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For me its easy: they may be wanting to kill me, so I will kill them first, just in case...

Tau are neither good or evil.....they're not real

he he...you can't catch meeeeee.....

Tau are clearly the nicest of the races in 40k... but that's not saying that much.
Why are Eldar considered "good", they don't do anything but try to survive and some try to kill orks (biel-tan). They just sit there and try to reproduce. (with all the pleasure cults they had you'd think that would be easy ).
The Squats are clearly the only good race. I can't remember the last time they went on a killing spree

fludit wrote:Tau are clearly the nicest of the races in 40k... but that's not saying that much.
Why are Eldar considered "good", they don't do anything but try to survive and some try to kill orks (biel-tan). They just sit there and try to reproduce. (with all the pleasure cults they had you'd think that would be easy ).
The Squats are clearly the only good race. I can't remember the last time they went on a killing spree

I don't anyone who really understands the Eldar can call them "good." And I'm almost certain they don't consider themselves to be "good." I would think that to them, to believe in things like "good" and "evil" would be naive and foolish in a universe where nothing is black and white, its all shades of grey.

Falconlance wrote:

I don't anyone who really understands the Eldar can call them "good." And I'm almost certain they don't consider themselves to be "good." I would think that to them, to believe in things like "good" and "evil" would be naive and foolish in a universe where nothing is black and white, its all shades of grey.

Ahhh, Grey space elfs

So:
-evil elfs in space
-neutral elfs in space
-no good elfs in space

but still Tau neither neutral nor good.
Option left = evil space blue-grey commie ants.

Tau are neither. They fight who they need to and occasionally who they want to remove from the universe because they've been bad.

There evil just trying to get everyone to join them with there so called "greater good" and if they dont they go ahead and "try" to conquer you cause its for there greater good

Who is to say what races are good or evil? i mean from different points of view comes different opinions of good and evil.

The only good tau is a dead tau and one day they will have an uprising just as the Imperium for their "good." You can say the orks are evil all you want, but at least they're honest with what they are. The Tau and Imperium murder just as many or more people than just about any faction from a day to day stand point.

Cheif Librarian Vaako wrote:Who is to say what races are good or evil? i mean from different points of view comes different opinions of good and evil.

Thats true have to agree there, but I dont like them lol


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Delephont wrote:Tau are neither good or evil.....they're not real

he he...you can't catch meeeeee.....

And have to agree with this, its just fun to compare them to reality's views and to argue keeps life fresh

No poll option for greater good? (Um, has this joke been done here yet? Couldn't be bothered to read another good/evil debate.)

Ya, they're not like the inquisition who kills you if you say no. They aren't really good or evil. I guess they're on the good side of neutral.

Tau and Eldar are basically the only factions that won't immediately try to kill, enslave or eat anyone they meet.

Kilkrazy wrote:Tau and Eldar are basically the only factions that won't immediately try to kill, enslave or eat anyone they meet.

So its good to be manipulated ( pointy eared space dwellers ) or nerfed to death with a "greatar good" ( blue-grey promotion team )?

Maybe sometimes its better to be killed....

Or did you mean eldar and tau do just kill/enslave/eat you later?
.....could be right. We dont know what they eat....

Ok. I've been ready this topic, and I must ask: What is this "good" in which you speak of?

they arn't EVIL like necrons and chaos...just wanting everything dead

they just look out for themselves, like eldar, but purely because everything is taken from humanities point of view, any race that dosnt think the emperor is the dogs b*****s, is at least a bit evil

i dont think they are simply in it for themselves. They even assimilate other races like humans. SOme former IG have even been known to switch sides. In fact I would say they are the most "GOOD" army in the game. THey are out for change and peace not merciless conquest. They wish to make ideological and phylosophical changes.

The Tau lie to and medically manipulate it's peoples, so that is evil. But by and large the take better care of their population than the imperium.

As far as good, there is no good.
There is only WAR!!

Gorechild wrote:they arn't EVIL like necrons and chaos...just wanting everything dead

they just look out for themselves, like eldar, but purely because everything is taken from humanities point of view, any race that dosnt think the emperor is the dogs b*****s, is at least a bit evil

dont worry, i always tell my fieends who collect imperium that they are the dogs b***s

the main problem with alot of the fluff, although amazing, is that it is all from the imperiums point of view, i remember reading the old eldar codex, the fluff is all from the human point of view.

the best way to look at the good and evil debate is the race's intent, whether live to survive or live to destroy

good:
terran empire
eldar
tau and there allies

evil:
all chaos
necron

neutral:
orks
tyranid
cark eldar

Wait didnt farsight go 'evil'? or just realise that the universe is one be screw over?

