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I read at 1d4chan, that

[...]the population of a single city shocked an Tau ambassador because the city's population was greater than the entirety of the Tau species [...]

I know 1d4chan is not the best source of fluff, therefore I wanted to ask if that is cannon or not?

And if so: is there any mentioning about the thoughts the etherals or the rest of the Tau leadership have regarding that? I mean by now they should have realized that it is not unlikely that in the near future/during the next sphere of expansion a hive world or maybe even a couple of them is willing/convinced to join the greater good. If they integrate them, the Gue'vesa would outnumber the Tau (species) within the Tau empire (political body). And since they are usually allowed to keep their faith as long as it does not conflict with the greater good this could also mean that a majority of the Tau Empires subjects would be religious.
Do they intent to delay such planets from joining until the Tau birth rate has catched up (if that is even possible)? Do they plan some kind of population planning like Chinas one-child-policy? I read that there is some mentioning of Tau sterilizing rebellious human populations, but that seems to be of dubious cannon-compliance. Or do they not even see this as a problem as long as everyone follows the greater good?

I don't want this to turn into a Tau bashing-or-blessing thread, I'm just interested if this issue is discussed at all from a Tau perspective somewhere in the fluff.

Its in one of the Last Chancer novels iirc.

Some amongst the Tau understand the scale of the Imperium and are horrified = others just think is means it will take longer - manifest destiny style thinking.

I would've thought at least some would go into denial about the size of the Imperium.

They will go into denial. Tau are naive and foolish race, because they have short lifespans. They are biologically incapable of being wise, because they do not have time in order to build up necessary perspective, experiences and knowledge. Thus it is unlikely they will choose a wise course of action and just continue with their current strategy of slowly shipping Imperium away. Though, they never had conquered Imperial Hive before (minus GW lore raping). It is easy to digest a world with a billion inhabitants. It is another matter all-together when we are talking about Hive Worlds or manufacturing worlds. Never ending cities, skyscrapers being built upon of skyscrapers to the point that surface of a planet is no longer a starting building block, but rather "floor is made of lava" kind of game. Where you literally built new real estate on an existing building if you want to expand. This kind of technology, organization and capacity is way beyond anything Tau had ever seen or handled.

@ Ernestas: but is this canon? In a sense that it is written down somewhere in the codex or in a black library novel?

A lot of Tau ARE in denial, they belive the vast size of the IoM is pure propaganda. I suspect a lot of their senior military leaders suspect the truth, but the civilian leadership is likely hopped up on, as Mordon said, manifest destiny.

Pyroalchi wrote:
@ Ernestas: but is this canon? In a sense that it is written down somewhere in the codex or in a black library novel?

Short lifespans? Yes. Deniability? Yes. Tau are short lived and their strategy was of long term expansion as revised after Damocles Crusade. I'm not familiar with newest lore, so something might had changed meantime. Though, I would not rely on something being explicitly said. GW is known to create simply nonsensical fluff quite often, because majority of their writers are quite bad.

Well its worth pointing out that the Tau Dont really need numbers to maintain control. The Tau are without a shadow of a doubt the most lets go with valuable species per capita. By that I mean a combination of redicoulous levels automation and a absurdly effective education ensures that every Sept world has the economic output of a hive world with 1/10000th the population. Who needs 200 billion humans working in hive manufacturium when you could have 10 thousand Earth Caste over see 200 Billion robots. And the robots dont need to sleep. Throughout the lore the Tau have been consistently shown to be a borderline post scarcity society. Thats likely entirely due to there automation. Now its possible one day some dumbass Earth Caste will decide to make a fully intelligent AI and begin the Tau on the path of the DOAT humanity or maybe they wont. Either way we wont know for at least a couple Millennium.

@ Chimera: as you seem to be quite familiar with Tau lore according to some other posts: do you know of sources were the etherals or Tau leadership consider the possibility and consequences of incorporating human hive worlds? Is this ignored in the background like so much other stuff or do they have an opinion on the possible scenario of human majority in the Tau empire population?

