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Whooo boy. This is an idea that's been banging around my head for a while now, so bear with me.

The Old Ones have been shown to genetically engineer and even create species, and we know from the Orks that they can somehow 'genetically code' for specific information and traits to be passed down (mekboyz, painboyz, etc.) We know that Tau society is based off of a caste system, with each caste practically being their own subspecies of Tau. You can see where this is going.

I think that Tau were designed by the Old Ones as a set of seperate sub-species, each designed to have a role in future society. Whilst I don't have the codex to hand, when talking about the water caste, it specifically says something along the lines of "the water caste has always had a unique affinity for picking up languages..." again, I refer back to the Orks. If technological knowledge can be hardwired into the Orks, why not communications into a Tau sub-species?

Somewhat supporting this is he fact that the Tau are so stupidly different to one another. Even in the early days, when they were still hunting on the plains and paddling on boats, the air caste had ing wings. Or, at the very least, proto-wings. The Tau are humanoid creatures, and it's implied that they have similar enough physiologies to us that they can eat much of the same food as us, yet the Incas and other mountain-dwellers never developed anything near the same level of difference to 'average' humans as the Tau did.

In fact, the Incas grew bulkier and stronger, not thinner and winged. Thin atmospheres need big lungs to get enough air in; small bodies are an advantage for hunters, as it allows them to set up ambushes unseen, bringing us to the fire caste. Sure, they were hunter-gatherers, but that doesn't excuse the genetic diversity they have to the rest of them. Our hunter-gatherers were healthier, but not bigger, bulkier and stronger than our civilised brethren.

Of course, this brings me on to the Ethereals. Now, it's described that there were bright lights before they appeared, which leads me to believe that the Ethereals were not aliens or anything like that, but normal Tau with dormant genes that could be triggerd via a specific visual code. The Ethereals were designed as last-ditch leaders; in the event that the Tau were close to wiping themselves out, the Ethereal gene could be triggered: my theory is that there was some sort of device designed to go off when those with the Ethereal genes were close to becoming extinct, and therefore most needed. The genes were somehow triggered, and the rest of the Tau were hard-wired to follow them.

So, what do you think of this idea? Has some merits? Completely barmy?

Its strongly implied the Eldar did it. Or at least that used to be the case. Go and read Xenology.

The Eldar are implicated (through Xenology) to have had a hand in the development of the Ethereals... but I don't think it hints strongly at the Eldar having created the Tau race itself.

The survival of any Old Ones is a fairly difficult story to swallow for many, given the sheer amount of time, the deadly nature of the warp, and how brightly a surviving Old One would shine to the dark denizens thereof.

Possible, but very unlikely.

Xenology is an odd duck, when it comes to its lore. Some of it is probably still decent, but among other things, it depicts an ethereal with toes rather than hooves...

In particular, the "Ethereals control Tau through their diamond gland that resembles a gland of an alien species, with stories about the Eldar stealing one of those glands" seems to be somewhat soft-retconned, at least in terms of the pheromone's efficacy - Shadowsun had begun to doubt the Ethereal's even while in their presence, and Farsight entered into the same room as no less than Aun'va himself (in Warzone Damocles: Mont'ka) without losing control, his wits, or his obstinency.

Overall, I could see a lone, surviving Old One making the Tau a pet project in his fight against Chaos, with limited bioengineering to create the distinct castes... but I'm not married to the concept, and real-world evolution aside, I don't have an issue with the Tau castes developing "naturally" as the Tau developed technologically, socially, and culturally.

The origin of the Ethereal caste seems intentionally shrouded in mystery, with a very real possibility for Eldar, Cegorach, the Deciever, a surviving Old One, or Eugenics leading to their introduction... an introduction itself shrouded in myth and legend, with parallels in my mind to the sort of historical revisionism you'd find in 1984.

See, that's the biggest flaw in this argument: Tau newness. Whilst it's hinted that a few old ones survived in hibernation somehow, but I take that with a pinch of salt. Similarily, Xenology is... an odd book. It's not known how much is actually canon anymore, and really, it's got a lot wrong with it. Of course, there is the potential that an old one went into the warp shortly before being killed, and then ending up millenia in the future without actually being in the warp for very long, but again, not likely.