In my opinion, the Tau are basically communistical british empirists. only fishy, quoting my FLGS's manager

"right, so there are like 4 casts of Tau, in the beginning. The water tau sat around in the ocean beating th Bulls**t out of whoever was stupid enough to try it, the earth caste sat in their massive fortresses of stone, defending against the Fire caste. The Air caste went around selling spears and arrows to all the rest of them blokes. the suddenly a big space thingy of the imperialist scum (He's a chaos player) falls down. one of the fire caste walks up to this thing and jabs it with his spear. so it opens up skins him alive and pulls out his brain, weighs it and then does the same thing to all the rest of his organs. the other guys run away, screaming their fishy heads off. So back on mars a little thing goes through to some lowly scribe. New Xenos species discovered, feudal technology, KILL NOW!!!!! so they send the blood angels, beep beeep beeeep, then the first war for armogedden starts, Beepbeepbeepbeep. they run from the planet T'au and join da fight!

about 1000 years later another scribe looking through the records see the old thing, so they send the blood angels again. around that time th second war for armageddon starts up, so they run of to that fight. ANOTHER thouasand years later a scribe finds the lost records again, Blood angels:fail Blood Angels:fail. So they send the ultra-smurfs to finish them off, boing. woahhh! huge galactic spanning empire that wasnt there before

Basically what happened was a fifth caste popped up and they said was "guysh guyh, you need to shtop fighting, and get readey for the invashion" so they run around inventing new technology, and then some weirdo discovers the warp, but because they have like no imprint on the warp. so what they do is skip through it, kind of like dolphins you know. or maybe a stone skipping on a lake. so what happened was in 2000 years they went from nailing people to crosses to galactic empire, where as we went from nailing people to crosses, to a dodgy russian space station that fell out the sky.

so the first aliens the tau came across where the Vespid, living on a gas planet in huge bug hives. so they go up to them and say "pleash guysh, come and join the greater good!" " bu the vespids are like "no, in fact, what we'd like to do is rip your head off eat your brains and then lay eggs in your head cavities" so the tau go "ok, you see that hive there" "ohh yeah, our most sacred hive?" "Fiiiiiirrrreeee!" KAAAAABBBBBOOOOOM "you know what, suddenly we'd LOVE to join the greater good!"

so basically the tau are the nicest guys out there, they like every one who preaches the greater good, be they earth caste; human; or spasse donkehs! they're the british empire, scaring those who resist with big Gunz!"

thats the gist of his awsome speech, luckily, hes full of the nuggets of awsomeness!

There is no "good" and "evil" in the realm of Warhammer40k.

40K does an interesting thing in creating a fictional environment where the basis cruelest behaviors are not only acceptable, but are necessary for survival. The Imperium exists as a fascist empire that is extremely xenophobic. It performs genocide, wages war, and enslaves populations. If it didn’t it would not likely survive in the 40K universe.

If humankind was as open and permissive in 40K as it actually exist, could you image us lasting long? Khorne worshippers suing for religious prosecution, PETA protesting killing tyranids, and rouge pyskers destroying whole planets because witch hunters wouldn’t exist. The imperium is the way it is for survival sake.

The Tau are just as bad, but lack many of the reasons the imperium has. It is, embrace of the greater good or die, and while then don’t exterminate aliens (as long as they play ball), they do force them into becoming an exploited second-class citizens. The Tau are not as nearly as threatened as humans are by having their society destroyed by a chaos revolt, pyskers inevitably dooming the planet, or daemonic invasion; but they operate as the imperial does. They deal in propaganda just as much as the imperium and allow for nothing to contradict their core principals. In fact I could make a pretty good argument that the imperium is more opened minded then the Tau empire because their diversity of contradicting beliefs and methods, best exhibited in the Inquisitor background. Whereas in the Tau fluff everyone must conform to the exact same dogma. Plus the ethereals use mind control to keep their people in line along with their bug buddies.

Humans also have more personal freedom; well some of them, humans can become merchants, farmers, rogue traders, and other such professions. Tau have the career dictated by birth. If you’re a fire caste member just try playing the consciousness objector card and you will be executed as a traitor. You also face the death penalty for mating outside your caste. Tau might not be sacrificing people to their gods, but I would hardly bestow the title of “good guys” to them.

