think properly.

So your question of how often would some tau go 'stuff the Ethereals we do things our own way'?

They wouldn't. If all nearby Ethereals died they would act differently, but they don't completely abandon the Greater Good though. There hasn't been any cases of Tau actually rebelling, or anything to suggest they would - Farsight is the closest thing though.