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Ok, title says it all really, but with the way the Tau Empire is expanding (3rd sphere, now 4th and 5th which I'm vague on the time frame of since they retconned the 100 year time gap between Guilliman returning and the Indomitus Crusade down to 10 years), how much of the population of the Tau Empire consists of the Tau themselves? Between allied species, captured Imperium worlds, and so on, it just feels like they at this point might not even be a majority. After all, a single captured Hive World would add like 25 billion people to the empire on the low end (as well as requiring the logistics to maintain said population).
I remember in one of the Last Chancers books, the main character offhand notes his homeworld had 25 billion people on it or the like and the Tau he was speaking to were aghast at such numbers, exclaiming that the planet alone outnumbered an entire sept at the time.
A bit of an addition to the first question, but with its constant rate of expansion, has there been any lore notes on strains on the logistics of the Tau Empire? In olden times it always came across to me that their baseline troopers and so on were better equipped than their Imperium equivalent largely due to having such short supply lines compared to them. It just seems that if the empire grows too fast, one of its biggest issues would be on the supply side of things combined with a lower percentage of their core species controlling a larger population of allied or conquered species. I honestly think an interesting way to go with the Tau would be to focus on the hardships and hiccups they are encountering due to expanding too fast for their logistics to keep up and semi depending on captured Imperial worlds to produce tons of lasguns, etc as a stopgap while they work to play catch up.
I don't think we have hard and fast numbers on population percentages. Which, given GW's track record with exact numbers, is probably for the best. We *do* know that they've occassionally sterilized allied populations, so it's possible there's a move to keep the tau numbers relatively high. We also never seem to have a *shortage* of tau in any of the stories that feature them. So they're far from a rarity.
As for logistics, the tau seem to be big on making sure each region they expand to is relatively self-sufficient. Where the imperium will highly specialize worlds both for the sake of "efficiency" and as a form of control (good luck rebelling as the bullet planet if all your food comes from the food planet), the tau seem to like having worlds in close proximity that can support eachothers weaknesses and supply each world with the tech to shore up those weaknesses in the first place. We see some of this in the Farsight novels when they discuss the tau worlds present in the Farsight enclaves.
The Shadowsun novel shows her dealing with some problems around a 4th sphere region. Despite some pressure being applied by a chaos warband, they still seem to have plenty of food, ammo, and medicine (albeit with a limited ability to generate a new medicine called for by the plot) as well as plenty of tau presence alongside the humans, kroot, fungus folk, and flatbears.
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
Well, they’re definitely a comfortable majority in their own wee empire. This is mostly due to their society being the most organised of them and the vassals we know about.
On the sterilising vassals. Can someone remind me where that’s from? It’s my recollection too, but having recently rewatched SG1, I worry it’s a fan theory based on an episode of that show, and has never been stated or hinted at from an official source.
But. In terms of potential population? Here on Earth, right now? Around 8.2bn smelly hoomans. And contrary to popular belief and without getting political? We can collectively sustain that population if goodies were distributed evenly, including technology and farming techniques.
I bring that up because of The Greater Good, which is at least socialist, if not outright communist. But thanks to the Caste system, it seems unemployment will be virtually unknown (though I accept there’ll be examples for each caste being really awful at their allotted tasks).
That means their home world alone may well support a larger population than Modern Day Earth, even before we factor in reliable internal trade routes and that.
But we also don’t know (and I don’t particularly care to know) a great deal about their reproduction rates. Us smelly hoomans? Well we have a 9 month gestation. And only a certain period of reliable fertility and low risk pregnancy. And so we can model likely population growth taking that and many other factors into account.
But if the Tau achieve reproductive maturity earlier and have a shorter gestation period, and it’s the same across Castes? Add in presumably universal healthcare as part and parcel of the Greater Good, and we could be looking at a significantly higher birth rate.
What I do recall is that individual Tau are comparatively short lived. Which may very well mean they reach reproductive maturity fairly early on.
On that and to add a certain element of horror? Can we rule out them reproducing via technology, either as an option or a preference? As in all females have their eggs harvested, to be fertilised and artificially gestated as and when? Because again that’s gonna impact population growth and potentially speed it up.
Also, on feeding a population? The Greater Good may mean they’re less fussy about what’s for dinner than you or I might be. Whereas I would try fried insects just for the experience, I’d take even a McDonalds over that any day of the week, and proper tasty Curries, Pizza or Steak as a preference. But for Tau? The Greater Good may very well inform their palette.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also worth pointing out that despite it not always feeling like it, especially in an urban area? Our population density isn’t too bad.
