GKTiberius wrote:What if you framed it in an unintentional vector? What if a chapter of marines were deployed on a world with a Tau presence? And what if this chapter was infected by an engineered virus, the origins of which are up to you, but that virus had taken elements of tau DNA from the local tau and implanted it in a limited fashion into the genetic structure of the
SM. The changes could be largely aesthetic, but also makes them blanks (the original purpose of the virus) because tau have no presence in the warp. The chapter, wanting to be loyal to the Imperium, try to hide this secret shame by quarantining themselves on this world and or system, defending humanity in the area from threats, but in the process of executing these missions, they develop a positive relationship with the local Tau, so they adopt the altruism of the greater good philosophy, and apply it to their situation. The genetic blending is there and the ideological bleed over is there, and in a far less ridiculous way. ( I’m sorry man, I’m trying to help you here, because I like the idea of out of the box fluff, but you do have to stay within the bounds of certain norms, and willful cross breeding of human and xenos species would never ever be permitted by any official Imperium group or organization.)
That could work, but something even more plausible is for the Tau themselves to try and recreate the Astartes.
Tau are highly advanced, Tau also know they cant fight out of a wet paper bag without ranged weapons. Tau also know that marines are the result of highly advanced technological meddling on Gue basestock. It may be in their interest to start a project of their own.
This is my take on their story....
THE TAU CHAPTER EXPERIMENT
A unclean tale of forbidden knowledge, xenos and heresy from the galactic rim.
After the Damocles gulf debacle the Tau scientists collected many Marine dead. The Ethereal caste instructed the Earth caste to unlock the secrets as quickly as possible, to learn all they could about the strange invaders. For it was long heard from hearsay that the Astartes were engineered by technologies far ahead of that commonly displayed by the Gue. Some invastigation had been made in the past, but never with a sufficient bulk of material, now the Tau could start a program of research and then experimental breeding labs to start making hybrids. The research was long and difficult, hardwired genome locks to a while to decode and even the Earth caste marveled at the depth of technologies involved. But the Tau are patient and the Tau are focused, and eventually after much expense in time and resources they unlocked the Astartes genecode. While any attempt to synthesize genecode failed, natural genecode from Astartes hosts could easily be replicated, as the Imperium had intended. And soon the first batch of 528* Gue'
el, Tau human hydrids were fabricated. The Gue'
el had some Tau morphic features, including and especially brain matter which as the Aun were convinced would cause the resultant hybrid to be locked into Greater Good and would accept the authority of the Ethereal way.
However there was one element they overlooked, because there was one angle they could not see. The psychic connection.
Now the Tau are far from ignorant of psychic power, they have witnessed Eldar, they have witnessed materialised beasts from the immaterium, the Gue and Eldar alike call demons. They even witnessed psychic powers amongst many of their enemies. But all these powers could never interfere with the natural bond the Ethereal council had with the other four castes, and so a Gue'
el hybrid warrior with a tau hybrid brain would logically serve loyally if taught to wisdom of the Tau way, as manty free Gue had done so.
With the testing of the first batch the theories of the Aun, as always, were proven correct. The hybrids obeyed every command given to them, and in some cases were given false opportunity to escape or prove their loyalty and on each occasion proved their worth to the Tau. Furthermore their obedience was intelligent, not servile, on given a task the Gue would accomplish it by the most efficient means and without disobeyin the orders given would ver from them to fulfil the wilful task instructed. This levity was also bonded with firm obedience on those occasions when a task was ordered performed a certain way, and without a moment of hesitation. These results please the Aun, mindful rather than mindless obedience was the epitome of good service. On hindsight it was at the stage when the Ethereal council, pleased with the results of the testing ordered full production that things began to go wrong.
While the Tau brain matter was certainly blank, blank the geneseed certainly is not, it has a connection to the lost primarch, and share his core loyalties. The Tau made the first batch of Gue'
el clones and gave them reconstructed Astartes armour and converted tau weaponry. However the Gue'
el hearing the call of their blood heritage from the warp remembered their primarchs (probably geneseed from more than one source legion) and bent knee to the Emperor quietly and in secret. In each and every one there was a locator and recorder beacon watching for any sign of treachery, any hint of dissent, and true to the famed stubborn allegiance the Gue'
el never once uttered a single word of complaint or lack of compliance. The rebellion started in the eyes, the marines would look at each other, and knew, instinctively, where their loyalties lay. Once the Gue'
el had been divided into eight companies of eight squads each of eight warriors and their Commander and sub-commanders allocated to them things moved quickly.