You state that they don't need numbers to maintain control and in another post you mentioned the Tau (political fraction) valueing the lifes of their client races as highly as those of Tau (species). Are there considerations what that would mean for the greater good as concept if "the greater good" could become more of "what is good for our humans" than "what is good for our Tau"?
Imagine theTau (political fraction) would have to choose between defending a Tau (race) sept world OR a Gue'vesa hive world where every hive might well be populated by more humans than Tau (species) in the whole empire because they cannot do both, wouldn't they have to choose the Gue'vesa?
This is not meant provocative or in an attempt to make the Tau look bad or good. I'm just interested if these considerations are officially done by the Tau protagonists in the background and what their conclusions are.

Pyroalchi wrote:

Imagine theTau (political fraction) would have to choose between defending a Tau (race) sept world OR a Gue'vesa hive world where every hive might well be populated by more humans than Tau (species) in the whole empire because they cannot do both, wouldn't they have to choose the Gue'vesa?
This is not meant provocative or in an attempt to make the Tau look bad or good. I'm just interested if these considerations are officially done by the Tau protagonists in the background and what their conclusions are.

This literally already happened. The entire Damocles crusade was a punitive expedition by the Imperium against Gue'vesa worlds that had been convinced by the Water Caste to abandon the Imperium. The Tau defended every one of them (largely unsuccessfully, but they committed significant resources in the effort).

@ Sterling: I lack background knowledge there but did they "just" decide to defend those human colonies or did they really gave preference to a Gue'vesa planet INSTEAD of a Tau planet because the former had a larger population?
There is a big difference between the two. Also in that case it seemed to have been a thread level low enough that they could commit those forces without being forced to exploit other regions of their empire to a foe.

Just to be more clear: I know that they defend the planets of their client races, but have there been situations were they had to choose between those and their own (meaning Tau populated) and made this decision based on population numbers? Or is there mentioning about these considerations being made?
Given that they have been attacked by Orks, Tyranids, Imperium and Dark Eldar (Pech at least) in the recent past and are not far from Necrons either it is not unlikely that a time might come were two foes attack simulatanously and they might be forced to prioritize one front because trying to defend everything means defending nothing, isn't it?

Pyroalchi wrote:
@ Sterling: I lack background knowledge there but did they "just" decide to defend those human colonies or did they really gave preference to a Gue'vesa planet INSTEAD of a Tau planet because the former had a larger population?
There is a big difference between the two. Also in that case it seemed to have been a thread level low enough that they could commit those forces without being forced to exploit other regions of their empire to a foe.

Just to be more clear: I know that they defend the planets of their client races, but have there been situations were they had to choose between those and their own (meaning Tau populated) and made this decision based on population numbers? Or is there mentioning about these considerations being made?
Given that they have been attacked by Orks, Tyranids, Imperium and Dark Eldar (Pech at least) in the recent past and are not far from Necrons either it is not unlikely that a time might come were two foes attack simulatanously and they might be forced to prioritize one front because trying to defend everything means defending nothing, isn't it?

I dont think theyve ever been put in such a situation yet. There empire is too small and there forces too concentrated for them to have been put in a situation where they couldnt at least divert SOME forces to defend or at least evacuate a world. The tau have a even higher level of militarization then even the imperium. Keep in mind over 25 percent of there population is devoted to warfare. The entirety of the Fire Caste and the bulk of the Air Caste. So far they seem to have always had enough forces to go around. Presumably if they were put in situations they would defend witchever planet had the highest population and strategic value regardless of race.

chimera0205 wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:
@ Sterling: I lack background knowledge there but did they "just" decide to defend those human colonies or did they really gave preference to a Gue'vesa planet INSTEAD of a Tau planet because the former had a larger population?
There is a big difference between the two. Also in that case it seemed to have been a thread level low enough that they could commit those forces without being forced to exploit other regions of their empire to a foe.

Just to be more clear: I know that they defend the planets of their client races, but have there been situations were they had to choose between those and their own (meaning Tau populated) and made this decision based on population numbers? Or is there mentioning about these considerations being made?
Given that they have been attacked by Orks, Tyranids, Imperium and Dark Eldar (Pech at least) in the recent past and are not far from Necrons either it is not unlikely that a time might come were two foes attack simulatanously and they might be forced to prioritize one front because trying to defend everything means defending nothing, isn't it?