Heck, Britain is fairly small country wise, yet has a fairly dense population of around 67m people. And we still have a large amount of open space, national parks etc. Heck, there are huge areas of Scotland and Wales all but unpopulated.
But even if we allow 8bn per Tau world, and say, 100 worlds? That’s 800,000,000,000 Tau knocking about, not including orbitals or any capacity to terraform crappy areas (deserts!) to further increase areas where it’s pretty easy to live. And so we’re likely looking well into a trillion at least.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/08/21 23:38:10
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Oh, I wasn't trying to imply that the population was small by any means. I was just thinking, if between 3 expansion spheres in a relatively short period of time takes enough worlds, we might be looking at a situation where Tau might be like 48% of the population of their own empire just because they captured a few hive worlds, a few random alien worlds, and maybe had one of their own worlds eaten by Tyranids/ravaged by Orks in the meantime. A single hive world won't suddenly make humans the majority member of the empire, but two or three hive worlds with like 50 billion people on them could quite possibly shift the number of humans up between like 3 and 9% of the population.
I've also heard that sterilization thing, but not sure where and if its an official thing or not. Though depending on the timeframe of those stories, it might be moot as the populations wouldn't have had time to die off yet.
On logistics I kind of more meant in terms of supplying newly captured worlds and integrating them wholly, as well as them being on the offensive since they are an expansionist power. Also just another point of bringing up hive worlds, if they capture one, they will need to figure out how to maintain it via food imports etc. Unless they find a way to make them food secure after thousands of years of ruining the planet's biosphere outside of the hives themselves.
Sterilizing I believe comes from the victory reel for Dawn of War Dark Crusade:
It's not outright said to be the case, but presumed by the narrator. It's also one of those bits of lore that can be 100% correct, but might only have been undertaken on this specific system/world. When you deal with 40K lore one of the tricky points is even a small faction like the Tau are still incredibly huge.
Many things can be true at the same time even if they are polar opposites; just because they happen at different ends of the Empire under different local leaders and pressures. They can also vary through time; whilst a lot of lore is often presented either without specific dates or only rough dates. And that's before GW shift them around a bit and fans often forget the dates so it all becomes one big melting pot of things.
Regarding reproduction rates, we get some indirect hints about it in one of the short stories featuring Shadowsun. Basically, her dad dies and she's given the option to basically retire to go home and make babies to continue her esteemed family line. Obviously she opts to keep kicking butt on the battlefield instead. In that story, it talks about her sisters and what they've been up to. I think she had two, maybe three sisters in total. So tau reproductive rates seem to be at least comparable to human ones. I believe she's already a commander in that story, so presumably this is a decent way into her career but prior to getting frozen (as at least one of her sisters is still alive iirc). If anyone remembers any of the details about how long she and her peers trained on the mountainside, that could probably give us a reasonable guesstimate of how old she was when she was being offered retirement.
But generally, it sounds like tau reproduction is pretty comparable to that of humans.
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
Wyldhunt wrote: Regarding reproduction rates, we get some indirect hints about it in one of the short stories featuring Shadowsun. Basically, her dad dies and she's given the option to basically retire to go home and make babies to continue her esteemed family line. Obviously she opts to keep kicking butt on the battlefield instead. In that story, it talks about her sisters and what they've been up to. I think she had two, maybe three sisters in total. So tau reproductive rates seem to be at least comparable to human ones. I believe she's already a commander in that story, so presumably this is a decent way into her career but prior to getting frozen (as at least one of her sisters is still alive iirc). If anyone remembers any of the details about how long she and her peers trained on the mountainside, that could probably give us a reasonable guesstimate of how old she was when she was being offered retirement.
But generally, it sounds like tau reproduction is pretty comparable to that of humans.
That still leaves a lot of questions. How quickly do Tau reach reproductive age? How long are Tau typically living and/or fertile for (if different)?
From what I remember, Tau have shorter lifespans than humans even without factoring in rejuvenat. But they may reach sexual maturity earlier than humans, and humans are unusual in that females have a menopause and can live considerably longer than they are fertile for. So a typical human female has ~35 years of fertile life (the range is more like 30-40 years). Tau might have similar family sizes to a typical modern human family (3 children) but their breeding window could be much smaller overall and they can't manage larger families like 10 or 12 which humans can. Or they may have a larger window. We don't know.