Isn't Xenology non-cannon anymore? I liked that book a lot, but read somewhere that it basically dosen't hold up anymore, in terms of fluff viability.

Xenology is older fluff with some elements retconned... but I'd argue it isn't quite on the level of dubiousness you'd apply to, say, the original Rogue Trader fluff (helloooooo, half-eldar Ultramarine Librarian!), though it is on the cusp of getting there.

But like just about all of WH40k's accounts, I suspect the official answer is that it is no more or less canon than any other source of fluff, with the omnipresent caveat that it is merely a perspective of the universe and not to be taken as Truth (with that capital T).

Chalk the eccentricities and oddball theories to the mad ramblings of an obsessed, paranoid Inquisitor and a mentally unstable servant or two, welding together a string of myths that fit what he already wanted to see rather than describe the history of what actually happened.

The "fatal" flaw of this theory is, the Old Ones.

The Old Ones as a race who engineered their own "servants" ( Eldar + Orks ) and a mystery to the 40k verse as they had their time 60 million years ago ( according to the Necron/Necrontyr Background ) are maybe seen as the "go to" makers of new species.
Species which show a lot of artificial influence when looking closely at the different parts of them and ruled by leaders who "just showed up and took over" in one Day-Night Cycle...
But.
Having 1 Example doesn't mean there is only one capable of doing it.

The Story so far about the Old Ones beeing the "first into the stars" and taking their advantage to shape the Galaxy as they wanted , had a hard U-Turn when the Necrontyr got themselves some C'Tan "support".
The War reshaped the Empyrean, from a calm place to the Sea of Storms , it made the beeings rise who became the Big four of Chaos, it brought an enslaver Plague and the death of countless Psykers. It devastated the Galaxy and the Old Ones weren't listed as
fleeing or retreating but dead IIRC.

The Webway is a relic of the Old Ones isn't it?
The Eldar were part of the followers of the Old Ones, who fought against the Necrons.

The Capability of the Old Ones made Orks and Eldar possible...two builds who are Highly Visible in the Warp. Eldar are great prizes for chaos, Orks got Gork&Mork or Mork&Gork to keep Chaos away ( if those 4 "Gods" don't like some ..coming their way ).

Tau can not be really a "typical" Product of the Old ones if you consider this. Tau seem like a "natural" product of chance, influenced by outside sources.

Sure you could try to make the Tau some very very long term Plan , maturing far in the future to start without Enslavers around. But would they have to? Tau aren't such great psykers ...maybe extremly uninteresting for Enslavers.
And Necrons? Do Necrons care if your little project starts now or takes some Eons to begin ? Necrons aimed for Eternity, they choose the life as Necrons instead of Necrontyr to stay around forever. They got all the time they need to still be there when a "long term Plan comes to fruitition". Necrons also nearly won the War so undisputable that only one thing could stop them ( yes another case of ruining a good run themselves ) and the Galaxy recovered from the Events. Without Necrons or Old Ones attempting to control it.

Old Ones add some mystery to a story, yes, but isn't the "job" of such "ancient and nearly forgotten beeings" to spice up the Background but stay out of the daily buisness ?
Eldar worked for them and may remember a thing or two, they could also use something they found or rediscovered and didn't make themselves but trust because their former patrons the Old Ones made this?
Tau don't look like superawesome genetic engineering, like shaping new species from a piece of clay, more like someones used his/her parents gear and the equipment was sophisticated enough to make things viable without lots of experience.
A left over Old One, a lost and lonely creature isn't necessary IMHO.

In Xenology, Qah is an Old One who was active as recently as 300,000 years ago. Humans are stated to be a creation of the Old Ones, and we certainly haven't been around for 60 million years. In Horus Rising, space marines find a map of ancient Earth on an alien planet, and in Mechanicum the Emperor seemed to know something about what a C'Tan is when he fought the Dragon in a flashback. It was heavily implied that humanity and the Emperor were created by the Old Ones, with the Tau appearing after the Heresy, when the Emperor plan did not seem to work. Of course, 5th edition burned all those fine story threads and the beautiful tapestry they created.