I dont think theyve ever been put in such a situation yet. There empire is too small and there forces too concentrated for them to have been put in a situation where they couldnt at least divert SOME forces to defend or at least evacuate a world. The tau have a even higher level of militarization then even the imperium. Keep in mind over 25 percent of there population is devoted to warfare. The entirety of the Fire Caste and the bulk of the Air Caste. So far they seem to have always had enough forces to go around. Presumably if they were put in situations they would defend witchever planet had the highest population and strategic value regardless of race.

Necrons have "harvested" at least one Tau planet.

The choice as to planets to defend is going to be down to the personality of the Etherial and if he/she listens to their military advisors.

In another recent tau thread a poster mentioned the Tau chose to defend the Kroot homeworld while several Tau worlds were also under attack.

Yes, but according to the size of their response I would argue, that the level of necessary involvement was so low, that it was quite a no-brainer.

According to the online Lexicanum their response on the Dark Eldar Raid threatening to hunt Pech clean was:

The Tau, fiercely defensive of their empire’s mercenary allies, counter-invade in force by mobilizing twelve Hunter Cadres to scour the jungle clean.

and the size of those hunter caders:

Averaging slightly more than fifty Tau, with some numbering up to a hundred in total, Hunter Cadres are roughly analogous to an Imperial Guard Company

So in other words they deployed between 600-1200 troops + Vehicles. That is barely a very small imperial guard regiment.

I can't find numbers online for there response as as

In 919999.M41 a lone Tyranid bio-ship of Hive Fleet Gorgon, disgorged its vile swarms upon Pech

(also from the Lexicanum)
but maybe someone else can?



Anyway, as my initial question goes it seems that there is currently no official lore on Tau Protagonists argueing over the possibility of a future human majority within the empire. It would still make for an interesting short story I guess

Sterling191 wrote:

Pyroalchi wrote:

Imagine theTau (political fraction) would have to choose between defending a Tau (race) sept world OR a Gue'vesa hive world where every hive might well be populated by more humans than Tau (species) in the whole empire because they cannot do both, wouldn't they have to choose the Gue'vesa?
This is not meant provocative or in an attempt to make the Tau look bad or good. I'm just interested if these considerations are officially done by the Tau protagonists in the background and what their conclusions are.

This literally already happened. The entire Damocles crusade was a punitive expedition by the Imperium against Gue'vesa worlds that had been convinced by the Water Caste to abandon the Imperium. The Tau defended every one of them (largely unsuccessfully, but they committed significant resources in the effort).

I have never read anything like that, is there any novel about that ? The old Damocles crusade were a few space and orbital battles followed by cleansing of minor badly defended Tau colonies and then the big Dalyth campaign. Could be interesting if they had actually committed to the defense of their new guevasa worlds after all

I had heard that the Kroot was nearly wiped out by Dark Eldar. Well, they are too amusing to be wiped out. Lets consider it, Kroot was "convinced" to join Dark Eldar society.

Also, twelve hunter cadres are just symbolic response. It is a diplomatic saying: feth you, we don't give a gak about you. Fight for yourself.

As far as I read it was "just" the Kroot on Pech and they seem to settle on several worlds.
I'm not that sure about the numbers meaning though, we might interpret to much into it, as GW is often very wrong with their numbers. Reading about some of the battles in the main book I always wonder about the relatively small numbers of guardsmen deployed, as the usually are listed in the range of 10th of regiments which would mean something in the range of 100.000 -500.000 people, which is quite few when it comes to battles like Armageddon etc.
It might as well be the same here were the autor intended to send 12 units the size of big Guard regiments and was to lazy to look up the size of a hunter cadre. At least that would make more sense if this response is mentioned as "in force".

