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Made in gb
Cultist of Nurgle with Open Sores





Basically, in 40k nowadays we're seeing some serious changes to the lore. The Imperium is going through some major revitalizations with the Primus Marines, a new Primarch back and all this massive stuff. The Eldar as a whole now have a whole new faction and God of Death, and absolutely everything is different. I'll be honest, if 40k's committing to this, I kind of want to see this happen on a similar level to the other factions, and for most, it seems obvious the way to do so. Abaddon needs to have been shown to be free and untamed, with all the glorious changes having real-world basis can provide, like Chaos Empires rising up and an examination of what life's like in those rather than just have them as maddened raiders. The Orks need to finally start their great Green Krusade across the stars, with Ghazghkull terrorizing systems rather than failing to take single planets, and this leading to the possibilities that existed under the Beast. The Tyranids and Necrons... well, shoot, I don't know, something. I never particularly liked them,

But, the people I want to focus on are the T'au, and a possible way they could go. Although I've always loved them, a lot of the T'au doesn't really seem to fit in with its own concept, as its clear writers don't really know what way they want to go with it. Are the Ethereals brainwashed slaves of the Eldar made out of bugs? Are they benevolent, loving, perfect leaders? Are they Utilitarian leaders who'll do anything for the greater good? Or are they corrupt and out for themselves as much as any other? So, I have a potential path forward for the T'au to go down that would revitalize them and really set out a solid concept for them.

To stress, this isn't a retcon of the T'au lore. It wouldn't involve changing anything in T'au history (to my knowledge), but instead would be a new way for them to go from their current canonical status. As well as this, it's not just for a single T'au group of my guys, but instead, more of a revitalizing massive change for the T'au, something akin to Rowboat's Return or the Birth of Ynnead.

The main issues I have with the T'au are their general "theme", or lack thereof. The T'au did have a theme, basically "The Federation" in 40k, but that just didn't really fit the universe. However, attempts to grimdark this have ruined their uniqueness. So, you want to make the multi-racial alliance more evil? Oh, there's a bunch of fun ways you could do that, such a.. oh, you just made them more racist, treating non-T'au like second class citizens? Terrific. Way to give them the same evil trait as the Imperium, racism towards other species. Oh, and the Orks. Oh, and the Eldar. Oh, and the Necron. Not every faction needs to have their darkness expressed through racism, but other than that, no one really seems to know where we're going with them.

I'd say most ways people seem to want to push the T'au are already kind of taken. Spiritual, benevolent leaders leading highly trained, well armed soldiers? That's pretty much a nicer view of the Eldar. Corrupt leaders out for themselves leading large armies of shooty, kinder troops? The Imperial Guard's got that. What I want is to explore some of the cooler things T'au have. The T'au are the only race that's properly exploring AI technology extensively, but unfortunately that's only seeming to be implied in the boring ways, like drones. That, and a bigger push towards the Utilitarianism as an ideology.

Basically, the idea I have it that the T'au hit a point where their AIs rapidly advance. An AI designed to help run the growing T'au Empire basically achieves sentience, and takes over akin to SKYNET. However, I don't want this to be a generic Evil AI takes over and is evil, but instead kind of a Zeroth Law rebellion. The AI, which I'll name ARES, realizes that it would be able to fulfil its goals, namely protecting the Empire and its citizens, if it were in charge, as the leaders of the Empire simply aren't nearly as efficient as an amazing AI in charge of everything. So, it takes over.

This immediately gives excuses for T'au on T'au combat, when even Farsight vs Ethereals doesn't make that much sense, since Farsight isn't anti-T'au. Ethereal remnants combating the ARES-led T'au. It also pushes their leaders into a cool zone as this massive AI rather than the Ethereals, who don't have anything going for them. The T'au forces themselves don't have to change that much, just with perhaps newer models becoming increasingly cybernetic. It could also explain why the T'au haven't really. Of course, this wouldn't need to be reflected in stats, because while these would improve the units, it wouldn't push them far enough to be, say, Space Marine level or to jump up a level in whatever stat.

I think a benevolent AI leading the T'au Empire would be good for a lot of reasons, namely, the following:
1. It would explain how the T'au Empire are able to hold together a growing Empire of its size, where all other empires are more pseudo-confederacies of many different nations, like the Imperium, ruled by a group with an iron fist but only enforcing shockingly few rules.
2. It would allow the T'au to push away from the tribalistic, religious nature where the atheist, advanced people are still led by Space Popes in a tribalistic schemework.
3. It would give the T'au a cool leader figure akin to their own Emperor, who would be incredibly unique for the world. Hell, it could even be akin to the Swarmlord, where an avatar of it fights and can be killed by Space Marines to make them look badass.
4. It actually allows the T'au to change and advance in a major, rational way without just having them have culturally stayed the same the past while.
5. It allows us to examine AIs, something we haven't done before. The only AIs really brought up in 40k are the Men of Iron, who I think should be confined to myth and lore, and the Dark Mechanicus' works, but they tend to just focus on making daemonic war machines than badass AIs.
6. It could finally allow an excuse for the T'au to get FTL. Maybe ARES is able to calculate wormhole formation that can be utilized by the T'au, but can't be utilized by other factions who haven't advanced enough in this field.
7. It could examine more of an alien mindset of the greater good rather than dealing with T'au leaders, without, who, let's face it, are generic sci-fi humans in every way, except painted blue. This could show in places like ARES just having the populations permanently drugged in more of a nod to the T'au's brave new world thing, where the population is constantly doped up but super happy because of it.
8. It leaves the "Nice but secretly maybe evil, pseudo religious and staff wielding leaders" to the Eldar and gives the T'au their own thing.
9. It could allow for an end to the generic racism of the T'au, since not all factions have to be racist to be Grimdark. The AI overlord does not care what race you are, only how you can benefit the Greater Good.
10. Robots are awesome and we should have more of them rather than whatever else.