Just another thought on how GWS managed to get its background under the radar. Imagine a kid explaining his space marine army to his parent; “I play space marines, they are a genetic pure army of superman who work to maintain the existence of a fascist totalitarian empire in which they kill people because they have genetic diversity/ disabilities (mutants) divergent ideologies/ (heretics) or come from other cultures (aliens). I sure the majority of us are tolerant, open minded, intelligent people – why is it we have no problem taking up the role of fascist, genocidal tyrants when playing with our toys?

because we know they affect no real lives, aren't things we would accept in real life, and are an aspect of humanity many find intriguing.

The whole point of escapist role playing fantasies like this (more actual role playing games, though it obviously applies to wargames to a lesser extent too) is to explore situations, scenarios, or lives we cannot or would not want to in every day life.

Also, Imperium = fascist dictatorship. Tau Empire = communist dictatorship.

At the end of the day, they both do what must be done to survive/flourish. Difference is, Tau don't inflict nearly as much internal persecution as the Imperium of Man because they have virtually no subversive element in large part due to a lack of chaos influence.

Tau, I would best describe, as a smaller, more tolerant Imperium.

40k isn't depicted on the Good/Evil axis as most of fantasy/fiction typically is. That's why attempts to codify anything in 40k typically falls into a horribly wide rift somewhere in the middle.

It's a lot more simple if you use Order/Disorder.

Forces of the Imperium, Tau, and Eldar: Order

Chaos, Orks, Dark Eldar, Tyranids: Disorder

Necrons are probably the only neutral faction, but because their overarching order is born of destabilization of the current regimes, they're more prone to Disorder.

The Tau Empire is the future of the 40k universe (I am a devout Imperial player). But not yet....

The Defenestrator wrote:because we know they affect no real lives, aren't things we would accept in real life, and are an aspect of humanity many find intriguing.

The whole point of escapist role playing fantasies like this (more actual role playing games, though it obviously applies to wargames to a lesser extent too) is to explore situations, scenarios, or lives we cannot or would not want to in every day life.

Also, Imperium = fascist dictatorship. Tau Empire = communist dictatorship.

At the end of the day, they both do what must be done to survive/flourish. Difference is, Tau don't inflict nearly as much internal persecution as the Imperium of Man because they have virtually no subversive element in large part due to a lack of chaos influence.

I was poking fun with my comments about us playing toy tyrants, wasn’t really making a serious statement. I probably should have left a winking ork or something.

Both are fascist empires. Neither would allow any kind of opposition to the government to exist. The biggest component of fascism is that it does not permit any kind of dissent. If a human or a tau acted against, raised a grievance or criticized their empire in any way they would be terminated or “treated” – both are the same in that neither citizen has the right to challenge their government. And both have a manifest destiny that involves them taking over the whole universe. The tau might look nicer because they keep aliens alive and fight along side them, but peel back the curtain a little and you might conclude that veshid are enslaved through mind control and are being forced to fight and die for the Tau.

Humans need the emperor to survive. If he goes humanity falls to chaos and the galaxy as a whole would suffer. I am not sure the Tau need the greater good, Farsight sure doesn’t; and the Tau Etherals are sure trying to take him out before other tau realize that if they ditch their etherals they won’t immediately descend into anarchy and mass murder. The greater good might be a very usefully propaganda instrument for the Tau to perform galactic conquest – but I don’t think it is necessary for the tau species’ survival, which is exactly what the tau people are being indoctrinated to believe. You make a good point that the tau people do not go to extreme measures to control their own population as the imperium. But that is because they are being control through the etherals biologically. If tau citizens began wearing nose plugs and start rebelling the way some human planets occasionally do, I have little doubt the tau empire would match if not exceed the imperium in its ruthlessness in hammering down all dissent.

I believe the tau emerged through the manipulations of the old ones, and that may give the impression that they are forces for good. But lets not delude ourselves into thinking that they embrace such notions as freedom, independent thought, or even genuine concern for other aliens.

Grunt13 wrote:I was poking fun with my comments about us playing toy tyrants, wasn’t really making a serious statement. I probably should have left a winking ork or something.

joking or otherwise, it was still a thought worthy of consideration. So I considered it.

Grunt13 wrote:
I believe the tau emerged through the manipulations of the old ones, and that may give the impression that they are forces for good.

Not to derail the thread, but I think this is interesting. I'm not 100% up on their fluff, but I've yet to see anything indicating the old ones themselves were even 'good'. Certainly self-serving, willing to create and destroy entire races (orks are a certainty; many more are likely) to suit their needs and desires. I've yet to see them do anything considered positive, beyond trying to destroy the two foes of their time that threatened (and ultimately denied) their survival; chaos and the necrons.