Tau populations do seem to be smaller than human ones though. Their cities are spacious and well equipped, their citizens have a good standard of living, and the population density of a hive seems to be unheard of for Tau. The OP references the 2nd Last Chancers novel, here is the passage:
This is about the 3rd Sphere expansion, so the Empire was smaller. But an entire Tau Sept had less than 13 billion in population. Probably a typical hive world of 100-500 billion had a population in the same ballpark as the entire Tau Empire at that time.
This is reflected in Tau combat deployments being fairly small and operating a lot like Space Marines with mobile, elite forces taking apart larger, more unwieldy foes.
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the tau have conquered a single Hive World yet. So the number of human wouldn't be so high, so far. But it's an interesting question, and one the Ethereal have likely already thought about, seeing the expansionist policy of their empire and universality of the beliefs.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/08/25 10:06:26
If we take the Last Chancers quote at face value? I’d have to question if the Tau have the resources to take and hold a Hive World.
Because a Billion people to a Hive is nothing really. Hive Primus of Necromunda attempt a census in the 37th Milennia. It got to around a billion in the upper habitation levels alone (so the posh lads, not even the main Hive levels) when they gave it up as an impossible job. Estimations for the planet are around 100 Billion. A mind boggling number, I trust you’ll agree.
And Necromunda is pretty typical of Hive Worlds.
Suffice to say I don’t think the Tau have anything like the numbers for a successful invasion. Yes they could lay orbital siege and try to starve the population, but Hive Worlds tend to be important and looked after, so that’s not going to be an easy task either.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If we take the Last Chancers quote at face value? I’d have to question if the Tau have the resources to take and hold a Hive World.
Because a Billion people to a Hive is nothing really. Hive Primus of Necromunda attempt a census in the 37th Milennia. It got to around a billion in the upper habitation levels alone (so the posh lads, not even the main Hive levels) when they gave it up as an impossible job. Estimations for the planet are around 100 Billion. A mind boggling number, I trust you’ll agree.
And Necromunda is pretty typical of Hive Worlds.
Suffice to say I don’t think the Tau have anything like the numbers for a successful invasion. Yes they could lay orbital siege and try to starve the population, but Hive Worlds tend to be important and looked after, so that’s not going to be an easy task either.
They took Agrellan and it was renamed to Mu'gulath Bay, even though only one hive city survived the Imperial Exterminatus attempt. Not sure whether the Tau have canonically taken another hive world.
I have mused about the Tau policy towards such high population planets before, and whether their logistics are up to the task of dealing with success:
Iracundus wrote: These are OOC musings on the ongoing expansion of the Tau (or T'au if you prefer but I prefer one less apostrophe) and their plans for a Sixth Sphere Expansion may be a sign of a deeper problem. Namely their own success may sow the seeds of their own downfall or at least major setback. I am approaching this from a socioeconomic and logistics perspective.
We know the Tau have successfully incorporated human auxiliaries, the gue'vesa, into their society and that this has been happening since the end of the Damocles Crusade. We know from stories set in more recent times like Broken Sword by Guy Haley in the Damocles anthology, but which is set in the conquest of Agrellan, that about the life of these as that story is told from the perspective of one such gue'vesa who even rises to gue'vesa'vre and ends up having vocal cord surgery to better pronounce the Tau language. Basically, a number of them are resettled in a settlement with fresh food, water, clean air, good housing, and education for their children. This extends even to widow benefits as the character describes how the widow of a slain gue'vesa comrade is well treated and her son wishes to join the gue'vesa auxiliaries too when he grows up. The character describes how those brought from the hive world of Agrellan felt like they had entered paradise. The Water Caste member this character sort of befriends admits that the main focus is not so much the first generation of humans (i.e. those that are captured or defect) but the 2nd generation and beyond of humans that grow up with the Greater Good.