 Ernestas wrote:
They will go into denial. Tau are naive and foolish race, because they have short lifespans. They are biologically incapable of being wise, because they do not have time in order to build up necessary perspective, experiences and knowledge. Thus it is unlikely they will choose a wise course of action and just continue with their current strategy of slowly shipping Imperium away. Though, they never had conquered Imperial Hive before (minus GW lore raping). It is easy to digest a world with a billion inhabitants. It is another matter all-together when we are talking about Hive Worlds or manufacturing worlds. Never ending cities, skyscrapers being built upon of skyscrapers to the point that surface of a planet is no longer a starting building block, but rather "floor is made of lava" kind of game. Where you literally built new real estate on an existing building if you want to expand. This kind of technology, organization and capacity is way beyond anything Tau had ever seen or handled.

They are going to be about as wise as humans, whilst their lifespan is short (40 years or so), they only need to spend 1 hour in 10 sleeping compared to 1 in 3 for humans. So the amount of waking experience a T'au has is going to be similar to a human in a similar role.

maybe but true wisdom doesn't come from how many hours you spend doing data entry at work, it depends on your ability to step back and see the impact of your actions long term. Tau are, on average, proably even more short sighted then humans are. (your average Tau mind you is NOT the one running their empire)

That says nothing. There are humans who need to sleep 4 hours in 24 hour period. There are ones who need 12 hours to rest. If someone sleeps little it only means that they struggle to process information which they receive at deep level. Thus their comprehension can only be shallow and they will require repeating same information time and time again to grasp finer, deeper points of it.


Tau seems to be effectively handicapped in learning potential. They are superior than their foes until we reach a very high level. Tau pilots seem to be decisively beaten by experienced human pilots in the air. Tau does not possses absolutely terryfying froms that humans possess. Assassinorum is a good example at just how superior human form is.


I do believe that lack of sleep is a reason why they die so young. Their bodies do not have time to self repair. This is why they need to be ordered in castes to function. While humans have long lifespan to grow, to learn and to play. Tau has no time for it. The moment they born, they quickly develop into tools. Their minds gather vast quantities of information, but due to pace of it and lack of any experience outside their work, it makes Tau incapable of gaining a perspective. Of functioning in unpredictable and dynamic environment. Even more, it makes them unable to make wise decisions and thus they are forced to merely follow a script. It is also a reason why Imperium's best strategist are said to come from paradise worlds.

BrianDavion wrote:
maybe but true wisdom doesn't come from how many hours you spend doing data entry at work, it depends on your ability to step back and see the impact of your actions long term. Tau are, on average, proably even more short sighted then humans are. (your average Tau mind you is NOT the one running their empire)

I'd say the average human is going to see a lot more data entry work and lead a more rigorously defined life focused on one task. A T'au is brought up to understand how their role fits into the larger picture, and use to the concept of their role in a larger system rather than having any thoughts outside their remit stamped down hard for fear of heresy. The fact humans fall to chaos more readily is clearly a sign that we're more prone to obsession than a Tau is.

I would say that Tau manages what they do is because of their Caste system. We humans can become anything. So at school we go for as varied of curriculum as possible. In Tau society, you are born into a caste. This pre-determines job type. Tau can effectively replace 12 years of human schooling with profession specific schooling. Combine this with communism, lack of entertainment and freedom with Tau's natural ability to require less sleep and you have a race which can mature into a very specialized tools. Doctorate in human society will know A LOT about stuff unrelated to his own education while doctorate in Tau society will know very little which is unrelated to his own narrow field of interest.


Lets look it from another angle. Eldar are considered as very smart and long lived and yet they take very long time to become an aspect warrior. Consider this with Tau where 4 years of experience is enough to be considered as an elite and command a battlesuit. 4 years are short even by space marines basic training standards. Brain is capable of becoming extremely good at anything, but it requires a lot of time and practice to learn things. Tau can learn things quicker, but also they tend to be shallow learners. As Tau can't match wisdom and experience which comes with age to veteran Imperial personnel so does Imperial authorities are just mere children to Eldar who were maturing and practicing their field of expertise probably for longer than human in question was even alive!


Now, if only we could make those bloody elves to hump each other...

