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It seems that tau conquer other people, and integrate them into tau customs.

this to me doesn't seem like a victory.

they just fight and fight and fight, and in the end, instead of taking out the enemy, they kiss their @$$3$, and accept them. What kind of example does that set to other planets that will eventually be conquered?

(Maybe I'm wrong about this, but from what I learned about tau in Ciaphis cain, my description is pretty accurate)

They let people keep their culture, but they serve the empire. That's still kind of a win by most standards.

But then again by your standards who would win? Space marines go and muder everything not human, then what? Tyranids eat the galaxy then starve to death.

Because a conquered enemy now working to advance the goals of your growing empire is better than an exterminated enemy.

 aapch45 wrote:

they just fight and fight and fight, and in the end, instead of taking out the enemy, they kiss their @$$3$, and accept them. What kind of example does that set to other planets that will eventually be conquered?

But those people they conquered serve and help their empire to grow and prosper.
Actually when you look at it Tau didn't conquer anything so far as Kroot, Vespid and Humans who defected to them are more of their allies then their subordinates. Tau Empire is darker version of Star Trek Federation.
If you look closer look at fluff Tau control only small number of Human worlds along their borders, most of the world are govern by their own representatives ( Kroot are controlled by Shapers, Vespid are controlled by Strain Leaders and Human colonies are controlled by their planetary Governor ). Their deal is quite good - they just ask if you can borrow some resources and help them from time to time in dire need and in return they offer you military protection.
Off course, this is without going deep into their dark secret - but that is fro another thread. In general Tau are the closes thign you get to a good guy who offers you a hand of trust in 40k when it comes to multiple races.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
In general Tau are the closes thign you get to a good guy who offers you a hand of trust in 40k when it comes to multiple races.

Well, a hand of trust with the other hand holding a gun aimed at your head. The Tau are only "generous" in that they offer you the chance to submit to Tau rule before they kill you.

So the tau are essentially space communists?

that's what it seems like to me.

And Orks are bipedal fungus. A hasty generalization isn't a good way to classify something.

The Tau have a system of order based around a class system, which is more related to a feudal system I believe. They believe that every caste is important to the expansion of the empire.

They have communistic practices, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

 aapch45 wrote:
So the tau are essentially space communists?

that's what it seems like to me.

Surly the sovets aren't the only ones who integrate new cultures in there own.

I never said it was a bad thing, it just was how i saw them.

I have been outgunned by tau many a time, they have my respect.

I have been over at lexicanum, and I have earned a ton of respect for the tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I had respect for tau, mechanically...
now I have come to appreciate the fluff

 Peregrine wrote:
Because a conquered enemy now working to advance the goals of your growing empire is better than an exterminated enemy.

Yes and no.

A conquered enemy, even if they are working toward some invisible good within your empire as slaves, or laborers are still conquered enemies. They can incite rebellion, wage wars of terrorism, and perpetrate coups against the bodies of leadership.

An exterminated enemy can serve as an example to your people of your might and your faith in your cause. They are an example to your other enemies of your might and faith in your cause, as well as your willingness to bring that same end to them.

En Excelsis wrote:
A conquered enemy, even if they are working toward some invisible good within your empire as slaves, or laborers are still conquered enemies. They can incite rebellion, wage wars of terrorism, and perpetrate coups against the bodies of leadership.

Except what we see with the Tau is that conquered enemies don't do those things very much, and are a net gain.

An exterminated enemy can serve as an example to your people of your might and your faith in your cause.

Congratulations, you conquered the burned remains of a planet. Have fun exploiting its natural resources without the people that used to live there to work in the mines/factories/etc. I bet pretty soon you'll be wishing you'd captured them instead and used them for slave labor.

They are an example to your other enemies of your might and faith in your cause, as well as your willingness to bring that same end to them.

THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING.

You know what showing all of your enemies that you will exterminate them does? It ensures that they will always fight to the death and never surrender, because surrendering means dying anyway. So not only are you now taking planets which have no labor force left you're ensuring that your forces take maximum possible losses before you claim the worthless rubble.

If you want to defeat an enemy efficiently and with minimal losses you show them that you CAN kill them but offer to let them surrender and avoid death.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

They have communistic practices, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Uh... yes it is.

Communism is (in theory) about sacrifice of identity and ego for the good of the whole community, which isn't entirely evil but at its best can only be called benign (if not a little naïve). In practice however, we have only a few examples: Soviet Russia, and the People's Rublic of North Korea. Not exactly places I'd recommend if you had any interest at all in the "good" of the community.

[quote=Brother Captain Alexander 511534 5349166 75875e5990bca882409aa1db0cd7cdc0.jpgTau Empire is darker version of Star Trek Federation..

Both examples are not of an alien culture though. Communism is about valuing the system above the self, which isn't a bad thing. It's a logical conclusion that the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few. Nobody ever called Spock a tyrant.

But again, even if it was bad its still the lesser of the many evils.

 aapch45 wrote:
I never said it was a bad thing, it just was how i saw them.