This sounds all good for the Tau but the problem is one of scale. We know Water caste diplomats help foment unrest in the Imperium in various ways, among them promising better material conditions to oppressed working classes. The problem is when it comes time to fulfil these promises. We know that for relatively small population worlds like Taros, the Tau did successfully do so, and the human protectorate there fought willingly and fiercely against the Imperial reconquest as they had enjoyed an objectively better standard of life under Tau rule. However the problem is when it comes to worlds like hive worlds. Primary commodity worlds like agri-worlds and mining worlds produce goods that are relatively unprocessed but that can be fed directly into the Tau industrial supply chains, and are usually low population, making it easier to fulfil promises to them. The problem is vastly different for hive worlds. Their huge population is dependent on food imports as local food production/recycling is nowhere near sufficient to maintain the population. Their production meanwhile is of STC compatible human technology by a largely unskilled or semi-skilled population, with vital utilities controlling water, air, power possibly being under the control of monopolistic guilds like on Necromunda. Thus from an economic perspective these hive worlds are actually less useful to the Tau industrial complex than a world that deals in primary commodities.
In again Broken Sword, there is a description of the original Tau plan for Agrellan which was to reduce the population through resettling them and to attempt rehabilitation of the environment, as demonstrated by an air purifier installation. If the Tau seize a hive world, it is unknown to what extent they also seize the mercantile shipping that supply that world. Perhaps some Chartist captains or Navigator crewed ships defect to the Tau, but even if they do, the worlds that supply a hive world would also need to be taken by the Tau in order to maintain a steady supply of the basic necessities to prevent a hive world from collapsing into starvation. What is the size of Tau mercantile shipping? Unknown, but the Tau seem to use transport ships comparable in size to Imperial transports (see BFG rules), which means they may need approximately the same number of ships as the Imperium did in the beginning. Resettlement poses the problems of cargo capacity and where to move this displaced population? They have no useful skills as they were trained (if that) on hive world machinery, so they would either need to be resettled onto agri-worlds, mining worlds, or civilized worlds with capacity to absorb them. There would be the psychological factor of these people who have never seen the sky, so maybe mining worlds might be all they are suited for. Can the Tau move enough of them fast enough to relieve the pressure of suddenly constrained food shipments? Unknown. Rehabilitation of a hive world's blasted environment would take ages, and even if the Tau attempted speed rehabilitation they would face resistance from the guilds or other entrenched interests that maintained their power by controlling access to such vital things like breathable air or potable water.
The greater danger to the Tau is the disillusionment that may ensue if they fail to fulfil their promises, or fail to do so in a timely enough manner. While shipping a few thousand or even a few tens of thousand people off to a wonderful pre-planned settlement may make those lucky few ecstatic and singing the praises of the Greater Good, they are less than a drop in the bucket compared to the hundred of billion or more of a typical Imperial hive world. Meanwhile that hive world is a black hole of unproductive humans (from the economic perspective of the Tau empire) unless the Tau can repurpose their production to feed the needs of other conquered Imperial worlds as they would have the same tech base. Redirecting the Tau mercantile shipping to feed the hive world or gradually relocate its people would be a massive ball and chain dragging down the Tau empire, and would disrupt Tau shipping elsewhere. Meeting the various needs of retooling industrial lines to Tau standards or providing the civilian goods and installations (like air purifiers) would be a drag on Earth Caste production for the Tau war effort. Yet what choice do they have? If they fail to fulfil their promises, the disillusionment might explode into revolt.
Yet the Tau seem hellbent on going for yet another Sphere of Expansion? My theory is that they have found themselves perhaps inadvertently in a galactic Ponzi scheme. Maybe only the Ethereals and the highest Water Caste members realize it. In order to fulfil their promises to those they have conquered in sufficient numbers, they are forced to expand in order to exploit the resources of the newly conquered to quell at least somewhat the needs of those already conquered. Conquer an agri-world? Farm it into soil depletion and shove the harvests into the hungry mouths of that conquered hive world, saying you have increased their rations by 1% compared to the Imperium, just enough to keep the grumbling to a tolerable level until the next conquest. The best strategy for the Imperium might be to let the Tau take more hive worlds and cathedral worlds, though that would be unthinkable from an ideological perspective.
But will GW ever produce any detailed writing on Water Caste supply chain logistics, labor workforce planning, civil administration, or Earth Caste production timetables or priorities? No. More bolter porn, but I wish for more military and economic treatises and writing like Imperial Armor 1
Also I’d add even the Tau do have extensive mercantile fleets? Without proper Warp Drives, they’re inherently slower moving.
Now when your society was developed around your own fleet’s speed and transport capacity? You’re fine. Sure your overall development and expansion is accordingly limited, but there’s something to be said for slower and certain resupply.
But, a Hive World isn’t necessarily fed supplies and materials from worlds particularly nearby.