I think it would be problematic to presume that the eldar and the orks are the only template of species-construction that the Old Ones used, nor would they be an appropriate template at the time the Tau race seemed to have developed (very very recently, on a galactic scale - and most importantly, developed AFTER the warp became the roiling sea of malignancy and death it is now).

In fact, if you were designing a species to not only survive in a universe with such a volatile warp, but to thrive in it and maaaaybe even calm that warp down, the Tau seem like they'd be nearly the perfect species to do so. Their extremely small warp presence means, as noted above, that warp predators (both demon and native species like Enslavers or mind worms) would have extreme difficulty in successfully hunting down and preying upon them.

Similarly, their small warp presence (and particularly the suppression of individuality and free will inherent to the Tau'va philosophy) may well help calm down the warp by replacing species with greater emotional variance and warp potency (and their consequently more volatile reflection in the warp).

The Eldar and the Krork were both designed with war in mind and during a time of a comparably peaceful warp to work within...

The Tau were developed(hypothetically) under very different circumstances, and so it would stand to reason that their design would reflect the circumstances they would find themselves in rather than the historical ones.

Beyond that, though at least some of the Tau's development may seem natural, there are elements that are not. As noted in Xenology (again, of difficult-to-ascertain levels of canon), the biology of the Tau is suggested to be advanced in some areas, "crude" in others, in ways that suggest external/non-natural modifications to their evolutionary path.

Along those lines, the Tau are also notably humanoid in ways that parallel to absurd degrees the humanoid nature of humans, eldar, and orks - all of which are suggested to be the result of Old One design and/or manipulation of the species. Xenology discusses this aspect, and that basic template is certainly not considered universal to the 40k universe, though I'm certainly not suggesting that any humanoid species is necessarily an Old One design - it's just a bit of extra evidence in support.


None of this definitively tells us the Old Ones had anything to do with it, but I don't think it's quite so easy to find "fatal" flaws in the theory as expressed above.

I'd disagree that the humanoid design means anything. Because what about Kroot, Demiurg, Tarellians, Vespids, ect? Unless the suggestion is that the Old Ones created all of these races, it's a tad meaningless.

I suspect the Old Ones created all of the humanoid species, either directly or indirectly through some kind of warp-based panspermia or warp-influenced 'parallel evolution'. We don't know how many races they created during the War in Heaven, but we also 'know' that some Old Ones have been active since, and may have a hand in exactly the same kind of meddling they were known for 60 million years ago.

Kroot are implied to get their humanoid design from massive consumption of Orks in their past - their original form (Kroot Hawks) is more bird-like, and not really humanoid at all.

And like I said, a humanoid design doesn't necessitate Old One creation, it's just some evidence that points towards it. Evidence doesn't have to be strong to have an effect, and this is admittedly somewhat weak evidence, but it should have at least some persuasive value (if the Magos in Xenology is correct).

Yeah, as Suspect says. Kroot are an easy one. Also, you have to think about how more animalish, less developed species like Jokearo might have hard-coding, but they're not bipedal.

Personally, I'm an advocate that all humanoid life in the universe was seeded by the Old Ones. It's a very neat explanation for that old sci-fi issue of why everyone we meet looks like us.

We know that the Old Ones seeded life throughout the galaxy, and were then destroyed during the War in Heaven. We don't know what timescales either of those events encompassed.

It could be that the ~60 million years inbetween the end of the War in Heaven and the advent of the Tau (or Humans as well) could have been a perfectly valid tactical manoeuvre in that conflict. It could have taken millions of years to uplift the Eldar and the Orks as fighting races.

Either that, or the conflict was a lot shorter than that (which I prefer), but that without the Old Ones the evolutionary process reverted to more a more natural timescale.

It could have taken decades to uplift the Eldar, and the seeds could have been planted for Humanity and the Tau, but with the Old Ones wiped out there's no-one to accelerate the process to a realistic timescale.

I do, however, think it's important for the variety in the universe, that not everything is created by the Old Ones.

The Kroot are an excellent example as described above, and other races such as the Vespid (not such a great example) and Nicassar can be far easier explained through slight convergent evolution.

Lastly, it could be that the heavily psychic races such as the Eldar, Orks and Humans were races designed specifically for war with the Necrons. Before the war, the Old Ones could have seeded life with a much looser link to the immaterium, but discovered it could be used as a weapon later.