I have been outgunned by tau many a time, they have my respect.

I have been over at lexicanum, and I have earned a ton of respect for the tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I had respect for tau, mechanically...
now I have come to appreciate the fluff

Space communists is just something people made up because they disliked the Tau, misunderstood them, and/or wanted them to be more grimdark. (This is easy to understand given their emphasis on the Greater Good. But let's be honest. When Space Marines nuke a planet they do it because it's for the"greater good". The IoM is faaaaaar closer to the Soviet Union than the Tau are.

The Tau operate off a clan structure.

En Excelsis wrote:
If by "net gain" you mean "food for the kroot" than sure. That's a net gain, but that is also not exactly an incentive for your enemies to surrender.

Completely wrong. The fluff is very clear that conquered enemies are allowed to live and serve the Tau, not just fed to the Kroot.

No such persons exist in WH40k.

The fluff disagrees with you. Lots of people surrender to the Tau and become part of their empire, and some former Imperial planets even welcome the Tau.

First off..
Tau are Aliens

Not communists or facists, or any other human based -ists, Aliens with 5 seperate distinct races (fire, air, water, earth and Ethereal) which do not even interbreed with each othernow, either due to the prolonged enforced/encouraged restriction to only breed within the parents Caste.

Each of these subgroups, fufills a role in the society, and being aliens have no problems with this lot in life (Remeber Aliens ), the concept of the greater good is intrinsic in this style of species and society, and after hundreds of generations is taken as a absolute in Tau society, just like air is to breathe and water is to drink, fire is to burn, and earth is to grow..the ethereal ties them all together.

Now coming from this background the Tau are naturally not xenophobic, since basically the Tau consist now of 5 seperate races, so extending the greater good to encompass newly discovered races is kinda built into the Tau, in the same way that now the Xenophobia is almost now built into humans, but again Tau are aliens, so those comparisons are not apt.

They have had sucesses in this approach, and failures..oh well, its how the Tau do things, they will take their lumps, and their gains, its part of there attraction for some of us, and some of the fan base hates the "Naive" Tau, its not naive its thier way.

If anything the Tau are almost like a colony of ants, with workers, warriors etc that each fufill their roles for the better of the whole.

So when people want to call the communists, or whatever other human based comparison, I just see them as Tau and do not try to label what the do or what they are.

They lull the humans into a false sense of safety and confort then put something in the water so they can't have kids. Unlike other factions they conquer first and genocide later.

Races that join the Tau empire are left to their own practices and habits (so long as it does not go against the Tau empire at large ) Kroot, vespid, etc

Planets that join the empire (not conquest by the fire caste) are also pretty much left to their own devices, with whatever assistance they may request from the Tau empire (of course we do not know the extents of this assistance or what is required in kind.)

Planets taken in conquest are restricted in many ways, some are treated as labor camps, or such, and they impose population limits on its inhabitants (these are formerly hostiles ), how long this continues is not carried out in fluff other than a computer game.

The restrictions of population may actually something the Tau themselves practice, being as they have very restrictive breeding themselves, and since a conquored planet is under a form of martial law, it would make sense.

If they need to wipe out a race for the greater good..they will.

The Tau are not a culture of waste, so long as something helps or sustains their goals it will be maintained, when it no longer does, then it will be discarded.

And so far as the fluff has shown, the Tau treat humans on a planet by planet basis, and not as race in whole.

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote: First off..
Tau are Aliens

Not communists or facists, or any other human based -ists, Aliens with 5 seperate distinct races (fire, air, water, earth and Ethereal) which do not even interbreed with each othernow, either due to the prolonged enforced/encouraged restriction to only breed within the parents Caste.

Each of these subgroups, fufills a role in the society, and being aliens have no problems with this lot in life (Remeber Aliens ), the concept of the greater good is intrinsic in this style of species and society, and after hundreds of generations is taken as a absolute in Tau society, just like air is to breathe and water is to drink, fire is to burn, and earth is to grow..the ethereal ties them all together.

Now coming from this background the Tau are naturally not xenophobic, since basically the Tau consist now of 5 seperate races, so extending the greater good to encompass newly discovered races is kinda built into the Tau, in the same way that now the Xenophobia is almost now built into humans, but again Tau are aliens, so those comparisons are not apt.

They have had sucesses in this approach, and failures..oh well, its how the Tau do things, they will take their lumps, and their gains, its part of there attraction for some of us, and some of the fan base hates the "Naive" Tau, its not naive its thier way.

If anything the Tau are almost like a colony of ants, with workers, warriors etc that each fufill their roles for the better of the whole.

So when people want to call the communists, or whatever other human based comparison, I just see them as Tau and do not try to label what the do or what they are.

I could not agree more. It is useless trying to use human expressions to describe alien societies.


Additionally, most of the races in the Tau empire were not conquered, they joined willingly. The Kroot were saved by the Tau from extinction at the hands of the orks, so they joined the Tau as thanks.

The Vespid figured that the greater good was a pretty swell idea, so they joined up. The Tau gave them better armor, weapons and communion helms, so that they could communicate properly.