The Imperium has been at this for 10,000 years. And that has included the population of Hive Worlds continuously growing. We might laugh at the overall inefficiencies of the Imperium, but given planetary starvation in peacetime is the exception and not the norm, we know the current system at least works well enough.
For the Tau though? That’s a very sudden 100,000,000,000 mouths to feed.
The upside there is that converting a Hiveworld to a willing cog in the Greater Good is no simple task. It takes time to get your claws in deep enough to wrench it away from The Imperium. Even if the bigwigs are willing, they’d still need to know you’ve some plan for replacing the usual supply runs. And so in preparation you’d have some idea of the amounts and frequency to “break even” there. And any humans involved in the conversion probably aren’t going to be terribly squeamish about, erm….population control. And if we’re to accept the Tau are far from the goody two shoes of enlightenment and Carey-Sharey they present? Maybe a few billion “managed demises” are in the best interest of the Greater Good?
Automatically Appended Next Post: I mean….Crusties. Jugglers.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/08/25 12:34:12
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Even if they can't manage a Hive World effectively, the Tau are stuck with a need to constantly expand.
If they don't expand then they can't invest into new worlds because those worlds are on the "front line" of the war. That's a super high risk area to invest in because you could lose it all very quickly. So you have to keep pushing the boarder out so that the new world become part of the inner territories enough that you can invest into them without them being taken from you quickly. Or at least without being bombarded.
Also even if they can't use a Hive World effectively, they can at least deny its use by their former owners.
It's not just a "Ponzi" scheme whereby they need more territory, its also a war and Tau have a tiny territory. They need more and more to build an ever bigger wall between their core worlds, the Imperium and any other Galactic threat. They are also slowly waking up to the fact that the Imperium really IS as large as they claim it is and that Demons, Monsters and Xenos out there ARE as nasty, twisted and deadly.
Tau need rapid expansion even if it means that they end up with a boarder that has poor worlds that aren't managed as well as the core.
Anyone that has played 4X games has likely seen a similar approach - invest and have the powerful core; expand fast and invest what you can in new territories, but don't over invest because you could lose them. It also doesn't matter if the world rebels so long as it doesn't rejoin the major power.
And yes chances are taking worlds like a Hive World is going to be a huge burden unless they can also then take an Agri world. Even the Imperium has those very same issues with the way they've approached terraforming and world management. If the Imperium loses a key Agri World in a sector, chances are there's a Hive World that might well suffer as a result; or multiple non-hive worlds in that area as the Hive World leverages its manufacture and trade power to dominate local food supplies.
I’m with MDG in the more cynical answer that they just let the population starve to death until there are just a few left and then rush in to “save” the survivors. In a hive world, most of the hivers will have no idea what’s going on outside their immediate vicinity, let alone who is sitting in spaceships above the surface. I don’t see how the Tau could effectively run an advertising campaign in a hive.
Tau warfare is stated as being more interested in culling the opposition rather than hopelessly holding ground for its own sake. Blockade the planet for a few weeks, then just stroll in and sweep up the survivors. They have a new world, whatever resources and tech they can salvage and a core of grateful colonists for other systems that only know a tightly controlled narrative.
Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!
They could even go “plausible deniability”, letting whichever existing bigwigs arrange the “population adjustment”.
And once that’s done? Play the saviour again by holding those responsible for such an unforgivable massacre of their own subjects to account.
Not only a population reduced to a manageable level? But “look how great we am, we only wishes we could has made it here fasterer oh the humanity maybe we could’ve done something dearie this couldn’t happen with us because Greater Good (no Crusty Jugglers allowed)”
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Doesn't necessarily have to be wiping Hive World civilians out, can easily just move them to other worlds to even out the numbers. I think most of a Hive population on the lower rungs of society would jump at the chance to move to another world with space to live.
I would say that by this point the Tau probably are becoming a minority in their empire. The same with most empires through history.
I think of the Tau similarly to how the Roman army propagated. During the Republic, the Romans relied heavily on auxiliary units to boost their armies and as a result, they could consistently bring major armies to battle every campaigning season. Something other city states were unable to do. As time went on, the "Roman" part of the army was well into a minority. The Roman army that invaded Britain in 43 AD was made up primarily of Italians, Gauls, Spaniards and North Africans rather than Romans. But it wasn't until Caracalla's reforms in 212 AD that allowed all free people of the empire the right to full Roman citizenship. Easy analogues to build when looking at how the Water Caste functions.
