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.

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

 Haighus wrote:
At least, little noticeable short-term gain. If it is going to make the planet richer in a millennium, but under strain for the next 500 years? Most planetary govenors are going to opt to keep themselves safe and their pockets well-lined, instead of helping their grandchild or great grandchild out.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is? Recycling the Dead still isn’t going to feed everyone, because of how little energy is passed on eating meat as opposed to veg.

Now I don’t want to ponder particularly deeply the facts and figures because cannibalism isn’t cool. But you’re still talking a consistent turnover of Humans To Dinner.

As a supplement to a wider diet? Possibly sustainable. But with outside produce cut off or greatly reduced, and the sheer, mind bogglingly vast number of inhabitants of a Hive World? I just don’t see Corpse Starch or Soylen Viridians being a suitable staple food.

Not just because you’d need to be serving up a percentage of your population to feed the idiot faces of the remainders, but it also relies on efficient body disposal to make the most of it.

Now your Underhive Dweller is going to be pretty used to subsistence rations. They don’t have much choice. But in the main Hive and upwards? Bellies are likely to be proportionally fuller the higher you go. Which means that’s where your real problems might be rooted, as those used to three square meals a day demand….three square meals a day. Which means the further down the Hive you go, the more squeezed rationing becomes, creating ever greater civil unrest and potentially outright rebellion. The more that spreads, the less control you have. The less control you have, the more it spreads and spreads and spreads and can allow far more nefarious and destructive forces to take root.

Longstrider wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

the famine in Ireland under British rule, for example, was not an intentional action that the British used to enact genocide upon the Irish (although the British certainly didn't mind that being a side effect); it was a side effect of policies relating to all Irish crops being imported to Britain, leaving the island with nothing but a fraught number of staple crops which were relied upon more than was safe, leaving them open to disease among the crops, as is what happened— in the thinly veiled metaphor which is 40k, the genocidal colonialist empire is not the British, but the T'au, and in this case, it would be more like the T'au imposing strict limits on what can be produced and what must be exported off-world, and being uncaring when such rules lead the poor humans to starve and die; something which can only happen when they already control the world

In a sense this might be the most straightforward path if you want to read the Tau as also fully grimdark; their best bet is to just replace Imperial authorities with Empire authorities and call it a day. Neither party, in this view, cares about the wellbeing of any individual person, and the upper classes of the hive world will know that they're just as disposable as they were under the previous regime so they'll continue the same extractive policies, all the way down.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Of course, the interesting thing about the Tau is that they seem to be the product of entirely natural evolution.

Not created and nurtured by the Old Ones as were the Eldar and possibly the Orks.

Not kicked off then left unattended due to colossal defeat, as with humanity.

But a race which, despite the internet meme that the Eldar did it, which I’ve never seen corroborated, have developed entirely on their own.

 Haighus wrote:
Found an interesting datapoint when reading my Planetstrike copy:


Billions of Tau killed in a meteor impact, but still some survivors for the Orks to fight (presumably in shielded military installations).

This suggests that at least Sept worlds have Tau populations in the billions. If the population for a Sept can be less than 10 billion, presumably most of the population is concentrated on the principle world with outpost worlds sparsely populated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Iracundus wrote:

Spoiler:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Of course, the interesting thing about the Tau is that they seem to be the product of entirely natural evolution.

Not created and nurtured by the Old Ones as were the Eldar and possibly the Orks.

Not kicked off then left unattended due to colossal defeat, as with humanity.

But a race which, despite the internet meme that the Eldar did it, which I’ve never seen corroborated, have developed entirely on their own.

That is not internet meme. It's from Black Library's first Xenology. It's an in-character conclusion drawn by a Tech-Priest (who turns out to be not what he seems). He basically identifies the organ on an Ethereal's forehead as similar to that of a Q'orl queen, and identifies a case of Eldar Harlequins capturing a queen in the past before the appearance of the Tau Ethereals, and thus draws the conclusion that the Eldar had a hand in engineering the Ethereal caste.

It's also hinted at again in Xenology that a last Old One, named Qah had survived all the way up to the Fall of the Eldar and had possibly been still tinkering away with various species.

In the various Tau codices and various short stories and Black Library fiction, it is certainly hinted at that there is something beyond just ideology and rhetoric behind the Ethereals' ability to calm the Tau, at least when an Ethereal is physically present. It's been suggested anything from pheromones to subtle psychic ability or something else entirely, and it is one of those unexplained GW mysteries that they will probably never fully reveal.

The following is my headcanon:

A last surviving Old One, not Qah, continues tinkering away on the Tau once their world is shielded behind the warp storm that it has used to conveniently block the Imperium from destroying the Stone Age Tau. Going in the opposite direction from the past, when they engineered greater psychic ability in the Eldar, this Old One tries to go the Necrontyr path of material science and lessened psychic signature. When the Tau internal tensions boil over, it tweaks and engineers the Ethereal caste to unify the Tau. Maybe it manipulates or persuades some Harlequins to kidnap the Q'orl queen, or maybe that is a simple red herring and wrong conclusion drawn by the "Tech-Priest" who is [spoiler]actually a Necron

.

Reasoning: Tinkering with races is what the Old Ones are known for. The Eldar aren't really described as having a lot of interest in creating intelligent species to serve their purposes.
[/spoiler]

Regarding Xenology:

Spoiler:

IIRC, the techpriest is a genuine adept of the Mechanicus. It is the missing Inquisitor Ralei, the master of the techpriest, that was a secret Necron and reappears at the end of the book.