Many Aun, truly believing in the loyalty of their proteges, attended an inaugural Chapterwide full battle exercise, this was not the first such exercise, but it was the first post assignment of the full command structure. During the exercise the OpFor, an entire tribe of kroot with holographic weaponry simulating characteristics of the Orkoids were deployed in a jungle defence. Six simulated civilian mining bases were placed in the jungle at sites logical for mining operation, but not for tactical defence. The Gue'
el were to make do and defend the jungle, both scouring it of orkoids and defending precious the Tau citizens at the mines, (who were all holograms) from the orkoid menace until a signified time which simulated the arrival of Tau hunter cadres.
The exercise was coordinated from an offsite command centre by the new Commander and his staff watched over by several octs of eager Aun.
About midway through engagement when circumstance had required, or in hindsight, been arranged, for well over half of the defending Gue'
el to be in their Devilfish. The Devilfish, responding to an alert from somewhere to look out for simulated ork fighterz dove to treetop flight. This most impressed the Aun, while Devilfish had advanced avionic suites the Gue'
el pilots had reflexes unmatched by any Fire caste pilot and were able to tax miracles of performance from their machines. Flying at speeds and altitudes no Tau pilot would dare to do the Devilfish disappeared one by one from even the most advanced scanners, aided by their own on board ECM suites. An old veteran Commander still wary of their new army requested that locator beacons be activated, however was orruled by Aun'o Vor'she'tal, the senor Aun present, under the assurances of Aun'vre
Hg'est, the project operational overseer,
Hg'est had bravely placed himself in frequent increasingly danger alongside the Gue'
el over many months and was entirely convinced of their loyalty, but it was Vor'she'tal who spoke. 'To activate the locator beacons would reveal the true location of the forces which while operating under deep stealth would be in part a mystery even to their own commanders, and doing so would invalidate half the benefits of the exercise'. The Aun'o had spoken, so old commander bowed reverently and waited.
Some minutes later the old veteran was amongst the first to notice the reappearance of several Devilfish on a high speed low altitude approach vector, and was the first to die when a Gue'
el communications officer reached around and snapped his neck before he could give warning.
A single word in Gothic was wide broadcast by the Commander, Gue'
el #304, who as a clone was by tradition yet unnamed by his masters until his first field service. Commander 304 then himself activated the locator beacons in his battle brothers, and rapidly gave relocation orders to his whole Chapter by a lightpen on the strategic map. He had little to do, most had anticipated his desired positioning correctly. But as he had yet work to do it was thus to his sub-Commander that befell the honour of ripping Aun'vre
Hg'est's head from his shoulders before beating Aun'o Vor'she'tal to death with it. The few armed guards in the room had barely raised their weapons before they were wrenched from their grasp by Gue'
el command staff and the massacre began in earnest.
The Gue'
el could have rebelled at any time after they had first made eye contact with each other, but needing a command structure to fight properly as battle brothers and unable to confer they waited into their erstwhile victims had given them one.
With the slaughter of the Aun the remaining Gue'
el ignored all their holographic defence points and mounted their vehicles. The bewildered kroot tribesmen, still unaware the exercise was void advanced on the prefab blocks of the mining camps to signify a 'loot-for-da-orks' victory condition, with high expectation of a resultant bonus pay! The kroot commanders knew something was up when their communications, even downgraded to ork levels, revealed the the Gue'
el had abandoned all the objectives and were not concentrating on some. But by then it was too late.
Tau of all castes in the vicinity of the command dome were stunned to a near a catatonic paralysis with the rapid slaughter of so many Aun. Those few still able to fight were quickly cut down. The only threat of resistance came from the attendant Kroot tribal guard who had erected ceremonial huts and warpaint rather than join their tribesmen in the exercise due to the importance of the occasion and the exalted guest list. While armed with only fighting staves and no ammo they were deemed only a secondary risk. But the packs of kroot hounds traditionally accompanying tribal leadership would be a problem as they were impressive enough, but reinforced by the warrior kroot packs, for simple reason that they couldn't effectively be deployed in simulations.. As the massed throng of hounds galloped into the command dome howling the sub-Commander picking up the bodies of the two nearest dead ethereals hurled them out into the corridor and shut the door barring it with his bodyweight. While the door would not hold the kroot hounds long, it need not do so. Instinctively the hounds fed on the flesh presented to them and were intoxicated by ethereal meat tearing and biting into each other.
The Commander 304 opened his communication stud and asked to parley with the tribal chiefs, identifying himself as he did no as 'Commander Honorius' as he dipped his finger in flesh ethereal blood and daubed an aquila on his brow.