It's tricky when you consider a galactic civilisation and population levels of a structured, well ordered planet. We have very limited knowledge of the other auxiliaries in their empire. Vespids being insectoid would suggest a potential for a massive population but that doesn't translate to the tabletop.
GW made the mistake of going down the mecha weeb route for the Tau instead of the cool auxiliary army. The result is the lore for other parts of the Tau empire is severely limited.
I think we can assume as this is the 5th? 6th? sphere of expansion, the Tau don't make up the majority of their Empire.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/08/27 23:27:42
Flinty wrote:I’m with MDG in the more cynical answer that they just let the population starve to death until there are just a few left and then rush in to “save” the survivors. In a hive world, most of the hivers will have no idea what’s going on outside their immediate vicinity, let alone who is sitting in spaceships above the surface. I don’t see how the Tau could effectively run an advertising campaign in a hive.
Tau warfare is stated as being more interested in culling the opposition rather than hopelessly holding ground for its own sake. Blockade the planet for a few weeks, then just stroll in and sweep up the survivors. They have a new world, whatever resources and tech they can salvage and a core of grateful colonists for other systems that only know a tightly controlled narrative.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:They could even go “plausible deniability”, letting whichever existing bigwigs arrange the “population adjustment”.
And once that’s done? Play the saviour again by holding those responsible for such an unforgivable massacre of their own subjects to account.
Not only a population reduced to a manageable level? But “look how great we am, we only wishes we could has made it here fasterer oh the humanity maybe we could’ve done something dearie this couldn’t happen with us because Greater Good (no Crusty Jugglers allowed)”
I think this would likely be the preferred approach by the Tau.
However, they are not always able to fully interdict a system or city, and frequently use diplomats and/or infiltration tactics to convert the world to the Tau Empire more voluntarily. In that situation, it would be much harder to blame any subsequent calamity like mass-famine on the Imperium. There is more time to prepare, but it is a LOT of mouths to feed.
Plus, the Imperium also has an extensive propaganda apparatus and isn't powerless in an information war. Hives are riddled with propaganda outlets to push the Imperial Creed and agenda of the ruling house.
Whichever way you look at it, populous hive worlds represent a logistical problem to the Tau Empire, which is only easy to manage when they have good control over the system and information space.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If we take the Last Chancers quote at face value? I’d have to question if the Tau have the resources to take and hold a Hive World.
Because a Billion people to a Hive is nothing really. Hive Primus of Necromunda attempt a census in the 37th Milennia. It got to around a billion in the upper habitation levels alone (so the posh lads, not even the main Hive levels) when they gave it up as an impossible job. Estimations for the planet are around 100 Billion. A mind boggling number, I trust you’ll agree.
And Necromunda is pretty typical of Hive Worlds.
Suffice to say I don’t think the Tau have anything like the numbers for a successful invasion. Yes they could lay orbital siege and try to starve the population, but Hive Worlds tend to be important and looked after, so that’s not going to be an easy task either.
I'd take the quote with a grain of salt. All we can say with any reliability is that the Tau officer thinks 13 billion is greater than the population of Tau in the Sept they are in.
Whether Olympus actually has 13 billion is very questionable- Kage was recruited from the underhives, not the Administratum or nobility. He probably only has the vaguest idea of actual population on the world and is just using "billion" as a big number. It is quite likely that Olympus has a much larger population >100 billion based on general lore about hive worlds. Although there is always Verghast being described as a hive world with its paltry three and a half hives, of which the largest has a mere 40 million inhabitants. The USA probably has a population greater than Verghast. So a hive world of 13 billion is plausible, but I think unlikely.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/08/28 08:51:17
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
Yet the Tau seem hellbent on going for yet another Sphere of Expansion? My theory is that they have found themselves perhaps inadvertently in a galactic Ponzi scheme. Maybe only the Ethereals and the highest Water Caste members realize it. In order to fulfil their promises to those they have conquered in sufficient numbers, they are forced to expand in order to exploit the resources of the newly conquered to quell at least somewhat the needs of those already conquered. Conquer an agri-world? Farm it into soil depletion and shove the harvests into the hungry mouths of that conquered hive world, saying you have increased their rations by 1% compared to the Imperium, just enough to keep the grumbling to a tolerable level until the next conquest. The best strategy for the Imperium might be to let the Tau take more hive worlds and cathedral worlds, though that would be unthinkable from an ideological perspective.