The Nicassar did pretty much the same as the Vespid, and got quite a lot out of the deal, as they lack efficient land based transport, being basically giant psychic panda. The Tau also protect them from the Imperium.

The Demiurg are not part of the empire, but they are loosely allied to the Tau. They seem quite receptive to the idea of the greater good.

And last but not least, there are many humans in the empire. Some of them would have been conquered, but a lot of them would view the Tau as saviours from Imperium. Thehas basically left a lot of the planets on the eastern fringe to fend for themselves, and joining with the empire not only provides a defence against invaders, it provides large technological gains and a much less opppresicve government.

Also Soviet Russia and North Korea aren't really communist, they were/are more autocratic dictatorships. Ken MacLeod writes quite a good space-communism.

The key draw of the Tau Empire is the theoretical escape from crushing autocracy. It should be noted though that they tend to take on planets that are not fully developed and therefore can provide a reasonable standard of living to the inhabitants through drones and techno-sorcery. I think they would run into problems trying to steal away a whole hive-world using their normal practices. The key benefit to the Tau is that they get access to new resources for minimal military outlay.

Their victories are a victories in the context of Tau policy, yes.

And for the last time, Tau aren't communist. They could easily be Fascists. They're just what GW made them.

 aapch45 wrote:
So the tau are essentially space communists?

that's what it seems like to me.

No, they arn't communist. They are a Socialist Caste system that is enforced with heavy monitoring of the citizens. Non-tau are second class citizens unless they can prove their loyality to the "Greater Good"


They are no less evil than anyone else, unwilling people they conquor get put in work camps and/or sterilized. Or just killed outright.

The Empire is pretty much built on Slavery. New races get integrated and are basically slaves until they can work their way up to being more equal, but all are below the Tau.


The reason is because the Etherials can control the Tau somehow. The Earth, Water, Air, and Fire castes are practically mindless automatons enslaved to the will of the Etherials. Farsight had his eyes opened when the only Etherials with his force died and the control was broken.

Non-tau can't be controlled like this, so they must be controlled in other ways.

So what everyone is saying is basically this, the tau are the best case scenario of an alien orwellian society?

Depends on your species.

If you are a minor alien race, the Tau are probably your best chance.

If you are human, the Imperium is a better choice. They arn't going to micromanage your life, you just need to revere the God Emperor, pay the Tithe, and not associate with aliens. Not all that restrictive actually.

 aapch45 wrote:
So what everyone is saying is basically this, the tau are the best case scenario of an alien orwellian society?

As has been stated, such terms don't really apply to the Tau. They are not Orwellian. Orwellian would imply a Totalitarian government, which is not what the Tau have.

But if people just utterly can not grasp the Tau without stamping them with a corrupt government label, then I guess 'Authoritarian' is the buzzword that comes closest... But even that isn't entirely accurate.

Well everything has simplistic labels.
The tau are just baffling.

There really isn't a human word for tau, or what they do, without explaining them extensively.

 aapch45 wrote:
Well everything has simplistic labels.
The tau are just baffling.

There really isn't a human word for tau, or what they do, without explaining them extensively.

I see the Tau as an imperialistic version of the Federation from Star Trek: they seek out new life and new civilisations...and absorb them.

Regarding the OP, I'd say it counts as victory if instead of laying waste to a planet you can manage to incorporate its people, industry, weapons etc into your empire, sometimes without even getting bogged down in a war.

 Fezman wrote:

 aapch45 wrote:
Well everything has simplistic labels.
The tau are just baffling.

There really isn't a human word for tau, or what they do, without explaining them extensively.

I see the Tau as an imperialistic version of the Federation from Star Trek: they seek out new life and new civilisations...and absorb them.

Regarding the OP, I'd say it counts as victory if instead of laying waste to a planet you can manage to incorporate its people, industry, weapons etc into your empire, sometimes without even getting bogged down in a war.

Thats true.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Depends on your species.

If you are a minor alien race, the Tau are probably your best chance.

If you are human, the Imperium is a better choice. They arn't going to micromanage your life, you just need to revere the God Emperor, pay the Tithe, and not associate with aliens. Not all that restrictive actually.

That's a macro viewpoint of the Imperium. While the Imperium, itself, as a body-politic, does not micromanage the individual worlds that constitute it... the individual Planetary Governors are perfectly allowed to micromanage their subjects. The Ecclesiarchy, also, does rather a lot of micro-management on many worlds, with priests, even duly-appointed representatives, as a sort of Morality Police, are allowed to impose on-the-spot penances and fines for all manner of Moral Crimes, such as swearing, public drunkenness, failure to display due deference to priests, etc. There can be rather a staggering amount of micro-management on an Imperial World, regardless of how hands-off the High Lords may be.

 aapch45 wrote:
So the tau are essentially space communists?

that's what it seems like to me.

Thats not what communism is. The Tau have a rigid caste system. And their vassal races dont get treated the same as the Tau within the Empire, not in general at least.