To be honest, Ernestas, your posts in this thread to me sound more like head canon. Yes, their lifespan is short, but everything you make out of it seems constructed. Do you have any source for this?
At least the part about communism and lack of entertainment and freedom seems to deny actual fluff. That being said, they either have communism OR lack of freedom, but that would go into a political debate. What we know from Tau codizes is that their society is rather liberal, with some shadow government of the ethereals in the back and their caste system putting them into position. Again, Caste system and communism are also things that contradict each other, Tau being "communist" is basically nothing more than an internet meme or a misunderstanding of the "Greater Good" (and communism).

To be fair, even we cannot fathom how large a hive city is. A decent-sized one houses ten times the population of the entire Earth.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
To be honest, Ernestas, your posts in this thread to me sound more like head canon. Yes, their lifespan is short, but everything you make out of it seems constructed. Do you have any source for this?
At least the part about communism and lack of entertainment and freedom seems to deny actual fluff. That being said, they either have communism OR lack of freedom, but that would go into a political debate. What we know from Tau codizes is that their society is rather liberal, with some shadow government of the ethereals in the back and their caste system putting them into position. Again, Caste system and communism are also things that contradict each other, Tau being "communist" is basically nothing more than an internet meme or a misunderstanding of the "Greater Good" (and communism).

Because it is. It is logical explanation which we arrive to if we try to think about the universe logically. It is either what I had presented or we have to conclude that Tau are inherently smartest race. Smarter than humans or Eldar individually. Why? Because humans and Eldars take a lot longer to get good at their respective areas while Tau can do the same with a lot less of everything. They have a lot shorter lifespans, but they can get just as wise and intelligent as hundred years old Imperial official. Space marines needed 5 years to turn a human to novice space marine which STILL has to fight for a decade as a scout to be worthy of a honor to become a full battle brother. Tau? Nah, basic training, survive 4 years in combat and you are basically considered the elite Tau warrior and are granted shiny new robot suit. If we assume that both, Space Marine and an elite cadre warrior operates on similar levels of experience and skill then we have to ask, why we humans and space marines are so dumb dumb dumb.

 Ernestas wrote:
Tau pilots seem to be decisively beaten by experienced human pilots in the air.

Similar to how Luftwaffe pilots cut a bloody swathe in British pilots during the Blitz, despite both forces fielding young people, because 40-50yo experienced people make bad fighter pilots. The difference was Luftwaffe's individual pilot experience in two air campaigns and (for individual combat) better doctrine. They still lost, because RAF could replace fighter planes faster than the Luftwaffe, and had better strategic planning despite less experience.
Unlike simple animals, sentient beings can fall back on previous experience, and at some point, on written information from the past, and age is not guarantee of wisdom- a 70 year old alzheimers sufferer (Imperium of Man, currently smearing it's waste on the walls of Galaxy) is not wiser than a 25yo with all their faculties there.

In W41k it literally is. 10 thousand year old individuals break finest citadels in Imperium with contemptuous ease. Anything that Imperium can bring to bear is so beneath them that they are wondering if one of the major Imperial strongholds have ANY opponents worth fighting. Any ingenious and clever trick by the defenders are instantly figured out and countered even before Imperial troops committed to it themselves. Their old and senile nature is reflected in a way that such people live in the past more than in the present. They reflect upon their immense experience, every symbol, every word for them carries millenia long story. Listen to "Long War" novel by Andy Hoare. it has a great example at how such extreme age impacts individual.

The number of those 10000 years old people is miniscule, their impact (ignoring the heroic nature of 40k setting) on overall scheme of things would be equally miniscule. They can only crack one citadel at a time after all. It doesn't hurt that their opponent, the Imperium, is also just as backward-looking, and so dogmatic in it's behavior that they might as well be fighting a fleshy computer, the kind without any sort of self-improving capacity. Which is the major difference between tau (and tyranids and orks ironically) and the other forces- they're the ones that have the mental faculties to review and adapt based on new information, while every other species in 40k is so obsessed with past and "golden age" they're culturally incapable of it to any large extent. So while yes, this small amount of very old characters might benefit from their experience in direct contact situation, the cultures they have fostered are inflexible and do not learn from mistakes.Which is kind of the whole theme of 40k to begin with.

So, do years of experience and honed skills through millenia add up over years or not?