But will GW ever produce any detailed writing on Water Caste supply chain logistics, labor workforce planning, civil administration, or Earth Caste production timetables or priorities? No. More bolter porn, but I wish for more military and economic treatises and writing like Imperial Armor 1
Maybe it is akin to Rome, expand to feed the machine with resources or stop and start to stagnate. I wonder if any Tau are managing to become Musk style figures and hoarding resource for themselves, or does Ethereal mind control mean they can never get that big?
Yet the Tau seem hellbent on going for yet another Sphere of Expansion? My theory is that they have found themselves perhaps inadvertently in a galactic Ponzi scheme. Maybe only the Ethereals and the highest Water Caste members realize it. In order to fulfil their promises to those they have conquered in sufficient numbers, they are forced to expand in order to exploit the resources of the newly conquered to quell at least somewhat the needs of those already conquered. Conquer an agri-world? Farm it into soil depletion and shove the harvests into the hungry mouths of that conquered hive world, saying you have increased their rations by 1% compared to the Imperium, just enough to keep the grumbling to a tolerable level until the next conquest. The best strategy for the Imperium might be to let the Tau take more hive worlds and cathedral worlds, though that would be unthinkable from an ideological perspective.
But will GW ever produce any detailed writing on Water Caste supply chain logistics, labor workforce planning, civil administration, or Earth Caste production timetables or priorities? No. More bolter porn, but I wish for more military and economic treatises and writing like Imperial Armor 1
Maybe it is akin to Rome, expand to feed the machine with resources or stop and start to stagnate. I wonder if any Tau are managing to become Musk style figures and hoarding resource for themselves, or does Ethereal mind control mean they can never get that big?
I think you could argue the Ethereals are that class already.
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
However, they are not always able to fully interdict a system or city, and frequently use diplomats and/or infiltration tactics to convert the world to the Tau Empire more voluntarily. In that situation, it would be much harder to blame any subsequent calamity like mass-famine on the Imperium. There is more time to prepare, but it is a LOT of mouths to feed.
I think fluff wise while there is some hand waving the Imperium is still mean to have superior ships and Navy to the Tau, not least warp drives giving far better strategic mobility (when they work). SO blockades of planets would be tricky - instead we would have endless raiding of food coming in and goods going out to make holding it at least temporarily uneconomical.
However, they are not always able to fully interdict a system or city, and frequently use diplomats and/or infiltration tactics to convert the world to the Tau Empire more voluntarily. In that situation, it would be much harder to blame any subsequent calamity like mass-famine on the Imperium. There is more time to prepare, but it is a LOT of mouths to feed.
I think fluff wise while there is some hand waving the Imperium is still mean to have superior ships and Navy to the Tau, not least warp drives giving far better strategic mobility (when they work). SO blockades of planets would be tricky - instead we would have endless raiding of food coming in and goods going out to make holding it at least temporarily uneconomical.
Agreed- blockading a system/planet is the ideal scenario, but is going to be difficult to achieve a lot of the time. Especially as the greater strategic mobility of Imperial fleets means the Tau need strong fleet forces in more places because they don't know which place the Imperial fleet will actually turn up (works as a fleet-in-being). That stretches Tau naval strength further.
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
I would think that hive worlds are difficult for the Imperium itself to run, before the Tau even show up. Necromunda itself is balanced on a knife edge with (more) mass starvation always looming.
If we want to amp up the grimdarkness of the Tau, it seems to me thing they would do - and ensure water caste dignitaries don't mention -
is take the countryside and encircle the cities leaving them to starve until the powers that be on them either look elsewhere to shore up their fading support, or are overthrown. The industrial output of hive worlds might be important to maintaining the facilities on the agriworlds that feed them, but if Necromunda is anything to go by it seems the only worthwhile things for export are arms, and the Tau have their own, and certainly don't need cheap arms being available to their conquered subjects.
Sure, we're in 3D space and the Imperium can use the warp to get resources to the cities, but that's fraught with dangers even before Tau interdiction.
It also, I think, is a mistake to assume that Tau maps are any more accurate than imperial maps; presumably both entities will paint the galactic map in whatever colours they want, but space is very and big those maps are going to be aspirational at best, as logistics in the universe are unpredictable, and that's before you even get to Orks, let alone all the other species around.
