Cultist of Nurgle with Open Sores
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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.
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