The Aun were dead, those Tau not yet dead were paralysed with grief and their equipments taken. Why throw away his warriors lives against a foe they could not defeat. The Kroot called off their hounds before the slaughter in the corridor spilled out, such rich flesh was too much for simple animalistic kroot, and the Chief shaper approached the doors alone and asked entry. Commander 304/Honorius offered the Kroot chief a traditional alliance-feast in return for a ceasefire, pointing to the heaps of dead Aun, a flesh strictly forbidden, as bond-token. The tribe agreed, as much for the opportunity to eat aunflesh as the chance to escape a one sided brutal engagement. Even before their first bite they knew that this tribes service to the Tau Empire was now over and they would be hunted as renegades; but after their bit upon the succulent fresh aunflesh they knew..... so much more. With the self control the hounds lacked the tribal elders gobbled their feast and an in their eyes grew new deeper intelligence. With his bolstered will the high chief commended the feast to stop while half the meat was yet uneaten. Commander Honorius, thought the remainder was for him, and was about to offer the chief to continue when the tribal chiefs called for and ushered in he tribal mothers. As the kroot females, from the most venerable cronemother to young unnested females of all ages entered, to each was gaven an equal share of aunflesh, and each grew in mental stature.
This puzzled Commander Honoriusm as the best meats were given to the warriors. Meanwhile the tribe acted quickly and gathering each and every earth caste scientists of note in the vicinity, and there were many, they fed them to the tribes females.
Offering his claw to the Commander he proclaimed that a ceasefire was not enough to survive retribution. The Kroot would follow the Gue'
el to a new life if they allowed it. The females of this tribe, gifted as the elders were now gifted with exalted intelligence, but exempt from military risk were in good position to serve as artificers. And if this were not enough, a number of Gue were kept in the vicinity as breedstock and for purposes of technological adaption even a few captured tech-priests
were being experimented on. The Earth caste had leaned much about the 'mechanicus' and through the feast of aunflesh and the earth caste buffet following it, now so did the tribes females.
And so it was that a Kroot warsphere, followed with its tribe, a half chapter of renegade marines and many other ordinary gue set sail across the void. Once word reached Tau of the abominations unleashed a huge hue and cry for vengeance was called, but the treacherous Gue'
el were too, clever for them. They would allow themselves to be seen, with avenues of pursuit open, but only though ork or tyranid space if the pursuers were to have a chance of catching up with the warsphere. With each month and each battle the rumours grew. They raised Tauspace as they fled, first with small company sized actions of space marines, then later integrated with kroot warriors and ordinary gue with fire warrior equipment. A famed and feared Vre'teran Sergeant fell in battle only to be ensconced in the dreadnought sarcophagus of a Riptide battlesuit, soon followed by a second. Things grew worse and worse as the renegades grew in power alongside their legend.
Eventually the battle damaged hulk of the warsphere was bought to bay and boarded only to be found empty but for a skeleton crew who detonated their vessel with a blast large enough to cripple much of the capturing fleet.
In the aftermath of the capture and its tragic conclusion a flanking Lar'shi cruiser forming picket around the warsphere detected the warpdive exit wake of a large vessel at extreme range. Playing back sensor footage the air caste intelligence summised that the vessel was a derelict Emperor class battleship unmistakably refitted with Tau technology, accompanies by several smaller escort vessels which could not be clearly identified at that range. A burst of comms traffic accompanied the warp dive, much of it human vox signal, but some unmistakably kroot in origin.
Seeing the warship as was on an escape vector beyond Tau space and the lost Aun had been symbolically avenged with the destruction of the warsphere the Ethereal council forbade further pursuit and ordered all reports of the final engagement and the strange vessel encountered to be stricken from all records.
From that point onward no further research into retrofitting Astertes genetic technologies into Tautech has been attempted, and this field of genetic exploration has been placed in 'indefinite supension' by the Ethereal Council.
And what of the Tau renegade chapter, only conjecture folows them now. Some believe they inevitably gave in to their xenophobic instincts and threw their kroot allies out of the airlock, others say they were undoubtably eaten by the tyranids out in fringespace. Others say they are still out there, roaming between the stars, loyal to but never attempting formal contact with the Imperium. Rumours of a renegade human battegroup, with a mixture of Tau and imperial technologies accompanied by savage kroot horde has been seen fighting as mercenaries alongside the Alaitoci against the necrons, and were rumoured to be the true reason how the Mass Conveyor
Vincix Regias and eight million colonists escaped Hive fleet Gorgon; and the mysterious unpoken defenders by the shine world is
St Justinia was freed from threat of Waargh Trashnutz matches their description. But then, who knows of such things but the Holy Inquisition, and to whom do they speak
*
1000 battle brothers in base eight, a natural round number for a Tau. Plus a two eight Gue'el Battlegroup command teams.
Strike Force Voulge led by Lord Inquisitor Severus Vaul: 7000 points painted