On Galactic Maps and attempting to blockade an Imperial World to starve it out?
Biggest problem there is the Imperium knows where its planet is, and will have some idea of warp routes to it, stable and unstable.
Forces allowing? They stand to simply overwhelm a Tau fleet that’s been trying to intercept trade ships. Mandeville Points are simply where it’s safest to translate back to real space of course, making it even trickier for the Tau to pull it off.
Not impossible of course, as much of this pondering depends on the Imperium having ships to spare at that time in that location, which is never a given.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
If you conquer the world you've got to hold it long term with a population on the ground that likely aren't all that thrilled with you (for a few generations at least). So you have to have both the space and land forces committed to holding the world.
If the Imperium can bring in enough ships ot break a blockade they can bring enough to beat a space force holding a world.
A blockade has the bonus that you can at least ignore the ground component; you're just shutting down space travel and waiting it out.
The Tau very much rely on being a thorn in the Imperium's side that's annoying, painful, but not quite big and painful enough to have the Imperium ignoring the multiple rabid dogs biting at it elsewhere.
Flinty wrote: I’m with MDG in the more cynical answer that they just let the population starve to death until there are just a few left and then rush in to “save” the survivors. In a hive world, most of the hivers will have no idea what’s going on outside their immediate vicinity, let alone who is sitting in spaceships above the surface. I don’t see how the Tau could effectively run an advertising campaign in a hive.
It's worth noting that as late as the 20th century the British would allow famines to occur and do nothing to help the colonists, I know it happened in both India and Ireland. It was also a weapon in the Ethiopian civil war in the 80s.
I've not done a deep dive but I would imagine that other colonial powers have used famine as well.
Point being, I have no trouble believing Tau doctrine is to starve any unsustainable hive worlds until the population is more 'manageable'. And as others said, who's to know? Who is going to tell them the Tau had supply ships in orbit but decided to wait a month or two?
Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.
Kanluwen wrote: This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.
Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...
tneva82 wrote: You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something...
Dysartes wrote: @OP - Assume that anything logistically that should actually be a problem for the bloody Tau will get hand-waved away by the weebs in the Studio.
This does tend to be true of any faction unless the narrative uses logistics as a plot point.
Flinty wrote: I’m with MDG in the more cynical answer that they just let the population starve to death until there are just a few left and then rush in to “save” the survivors. In a hive world, most of the hivers will have no idea what’s going on outside their immediate vicinity, let alone who is sitting in spaceships above the surface. I don’t see how the Tau could effectively run an advertising campaign in a hive.
It's worth noting that as late as the 20th century the British would allow famines to occur and do nothing to help the colonists, I know it happened in both India and Ireland. It was also a weapon in the Ethiopian civil war in the 80s.
I've not done a deep dive but I would imagine that other colonial powers have used famine as well.
Point being, I have no trouble believing Tau doctrine is to starve any unsustainable hive worlds until the population is more 'manageable'. And as others said, who's to know? Who is going to tell them the Tau had supply ships in orbit but decided to wait a month or two?
I think that historic examples of deliberate starvation from times of war are a better analogy, there are plenty of those including in a colonial context. The above are well after the affected populations were under colonial administration by the occupier, where it is much harder to lay the blame elsewhere. They are also moreso examples of massive incompetence and criminal negligence than an overt strategy to depopulate, unlike many actions during wars which were intended to do just that.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/09/02 11:43:50
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
Also - interplanetary logistics are mental. To the extent that having specialised worlds doing x y z only makes sense if they are insanely efficient, otherwise those transport costs are nuts. Even worse in a poorly thought through universe where the part time authors got carried away with stuff being bad. (Even making orbit with these billions of tons of food etc. to load it onto transports has insane implications when stuff like space elevators and the like are right out.)
The_Real_Chris wrote: Also - interplanetary logistics are mental. To the extent that having specialised worlds doing x y z only makes sense if they are insanely efficient, otherwise those transport costs are nuts. Even worse in a poorly thought through universe where the part time authors got carried away with stuff being bad. (Even making orbit with these billions of tons of food etc. to load it onto transports has insane implications when stuff like space elevators and the like are right out.)
I suspect it is more the case that hive and forge worlds are insaneli inefficient for growing food due to the extreme ecological damage and environmental toxicity, so shipping food in is the only viable alternative.
In fairness, energy is one thing the Imperium is rarely short of.
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