So, what do you guys think? A cool and fresh way that the T'au could be taken? An idea that might work for a T'au subfaction? An idea for an entirely new faction? A complete load of gibberish T'au fanfiction? A Wardian nightmare that ruins the T'au? Please, I'd love to hear any and all opinions.
   
Made in gb
Stealthy Grot Snipa






UK

I can dig it, some nice ideas there

Skinflint Games- war gaming in the age of austerity

https://skinflintgames.wordpress.com/

 
   
Made in gb
Morphing Obliterator






Like with most of the factions/lore: rewind the clock and start again. Change "T'au" Empire back to Tau Empire, take out riptides, reintroduce the coalition of numerous xenos empires coming together in a federation, and represent that in the models in place of riptides, etc. Ditch the silly 40 year lifespan. Have the first and second sphere expansions include greater success/territory - therefore greater scope for conflicts with any/all other factions.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/08/19 00:36:15


Homebrew Imperial Guard: 1222nd Etrurian Lancers (Winged); Special Air-Assault Brigade (SAAB)
Homebrew Chaos: The Black Suns; A Medrengard Militia (think Iron Warriors-centric Blood Pact/Sons of Sek) 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka




I think if you have AI reach the point of overthrowing things then some should be in it for themselves. There's no point adding an interesting new sub faction then doing nothing with them outside one of their characters.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
Made in fr
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks





France

Eldars aren't nice but secretely evil, they are openly selfish and sometime nice if it help them

Robots and AI are generic sci fi, 40k is not.

But Anfauglir pretty much summed it up: go baaaack

   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





West Michigan, deep in Whitebread, USA

It would certainly be interesting, as for most of the factions existence the Tau either have stagnated, or simply had "Tau" versions of what all the other races have. Used to be they would have completely scoffed at any suit larger than a Broadside, as their air superiority (something that for a while made them unique save but for Eldar) meant they could always call in support. But then GW started requiring that all armies have giant models to put on the battlefield, which true aircraft can't really do. So Tau basically got their own Knights.

So far I think after their original design origins, no one has ever been willing to take the Tau (all the way) into truly unique areas.

From what I understand, the Tau only felt truly unique in Epic for the short time FW supported them, when you could have flights of Barricudas and the like screaming in and taking down other races ground-born superheavies, and lots of flight-worthy transports letting infantry move FAST across the battlefield. But technically even then Eldar covered most of the same areas tactically.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/08/19 21:47:55




"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."  
   
Made in nl
Elite Tyranid Warrior




I like it a lot. Two things I'm wondering about:

Would this make the Tau a larger/higher priority target for the Imperium, as AI is heresy? If yes, what's to stop the Tau from being crushed?

Would this AI overlord be vulnerable to Chaos (scrap code)?

It could be interesting if smaller parts of the AI could fall. Maybe it sends a smaller, local back-up along with space fleets, because they'll travel out of space WiFi range. The first of these expeditions didn't have scrap code protection as the AI hadn't encountered chaos yet. That AI was corrupted, leading to an evil chaos cyborg Tau subfaction. This might be going a bit too much in the AdMech's direction though.
   
Made in ca
Commander of the Mysterious 2nd Legion





I don't think you need to go back to expand the federation aspect of the Tau, I do think the current edition however features some wonderful oppertunities. back when the Tau where introduced the idea seemed to be giving Tau differant units of differant aliens, a good diea but for heavy stuff you'd run the risk of the Tau turning into "the good guy commie Tyranids" or the army lacking a unifiying aestetic as each vehicle was from a differant race. but now that we have ally rules etc, there's a LOT of potential. rather then the entire Tau Empire being represented in one codex, you can khave the Tau codex focus on the Tau, and then have Codex: Kroot, Codex: Vespid, Codex: Demiurg etc.

Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two 
   
Made in gb
Morphing Obliterator






shortymcnostrill wrote:
Would this make the Tau a larger/higher priority target for the Imperium, as AI is heresy? If yes, what's to stop the Tau from being crushed?

The exact same thing that's stopping them being crushed in their original/current fluff. The same thing that's stopping the Eldar, or Dark Eldar being crushed. Namely, the IoM's utter lack of capability to devote the required time, energy and resources against a singular, relatively far-off and relatively mild galactic threat. By the time the Tau became a bothersome blip on the farthest edge of the IoM's radar, this problem was exacerbated further by the arrival of Tyranids a couple years later (745.M41) and then the rise of Necrons not long after that (EDIT: 897.M41). Between then and 999.M41, things would only get more and more strained and desperate for the IoM and its resources, while the Tau would spread and grow.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/08/20 22:29:00


Homebrew Imperial Guard: 1222nd Etrurian Lancers (Winged); Special Air-Assault Brigade (SAAB)
Homebrew Chaos: The Black Suns; A Medrengard Militia (think Iron Warriors-centric Blood Pact/Sons of Sek) 
   
 
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